“… teachers whose training and quick thinking helped save countless lives” (Roberts, ABC News)

“… have those children there and to be in my care and to try and do what was best for them” (Sherry Biddle, First Grade Teacher: Video)

“… [I] was just trying to calm the children down, but yet more of the same. Just like sherry said, getting them covered up, you know, we practice tornado drills and things like this and I had to tell them, this is not a drill, and we need to be safe and just laying my body on top of as many kids as I could to help out” (Cindy Lowe, First Grade Teacher: Video)

“… teachers used their bodies to shield students from airborne debris” (The Washington Post).

“What a gift those teachers are” (Stephanopoulos, ABC News)

As we remember the lives saved including the lives saved by heroic teachers and educational leaders, we send our deepest sympathies to families with loved ones lost and whose lives are forever affected.

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Our mission at Studer Education is to provide students with a great place to learn, teachers with a great place to teach, and parents with confidence that their children are getting a great education. Visit us online at http://studereducation.com. Studer Education is a division of Studer Group, ranked for the fifth straight year on the Best Small and Medium Workplaces by Great Place to Work® and a recipient of the 2010 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.

In the video Frankel reminds viewers that the “potential is actually not about the technology.” Instead, he says:

it’s about the learning environment that the technology enables;

it’s about being able to empower teachers, parents, students with real-time data, with real-time access to information… to help intervene before it’s too late for kids;

it has a way of transforming these classrooms so that [teachers] can personalize learning in a way that has never been possible before;

Frankel then asks viewers about how to scale this model of personalized learning and discusses three challenges – education technology research, the education technology market, and teacher professional development – to its expansion.

I encourage you to check out Frankel’s TEDTalk and reflect on what you are doing in your classroom to accelerate student learning and engagement; are you using current technologies to do this and if so, how? As you reflect remember that it’s not about the technology or other tools used – it’s about their ability to empower teachers, to engage students and parents, and to create learning opportunities that would not exist without it.

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Frankel, Adam. (May 16, 2013). Accelerating Innovation in Education. TED Talk available online here. Read more about Digital Promise on its website at http://www.digitalpromise.org.

iTeacherSuite introduces teachers to practical and research-based tools, resources, and online learning communities for the purpose of helping teachers become highly effective and engaging students to learn and achieve. Check out our Facebook page to connect with teachers and to share teaching strategies (https://www.facebook.com/iTeacherSuite) and our website at http://iTeacherSuite.com for free resources.

General [Ret. U.S. Air Force] John Barry (Superintendent Aurora Public Schools, Colorado)

Colonel [Ret. U.S. Army] Joey Stickland (Head of Arizona Department of Veterans’ Services Retired)

Mr. Glenn Jones (Founder, Jones International University)

Lt. Colonel [Ret. U.S. Marine Corps] Thomas Chandler (Math Teacher, Highland High School; and Colorado Teacher of the Year)

In an email of the news release Troops to Teachers IT Coordinator Kim Hiebert wrote, “This year was a difficult year to choose, since there were so many that have chosen to Proudly Serve Again, in amazing ways for our Nation’s communities.”

Join us in celebrating these four individuals and the 317 TeacherReady teachers with military affiliation who have earned or are earning their professional teaching certificate to continue serving our country as a teacher. We salute the work of our military men and women and their families, and appreciate the opportunity through TeacherReady to offer them and others interested in a career transition to the teaching profession a quality, state approved, and nationally accredited online teacher certification program to get there.

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Other What’s Right posts about Troops to Teachers and TeacherReady:

Troops To Teachers helps 2,629 Military Veterans Become Teachers in 2012

Celebrating Troops who Choose to Teach

TeacherReady Gets Thumbs Up from Colorado DOE

Celebrating Troops who Choose to Teach: Master Sergeant Matthew Knight

Service Members Choose to Teach

Photo credit to Troops to Teachers (accessed online here). Individuals from L to R: Goetz (Colorado DoE), Jones, Barry, Morgan (Troops to Teachers), Strickland, and Chandler.

For more information about Troops to Teachers visit http://www.troopstoteachers.net or http://ProudToServeAgain.com.

TeacherReady is state approved and is the Educator Preparation Institute of the NCATE accredited Professional Education Unit at the University of West Florida. Upon completion of TeacherReady, individuals earn a professional teaching certificate from the State of Florida. Visit the TeacherReady website or connect with them on Facebook for more information.

Reblogged from Studer Education:

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A recent blog by the Founder of Studer Group, Quint Studer, questioned if it really is a “soft skill,” then why is it so hard? based on his work with hundreds of healthcare organizations over the years. Studer states:

It has not been unusual to hear senior leaders characterize the ability to maximize employee engagement and patient perception of care (satisfaction) as a “soft skill.” We’ve also found that most of the time these comments come from leaders of organizations that are not achieving the results in the people areas that they would like to achieve.

Read more… 495 more words

So, you think you have professional development?

What do teachers think about it, i.e., do teachers think it is the best/great?

We recently spent 4 days with high performing teachers and leaders from elementary and middle schools in one district discussing the implementation and facilitation of professional development for teachers.  The focus was iTeacherSuite an online professional development opportunity for individual teachers or Teacher Learning Teams (Professional Learning Communities) to collaborate with each other and engage in content focused to achieve an important outcome – to engage students to learn and achieve.

Ratings for the session averaged “5.00/5.00 – Excellent” for providing information that was useful to what they do;”4.92″ for providing information and suggestions to help them improve as a leader; and”4.92″ for the overall session rating. This is what they said:

What information was helpful to you?

• The importance of feedback driving my instruction and the development of a 30 day plan. Collaborate, collaborate, and collaborate!!!
• “Using feedback to drive your learning tasks
• Concrete procedures to help my teachers understand the “why”
• The most important thing I learned today is that focused planning provides opportunity for student engagement and improved student achievement.           
• Everything! This has really put together the 30 lesson plan to better prepare me to explain the process and value it brings to the classroom.          
• The importance of feedback to not only the students but also the teachers. Also the breakdown of info from task to targets. 
• The student must be at the center of what we do in the classroom. The focus must always be on what we can do to help them reach the target.   
• I learned that targets, tasks and feedback are vital to student learning along with assessments; targets at the top of the summit and assessment at the base or vice versa.
• Good/the more effective educators use these strategies (Who’s Engaged)    
• I Learned the importance of feedback on student engagement; the 3 positives to 1 criticism; and the six rules of thumb    
• The importance of feedback–and how important it is to plan feedback strategies       
• Feedback/communication   
• My most valuable experience today was the professional collaboration that occurred within my group..although uneven at first..we worked through it and presented a product          
• Actively involve students in the feedback process
• 3 positive to 1 negative      
• The learning that is expected to go in a classroom begins with what students want to know and how the teacher interacts with students to get to get to that point. It is of utmost importance that the teacher use feedback strategies to guide instruction.  

What other items could have been included?

• I wanted more learning target and task development. Loved working with the CCSS! Please let me know if there are more trainings.
• Are you willing to help with basic training of groups of teachers? Thank you     
• I enjoyed every aspect of this lesson/opportunity to learn, share, and most of all to grow. Thank you           
• How does this school district want us to use this?
• Give this training to as many START teachers as possible           
• Incredible job/Thank you    
• Great informative workshop that I hope makes a difference in my administrative abilities.   

