The Hoosac Valley High School administratros and educators are working to raise student achievement by reevaluating teaching and learning. Our Instructional Leadership Team has been working hard to develop a solid working turn around plan that addresses four needs: Leadership, Shared Responsibility, and Professional Collaboration; Intentional Practices for Improving Instruction; Providiing Student Specific Supports for Providing Instruction to All Students; and School Climate and Culture.
Part of this plan, specifically our goal to develop and create intentional practices for improving instruction, include raising student achievement by conducting a performance of understanding in classrooms (a learning experience that deepens student understanding and produces compelling evidence of where students are in relation to the learning target of each lesson). Both halves of the team (the teacher and the student) need to create a learning team in order to raise student achievement.
One of the goals this year is to provide teaching and learning around Learning Targets and how targeted daily lessons help the teacher understand not only what the students are learning in each particular lesson, but whether or not the student actually understood the target and outcome. We are utilizing a book called Learning Targets: Helping Students Aim for Understanding in Today's Lesson. The authors' theory of action is that "the most effective teaching and the most meaningful student learning happen when teachers design the right learning target for today's lesson and use it along with their students to aim for and assess understanding." Read a synopsis from the book by clicking here, and ask your students if they have noticed the "I can" statements in their classrooms.
