“Students want to learn both content and appropriate behavior. And they can only do it in a safe, structured classroom.” (Rick Smith and Mary Lambert, Educational Leadership, September 2008.

Effective techniques for classroom management and classroom discipline are vital to success in any classroom. Students want to know that they are important to the classroom structure and that they are valuable contributors to the learning process. They need ownership and to be architects of their own learning. Teachers need to manage that process and create a safe environment where learning, collaboration and creativity thrive. At the same time, teachers must maintain a classroom environment where “no child is left behind” and must meet the individual needs of the students while establishing a mutually respectful and dignified atmosphere.

Time on Task... coaching or providing test-taking support?

Springtime always brings plenty of sunshine and a renewed spirit after the long, dreary, snowy winter.  Unfortunately, it also brings the time of year for test taking and the incredible stress it generates for students, teachers, parents, administrators and instructional coaches.  Everyone involved wants the testing process to be manageable without creating huge gaps in teaching and learning.  Parents want their children to score in the proficient and advanced categories, taught by teachers who want to work diligently on the curricular issues that are important to the content areas.  Administrators want their schools identified as highly performing so that their communities recognize that their districts have designed curriculum and instruction to meet or exceed the academic standards for proficiency.  And, of course, instructional coaches want to continue working with teachers in ways that influence instructional practices and improve student learning.

One of the core elements of PIIC is that coaching and professional development focus on helping teachers use and analyze formative and summative data to identify student needs, assess how changes in classroom instructional practice can meet student needs, and track student progress. With the six circles of the Standards-Aligned System (SAS) in place, instructional coaches and mentors work with teachers and administrators to establish instructional practices in literacy across all content areas so that students are reading and writing to learn. PIIC has recognized that assessment is basic to improving student outcomes.  If teachers, with the assistance of coaches, become skilled consumers of the many different kinds of formative data available to them, they will be able to use these data effectively to meet the instructional needs of their students.

Author Henry Louis Gates, Jr. states, “Collecting data is only the first step toward wisdom, but sharing data is the first step toward community.”  As coaches and other school leaders, we are always looking for stories to share about how well a particular model, method, or technique works in schools.  We want to know if our attempts at school transformation are worth the time and effort we have invested in implementation.  In order to know what works well and what needs to be refined, we need to collect carefully crafted research and excellent data and then share that data with the school communities.