The participants also emailed their suggestions for implementing this PD opportunity in their schools. One of their responses is below:

Here are my thoughts about implementation at my school:

I know that teachers will continue to hear more about Common Core standards in trainings over the summer, and they will also be trying to wrap their heads around … I think the best way to present is to model how Common Core standards can be broken down into learning targets (thinking through that student lens), and from there to pick tasks and feedback strategies that align to the targets.

We could emphasize student engagement, plenty of practice time infused with feedback, and valid assessment only after proper practice. The online component could be a way that we nurture these skills and discussion online. I think for now, we work up slowly to the 30-day plan because that would really freak some people out. I also think we need to work on the wording, so that this doesn’t seem like something new, but instead a way to better digest all the other new stuff coming our way. [It] really isn’t anything new, and should be the foundation for new strategies and standards…. I do think the broad wingspan of the Common Core standards creates a natural avenue…

So you think you have professional development? Ask teachers about it. We did. We asked them about delivery, about content, and about implementation. We asked them what information will help them in the classroom and working with teachers, and what they would have liked to have included which was not included. Each day they offered takeaways. Professional development is a time for teachers to improve their teaching practices – diagnose the need – one way to do this is to ask for feedback from high performing teachers.

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In iTeacherSuite’s Who’s Engaged? Sandbox teachers work together or with an instructional coach or school leader to improve their teaching practices as they work toward becoming a highly effective teacher. The content of the online community aligns to the evidence-based content of the book Who’s Engaged? and the learning guides that accompany the book are aligned to Charlotte Danielson’s and Robert Marzano’s teacher evaluation frameworks.

So You Think You Can Dance video clip title retrieved online 05.15.2013 here.

iTeacherSuite introduces teachers to practical and research-based tools, resources, and online learning communities for the purpose of helping teachers become highly effective and engaging students to learn and achieve. Check out our Facebook page to connect with teachers and to share teaching strategies (https://www.facebook.com/iTeacherSuite) and our website at http://iTeacherSuite.com for free resources.

Our mission at Studer Education is to provide students with a great place to learn, teachers with a great place to teach, and parents with confidence that their children are getting a great education. Visit us online at http://studereducation.com. Studer Education is a division of Studer Group, ranked for the fifth straight year on the Best Small and Medium Workplaces by Great Place to Work® and a recipient of the 2010 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.

How do we help colleagues in our organization (or department) understand that when we do certain things, we not only take less time from other processes, but we provide better service (e.g., care, learning environment, etc.)?

How do we sustain morale, employee engagement, low turnover, productivity, and service (e.g., student learning, patient care) while implementing change (e.g., reduce costs, collaborate across departments, integrate new systems) and without imploding our organization?

1. Determine where your organization/school/department is ahead of the curve.

What do you do well?

What behaviors make your high-achievers high-achieving, that is, what do they do well?

Capture your responses to these two questions, include your leadership team in the response process, so that you and your team identify what you have done well and do well – wins. Communicate these wins to your colleagues through reward and recognition. Communicate these wins in a specific way that connects with both internal and external constituents.

2. Create consistency and reliability in processes to standardize the way your organization/school/department does something in an attempt to build efficiency and effectiveness.

What processes are in place (i.e., what needs to be completed) in order to meet an outcome/goal?

Identify metrics used to measure or asses processes. How are processes aligned to performance?

Are there existing or potential accelerators to consider?

When thinking about these three questions the challenge is not understanding the standardization process, it is making sure that we do it. It is not understanding what needs to be done, it is how to manage the process to get it done. For example, we identify what needs to be done is improve student achievement; what helps us get there? This begins a shift in our thinking and communicating about process (systems) to behavior (human performance).

3. Shift communication to the solution, to how we get to the goal.

Explain the research outcomes (i.e., these teaching actions have proven results at improving student achievement) and then talk about the behaviors, the actions, the Must Haves® to achieve the desired goals.

Our goal as leaders is to work with colleagues to identify the mandatory behavior that needs to be followed in order to accelerate results, to be more efficient and more effective, and to get better desired outcomes. As leaders we help colleagues with these behaviors when we model rounding, coaching, and reward and recognition behaviors/actions, and when we talk with them about their individual professional development.

4. Build the foundation for sustaining process and behavioral change with an objective, weighted performance measurement system.

Identify priorities for each individual.

Determine the objective metric(s) for how each priority is measured.

Provide a weight to each priority.

Tie performance conversations with values. As leaders this means we tell high-performing colleagues why we want to keep them, and we develop high and solid performers. We also have conversations with low performers. This step helps leaders deal with the performance gap and helps leaders get the evaluation process right.

These four tactics represent leaders’ action and execution of their commitment to excellence. The end result is the limiting of “this is one more priority” and “there are not enough hours in the day” thinking that we read about at the beginning of this post and the movement of the organization and its employees toward a culture of excellence.

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This post represents the author’s reflection about content on an internal company video by Quint Studer, the Founder of Studer Group; post content is adapted from the video. Books available on the content include:

Studer, Quint. 2003. Hardwiring Excellence. Gulf Breeze, FL: Fire Starter Publishing.

Studer, Quint. 2008. Results that Last. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Studer, Quint. 2009. Straight A Leadership. Gulf Breeze, FL: Fire Starter Publishing.

Pilcher, Janet, and Largue, Robin. 2010. How to Lead Teachers to Become Great. Gulf Breeze, FL: Fire Starter Publishing.

Our mission at Studer Education is to provide students with a great place to learn, teachers with a great place to teach, and parents with confidence that their children are getting a great education. Visit us online at http://studereducation.com. Studer Education is a division of Studer Group, ranked for the fifth straight year on the Best Small and Medium Workplaces by Great Place to Work® and a recipient of the 2010 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.

The two highest ranked items by students (scale 1 to 5):

My learning is important at my school. (4.40)

I have opportunities to be successful at my school. (4.20)

The two lowest ranked items by students:

I am recognized for good work and behavior at my school. (3.64)

I regularly receive feedback from school staff about my academic progress. (3.49)

As teachers, if we are serious about all student learning, we must gain the best skills needed to improve the way we spend our time. At the end of the day every teacher should answer this question positively: “Have all my students learned?”

The work we do with teachers in schools and the findings of important studies show that students learn when teachers use strategies that engage students. Consider the two lowest ranked items – these two items parallel items in the Effective Teacher GPA self-reflection for teachers, specifically (see Pilcher, 2012):

I create opportunities where my students receive continuous and specific feedback that helps them improve.

I consistently recognize my students’ strengths.

How do you do on these items? Remember, the individual teacher is the most important factor in student learning. Highly effective teaching gives students a great opportunity to be engaged and gives schools a greater opportunity to record higher student achievement

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Are you a teacher? Complete the Effective Teacher GPA self-reflection online at http://WhosEngaged.com/EffectiveTeacherGPA.

Pilcher, Janet K. 2012. Who’s Engaged? Climb the Learning Ladder to See. For more information visit the book’s website here.

