Dallas ISD/IFL Network for School Improvement: Lessons Learned

Dallas ISD/IFL Network for School Improvement: Lessons Learned

The Dallas ISD/IFL Network for School Improvement has been working together for the past five years to improve 9th grade on-track literacy for college and career readiness for African American and Hispanic students, as well as those in living in poverty. In our first article, we shared a little about the work we’ve done with teachers to understand the problems of practice in ELA in DISD schools; how we’ve partnered with teachers to enact instructional changes; and how those changes have had an impact on student achievement. In this article, we share a little about the lessons we’ve learned about coaching for improvement, developing instructional coherence, and adaptive integration.

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Dallas ISD/IFL Network for School Improvement: Enacting Instructional Change in ELA

Dallas ISD/IFL Network for School Improvement: Enacting Instructional Change in ELA

The Dallas ISD/IFL Network for School Improvement has been working together for the past five years to improve 9th-grade on-track literacy for college and career readiness for African American and Hispanic students, as well as those living in poverty. As we begin to wrap up our final year collaborating with Dallas, we’ll share a little about the work we’ve done with teachers to understand the problems of practice in ELA in their schools, how we’ve partnered with teachers to enact instructional changes, and how those changes have had an impact on student achievement. This article is the first in a two-article series.

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Local Agency and Adaption Are Needed for Equitable Improvements to Instruction

Local Agency and Adaption Are Needed for Equitable Improvements to Instruction

Educators and schools whose students have high average achievement tend to be given a lot of freedom whereas educators and schools whose students have low average achievement are given little freedom. In this article, Chris Schunn, an LRDC senior scientist, shares that in his experience, this approach tends to have many negative consequences, and the net effect is to amplify inequities.

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Defining the Post-Pandemic New Normal: 6 Things to Think About for School Reopening

Defining the Post-Pandemic New Normal: 6 Things to Think About for School Reopening

Examining ways that school systems can rethink preparation for high-stakes testing, so that it does not highjack the rest, can help establish a post-pandemic new normal. Based on our research-informed work in schools and classrooms, no matter how well-intended, the current system of rewards and sanctions tied to test scores has negatively impacted opportunities for meaningful, high-quality learning experiences that prepare learners for college, career, and community engagement. This has disproportionately impacted students of color, those impacted by poverty, and multi-language learners.

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A New Take on the Learning Walk® Routine to Get Smarter About Teaching and Learning in the Cloud

A New Take on the Learning Walk® Routine to Get Smarter About Teaching and Learning in the Cloud

Many school districts have moved to virtual or hybrid models of instruction and we recognize that using the typical Learning Walk routine, which asks district and school leaders to visit classrooms and provide targeted feedback, doesn’t quite fit in a virtual space. However, we also recognize the need to continue to support district leaders in helping teachers provide high-quality instruction to every student.

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Using Student-Centered Classroom Routines to Improve Comprehension of Complex Texts

Using Student-Centered Classroom Routines to Improve Comprehension of Complex Texts

The Networks for School Improvement (NSI) work taking place among Dallas ISD (DISD), the Institute for Learning, the University of Pittsburgh School of Education Center for Urban Education, and the Learning Research and Development Center, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, has largely focused efforts on improving instructional rigor, providing better supports for English language learners, and improving cultural relevance.

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Building an Improvement Network

Building an Improvement Network

Networks that engage educators in continuous improvement have the potential to harness the power of collaborative work to accelerate learning and solve complex problems. District leaders have the opportunity to build improvement networks within their organizations, but they vary in some distinct ways from networks typically seen in K-12 education.

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What PLCs Get Results?

What PLCs Get Results?

A growing number of schools focus on some form of communities of practice as a key to improving their performance. Schools typically refer to communities of practice as professional learning communities (PLCs). These work in a variety of ways and have different goals, but only some achieve their intended results.

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Increasing High-Quality Student Talk

Increasing High-Quality Student Talk

The Institute for Learning (IFL) and Schenectady City School District have worked collaboratively for several years, and this year, we continued our ongoing partnership with a focus on using improvement science methodology to “get better at getting better.” District-wide, there is a focus on using improvement science to work on persistent problems of practice.

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Searching for the Root Cause: An interview with Bridget Goree, NSI Coordinator for North Dallas High School

Searching for the Root Cause: An interview with Bridget Goree, NSI Coordinator for North Dallas High School

Campus Network for School Improvement (NSI) coordinators learn to discover and understand the root causes of a problem of practice and find that understanding the problem takes time and requires a cultural shift. In this interview, Bridget Goree, an instructional coach at North Dallas High School, shares her own experience learning to approach this work. She discusses three considerations—what to stop doing, what is important to do, and what they are learning to build.

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PDSA Cycles Reveal Hard Truths About Deep Science Instruction

PDSA Cycles Reveal Hard Truths About Deep Science Instruction

Paterson Public School’s Guiding Coalition, a working group in academic services composed of content area senior staff, began its journey with improvement science in the fall of 2016. As we examined the various issues that we faced in curriculum and instruction, one flash point was the extraordinarily low state achievement test scores in science on the Grade 8 and high school biology assessments.

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