Classroom teachers
have become more
attuned to the learning
styles of the students
identified for special
Professional development opportunities during the
summer continued to enhance teacher skills. For
example, during the summer of 2012, the district
provided day-long sessions on “Teaching Smarter, Not Harder,” which addressed several topics in
different sessions including how to select the most
critical instructional tools and which strategies are
associated with the highest effects on learning.
Additional sessions covered topics such as shared
reading, reading beyond the text, conveying information in multiple formats, unpacking informational
texts, teaching with primary sources, motivating students, world languages, geometry, co-teaching in
inclusion classrooms, using trade books for teaching reading, and effective classroom management.
“Teach Smarter, Not Harder:
Seven Strategies for Formative
Assessment”
http:/
/www.tnscore.org/scoreprize/
downloads/2012/Teach_Smarter_Not_
Harder_Handout.pdf
The district also developed Common Core 101, a
series of workshops that are provided in addition
to the state-sponsored training. The objective is for
administrators and supervisors to become familiar
with the standards in reading, writing, and mathematics, and for K-8 teachers to reinforce their
learning before the school year begins. Additional
professional development on the standards is offered throughout the year.
Increasing rigor in all classes. To enhance the level
of academic rigor in classrooms, Hamblen County
studied the Southern Regional Education Board’s
approach to rigor called Assessing Academic Rigor
to Ensure Grade-Level Proficiency. Based on this
13
Pathways to the Prize
Lessons from the 2012 SCORE Prize District Winner
education and place
more emphasis on
interpersonal learning.
work, the district focused on the level of cognitive
complexity in the work that students were being
asked to do and the level of student engagement
in the tasks. To ensure that the degree of rigor in
instruction matched the Common Core State Standards and the assessments that were being used,
the district introduced a series of rubrics to determine the level of complexity and student engagement in each classroom. Workshops have been
provided with instructional coaches in each building
to share the research behind the rubrics, explain
each of the component parts, and discuss examples of effective practice. Teachers have discussed
the rubrics and results during professional learning
community (PLC) meetings to facilitate both planning and self-evaluation. Administrators have used
the tools as part of their classroom walkthroughs
and provided informal feedback to teachers after
their observations. The use of the rubrics has resulted in increased levels of cognitive demand in
classrooms at all levels.
“We applied root cause analysis to determine
what was going on in our low-performing schools
and found that lack of rigor was a major contributing factor to low levels of achievement,” Assistant Director of Schools Dr. Brenda Dean said. “In
response, we devised a rubric to provide feedback
to teachers that would show them whether students were engaged, compliant, or unengaged and
whether the student work or question or task was at
the right level of complexity.”