Check out previous What’s Right posts about this topic by searching: Student Satisfaction; Reward and Recognition; Effective Teacher GPA.

iTeacherSuite introduces teachers to practical and research-based tools, resources, and online learning communities for the purpose of helping teachers become highly effective and engaging students to learn and achieve. Check out our Facebook page to connect with teachers and to share teaching strategies (https://www.facebook.com/iTeacherSuite) and our website at http://iTeacherSuite.com for free resources.

Our mission at Studer Education is to provide students with a great place to learn, teachers with a great place to teach, and parents with confidence that their children are getting a great education. Visit us online at http://studereducation.com. Studer Education is a division of Studer Group, ranked for the fifth straight year on the Best Small and Medium Workplaces by Great Place to Work® and a recipient of the 2010 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.

Not only does the TeacherReady curriculum include these actions, but the  satisfaction surveys we administer following each lesson in TeacherReady ask the pre-service teachers to evaluate the lesson across these actions. For example, one of the questions asks whether the instructor provided meaningful feedback that will assist the pre-service teacher on his/her journey towards becoming a teacher of excellence. Another question asks the pre-service teacher to rate whether the expectations for the lesson was clear, and a separate question asks whether the instructor showed concern for the pre-service teacher as a student.

During in-service training with current teachers we state that the ALWAYS Actions™ are something that a teacher must do more than “sometimes” and “usually” in order to effectively engage his/her students. TeacherReady students rated their instructors as doing just that, with the majority (86-89%) rating the items below in the “Strongly Agree” and “Agree” categories of their instructor’s action; consider the following means (n > 600):

My instructor provided meaningful feedback = 4.29 / 5.00

My instructor showed concern for me as a student = 4.39 / 5.00

The expectations for this lesson were clear = 4.28 / 5.00

Teachers that effectively use the Teaching ALWAYS Actions™ help students become more engaged and confident learners, which leads to higher student learning results. In TeacherReady, we teach pre-service teachers to apply these actions so that when they enter the classroom as a newly certified teacher they will enjoy great success improving student engagement and consequently student learning.

It’s nearing the end of the school year. Take some time to ask your students for feedback across these items to help you think about creating an effective learning environment for future students. What will you stop doing? What will you stop doing? Remember, feedback is not just for students; at a recent in-service training current teachers shared “feedback helps teachers improve instruction… and transitions [teachers] to the next steps in learning… Reflective practice occurs when [teachers] use the data from student feedback opportunities.”

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In-Service training with current teachers and administrators in the Escambia County School District (FL) through Studer Education’s iTeacherSuite. iTeacherSuite introduces teachers to practical and research-based tools, resources, and online learning communities for the purpose of helping teachers become highly effective and engaging students to learn and achieve. Check out our Facebook page to connect with teachers and to share teaching strategies (https://www.facebook.com/iTeacherSuite) and our website at http://iTeacherSuite.com for free resources or more information about in-service opportunities.

TeacherReady is an online alternative certification program targeted to individuals interested in a career transition to the teaching profession. TeacherReady is state approved and part of the NCATE accredited Professional Education Unit of the University of West Florida. Upon completion of TeacherReady participants earn a professional teaching certificate from the State of Florida. Visit the TeacherReady website or connect with TeacherReady on Facebook for more information.

Our mission at Studer Education is to provide students with a great place to learn, teachers with a great place to teach, and parents with confidence that their children are getting a great education. Visit us online at http://studereducation.com. Studer Education is a division of Studer Group, ranked for the fifth straight year on the Best Small and Medium Workplaces by Great Place to Work® and a recipient of the 2010 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.

The article’s author credits Waters as saying “the important things at Workman have stayed the same – the faculty and staff are like family and it remains a place he enjoys being every day” (Kourkounis). Two former students commented on the article:

Congrats Mr. Waters…You taught me Math in the late 70′s when I attended WMS…You are the topic of conversation when I run into someone around town whh had you “back in the day”…You are a living legend!!!

I m a student at J.H Workman Middle School I m 14,and in the 6th grade I had Mr.Waters.Of course Im in the 8th grade now,but not one time did i not want to go to his classroom! he is a funny ,wise smart Teacher! He is AWSOME!

Celebrate the contributions of a teacher that you know – much like these two former students did with Mr. Waters – and recognize the teacher for making a difference in your life.

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Kourkounis, Erin. (May 8, 2013). Teacher celebrates 45 years as school marks half-century. Pensacola News Journal. Available online here.

Photo credit to T. Giberson, Pensacola News Journal.

Our mission at Studer Education is to provide students with a great place to learn, teachers with a great place to teach, and parents with confidence that their children are getting a great education. Visit us online at http://studereducation.com. Studer Education is a division of Studer Group, ranked for the fifth straight year on the Best Small and Medium Workplaces by Great Place to Work® and a recipient of the 2010 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.

Pilcher and Largue outline evidence-based tactics that help leaders and teachers achieve improved student learning. The majority of the tactics begin with “Help Teachers…” or “Coach and Support Teachers…” How do you do as a leader whose job is to serve others?

Great teachers are the result of the great teachers who teach in them. A school leader’s priority must be to recruit, retain, coach, and support great teachers. When leaders do this, that is, when leaders serve through actions that engage, help, coach and support their teachers, then teachers have the opportunity to vastly improve, enjoy renewed purpose, feel more worthwhile, and realize the difference they make in the lives of every student they teach and every parent they contact.

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The video clip of Dr. Janet Pilcher is from Studer Education’s What’s Right in Education conference 2012. For more information about the 2013 conference October 21-22 visit here.

Pilcher, Janet, and Largue, Robin. 2010. How To Lead Teachers To Become Great. Available online here.

Our mission at Studer Education is to provide students with a great place to learn, teachers with a great place to teach, and parents with confidence that their children are getting a great education. Visit us online at http://studereducation.com. Studer Education is a division of Studer Group, ranked for the fifth straight year on the Best Small and Medium Workplaces by Great Place to Work® and a recipient of the 2010 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.

As an educator I focus on the word “challenging” and how it is defined differently by student’s academic level. For example, my experience is that some students with greater confidence tended to set high expectations yet not high enough because they do not want to fail, while students with low confidence tend to set lower expectations because they know they can successfully achieve achieve the goal.

Hattie says that in general students set safe targets that require less work. My colleague, Dr. Janet Pilcher, uses Hattie’s research as the backdrop of her conversation with educational leaders in the following video:

Pilcher’s interpretation of Hattie’s research focuses on teachers “owning” their contribution to students’ learning; in Who’s Engaged? she reiterates the message:

The primary goal for a teacher is to help students exceed rather than reach their self-defined potential. As teachers we must push the envelope with students… [That is, as teachers we must] expect students to own their learning by pushing and supporting them to do so.

This reminds me of a conversation that I had with my oldest brother many years ago; we were discussing one of the kids in our lives who found success in many different activities. However, when we “challenged” him/her to try an activity that was new, the child did not initially want to participate. We were asking the child to attempt something that was beyond his/her current experience, knowledge, and understanding. We were pushing him/her to try and reach beyond his/her “self-defined potential,” that is, beyond what the child knew he/she could successfully do. One of my colleague describes this in terms of how “learning takes place when one is uncomfortable.” My brother and I were adding a dimension of discomfort in the child when we asked him/her to attempt something he/she was unfamiliar with. As I think more about it, this is nothing different than what we do as educators every day with our students.

