(I hope you had a chance to read the earlier piece that described the underlying ideas of the district’s strategic plan. If you did not and you find you have questions, you can go to the school web site and see some of the information there. You do not need to have read the previous article to understand what will be said here.)
Yes, it is perfectly obvious that student learning is a priority for any school district. But read on, because you will quickly see that there are many elements of this topic which are not obvious at all.
Over time, I have heard teachers express their frustrations about student learning in a variety of humorous ways: “If only it would work to strap books to their heads!” “I hope the experts develop telepathy soon, then I could just transfer understanding directly into their brains.” “If time travel is ever perfected, I’m going to find this kid’s future self and send him back to talk to himself!”
But all joking aside, there are no shortcuts when it comes to student learning. Oversimplified, the art rests in knowing both the material and the learner, and finding a way to make the one accessible to the other. I make no claims of perfection, but I have every confidence our district’s teachers are highly knowledgeable in the subject matter they teach. As for the learners…well, they’re an ever-changing tide.
Research shows that a student’s success in school , a student’s enthusiasm for the types of learning offered in classrooms, rests on a wide array of factors. Some of these are under the teachers’ control: overall elements of the environment, including whether the student feels safe and is comfortable; the tools used to present and clarify the material; follow-up work which expands student competency. A great many more are not: whether the student is hungry or distracted, how well the learner has understood necessary foundational information, questions of confidence and self-esteem, the priority the student places on academic learning, the learner’s preferred learning style…the list goes on and on. And especially in a less stable household, many of these factors change from day to day.
So what’s a school district to do? Everything possible, of course. Some of the students who like school least are the ones who need it most, so excuses are not an option.
Elements of the strategic plan extend into the three elements of learning—the subject matter, the learner, and the way the material is presented.
The easiest one to explain is the first: how we will improve our teachers’ knowledge of their subject matter. Research shows that the higher the combined education level of a school’s staff, the more successful its students are. The strategic plan includes steps which will encourage our teachers to continue their educations and become more knowledgeable in their subject areas.
A sub category is how well the teachers know their students. This topic becomes more complex, since there are several directions from which the question can be approached. Standardized tests, for example, are a way the state evaluates student learning. If you are acquainted with any child who attends our schools, you have doubtless heard about the batteries of tests required by the state. If I hear from people that it is desirable, I will make more information about these test scores available in a later piece of writing, but the big picture when it comes to state tests is that our students as a group have shown a performance level below the state average. Since, just as in Garrison Keillor’s fictional hometown of Lake Woebegon, we believe all our children are above average, we want to find ways to improve the scores our classes are earning.
Raising these scores will demand considerable effort. We must find and repair the short circuits which have kept our groups from performing at target levels. This will require our teachers to look closely at the expectations for the tests, the overall school curriculum, and other factors. To engage in this diagnostic process, teachers must get together, examine data, determine relevant factors, then consider and choose possible responses.
To facilitate this process, the district has already taken two important steps. One is that we have expanded our staff to include someone whose job it is to focus on the overall flow of our teaching process; Terri Engel has stepped away from the fifth-grade classroom where she has been so successful for decades, and is now the district’s Curriculum Director. She will work with teachers and with data to see how our teachers can make their teaching more strategic. The second way is that we have arranged nine late starts for this upcoming school year. These are being carefully planned to maximize their value; one of their main purposes is to allow teachers to collaborate about how to improve the ways subject matter is delivered to students.
The next element, the learner, will also be a topic on which our teachers will collaborate. Staff will share information about groups of students, including what techniques have been successful in the past, what their areas of strength and weakness are, and how they can best be supported as they advance from level to level. In short, teachers will look for ways to get to know the students better for the sake of individualizing their instruction methods.
Another way the strategic plan focuses on individual learning is with new initiatives for students who prefer hands-on learning. This summer, students will earn credit by completing construction projects under the supervision of one of our teachers. A program which focuses on delivering health care, and which allows students to work directly in the medical field, will also offer an opportunity to earn high school credit. Other endeavors are under development, and you are likely to hear more about them in the near future.
Because these hands-on learners are most often the students who drop out of high school before graduating, this particular focus is likely to help with another stated goal, increasing our graduation rate from its current 85% to a figure much closer to 100%.
There we have it, a quick summary of the “student learning” element of the district’s strategic plan. I hope you can see the many ways it ties in with our mission statement: Providing students with knowledge, skills and attitudes which enable them to succeed in a globally competitive society. Empower, Learn, Succeed.
As before, if you are looking for more detail, please visit the school web site, http://www.nrheg.k12.mn.us, where a quick glance around will show you the path to more information in a link labeled “strategic plan.” Watch, too, for future writings which will provide summaries about some of our other priorities. Thanks for taking the time to read all this…having done so shows you are just the type of person we hope to send out into the world: a lifelong learner.
