BLT Bits
CRCSD School Improvement
WHAT ARE BLTS READING?
Many BLT's spend time learning together during a BLT meeting. Some teams engage in reading a book while other teams engage in reading articles around their school improvement efforts. Reading and talking about topics important to the school deepens understanding and improves the capacity to lead learning and improvement efforts.
Take a look at a few books our BLTs have been reading!
Mindset in the Classroom
Explaing Reading
The Leader in Me
Articles, Articles, Articles
Viola Gibson reads articles together regularly. Here's a sample of a few:
Finding Your Voice in Facilitating Productive Conversations by Valerie von Frank
What I’ve Learned About Effective Reading Instruction by Richard Allington
6 Essential Characteristics of a PLC (adapted from Learning by Doing)
Multiple Measures by Victoria l. Bernhardt
The Purposeful Classroom
Number Sense Routines
How are schools monitoring the SIP?
Many schools ask this question. Read on to hear how Grantwood Elementary is engaging in this work!
Grantwood Elementary has been engaged in reviewing their SIP throughout the year.
One way feedback was gathered toward SIP focus areas was through a gallery walk. Each area was posted on a chart paper and groups of teachers “visited” each poster and noted successes and challenges with each area of implementation. At the bottom of each chart was a scale from 0, needing the least amount of support to implement, to 5 , needing the most amount. Teacher indicated their own perspective by placing a tally mark.
BLT was able to use this information to determine next steps. Nicole Shaw (IDS) shares,
"This has been valuable data to prioritize the needs of teachers as we move forward with our SIP."
Later in the year, a poster was made for each focus area of the SIP and each action was “cut and pasted” (literally) on a large chart paper. The BLT used these posters to focus convsersations around “What Has Been Done” and “What Needs To Be Done.”
Cindy Stock (Principal) shares, " This is something that we’ve continually come back to as we strive to dig deeper into the complexities of the CEI: Teaching for Learning Differences. This also helped to reflect on the need to spend more time on building growth-mindset building-wide."