In a TED Talk last year Dr. Brené Brown describes a parallel process of engagement as “daring greatly” or “daring great to be in the arena” using a quote of Theodore Roosevelt:

It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who… spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly…

This means as an educator (or parent or aunt/uncle), our focus must be to help each student walk into the learning arena to engage or to try something new, to say “I am going to do this,” and to believe in Roosevelt’s quote for him/herself.

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Hattie, John. (2009). Visible Learning: A Synthesis of Over 800 Meta-Analyses Relating to Achievement. New York, NY: Routledge.

The video clip of Dr. Janet Pilcher is from Studer Education’s What’s Right in Education conference 2012. For more information about the 2013 conference October 21-22 visit here.

Pilcher, Janet K. (2012). Who’s Engaged? Climb the Learning Ladder to See. More information available online here.

Brown, Bréne. (03.16.2012). Listening to Shame. TED Talks. Available online here.

Roosevelt, Theodore. (April 23, 1910). A quote from “Citizenship in a Republic,” a speech at the Sorbonne, Paris. Available online from the Theodore Roosevelt Association here.

iTeacherSuite introduces teachers to practical and research-based tools, resources, and online learning communities for the purpose of helping teachers become highly effective and engaging students to learn and achieve. Check out our Facebook page to connect with teachers and to share teaching strategies (https://www.facebook.com/iTeacherSuite). Follow us on Linkedin to connect with current research and stories on education.

A few former colleagues were “tagged” in photos or “checked in” at their respective student awards banquets and student graduation parties on Facebook over the last two weeks. It was a reminder to me how I often had the pleasure of celebrating a student’s accomplishments and academic achievements with him/her and his/her family. An honor, no doubt, when knowing that a parent has offered me his/her best and then “let go” for me and other educators to engage the child in academic learning.

Below is a video from elementary school principal, Chris Renouf, who is a second career educator. In the clip he shares that his move to education after a career in the corporate world was “a calling.”

As your students move into “new beginnings” this spring remember to thank the educators and educational leaders for their commitment to teaching and learning. These are the individuals who can and do make a difference, everyday, in the lives of our kids.

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Chris Renouf is the former Principal at Toledo Blades Elementary School in Florida. This video clip is from Renouf’s presentation at Studer Education’s What’s Right in Education conference 2012. For more information about the 2013 conference October 21-22 visit here.

iTeacherSuite introduces teachers to practical and research-based tools, resources, and online learning communities for the purpose of helping teachers become highly effective and engaging students to learn and achieve. Check out our Facebook page to connect with teachers and to share teaching strategies (https://www.facebook.com/iTeacherSuite). Follow us on Linkedin to connect with current research and stories on education.

At Booker T. Washington High School (Pensacola, FL) the PBS team monitors progress across 5 different measurement areas of behavioral data:

Office Discipline Referrals

Out-of-School Suspensions

In-School Suspensions

Attendance

Bullying Prevention

A total of twelve items are measured across these five areas. The school monitors the measures each 9 weeks and compares data to both the previous year and previous nine weeks. The data are shared with faculty and staff, and students are rewarded and recognized using the data (e.g., class with the least number of referrals enjoys a pizza and a movie). After reviewing year 2 data associated with Washington’s PBS system, the behavior associated with the measures has improved. One example associated with office discipline referrals:

The total number of referrals decreased – more than 600 fewer referrals at the end of the 3rd Nine Weeks than previous year.

The number of individual students with a deferral decreased – individual students with at least one deferral decreased by over 50% or more than 400 students!

The average number of referrals per student decreased – Fewer individuals with deferrals (above) meant a drop, too, in the average number of referrals per student from more than 2 referrals per student to near 1/3 per student.

Similar results are found in the decrease of Out-of-School Suspensions (27% fewer) and In-School Suspensions (11.5% fewer) than the same time last year. Studer suggests (p. 95):

The more often we measure the important things, the more we’ll know about where we are making progress and where we are not. And the more we know, the more we can effect behavior.

In part 1 of this series highlighting Washington High School’s PBS System we shared the school’s expectation that every student matter and that to become better, people need to know what is expected from them. The BTWHS behavioral expectations for students are aligned with the behavioral measures highlighted in today’s post. The expectations and measures provide opportunities for teachers and leaders to offer feedback and recognition to students. The result is improved behavior.

Special thanks to Ms. Rosie Cooper for providing the content for today’s blog. Join Studer Education in celebrating her leadership of the bronze distinction PBS efforts as RtI Behavior Coach and ISS Coordinator at Washington High School. We appreciate Ms. Cooper’s willingness to share with the What’s Right readers what makes Washington’s PBS program award winning. This is the last post in a four-part series about Washington High School’s PBS program.

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Visit the B.T. Washington High School website at http://www.BTWash.org. For more information about Washington High School’s PBS program please contact Ms. Rosie Cooper, M.A.T.L., at RCooper@Escambia.K12.FL.US.

Studer, Quint. 2008. Results that Last. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Available online here.

Our mission at Studer Education is to provide students with a great place to learn, teachers with a great place to teach, and parents with confidence that their children are getting a great education. Visit us online at http://studereducation.com. Studer Education is a division of Studer Group, ranked for the fifth straight year on the Best Small and Medium Workplaces by Great Place to Work® and a recipient of the 2010 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.

WRiE selected from the eSchool News lists apps related to K-12 content that both students and teachers may find useful. Again, in addition to the reference link to the eSchool post readers will also find a link to each app description in the iTunes and/or Windows stores. Check out the apps and let us know what works for your classroom and your students or additional apps you would include in the “top 10.”

2013: New: 10 of the best Apple and Android apps for education in 2013 (eSchool Staff, 4.26.2013)

HMH FUSE Algebra 1 (Free) iTunes link    Android Availability

POETRY from the Poetry Foundation (Free) iTunes link   Android

See. Touch. Learn. (Free) iTunes link

SlateMath for Kids (Free) iTunes link

Wonders of the Universe ($5.99) iTunes link

We hope these selected apps from eSchool News’s 2013 list (and 2011, 2012 lists from earlier this week) are resources that will help you and your students engage better with content. Check them out and share your thoughts with other WRiE readers.

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Zwang, Jenna. (1.7.2011). 10 of the best apps for education. Available from eSchool News online here.

Stansbury, Meris. (4.21.2012). New: 10 of the best Apple apps for education in 2012. Available from eSchool News online here.

eSchool. New: 10 of the best Apple and Android apps for education in 2013. Available online here.

iTeacherSuite introduces teachers to practical and research-based tools, resources, and online learning communities for the purpose of helping teachers become highly effective and engaging students to learn and achieve. Check out our Facebook page to connect with teachers and to share teaching strategies (https://www.facebook.com/iTeacherSuite) and our website at http://iTeacherSuite.com for free resources.

