Tuesday, September 27, 2016

Professional Learning Gets Rolling with Student Engagement

What are we doing and why are we doing it?

While student learning is our first priority, professional learning is a close second. Making sure that we are constantly reviewing our curriculum and instructional practices is critical to staying current with research and best practices to ensure that we provide excellent learning opportunities for the children of Dedham. Early release days are one part of our comprehensive approach to professional learning. This fall DPS is using early release time to engage in a thorough analysis of how we engage students in our classrooms and clinics throughout the district.
This work kicked off on Thursday September 22nd and focused on the essential question, "What is student engagement?" Principals, department heads, and other leaders skillfully lead conversations and activities that asked our faculty across the district to reflect on and think through the concept of student engagement. This work included sharing and processing our own thoughts about student engagement, reading relevant professional literature, and articulating a shared definition of student engagement for each building. Doing this kind of professional work is critical to our ongoing efforts to grow our practice and engage all students in great opportunities to learn.




Often times building shared meaning is overlooked but is a critical first step in our professional work. The shared definitions of student engagement that we are developing provide us with a common understanding of the term and common language to discuss our practices relative to student engagement. The language that we use to talk about student engagement frames the way we think about and enact the concept in our classrooms and clinics throughout the district. It facilitates professional dialog about good teaching practice and creates a situation in which we can identify and share effective practices.


Our collective work focusing on student engagement will continue during the district’s next early release day on October 7th. With our shared definition of student engagement we will turn our attention to considering how our current practices are and are not aligned with this shared understanding. This will provide faculty and staff with a great opportunity to reflect on their own practice, learn about the practices of others, and provide the district with critical information about the kinds of professional learning opportunities that we will need to consider as we begin to think differently about how we engage Dedham’s students in learning.




Student Engagement:
Building Context and Coherence

With all of the work that needs to be done and all of the work that is already underway, it can be hard to get a sense of what is important to the district and why it is moving in the direction it is moving. When we focus on concepts that are (a) relevant to all professionals and (b) central to improving student learning and growth, we create a situation in which we can build coherence between the many moving parts of a large organization like the Dedham Public Schools. Student engagement is one of those concepts that meets both criteria; relevant to all and central to student learning. How then does student engagement provide a thread weaving together the seeming disparate work of the district.

  • Student Centered Learning
    • How do we leverage student interests, needs, and learning styles to build highly engaging learning opportunities? Last year the district engaged Teachers21 to conduct a full review of Dedham's English Language Arts (ELA) program. One of Teacher21's major recommendations suggests that the district work to ensure that our classrooms and clinics adjust to more student centered approaches to learning. The concept of student centered learning is built on the idea that practitioners know their students as people and learners and build learning opportunities that are tailored to their needs, interests, and learning styles. Knowing students as people and learners is also a key prerequisite to fostering high levels of student engagement.
  • Curriculum Review
    • How do we ensure that our curriculum supports high levels of student engagement through rigor and relevance? The review and alignment of the district's ELA curriculum was another major recommendation of the Teachers21 review in 2015. Over the course of the 2015 - 2016 school year the Office of Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment will coordinate and execute the evaluation of reading, writing, and phonics programs for grades kindergarten through five. Over the course of the year we will decide which programs will form the backbone of our instructional practices and begin the process of training, professional development, and deployment. The need to review and select key ELA programs provides us with a unique opporunity to consider how various programs and approaches to the curriculum support high levels of student engagement.
  • Blended Learning
    • How do we leverage best practices and new technologies to building highly engaging learning opportunities? Over the past few years the Dedham Public Schools have focused on moving towards building a robust blended learning environment. Blended learning represents an approach to teaching and learning that combines the very best traditional teaching practices with new and emerging technologies that create innovative and engaging opportunities to learn. Blended learning asks us to
  • Cultural Proficiency
    • How do we build our professional capacity as culturally responsive practitioners to ensure that all students are able to engage in our classrooms and clinics? This year members of the DHS faculty are taking a close look at developing the cultural proficiency of all professionals serving students. This work is essential to ensuring that we truly understand our students and the contexts in which they live and work outside of school. Building this level of understanding of our students creates a situation in which students see that the adults in their lives truly understand them and their circumstances and, as a result, they trust the adults and engage in opportunities to learn and grow.
  • Social and Emotional Learning
    • How do build safe and supportive learning environments that support high levels of student engagement? This year the district begins the process of taking a close look at how we approach and support the social and emotional learning of students. Ensuring that students have both the interpersonal and intrapersonal skills to be active and productive members of the Dedham community is critical to ensuring that all students are highly engaged in the process of learning.


Thursday, July 28, 2016

Summer Curriculum Work

Each year we spend 180 days working with children to support their learning and development. Those days and weeks take tremendous energy and focus on the part of administrators, teachers, specialists and other professionals throughout the district. While our professionals are constantly planning learning opportunities and engaging in all sorts of professional activities, they rarely have the time or energy to take a step back and reflect on the broader curriculum and practices that shape their work with children. Once the buildings empty and our students are off on whatever adventure summer brings for them, members of our professional staff take a deep breath and roll up their sleeves to begin gathering their thoughts about what is working well and what could be improved for teaching and learning during the coming school year.

This summer there are many working groups around the district striving to improve our approaches to curriculum, instruction, and assessment. These groups are focusing on topics such as: 
  • building a consistent set of writing organizers to be used in all of our elementary classrooms. 
  • reviewing our instructional technology practices and beginning to unpack new digital literacy learning standards
  • reviewing and revising science curriculum and starting to unpack the new Massachusetts Science, Technology, and Engineering Standards.
  • review and revision of World and US history courses at the secondary level. 
  • review and revision of World Language courses for grades 6-12. 
  • review and revision of Special Education curriculum and programming in grades 6-12. 
  • review and revision of English Language Arts courses in grades 6-12. 
  • review and revision of Mathematics courses in grades 9-12. 
  • articulate Health and Physical Education curriculum for grades PK-12 and develop performance criteria, rubrics, and assessments. 
  • review and revision of ceramics and graphic design courses in the Fine and Performing Arts department. 
I am incredibly grateful for the hard work of the professionals who are engaging in this work and moving the work forward for our students and the community. Keep an eye out for more detailed information about this and other work that is going on throughout the district. If you have any questions or would like to learn more, please do not hesitate to shoot me an email at ikelly@dedham.k12.ma.us