On September 11, 2001, Todd Beamer, a passenger aboard the hijacked United Airlines Flight 93, realized that he and the other passengers were out of options and aboard a doomed flight. They had no choice but to deal with the situation they were facing. Mr. Beamer uttered the famous words, “Let’s Roll,” and decided they would not go down without a fight. As we prepare for the upcoming school year and welcome our staff and students, I would like to use the exact words, “Let’s Roll.” Last year is behind us, and we are faced with new challenges. We welcome back faculty and staff who taught summer school or worked virtually, students who have not been in a traditional classroom, and schools with lower accountability scores.
As we prepare to face the challenges of a new school year, please remind your stakeholders to move forward and embrace the new opportunities presented to them. We are blessed to receive a fresh beginning. It is my prayer that you will approach the new school year with:
Please remember that Alabama ASCD is here for you. We can provide you with the professional learning and skills your district/school will need for the upcoming challenges. Alabama ASCD provides high-quality professional learning in curriculum and instruction. As president of Alabama ASCD, I invite you to join our organization and participate in the professional learning opportunities. We are currently planning for our annual boot camp, winter conference, and quarterly Twitter chats. I hope you have a great year, stay safe, and “roll” into this school year excited and eager to grow.
As we kick off the 2021-2022 school year, a feeling of normalcy comes with many of the familiar back-to-school activities: filling last minute staffing needs, conducting professional learning sessions, providing teachers and staff with needed resources, and conferring with parents and students. While we were hoping the pandemic would be far behind us at this point in time, the reality is we must begin another school year planning for the unexpected. However, one thing that school leaders do exceptionally well is handle the unexpected.
Session after session at the CLAS Summer Conference confirmed to me that Alabama’s school leaders are up for whatever challenges may arise. The conference theme, Emerge 2021: Reshaping Education, set the tone for us to begin this school year with new purpose and passion. Conference presenter Sanee Bell stressed the importance of remembering our why and letting our why motivate us each day to make a positive impact. Andrew Marotta reminded us not to manage our time, but to own our time, by establishing our top priorities and focusing some of our time each day on these priorities. Damon West shared with us the analogy of the coffee bean. When placed in boiling water, say a stressful situation for us, an egg will harden, a carrot will weaken, but a coffee bean will totally transform the hot water. As school leaders, we need to be a coffee bean and positively impact all around us.
No doubt this year will present its share of challenges, but like last year, we can work through each challenge together. Remember that AASCD is here to support you. Of all the CLAS affiliates, AASCD saw the largest growth in membership this past year. These are school leaders from across the state who will be your encouragers, willing to share their experiences and ideas.
AASCD will provide numerous learning and networking events throughout the year including Curriculum Bootcamps, the AASCD Winter Conference, Twitter Chats, and PLU opportunities. We’ll learn from our partners at the ALSDE, from our national affiliate ASCD, and from various national and international experts. There’s no better professional learning than what you will gain with your membership in AASCD and CLAS. I look forward to partnering with each of you this school year as we complete the important work that lies ahead.
If It Is Predictable, It is Preventable
Like other districts across Alabama, Madison County Schools are excited about the return of our students to what we hope is a more normal year. This summer, plans have been prepared to support the various needs of our students when they return. From an instructional standpoint, addressing unfinished learning is a priority.
We know students are going to have gaps in their learning due to the effects of the pandemic. We also know that under the best of circumstances it is unrealistic to expect students to show mastery of every standard in our courses of study. That was true prior to the pandemic and even more so now. It seems logical that if we begin the year reteaching the content from the previous grade level or subject, our students will only get further behind in their learning and what is now a manageable gap will eventually look like the Grand Canyon!
Our mindset is, if something is predictable, it is preventable. So how will we work to prevent unfinished learning in Madison County Schools? Our district will take an acceleration approach instead of focusing on remediation. We simply do not believe we can intervene our way out of the effects of the pandemic.
Effective acceleration requires a few research-based processes to be in place. First, is a belief that all students can learn at high levels. Next, is clearly identifying the essential standards students must master in order to be successful in the next grade or subject. Finally, monitoring student progress through frequent formative assessments is required so teachers can differentiate instruction as part of Tier I instead of waiting until the end of the unit to intervene.
Fortunately, our district has been involved in the implementation of the Professional Learning Communities at Work process over the last four years. This work has well-positioned our teachers to meet the needs of our students coming out of the pandemic. Through the implementation of this process, our district and each of our schools have developed a mission, vision, and goals centered around the idea that all students can learn at high levels.