Our mission at Studer Education is to provide students with a great place to learn, teachers with a great place to teach, and parents with confidence that their children are getting a great education. Visit us online at http://studereducation.com. Studer Education is a division of Studer Group, ranked for the fifth straight year on the Best Small and Medium Workplaces by Great Place to Work® and a recipient of the 2010 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.

High-performing employees… [give] the companies they work for a competitive advantage;

It’s crucial… to have systems in place to identify, recognize, reward, and retain… top performers to achieve sustainable growth;

An effective performance management system starts with a thorough goal-setting process, followed by regular feedback and reviews/appraisals… identifies employees’ developmental needs and includes robust reward and recognition practices… should encourage collaboration, teamwork, and communication.

However, the authors conclude that most companies “overlook the importance of the people element” in their performance management system and state that “managers have the greatest impact on that element,” underscoring:

A company can have a world-class [performance management] system in place — but it’s only as effective as the managers who implement it.

So, what does this mean for schools? We know from research that teachers are the most important variable affecting student achievement. Much like Pilcher and Largue, the authors of How to Lead Teachers to Become Great, several studies “suggest school leaders may be second only to teachers in their impact on student achievement” (see Gordon, 2012). Consider the following from How to Lead as actions school leaders must take to improve their schools – student achievement; school leaders must (XI-XII):

Recruit, retain, coach, and support teachers to help students achieve student learning results and ensure parents that their child is receiving an outstanding learning experience… [they] must make recruitment, selection, and development of teachers their number one priority.

School leaders see teachers coming to work each day to make a positive difference in the lives of their students. To do that job well, they know they have to continuously learn and re-learn things that make them great teachers. Too often, however, they start the school year eager to teach and learn, only to lose momentum, become fatigued, get frustrated, and go into survival mode as the year progresses. Tragically, brand new teachers sometimes decide to quit the profession. This is where school leaders must remember that they have the “greatest impact on [performance]” and focus on helping teachers keep their beginning of the school year momentum going in a positive direction.

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Gordon, G. (2012). The School Leader Pipeline: Student Success and Leadership Succession. Gallup, Inc. Available online here.

Oberoi, M., and Rajgarhia, P. (04.04.2013). What Your Performance Management System Needs Most. Gallup Business Journal™. Available online here.

Pilcher, J., and Largue, R. (2010). How to Lead Teachers to Become Great. Gulf Breeze, FL: Fire Starter Publishing. Available online here.

Our mission at Studer Education is to provide students with a great place to learn, teachers with a great place to teach, and parents with confidence that their children are getting a great education. Visit us online at http://studereducation.com. Studer Education is a division of Studer Group, ranked for the fifth straight year on the Best Small and Medium Workplaces by Great Place to Work® and a recipient of the 2010 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.

WRiE selected from the eSchool News lists apps related to K-12 content that both students and teachers may find useful. Again, in addition to the reference link to the eSchool post readers will also find a link to each app description in the iTunes and/or Windows stores. Check out the apps and let us know what works for your classroom and your students or additional apps you would include in the “top 10.”

2012: New: 10 of the best Apple apps for education in 2012 (Stansbury, 4.21.2012)

Frog Dissection ($3.99) iTunes link

Grammar Up HD ($4.99) iTunes link for iPad Edition Grammar Up

History: Maps of the World (Free) iTunes link

Monster Anatomy ($8.99) iTunes link

Motion Math ($1.99) iTunes link

The Elements: A Visual Exploration ($13.99) iTunes link

Visit us Thursday for select apps from eSchool News’s 2013 list. Let us know if (and how) these resources help you and your students engage better with content.

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Stansbury, Meris. (4.21.2012). New: 10 of the best Apple apps for education in 2012. Available from eSchool News online here.

iTeacherSuite introduces teachers to practical and research-based tools, resources, and online learning communities for the purpose of helping teachers become highly effective and engaging students to learn and achieve. Check out our Facebook page to connect with teachers and to share teaching strategies (https://www.facebook.com/iTeacherSuite) and our website at http://iTeacherSuite.com for free resources.

Our mission at Studer Education is to provide students with a great place to learn, teachers with a great place to teach, and parents with confidence that their children are getting a great education. Visit us online at http://studereducation.com. Studer Education is a division of Studer Group, ranked for the fifth straight year on the Best Small and Medium Workplaces by Great Place to Work® and a recipient of the 2010 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.

WRiE selected from the eSchool News lists apps related to K-12 content that both students and teachers may find useful. Again, in addition to the reference link to the eSchool News post readers will also find a link to each app description in the iTunes and/or Windows stores. Check out the apps and let us know what works for your classroom and your students or additional apps you would include in the “top 10.”

2011: 10 of the best apps for education (Zwang, 1.7.2011)

Word Lens (Free; language packs separate in app purchases 2013) iTunes link

Molecules (Free) iTunes link

Today in History (Free) iTunes link for iPad Edition

Math Ref Free (Free) iTunes link

PI83 Graphing Calculator (99 cents) Could not find this app in 2013 iPad apps in iTunes; alternative calculator app is Calculator+ (Free) iTunes link

Visit us on Tuesday and Thursday of this week for select apps from eSchool News’s 2012 and 2013 lists. Let us know if (and how) these resources help you and your students engage better with content.

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Zwang, Jenna. (1.7.2011). 10 of the best apps for education. Available from eSchool News online here.

iTeacherSuite introduces teachers to practical and research-based tools, resources, and online learning communities for the purpose of helping teachers become highly effective and engaging students to learn and achieve. Check out our Facebook page to connect with teachers and to share teaching strategies (https://www.facebook.com/iTeacherSuite) and our website at http://iTeacherSuite.com for free resources.

Our mission at Studer Education is to provide students with a great place to learn, teachers with a great place to teach, and parents with confidence that their children are getting a great education. Visit us online at http://studereducation.com. Studer Education is a division of Studer Group, ranked for the fifth straight year on the Best Small and Medium Workplaces by Great Place to Work® and a recipient of the 2010 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.

Students at BTWHS are rewarded and recognized as a result of their (positive) behavior aligned with school-wide expectations for behavior and measured using formative and summative assessments. Individual students are rewarded with “Cat Scratch” cards like the one below. These cards hold a cash value of 50 cents for student s to use in the school’s Cat Shack, a store run by students in the E-Commerce/Marketing Academy who are members of the DECA chapter; the store offers school spirit items. Students may also use multiple cards for a non-cash value (e.g., 5 cards equal lunch with teacher/leader) in classrooms where implemented by a teacher.

School-wide reward and recognition events are held each 9 weeks in a culminating “Cat Scratch Fever” event. Each nine weeks offers a behavioral focus for students, for example, the first nine weeks for this school year was a “Dress Code Referral” contents by class, the second nine weeks included both “Dress Code Referral” and “Tardy Referral.” The winning class – seniors for 1^st nine weeks and juniors for 2^nd nine weeks – earn attendance to the “Cat Scratch Fever” event. The first event this year was Movie Madness where students enjoyed a movie, popcorn, drinks, and pizza!

PBS reward and recognition does not end at the individual student or class level. Assistant Principal Jeremy Tompkins recognized and thanked “all educational stakeholders” contributing to the success of the BTWHS program and its students in the school’s Wildcat Quarterly in February 2013.

