by Cathy Gassenheimer

I've been reading (and re-reading) an excellent article about excellent teaching. It's in the February issue of Educational Leadership, which has the theme For Each to Excel. The collection of articles by prominent researchers and expert practitioners considers some key questions about the work of teachers (see this editor's note: The Teacher-Proof Myth.) I'll share just one here: Which ways of teaching are best in getting students to learn better?

I was immediately drawn to the article "Teach Up for Excellence" by University of Virginia researcher Carol Ann Tomlinson and her colleague Edwin Lou Javius, founder of EDEquity. I think Tomlinson's understandings of effective teaching are always spot-on, and I love her ability to challenge teachers to improve practice while conveying her great respect and empathy for the complex work they're expected to perform effectively.

The article is not currently available to the public in its entirety, so I'm going to share some highlights here. At the heart of Tomlinson & Javius's research-based message is this: "Teaching up is not about hope. It's about purposeful instructional planning that aims at ensuring high-level success for each student." Read More...

by Cathy Gassenheimer

When the economy hit the bottom, education budgets began to shrink, and we entered the "new normal." With worry over insufficient state resources to expand the Alabama Math, Science and Technology Initiative (AMSTI) team, we had to think about how we could respond to the need to provide just-in-time professional development support.

This, among others, is an issue surrounding the development of the Alabama Instructional Partners pilot project. We were on track to develop instructional coaching in all of our schools, but the recession has put resources for this support at risk. 

Click here to download the full article (pdf). Read More...

by Cathy Gassenheimer
 
One of ABPC consultant Jackie Walsh's favorite authors is John Hattie, an education researcher and professor in Australia and New Zealand. I ordered his new book, Visible Learning for Teachers, and just opened it this past weekend to begin reading.
   
Something I always try to do before reading a book is to examine the table of contents and look at appendices for "treasures." I found two real treasures in the appendices of this book -- two tools that help raise awareness about the effectiveness of teaching and learning in your school. Read More...

Alabama Voices: MLK would have been AP student
January 14, 2012
 
By Caroline Novak
 
In just a few days, children across the country will celebrate the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  Dr. King’s “March on Washington” nearly fifty years ago under the theme of “jobs and freedom” signified an important step in the long uphill climb for minority students, toward freedom through education.  As U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said, "Freedom is the ability to think and to pursue your own path—and only education can give you that freedom."
 
This year there are 4,000 African-American students in Alabama who are now able to take the path toward freedom by enrolling in rigorous Advanced Placement (AP) courses. 
 
In the early years of Advanced Placement, participants were largely male and primarily students from private prep schools and elite public schools. And no wonder, the idea for the program emerged from elite colleges, prep schools, and high schools as a way of accelerating and fortifying the education of the nation’s future leaders in anticipation of Cold War national-security demands.
 
But no longer are we, as a nation, underestimating the intellectual capacity and commitment to success of students from far less-privileged upbringings.  We have learned our lesson through leaders like Dr. King, who was such a precocious student he skipped both the ninth and the twelfth grade and entered Morehouse Collegeat age fifteen.
 
We are surrounded by other examples from today’s generation of students, such as Rudy Davis, a sophomore at Auburn University majoring in Biomedical Sciences. Rudy was raised by a single mom who worked two jobs to support the family.  Rudy was a high school sophomore when his school was chosen to receive funding to expand the AP program. Before that year, his school didn’t offer much in the way of AP courses for its students. With 56 percent of the largely African-American student body living at or below poverty level, the school - and its students - never had the resources to make the most of the College Board’s AP program.  But all of that changed when his school district agreed to aggressively open the doors of AP to far more students who had not previously had the opportunity to participate.
 
In the first year of the program... Read More...

The Success at the Core organization has created a free field-tested professional development toolkit designed to help school leadership teams and teachers elevate classroom instruction and improve student outcomes. The SATC videos reveal exemplary teaching and teaming activities and can provoke powerful conversations about practice.
 
In their December 2011 newsletter, SATC featured a "Story of Use" written by Cathy Gassenheimer, highlighting ways in which ABPC has used the SATC materials. Here's what Cathy had to say:

Stories of Use
This month's use story comes from Cathy Gassenheimer, executive vice president for the Alabama Best Practices Center.
 
I first learned about Success at the Core from a Harvard newsletter. Richard Elmore's involvement in the project attracted me. Once I checked out the website, I was hooked!
 
The Alabama Best Practices Center has three educator networks. Currently, these networks are focused on using formative assessment to improve teaching and learning and student motivation. Success at the Core has many relevant resources for this work. Because of that, we have shared SaC's link widely with all our educator networks, and we have shown several of the videos during our network meetings.
 
SaC's formative assessment videos - including the five Teacher Development assessment videos and the two videos embedded in the Leadership Development  Common Formative Assessments module - are reported to be the most used resource by the center's network members. Our educators have also reported using both the content and instruction strategies that appear under the Teacher Development tab.
 
