Improving School Performance
Guides and Toolkits
This brief companion book to Getting Serious About the System: A Fieldbook for District and School Leaders provides teachers with background on systemic school improvement and illustrates where they and other stakeholders fit in the process of implementing solutions system-wide.
This fieldbook shows how to avoid a haphazard approach to school improvement by focusing on all aspects of the system and on specific issues that have the most impact upon student achievement. This multidimensional process also entails increasing the competencies of everyone involved and implementing solutions districtwide.
This book shows educators how to use the transformative power of professional learning in community to raise the professional stature of educators. The authors provide clear steps and real-school examples with a focus on collaborative adult learning for student gains, community respect, professional satisfaction, and collegial support. This resource will help educators move from a climate of sanctions to one of mutual trust and support informed by a commitment to students and a dedication to working and learning together.
The Early Warning Data System (EWDS) Tool tracks research-based ninth-grade indicators related to high school dropout, such as attendance and academics, and automatically flags students who are below the specified benchmarks leading to graduation. The tool provides leading indicators so that school staff can quickly review data and plan interventions as early as 20 to 30 days after the beginning of the school year.
SEDL offers free access to the Working Systemically online survey, which is a data collection instrument allows a coordinator to set up and deploy a 34-question online survey to gather data from teachers, administrators, and other school stakeholders regarding the working systemically principles (e.g. use of data, communicating priorities, access to materials, professional development, etc.). The results are automatically tallied for the coordinator, and results can be viewed by subgroups customized by the survey coordinator. Sign up for a free survey coordinator account today!
This updated manual describes how to use Innovation Configuration Maps to clarify what an innovation or change looks like along a continuum from high-quality implementation to least-desired practices.
This updated manual discusses how individuals behave and react with respect to specific change. The tool helps researchers and evaluators determine the extent to which an innovation is being implemented by distinguishing among three levels of nonuse and five levels of use.
This updated manual explains how to use and score the Stages of Concern Questionnaire, which assesses teacher concerns about new programs and practices. The product includes a MS Word version of the questionnaire and scoring sheets, as well as a scoring program in Excel and SAS formats.
In this book, Dr. White describes the foundation principles for data analysis and provides the strategies needed to take action based on that analysis.
The Lesson Study approach helps teachers deepen their content knowledge, adopt effective teaching strategies, and reflect on student learning. This multimedia package uses math instruction as an example and is designed for trainers and team leaders.
This kit is a set of resources for facilitators assisting groups of educators in becoming more reflective about their practice, to make instructions based on student learning, and to create a more coherent learning experience for students.
This paper shows that policymakers and researchers have changed their views about school improvement and the role of teachers in the process of translating policy coherence into improved instructional coherence and student learning.
This kit provides seven training modules to guide district leaders and teams as they work with individual schools to make the changes needed to provide a high-quality education for every child.
Making Assessment Work for Everyone: How to Build on Student Strengths (2000)
This publication provides teachers with research information and practical ideas for modifying assessments to make them more effective.
This publication provides teachers with research information and practical ideas for modifying assessments to make them more effective.
This book discusses the six strategies of successful implementation of a comprehensive school program and provides tips from experts.
This guide is for teachers and administrators interested in participating in or beginning their own teacher exchange program with another country.
Esta guía es para maestros y administradores interesados en participar en, o iniciar, un programa de intercambio con otro país.
Renovar el Sentido de la Enseñanza (1999)
Este folleto anima a profesores a recordar por qué se hicieron profesores en primer lugar, y después ayuda a cambiar sus prácticas para hacerlas más significativas para sus estudiantes y el aprendizaje de ellos.
Este folleto anima a profesores a recordar por qué se hicieron profesores en primer lugar, y después ayuda a cambiar sus prácticas para hacerlas más significativas para sus estudiantes y el aprendizaje de ellos.
Restoring Meaning to Teaching (1999)
This booklet engages teachers in recalling why they became teachers in the first place, and then changes their practice to make it more meaningful for children and their learning.
This booklet engages teachers in recalling why they became teachers in the first place, and then changes their practice to make it more meaningful for children and their learning.
This two-volume resource for trainers contains findings and approaches to blending assessment with instruction to improve student learning.
In The Courage to Teach, Parker Palmer takes teachers on an inner journey toward reconnecting with their vocation and their students Ð and recovering their passion for one of the most difficult and important of human endeavors.
This literature review includes examples of schools that have organized professional learning communities and discusses five dimensions of those communities: supportive and shared leadership, shared values and vision, collective creativity, supportive conditions, and shared personal practice. The publication also discusses steps for transforming a school into a professional learning community.
These publications are a series of policy supplements which focus on creating an approach to support education and systemic change.
This guide discusses successful leadership strategies that help promote change. It presents a brief history of approaches to school change, actions of successful school leaders and how they contributed significantly to successful change, and how school leaders address systemic change or restructuring.
This guide explores the personal qualities that contribute to a person's leadership practices and examines how personal qualities influence educational leadership. The main topics discussed are some key leadership concepts, characteristics found in effective educational, and implications of these characteristics when leaders implement or initiate school change.
This guide examines some contextual factors that can support or block efforts to improve schools. It discusses the role of school resources, policies, and rules in change, how attitudes and beliefs of school administrators, faculty, and students shape school change, cultural norms in school change, and definitions of at-risk students and context.