RtI Coach Rosie Cooper also shares “up-to-date” progress with her colleagues, thanking them for their continued support of PBS:

Reward and recognize to provide feedback to recognize good behavior. We often express what students do wrong, but seldom reward and recognize good performance (Pilcher, 2012) or in this case good behavior. Similar to most people, students respond when they are recognized.

Special thanks to Ms. Rosie Cooper for providing the content for today’s blog. Join Studer Education in celebrating her leadership of the bronze distinction PBS efforts as RtI Behavior Coach and ISS Coordinator at Washington High School. We appreciate Ms. Cooper’s willingness to share with the What’s Right readers what makes Washington’s PBS program award-winning. This is the third of a four-part series running each Friday (ending May 3) about Washington High School’s PBS program.

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Positive Behavior Support (PBS): School-Wide Expectations (Part 1 of 4). Read post here.

Positive Behavior Support (PBS): Formative and Summative Assessments (Part 2 of 4). Read post here.

Visit the B.T. Washington High School website at http://www.BTWash.org. For more information about Washington High School’s PBS program please contact Ms. Rosie Cooper, M.A.T.L., at RCooper@Escambia.K12.FL.US.

Pilcher, Janet. 2012. Who’s Engaged? Climb the Learning Ladder to See. More information about the book here.

“Our Partner” posts feature teachers, leaders, schools, and districts to share “what’s right” in education. Join us each Friday to celebrate these great educators, leaders, and institutions.

Our mission at Studer Education is to provide students with a great place to learn, teachers with a great place to teach, and parents with confidence that their children are getting a great education. Visit us online at http://studereducation.com. Studer Education is a division of Studer Group, ranked for the fifth straight year on the Best Small and Medium Workplaces by Great Place to Work® and a recipient of the 2010 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.

Dr. Karen Schulte, Superintendent of the School District of Janesville, said the district was “thrilled to get the news” and invites readers to her blog highlighting Craig and Parker High Schools; a portion of her blog is below:

The School District of Janesville’s Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment Director Kim Ehrhardt attributes the success of the Janesville high schools to district efforts designed to improve student achievement for students identified in sub groups… Secondary efforts associated with the development of school improvement plans, data retreats, pacing charts and curriculum-based assessments are strategic tools that both Parker and Craig have embraced that help raise student achievement for all students in the School District of Janesville.

U.S. News & World Report rankings are based in key principles that a great high school must serve all of its students well, not just those who are college-bound; and that it must be able to produce measurable academic outcomes to show the school is successfully educating its student body across a range of performance indicators (read more in the Superintendent’s blog here).

Read more about How U.S. News Calculated the 2013 Best High Schools Rankings. Join us in celebrating the great leaders and teachers at Menomonee, Craig, and Parker high schools and high schools across the country that are engaging students, parents, and their communities to provide their students with an excellent education.

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The School District of Menomonee Falls continuously pursues excellence one student at a time; this is embodied in its Mission: In partnership with family and community, the School District of Menomonee Falls provides the best personalized and comprehensive education so our students will be prepared for, and positively contribute to, a profoundly different future. Visit the District’s website at http://sdmf.schoolfusion.us/ and read about their recognition as a national model for classroom improvement.

The School District of Janesville, Wisconsin, is a Blue Ribbon Award Winning School District. This is a recognition held by only 3% of the school districts in the nation. SDJ is committed to creating a great place for student s to learn and to create a better work environment for all employees. They have institutionalized leadership evaluation measurements and Evidence-Based Leadership to focus on increased student achievement based on data and measurable improvement. Visit them at http://www.janesville.k12.wi.us/Default.aspx, read about their Journey to Excellence, and check out the superintendent’s blog.

Morse, Robert. (04.22.2013). How U.S. News Calculated the 2013 Best High Schools Rankings: We looked at thousands of public schools to identify the most outstanding. U.S. News & World Report. Available online here.

U.S. News & World Report. Available online here.

Our mission at Studer Education is to provide students with a great place to learn, teachers with a great place to teach, and parents with confidence that their children are getting a great education. Visit us online at http://studereducation.com. Studer Education is a division of Studer Group, ranked for the fifth straight year on the Best Small and Medium Workplaces by Great Place to Work® and a recipient of the 2010 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.

Every week, we are in schools with leaders and teachers witnessing the important work they do. Today, we led a principal training session which was very energizing.  Prior to the session I engaged in a discussion with a very good principal in a high need school who came into the session very humbled and distressed. He told me a story of a child who had emotional problems from physical and emotional abuse that ended his day today with this child throwing punches to the principal’s stomach. As he took the punches in the stomach he calmly negotiated with the child that the anger he was feeling was not directed at him and encouraged and allowed the child to depress his anger to talk through his situation and distress at that moment.  Anger of the child turned into tears and so the story continues with tomorrow being a new day for the principal  and teachers creating a space for the child to learn and succeed.

In education, the unbelievable work our leaders and teachers do sometimes gets hidden with national directives and criticism, some of which are worthy.  With all said, I am thankful for those leaders similar to the person I engaged with today.  These leaders truly make a difference.

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Dr. Janet Pilcher is the leader of Studer Education, the education division of Studer Group and the co-author of How to Lead Teachers to Become Great.

Our mission at Studer Education is to provide students with a great place to learn, teachers with a great place to teach, and parents with confidence that their children are getting a great education. Visit us online at http://studereducation.com. Studer Education is a division of Studer Group, ranked for the fifth straight year on the Best Small and Medium Workplaces by Great Place to Work® and a recipient of the 2010 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.

These fourth graders are writing a children’s book about the Blue Wahoos and baseball in Pensacola. The majority of them have neither been to the stadium nor to a game; sure, they can read about the team in the Pensacola News Journal or on the Wahoos website or by talking to friends or others who have been to a game. The field trip, however, allowed them to experience the stadium first hand and take in the surroundings from their perspective:

They stood beside the batting cage under the stadium and were able to see what it meant for a pitch to be thrown at 80 or 90 miles per hour.

Standing in the outfield grass beyond the wall they could see the distance from home plate that a 405 foot home run ball would travel to reach them.

In the Press Box they heard from staff writers the skills they use as a writer for the Blue Wahoos.

In the dugout they stood where Manager Delino DeShields stands during a game and saw where hit leader and first baseman Donald Lutz stores his bat. They experienced the view of the field from the team’s perspective. They “felt” the need to respect their classmates in such close quarters much like the players and coaches must do during a game.

They played with Kazoo, the sea creature mascot of the Wahoos and learned about the players and the everyday operations of the organization from professional staff. They realized that if they loved baseball and want to be part of a professional baseball organization it is possible even if they are not a star baseball player.

Their visit to the locker room gave them an opportunity to see the player lockers and uniforms, and compare the size of their foot to that of one player’s cleat.

For lunch, the students enjoyed hotdogs and chips (a must have at any ballpark!) in the Stadium’s Hancock Bank Club overlooking the field and Pensacola Bay. Again, an opportunity to experience what Stadium Journey experienced when it wrote, “It might be the nicest, fanciest, and most beautiful minor league park in America.”