We believe it is unrealistic to expect individual teachers to have all of the knowledge and skills necessary to meet the multitude of student’s needs today. To address this, our schools have developed collaborative teams made up of teachers who share essential student learning outcomes. Through weekly collaborative team meetings, teachers work to reach consensus on what standards are essential for student mastery in each subject. While these standards are not all that will be taught, they do represent the minimum a student must know and do to reach high levels of learning.
In his book, What Works in Schools: Translating Research into Action (2003), Robert Marzano states “Creating a guaranteed and viable curriculum is the number one factor for increased levels of learning”. We believe it is our moral imperative to do what has been proven to be most effective.
Ready to Open with Flexibility and Resiliency
Are we looking forward to a new, somewhat normal school year?? I believe the answer is a resounding yes! But questions remain for school leaders as to how to provide the best possible learning experiences for students and to do so in a safe manner. Here is some advice from author, Robyn Jackson, in her recently published book, Stop Leading, Start Building! Turn Your School into a Success Story with the People and Resources You Already Have (ASCD, 2021). She argues that we (leaders) should be investing our time practicing “Buildership”.
- Builders will focus on school vision, mission and core values which allow for flexibility if and when changes must be made (examples masks, quarantine, remote learning).
- Builders will also ask what learning is truly important and how can we help students acquire that knowledge. Builders will also ask the right questions, the hard questions, like how well do my students comprehend the words they are saying? How well can my students analyze a set of data and draw workable solutions? How well prepared are my students to move to the next grade level? What do we as leaders do to guide our students through a school year with a shifting landscape
- Builders look for the right process and follow that process. This means we do not just buy program after program without checking out the success rates/results. Programs should be those that support our school’s vision, mission and core values.
So, here we are with a new beginning and we ask what else can we do to allay concerns about COVID recovery. A fabulous document with many resources and suggestions is ASCD’s Preparing for Fall: Resource Guide. In it are practical, timely recommendations for how to help students master essential skills. Another thing we can do is to provide mental health supports for both teachers and students. There are now many highly effective programs in place in our schools across Alabama and the professionals are doing great work. The Summer Literacy Camps have noted significant improvements in student reading levels and are cautiously optimistic as the work continues with reading and instructional coaches. According to an article in Harvard Business Review (January 2021), this support from managing employee experience to managing the life experience of employees (support for mental health) is a huge shift and is a trend that is expected to continue.
The bottom line is to provide professional learning experiences that support teaching and learning in your school and system. Trust the teachers. Embrace change. Emerge as resilient leaders.
We invite you to join us on:
Slowing Down to Catch Up...Small Steps to Successful Practice
"People who perceive themselves as a highly efficacious act, think, and feel differently from those who perceive themselves as inefficacious. They produce their own future, rather than simply foretell it."
From Social Foundations of Thought and Action: A Social Cognitive Theory, 1986
~ Albert Bandura
As we start back to school in this unprecedented year, we all face grave uncertainties about what our students know, how they feel, and whether or not we will encounter yet another set of challenges from the global pandemic. As we’ve been thinking about the talk around accelerating learning as a response to these concerns, we found ourselves returning to John Hattie’s Visible Learning work for clues. We concluded that we need to start at the top of his influences - teachers need to believe in themselves and we need to believe in our teachers. In the literature, those beliefs are self- and a culture of collective teacher efficacy or CTE. CTE ranks at the very top of influences in terms of impacting student learning. But, how do we get there?
First, we need small steps toward success. Think of Hattie’s high impact strategies as a tool box to build self-efficacy. First, teachers need design tools that eliminate the need for re-teaching, test prep and cramming. Second, these design tools integrate higher DOK levels rather than sequencing them over time. Finally, the strategies should employ thinking as a learning process rather than an end product. How can we make sure these ideas thrive in our schools with our leaders and our teachers? It all begins with successful experiences.
In our work with Teams Improving Practice (TIP), our professional development partnership with AASCD, we begin by creating an experience for leadership and teachers that illustrates the importance of learning design. The participants are divided into two groups. Both groups have the same objective to master, but different assignments. After a few minutes, both groups reach close to 100% mastery and they go on to complete their respective assignments. Later in the day they are given a second learning objective again with different assignments, and they again master it within a few minutes at 100%. They then move on to the remaining assignment. At the end of the day they are tested on both learning objectives. One group will score nearly 100% and the other group typically scores below 60%. When we have worked with groups over a year or more, we came to realize that these differences last over long periods of time. The design of the learning, embedded in the assignments, made all the difference. Participants have dramatically experienced the importance of learning design.