One of our district partners, the Shelby County Schools (adjacent to Birmingham, AL), is using SaC as the primary professional development tool for all district middle schools. Lewis Brooks, the middle school director for Shelby County, reported that the quality and caliber of SaC materials is "outstanding."
 
The Alabama Best Practices Center is also using SaC resources with a pilot program focused on repurposing school-based reading coaches to instructional coaches. The three middle school coaches in the program have found the materials to be particularly valuable, but our elementary coaches have also benefitted from the free tools offered in Success at the Core. We have the link to SaC on our "valuable learning tools" tab and several instructional partners have shown a variety of the videos to their colleagues, both during the coaching cycle and during professional development.
 
In this time of limited resources, Success at the Core is an invaluable resource to educators. It should be an essential part of any middle school teacher or administrator's "toolkit."
 
Cathy W. Gassenheimer
Alabama Best Practices Center
Montgomery, AL 
  Read More...

Sometimes it is the unexpected that becomes the most memorable. As a member of the Learning Forward Conference Program Planning Committee, my heart sank when I heard that one of the keynote speakers had cancelled the afternoon before the scheduled speech.
 
But, the next thing I learned was that Marcia Tate had agreed to be the back-up keynote and we had nothing to worry about. Thinking back, that was the biggest understatement of the conference.
 
Marcia Tate not only received a standing ovation, but she had the 2,000 or so people in audience up and dancing during her presentation!
 
And, here’s the best part for those of us married to noneducators: her message is transferrable!
 
Marcia Tate is the former executive director of professional development for the DeKalb County (Decatur, GA) school system. She is the author of several books including Worksheets Don’t Grow Dendrites: 20 Instructional Strategies That Engage the Brain. Her latest book is Preparing Children for Success in School and Life: 20 Ways to Enhance Your Child’s Brain Power.
 
Tate likes lists of 20s, so her keynote was organized around 20 Strategies that Engage the Adult Brain. The list follows. I wish my fingers could have moved faster to catch all that she was saying, but I did get the highlights: Read More...

Education News in Alabama
December 1, 2011

• Tommy Bice Named Alabama’s New State Superintendent
• State School Board Saves the College and Career Ready Standards
• Alabama School Highlighted in New Book
• Alabama’s Advanced Placement Scores Improve
• Two A+ College Ready Districts Make the College Board’s Advanced Placement Honor Roll

Read More...

In the second part of our interview with Talladega County Superintendent Suzanne Lacey by  ABPC consultant John Norton, Dr. Lacey describes Talladega's vision for a new instructional model and the steps she and her leadership team are taking to spread PBL across all the district's schools. You can read the first installment of the interview by clicking here.
 
Norton: You've said that a lot of Talladega County's success in developing a new instructional model can be traced back to your partnership with the Buck Institute. I know the Institute is nationally known for its professional training around project based learning. At their website, they offer this description:
 
In Project Based Learning (PBL), students go through an extended process of inquiry in response to a complex question, problem, or challenge. Rigorous projects help students learn key academic content and practice 21st Century Skills (such as collaboration, communication & critical thinking).
 
How did you get involved with Buck?
 
Lacey: As we were doing our PBL homework several years ago, we kept coming across the work of the Buck Institute. We learned about their dedication to providing educators training on how to deliver instruction in new and different ways. We simply called them and said "this is what we're doing - we would like for you to come and be a part of this. We want you to lead our training in project based learning."
 
It's been a good partnership. They've provided some really great presenters and consultants for us to learn from. At this point, Craig Bates is ready to serve in the role of PBL trainer and this fall he's been training additional people in our school system. He's at the point where he can help teachers become effective in this kind of instruction. He's not an official Buck trainer, but he has a lot of everyday real life experience after leading our efforts for three years.
 
Norton: Help our readers understand how this new approach to instruction is different from what we've been calling "traditional" in our conversation. Read More...

By Cathy Gassenheimer
 
Talladega Learning: A Great Partnership!
 
There is more to Talladega than the speedway. Much more! Educators in Talladega County are hard at work retooling their schools so all of their students will be well-prepared for the future -- whether that future is second grade, high school, college, or career.
 
Developing teachers and future administrators is critically important to Talladega's success, as it is for all school systems. More than 10 years ago, a former superintendent, Peggy Connell, realized that Talladega County was not then a magnet for educators who lived outside district borders. She developed and led a “grow your own” program that provided intensive professional development for assistant principals. She also formed a partnership with Samford University to provide tailored advanced degrees for teacher leaders and administrators. And some Talladega schools joined our Powerful Conversations Network.
 
This emphasis on teacher and leader development has intensified over the years, and current superintendent Suzanne Lacey considers it one of her top priorities. While the Alabama Best Practices Center has worked with Talladega County for a long time, it was just in the past two years that our partnership became deeper and more intentional.
 
Last school year, we facilitated six sessions for principals and lead teachers focused on formative assessment, which research demonstrates is a high-yield teaching strategy. In fact, researchers have shown that the consistent use of formative assessment, which is also known as “checking for [student] understanding,” can lead to significant student achievement gains. Rick Stiggins, an expert on formative assessment, has demonstrated that the effect of formative assessment is four to five times greater than the effects of reducing class size. [Here's a great Stiggins article about assessing for learning.]
 