I enjoyed writing about your visit to the home of the Blue Wahoos, Oakcrest Fourth Grade, and look forward to reading your book when it’s complete.

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Ms. Sara Rabb, Ms. Angela Nicks, and Ms. Amanda Golab teach Fourth Grade at Oakcrest Elementary School in Escambia County, Florida. Check out the great things happening at Oakcrest on their website.

The Pensacola Blue Wahoos are the Double-A affiliate of the Cincinnati Reds. Learn more about the Pensacola Blue Wahoos and the Wahoos Whereabouts. Visit them on Facebook.

Quote from Stadium Journey available online here.

iTeacherSuite introduces teachers to practical and research-based tools, resources, and online learning communities for the purpose of helping teachers become highly effective and engaging students to learn and achieve. Check out our Facebook page to connect with teachers and to share teaching strategies (https://www.facebook.com/iTeacherSuite) and our website at http://iTeacherSuite.com for free resources.

Our mission at Studer Education is to provide students with a great place to learn, teachers with a great place to teach, and parents with confidence that their children are getting a great education. Visit us online at http://studereducation.com. Studer Education is a division of Studer Group, ranked for the fifth straight year on the Best Small and Medium Workplaces by Great Place to Work® and a recipient of the 2010 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.

The Raiders’ story we know is a powerful one: They were 80 men flying in B-25 Mitchell Bombers and their mission was a surprise attack on Tokyo in April 1942, only months after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor in World War II. The Raid boosted American morale. While many folks enjoyed an opportunity of a lifetime when they were able to meet these heroes yesterday and exchange stories and thank you’s, many more are able to celebrate the event and the Raid’s history through others’ experience:

Doolittle Raiders: Surviving WWII aviators greet fans at Naval Aviation Museum (Pensacola News Journal, 04.21.2013).

Training the Doolittle Raiders (National Naval Aviation Museum: History Up Close)

Doolittle Raid on Japan, 18 April 1942 (Naval History & Heritage Command)

The Doolittle Raid (Hornet CV-8) (USS Hornet Museum)

This is the power of personal histories – one individual sharing his/her experience with or recollection of an event with another – to provide additional meaning to the event. Consider the opportunities personal histories can bring to your students. Here is one example from yesterday:

While I was waiting in line on Sunday with a few friends, two whom currently serve as a Commander and Lt. Commander in the Navy, we were discussing learned history of the Doolittle Raid. After a short time a woman in front of us, Mrs. Anna Jo Vincill, greeted us by saying, “It’s hard to imagine what this really meant unless you were living during that time… and I was. I was 14… I can remember how proud we were that our people got to bomb Tokyo.” Mrs. Vincill was gracious to share her memories and stories with us—parts of her personal history—and answer questions we had. Below is a bit of our conversation:

(26-33) LT: You know, we can read about the morale change, the morale boost, but I can’t imagine living during that time period and actually experiencing that.

(34-51) Mrs. Vincill: I can still remember [Pearl Harbor]. I’m 86 years old and I can remember like it was yesterday. It was on a Sunday and I had gone to the roller-skating rink. That’s what I was doing so I’ll always remember.

(54-1:04) AH: How did hearing the news of Pearl Harbor contrast with what you heard about September 11?

(1:05-1:59) Mrs. Vincill: 9-11 was just… you know… Pearl Harbor, a lot of us in that era didn’t know “what is Pearl Harbor” or where Pearl Harbor is. We didn’t know. Sure, we were teenagers and took geography… It struck [us], but 9-11 struck our soul right here (pointing at her heart). [Pearl Harbor] was our territory… It was a horrible time. Horrible.

(2:00-2:05) AH: It really brought the country down to its knees, then [the Doolittle Raid] brought it back.

(2:06-2:09) Mrs. Vincill: We stayed on our knees to pray, but we got up to fight!

With today’s technology I was able to record much of our conversation with Mrs. Vincill using Voice Memo on my cell phone. She also shared with us about how the events of this time impacted the lives of women:

(2:11-3:46) Mrs. Vincill: That was when women, I’m for women, got to get jobs in factories and help build planes, and Rosie the Riveter. And, here was Rosie the Riveter – she had done nothing but stir cakes with an electric mixer, maybe, if she was lucky enough to have one. [Rosie’s] did marvelous things. [The men supervisors in the factories] came to see that [Rosie’s] were better workers than a lot of the men! Absolutely! … The thing is, though, what was good for us besides working for the war effort was that when it was all over… we (women) got careers. We went to work. Not to say that marriage and children are not important because it is… We found we were more than just one dimension; we could do more things.

Not surprising that all of Mrs. Vincill’s children, two of whom are girls (now women), have enjoyed personal and professional successes in their lives. My short visit with their Mom—by chance, while I was waiting in line with friends to express my thanks to two WWII and national heroes—enriched my knowledge of the WWII era far more than I could have imagined walking into the museum yesterday. Our conversation is a simple example of the power of personal histories and how easily they can be shared to enrich the knowledge and lives of others. Again, consider the opportunities personal histories can bring to your students.

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Photograph by Bruce Graner. (04.21.2013). Doolittle Raiders: Surviving WWII aviators greet fans at Naval Aviation Museum, Pensacola News Journal. Available online here.

U.S. Naval History & Heritage Command Photograph. Photo # NH 64472: Doolittle Raid on Japan, 18 April 1942. Lieutenant Colonel James H. Doolittle (left front), leader of the attacking force, and Captain Marc A. Mitscher, Commanding Officer of USS Hornet (CV-8), pose with a 500-pound bomb and USAAF aircrew members during ceremonies on Hornet‘s flight deck, while the raid task force was en route to the launching point. Available online here.

Personal conversation included after acknowledgment of taped conversation.

iTeacherSuite introduces teachers to practical and research-based tools, resources, and online learning communities for the purpose of helping teachers become highly effective and engaging students to learn and achieve. Check out our Facebook page to connect with teachers and to share teaching strategies (https://www.facebook.com/iTeacherSuite) and our website at http://iTeacherSuite.com for free resources.

Classroom-Based (Behavior) Evaluation

Office Disciplinary Referrals

In-School and Out-of-School Suspension

Formative assessments with feedback allow individuals being measured to know what they are doing well, where they need to improve, and how to do so. For teachers charged with implementing PBS formative assessments this may mean what they’re doing well or where they need improvement (and how) in the following areas:

(a) Classroom Environment/Setting Setup to Prevent or Address Behavior Problems;

(b) Classroom Behavior System Developed and Implemented; and

(c) Student Engagement

Teachers and leaders can use the Classroom Assistance Tool to evaluate how well they are doing or where they need improvement in each of these areas. An amended version of the tool is below. A full copy of the tool is available online from Florida’s Positive Behavior Support Project here.

Teachers may also choose a more informal (formative) assessment by simply asking a colleague or the RtI behavior coach, “Hey, I’m having a problem with this student and not really sure what I can do; can you help me with him/her?” This gives the teacher the opportunity to have a colleague or non-administrative leader (e.g., RtI Coach at Washington High School) observe his/her classroom using the Classroom Assistance Tool and also focus on the individual student in question. Such informal collaborations become a win-win-win for the individual teacher, the school, and the student.

