5 Step of Learning

5 Steps of Learning

Our journey to higher student achievement has taken us through a system which supports effective teaching, higher student growth, professional development, instructional feedback and continuous collaboration. As we contemplate the increased rigor of the Indiana State Content Standards the benefits of our instructional system allows us to be ahead of the curve.  Excellent teaching practices are our foundation and increasing the rigor of our content is supported through this system.

As a member of the Indiana Principal Leadership Institute through, Indiana State University, we have studied Marzano's High Reliability Schools model.  This model consists of 5 surveys to determine where the school rates in becoming a High Reliability School.  Although, Scott currently implements a system to develop an effective school, I (along with the TAP Leadership Team) evaluated the data to determine where we stand in effective instruction.  Below you will find the results of the Marzano High Reliability Schools level 2 survey which focuses on Effective Instructional Practices.  Below find a summary of the purpose of the evaluation and the overall mean for each Leading Indicator.  The survey was completed by the Scott staff in November and December.

Administrators, teachers, and other personnel at Scott Middle School were asked to respond to an online survey designed to gauge their school’s initial status on the second level of the High Reliability Schools (HRS) framework. Level 2 has six leading indicators which address factors considered to be foundational to any substantive change within a school:

	Administrator			Teachers & Staff
Leading Indicator	M	SD		M	SD
2.1: The school leader communicates a clear vision as to how instruction should be addressed in the school.	4.97	0.09		3.93	0.35
2.2 Teachers are provided support to continually enhance their pedagogical skills through reflection and professional growth plans.	4.65	0.20		3.94	0.35
2.3: Predominant instructional practices throughout the school are known and monitored.	4.40	0.28		4.12	0.14
2.4: Teachers are provided with clear, ongoing evaluations of their pedagogical strengths and weaknesses that are based on multiple sources of data and are consistent with student achievement data.	4.58	0.20		3.98	0.25
2.5: Teachers are provided with job-embedded professional development that is directly related to their instructional growth goals.	4.92	0.18		3.94	0.17
2.6: Our teachers have opportunities to observe and discuss effective teaching.	4.97	0.09		3.60	0.32

After evaluating the survey results as a team, we were excited to see our current school system led us to score high in all Leading Indicators.  In addition, we determined the means were consistently on target and where there was a disconnect it is possible the language used in the survey was misinterpreted by some staff members.  With this knowledge, we are excited to continue with our current instructional/professional development system to build a successful school.

As the instructional leader of Scott, this data tells me our staff understands what the expectations are for teaching and learning.  This blog post began with a visual of the 5 Steps of Learning which is the foundation of instructional practices.  It is impossible to begin a lesson without a clear, measurable objective based on the needs of your students.  The 5 Steps of Learning are not only used during student learning, but when we are developing professional development lessons.  With now only 17 instructional days until the Applied Skills portion of the ISTEP test we must provide rigorous lessons with specific instructional goals!