People acquire information to appraise self-efficacy from their performances, vicarious (observational) experiences, forms of persuasion, and physiological reactions. One's performances offer reliable guides for assessing self-efficacy. Successes raise efficacy and failures lower it, but once a strong sense of efficacy is developed a failure may not have much impact (Bandura, 1986). People also acquire self-efficacy information from knowledge of others through social comparisons. Those who observe similar peers perform a task are apt to believe that they, too, are capable of accomplishing it. To remain credible, however, information acquired vicariously requires validation by actual performance.
Over the coming school year, we will need to provide opportunities to share teachers’ success stories between and among our staff and to help peers communicate new knowledge. “People not only gain understanding through reflection, they evaluate and alter their own thinking.” (Bandura, 1986)
Successful experiences, social support and influences, external feedback and new but manageable challenges contribute to the development of efficacy. As leaders, letting the tenets of efficacy stay ‘top of mind’ is especially appropriate for this school year.
How can we make sure the attributes of efficacy can thrive in our schools? In our teachers? Let’s start with questions that as leaders, we can ask ourselves. First, does the staff have mastery of a toolbox that demonstrates to themselves and others that the way they design student learning makes a real difference in student success? Are there models of success to emulate and a process for making that possible? Do these success stories get around to persuade others to try these successful strategies in their classrooms? Does the culture of the organization create good emotional stakes around everyone’s success--the students’ and the teachers’?
Your people will acquire self-efficacy information from knowledge of others through social comparisons. Those who observe similar peers perform a task are apt to believe that they, too, are capable of accomplishing it. To remain credible, however, information acquired vicariously requires validation by actual performance. (Schunk, 1995)
We desperately need a toolbox of effective strategies to gain self and collective efficacy in every Alabama school and classroom this upcoming year. To achieve that goal, we can start with a small team of teachers who build their own agency around a platform of highly effective strategies for learning. We start by creating experiences that develop new expectations for learning through a research proven toolbox of design strategies. Experiencing becomes believing. To learn more about creating a culture of efficacy in your organization, contact Christine Drew at DREW.FASL@gmail.com or Richard@syfrlearning.com.
The Learning Professional
Marc Lipsitch, an epidemiologist once stated “With COVID-19, we’ve made it to the life raft. Dry land is far away.” As we ended the school year in 2021, we were sure that we had almost made it to dry land. As we begin the 2021-2022 school year, it has become clear that we need a life raft once again as schools scramble to make the decision of masking or not masking, social distancing, and quarantining.
There have been many strides made in education over the past few months. PowerSchool has completed its migration and as I write this article, many of you are working on ensuring that your data transferred instead of sitting somewhere in cyberspace. The Literacy Act mandate is now upon us as well as a new Teacher Observation Tool, the Alabama Teacher Observation Program (ATOP)!
As you prepare for the upcoming year, CLAS and AASCD have been busy planning professional learning opportunities for you. In September, Dr. Carolyn Jones and Dr. Patrick Chappell will be presenting a Lunch and Learn webinar on the textbook adoption process. If you have a new Textbook Coordinator, please make sure that they watch this timely webinar for valuable information! Dr. Chappell will be writing a PLU for those who may be interested in learning more about the textbook adoption process. Stay tuned to AASCD for more information regarding this PLU.
On November 4, 2021, AASCD in partnership with CLAS and the SDE will host the Fall Curriculum and Instruction Bootcamp. This bootcamp will be held virtually and will include informative training sessions on topics such as SEL, CASEL Standards, PowerSchool Updates, Literacy Updates, Math Course of Study Updates, ELA Updates, Special Populations (EL, SPED), and EBSCO Updates. Registration will open in September, so please make sure that you sign up to participate in this exemplary professional learning opportunity. You will have the opportunity to not only engage representatives from the State Department of Education, but also gain insight into tools and resources to use in your schools/systems.
If you need a PLU, make sure that you review our PLU listings found the CLAS website, www.clasleaders.org, professional learning, PLU information. We are excited to announce that we will be rewriting the current AASCD PLU, so stay tuned to the website for updates.
As I end this article, I want to echo the sentiment of Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director General “be safe, be smart, be kind! As you transition to another year:
- Be SAFE from the new Delta Variant
- Be SMART and inform yourself about it!