Use of both formative and summative assessments at BTWHS allowed for leaders to make decisions based on the data. For example, the school drilled-down on its tardy data by class-to-class location during transitions to determine that one additional minute between classes might benefit the more than 1,600 strong student body. As important, assessment results help engage teachers in the process (and gain buy-in from teachers who may question the system – if/when applicable), and also engage students and parents in support of positive behavior. Here are some results from the BTWHS Positive Behavior Support model after year 1:

Office disciplinary referrals were reduced by 748 referrals from 4,070 in 2010-2011 to 3,322 in 2011-2012.

The number of students receiving Out-of-School and In-School Suspension decreased from 2010-2011 to 2011-2012.

Successful completion of a Florida PBS Walk-Through where BTWHS was critiqued, classrooms were visited, and students and teachers were interviewed on how well they knew school-wide behavior expectations. The result? BTWHS was one of 14 other high schools in the state to achieve model school status. Congratulations, PBS Team!

PBS systems establish behavioral expectations for students and support teachers’ alignment of their classroom behavior systems. Thus, students are aware of classroom- and school-wide expectations for behavior and are rewarded and recognized as a result of their (positive) behavior measured using formative and summative assessments. Washington High School’s PBS process for rewarding and recognizing students is the focus of Part 3 of this series.

Special thanks to Ms. Rosie Cooper for providing the content for today’s blog. Join Studer Education in celebrating her leadership of the bronze distinction PBS efforts as RtI Behavior Coach and ISS Coordinator at Washington High School. We appreciate Ms. Cooper’s willingness to share with the What’s Right readers what makes Washington’s PBS program award winning. This is the second of a four-part series running each Friday in April about Washington High School’s PBS program.

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Positive Behavior Support (PBS): School-Wide Expectations (Part 1 of 4). Read post here.

Visit the B.T. Washington High School website at http://www.BTWash.org. For more information about Washington High School’s PBS program please contact Ms. Rosie Cooper, M.A.T.L., at RCooper@Escambia.K12.FL.US.

“Our Partner” posts feature teachers, leaders, schools, and districts to share “what’s right” in education. Join us each Friday to celebrate these great educators, leaders, and institutions.

Our mission at Studer Education is to provide students with a great place to learn, teachers with a great place to teach, and parents with confidence that their children are getting a great education. Visit us online at http://studereducation.com. Studer Education is a division of Studer Group, ranked for the fifth straight year on the Best Small and Medium Workplaces by Great Place to Work® and a recipient of the 2010 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.

My students receive continuous and specific feedback.

I consistently recognize my students’ strengths.

Six rules of thumb explain why teachers should provide descriptive feedback and coach students to learn (see Who’s Engaged?, pp. 43-46):

Provide feedback to recognize good performance. Sometimes we express what students do incorrectly, but seldom reward and recognize good performance. Using research findings from Gallup’s work on employee engagement (Rath, T., 2004), Studer speaks to the 3 to 1 compliment principle; that is, three compliments to one criticism equals positive behavior, two compliments to one criticism equals neutral behavior, and one compliment to one criticism equals negative behavior.

Very specifically describe how students can improve their performance. Rich description (e.g., “Work on making better transitions from one paragraph to another. Think about how each paragraph connects and use language to show that connection”) provides much more information for students to use than do statements like “good work” or “needs improvement.”

Focus on how well rather than how rapidly students accomplished the learning target. Learning is not about how fast students complete a task. We are interested in how close students are to hitting the learning targets.

Focus on quality rather than quantity of student work accomplished. If we give students a large quantity of work to keep them busy, we are not focused on how well they are learning the target at hand. Students easily recognize when we assign them work to keep them busy. Students working fewer problems well and with an understood purpose produce better student learning results than students completing loads of work with a goal of “getting it done.”

Focus feedback on the learning task, not personalizing it to the student. Share information that speaks to the specifics about a performance rather than making a judgment about the value of any student. This means providing feedback such as, “Jon, I noticed that all capitals of the southern states were correctly identified. Let’s work on another section of the country and get those correct. Check out this set of northern states. See if you can get those correct as well.”

Provide opportunities for students to express that they understand the feedback and what they need to do to improve. A quality feedback process is as much about students reflecting on the information as it is about them receiving it. As students receive descriptive feedback on clearly defined learning expectations, they begin to take ownership of their learning. They become self-regulated learners. Each step of the way they gain confidence to become better and better learners.

As teachers we must constantly create ways to collect and analyze information to share with students. Feedback can be applied by the teacher, by student peers, or through self-assessments. The underlying importance, however, is that we simply and specifically create ways for students to receive descriptive feedback about their performance.

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Pilcher, Janet K. (2010). Who’s Engaged?Climb the Learning Ladder to See. In this text Dr. Pilcher shares what it takes for students to achieve learning results and how teachers create learning targets aligned with learning tasks and formative and summative assessment measures. The text is used in the TeacherReady online alternative teacher certification program; TeacherReady is a state approved professional program accredited by NCATE.

Rath, T. (2004). The best ways to recognize employees. Gallup Management Journal.

iTeacherSuite introduces teachers to practical and research-based tools, resources, and online learning communities for the purpose of helping teachers become highly effective and engaging students to learn and achieve. Check out our Facebook page to connect with teachers and to share teaching strategies (https://www.facebook.com/iTeacherSuite) and our website at http://iTeacherSuite.com for free resources.

Our mission at Studer Education is to provide students with a great place to learn, teachers with a great place to teach, and parents with confidence that their children are getting a great education. Visit us online at http://studereducation.com. Studer Education is a division of Studer Group, ranked for the fifth straight year on the Best Small and Medium Workplaces by Great Place to Work® and a recipient of the 2010 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.

Sometimes as leaders we receive pushback when we initiate or support change even when you and your colleagues know that changes need to be made. This is when Kotter suggests leaders need to develop within their organization (or school) “a distinctive attitude and gut-level feeling… to make something important happen today.” Increased student learning is the (important) end goal for schools. So what does improvement in parent satisfaction have to do with it? When teachers develop partnerships with parents, they welcome the parents to the school year, listen carefully to understand their situations and needs, and remain mindful that parents need to hear good stories about their children.

Think what parents can do to help teachers work with students to increase student achievement. Furthermore, Principal Raczkowski-Shannon describes the good things that resulted when she and her colleagues worked through the uncomfortableness of change; that is, teachers began realizing that by connecting with parents through positive phone calls and notes to recognize and reward student success they began creating positive relationships with their parents… and student achievement increased.

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Hunt Elementary School is home to the Junior Vikings! Its mission is to teach all students basic grade level skills and promote social, emotional, physical and academic growth. Check out “Hunt Happenings” and their March 2012 Newsletter. Enjoy a virtual tour of Hunt Elementary here.

Kotter, John. 2008. A Sense of Urgency. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business Press.

Our mission at Studer Education is to provide students with a great place to learn, teachers with a great place to teach, and parents with confidence that their children are getting a great education. Visit us online at http://studereducation.com. Studer Education is a division of Studer Group, ranked for the fifth straight year on the Best Small and Medium Workplaces by Great Place to Work® and a recipient of the 2010 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.