Because most of the research on formative assessment is barely 10 years old, many teachers are not familiar with it or its impact on teaching and learning. Our work in Talladega County validates Stiggins’ research. Principals and teachers report significant improvement in both teaching AND learning when formative assessment becomes an essential part of the teaching process.
 
Our partnership with Talladega County has been great for us -- we've been able to share "what works" strategies and we've learned so much about how research translates into action in the real world. Talladega is also involved in a major shift from traditional instruction to a project- and problem-based learning approach that engages students in challenging but exciting ways. I've written about this impressive work (which began at Winterboro School) in several previous blogs: here and here.
 
Talladega County's accomplishments were highlighted recently by... Read More...

Educations News in Alabama
November 9, 2011

• Five Reasons Why A+ Supports the College and Career Ready Initiative
• AP Participation Soars
• NAEP Report Shows 4th Grade Gains
• State Superintendent Search Reaches Interview Round

Read More...

CONTACT:
Lauren Stephens
lstephens@edtrust.org
202-293-1217 x.373

Calcedeaver Elementary School is one of just four schools nationwide to be honored this year by The Education Trust for success in educating low-income and minority students to high levels

WASHINGTON (October 31, 2011) — Today, Calcedeaver Elementary School was named one of four winners of the Dispelling the Myth Award, presented by The Education Trust. The annual award, now in its ninth year, is presented to public schools throughout the country that are closing the achievement gap between student groups and educating all of their students to high levels.

This year’s Dispelling the Myth Award winners demonstrate that schools of all kinds, and in all sorts of settings, can thrive when they are organized for success. The educators working in these schools produce strong results for all students because they teach them all to high levels, despite challenging circumstances outside of the school’s walls. They don’t ignore these circumstances; they overcome them.

Calcedeaver has consistently produced among the highest reading and math proficiency rates in the state. In 2011, 94 percent of sixth-graders met state reading standards. Indeed, 80 percent of them exceeded standards.

“Dispelling the Myth Schools show that, while this work is not easy, closing gaps and boosting achievement is within our power,” said Kati Haycock, president of The Education Trust. “The educators in these schools know that what they do can literally change the life trajectory of their students. Their unyielding commitment to working hard and smart pays off for the students they teach.”

These schools are an important reminder that, regardless of race or socioeconomic status, all students can shine academically. Dispelling the Myth schools share a few traits: Read More...

The following article was written by Robert Rothman for the September/October 2011 Harvard Education Letter.

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Our professional development programs are evaluated annually by Joellen Killion, Deputy Executive Director of Learning Forward. As a framework, she considers both the Alabama Quality Teaching Standards and Learning Forward's own nationally recognized Standards for Professional Learning.

Drawing on confidential interviews, observations and ABPC program records, Joellen's 2010-11 evaluation looked at how ABPC’s actions are promoting change among schools and districts that participate in our Powerful Conversations Network, Key Leaders Network and Superintendent Leadership Network.

We thought it might be most helpful to summarize the evaluation's key findings and recommendations in a question and answer format, with Cathy Gassenheimer answering the questions. (If you'd like to review the entire evaluation, please get in touch with Cathy at 334-279-1886.)

What was the main focus of the 2010-11 evaluation?

We worked with Dr. Killion to create four focusing questions. First, we wanted to take a measure of how districts have used the professional learning opportunities offered through our networks and direct services to improve student achievement and spread effective practices to other schools in their systems. We also wanted to look at how well we've leveraged our programs to support other statewide efforts, such as our work with the Alabama Reading Initiative, the Alabama Math, Science, and Technology Initiative, and the new teacher evaluation system, EducateAlabama. And, perhaps most urgently, we wanted an objective analysis of our capacity to scale and sustain our efforts to help Alabama schools improve student achievement.

What does the Learning Forward evaluation tell us about the success of the PCN, KLN and SLN learning networks?

It's clear that we are making a difference. Participants in all three networks – The Superintendent Leaders Network (SLN), the Key Leaders Network (KLN), and the Powerful Conversations Network (PCN) – report that they take what they have learned and use it back home. Read More...

Winterboro High School in Talladega County is one of only seven schools in the U.S. highlighted in a recent report from the Alliance for Excellent Education for innovative learning practices. The report also praised Alabama Access, our state's interactive videoconferencing and online learning service.

We've excerpted the section about Winterboro below. You can read the complete text of Digital Learning and Technology here.

Winterboro High School (Alabama)

Winterboro High School historically has struggled with a high free and reduced-price lunch rate (85 percent), large dropout rates, discipline issues, poor student achievement, low teacher attendance, and weak morale. Through the use of technology and digital learning, the school has addressed all of these issues and transformed the culture, infrastructure, and teaching and learning environment. Winterboro also created a student leadership team and developed the Winterboro Trust Statement and Job Description.

Teachers dedicated themselves to... Read More...