- Be KIND and support one another
As always, if CLAS can ever be of assistance, do not hesitate to contact us!
Making Your Mark on the 2021-2022 School Year
Greetings from the Alabama State Department of Education (ALSDE)! Whether your rosters are completed, floors waxed, and lesson plans entered into PowerSchool, students from all across the state are back in Alabama’s schools ready for another school year. While there are people in our communities, school systems, state, and nation who are focusing on yet another “unprecedented” beginning to the school year, what if our focus remains on what has not changed in your school and/or classroom? What if we maintain a laser focus on what we can control and leave everything else outside the classroom and school?
Ask yourself the following questions to gauge what is truly guiding your classroom readiness:
- What will define your school year regardless of the circumstances beyond your control?
- Who will control the outcomes?
- Are you focusing on all of the challenges and changes, or are you focusing on the outcomes you have set for your students?
- At the end of the first day, first semester, and end of the school year, what will your students say about what really mattered in your classroom? School?
Instead of spending time and energy on all of the things that are impacting our classrooms, what if we focus on what has not changed and what will bring us together this school year?
It is safe to say that most of your students come seeking different things from the school year experience. While you can’t control what expectations or experiences they come to you with, the most important thing to consider is what they will leave with as a result of being in your classroom or school. Ask yourself, will they leave with abundantly more than they came with, and what mark will you leave on their journey to graduation?
As we embark on this new school year, my team in The Office of Student Learning (OSL) is committed to “Making our Mark” on school systems and classrooms throughout the state by providing positive and supporting experiences to assist educators. Whether you need professional learning opportunities or other information to support curriculum and instruction initiatives, feel free to contact any of our team members in the following OSL sections:
The Office of Student Learning – Dr. Elisabeth Davis (edavis@alsde.edu)
- Alabama Reading Initiative (ARI) – Bonnie Short (bonnie.short@alsde.edu)
- Alabama Math, Science, and Technology Initiative (AMSTI) – Dr. Sandy Ledwell (sledwell@alsde.edu)
- Education Technology (Ed. Tech) – Joe Goble (jody.goble@alsde.edu)
- Instructional Services (IS) – Sean Stevens (sstevens@alsde.edu)
- Professional Learning (PL) – Telena Madison (tmadison@alsde.edu)
Our team members in the Office of Student Learning are ready to assist you as you begin this upcoming school year. Below are just a few of the events and mechanisms we are planning for the 2021 – 2022 school year.
- The “ALSDE OSL Updates” email blasts are sent to streamline ALSDE communication to district instructional leaders and building principals and assistant principals and hopefully minimize the individual section emails sent. These emails will continue 1 – 2 times to keep leaders informed of due dates, memoranda released, instructional resources, professional learning opportunities, and other important updates.
- The “Teacher Tidbits” email blasts only include instructional resources and professional learning opportunities and will be sent monthly to assist with ALSDE updates in a systematic communication method.
- ALSDE C & I Meetings will again be facilitated for district leaders in September 2021, January 2022, and April 2022 in the 4 regions across the state. We hope to offer those in a face-to-face setting, but depending on the unknown, we will shift to virtual if needed. We will also provide afternoon break-out sessions on a variety of topics to meet individual LEA needs. Agendas will be sent prior to the meetings to allow LEAs to plan accordingly on who needs to attend, as well as with the locations and/or virtual log-in information.
- The C & I Bootcamp will be hosted by AASCD and CLAS in November 2021 and February 2022, and we are looking forward to providing these on-time sessions to assist LEAs in the curriculum and instructional areas based on feedback from prior events.
- Novice C & I Director/Coordinator Sessions will be hosted in the late fall (preliminarily depending on impact of pandemic), winter, spring, and summer to provide opportunities for new curriculum directors to learn from and network with ALSDE staff, other LEAs, AASCD members, and other organizations. Stay tuned for additional information and specific details coming soon!
While we begin the new 2021-2022 school year, we must remind ourselves of what we can control and what our goals for the school year are despite of the pandemic or any other outside factors that may influence our schools and classrooms. We are here to support you, so please don’t hesitate to reach out to the Office of Student Learning for assistance! Have a great year, and don’t blink because we will be ending the first semester before we know it!
AASCD Board of Directors
Credits:
Created with images by Evgeniy Kalinovskiy - "small schoolchildren with colorful school bags and backpacks run to school. Back to school, education, elementary school." • thinglass - "The phrase Roll With It on a cork notice board" • alphaspirit - "Bulding a new creative idea"