Images from Piloting Schools
How the ISA Rubrics have been introduced to SLC faculties
During the 2005-06 school year, seven small learning communities (SLCs) partnering with ISA piloted the ISA rubrics. NCREST documented the piloting process. Below are some images of how SLCs introduced the rubrics and began to use them as self-assessment and planning tools. They are intended to show a range of introduction strategies and approaches, which may be adapted for use in other SLCs.
SLC 1
This first rubric meeting was organized around a large chart devised by the co-leaders; the chart listed each of the different rubrics in columns and the levels “beginning,” “mature,” and “advanced” in rows. With all of the community staff present, copies of each rubric were placed on different tables. In groups of four, teachers spent five minutes examining one of the rubrics. On large post-it notes, each teacher wrote down a piece of evidence for where the community rated on the rubric, then stuck the post-it on the chart in the appropriate column and row. When finished, the groups circulated to a new rubric. The process continued until each group had examined each rubric. In the conversation that followed, facilitated by the SLC’s co-leaders, a number of points arose about how the ISA principles had been implemented; for instance, the group noticed that most of the evidence for the mature and advanced implementation of inquiry described activities from only a few different teachers’ classrooms.
SLC 2
The principal and coach discussed the best places to strategically introduce the rubrics—and which rubrics to focus on. They decided to focus on the Professional Development and Distributed Counseling rubrics because the school had well developed faculty led committees that related to these ISA principles: a House Committee that planned curriculum and activities for the school’s House (advisory) program and the Professional Development Committee that planned and facilitated most of the school’s whole-faculty PD events.
At a House Committee meeting, each member used a highlighter to identify where they thought the school was in terms of its implementation of Distributed Counseling. After sharing their individual assessments, and coming to consensus, the committee spent the remainder of the meeting brainstorming ideas and identifying specific steps the committee would take to move the program into mature implementation across the board, for example, to better integrate one of the school’s counselors into the House structure and pairing experienced and novice House leaders to plan curriculum together.
The school’s faculty-led PD Committee engaged in a similar rubric review exercise, using highlighters to assess the SLC’s progress in different dimensions of the Professional Development rubric. Some committee members felt the school had “regressed” somewhat on some of its PD goals and implementation. This led to a discussion of how the school could tighten up its PD programs. As the school’s ISA Coach put it, using the rubric “helped us become clear that we need to do that and propel that to the top of the agenda again, so we did.”
SLC 3
The SLC used a two-hour block during exam week to hold a staff meeting introducing the rubric for Literacy across the Curriculum. The meeting was facilitated by the ISA coach who first described how the rubric was designed and its organization. The staff reviewed the rubric and discussed their feelings on the content. The ISA coach then passed out two post-it notes to each teacher, one for themselves and one for the school, and asked teachers to rate themselves and the school according to the rubric by placing their post-it notes on a chart with four columns: Not yet under way, Beginning, Mature, and Advanced. After placing their notes, the staff discussed why they rated themselves and the school in that way and the general pattern of rankings.
In the last half-hour, the staff examined one typical 10th grade student portfolio for evidence of literacy across the curriculum according to the rubric. After reading the portfolio, each teacher had a chance to describe what they noticed about literacy in the students’ work and raise questions. To conclude, the ISA coach debriefed the activity and asked the staff to consider ways to continue using the rubric.
SLC 4
The inquiry rubric was introduced as part of a whole-faculty curriculum sharing meeting. After a brief discussion of the Inquiry-based Instruction rubric, the team engaged in a “tuning Protocol” as a way to consider how inquiry can be integrated into classroom projects. One of the school’s math teachers presented a recent project in which students researched Manhattan skyscrapers and applied mathematical formulas, such as the Pythagorean theorem, to calculate height of the skyscrapers. In giving the teacher “warm” and “cool” feedback, the group used the rubric to identify places where there was evidence of inquiry and places where there could be more emphasis on inquiry. For example, as warm feedback, a teacher observed that the project had a strong real-world connection to student lives; as cool feedback, a teacher asked if the project could support students in developing their own ways to solve some of the required problems?
SLC 5
During a full staff meeting, the SLC staff examined the Inquiry-based Instruction and Distributed Counseling rubrics. Staff members were split into pairs and asked to answer the following questions in writing: What does inquiry-based instruction mean in the classroom? What part of [the recently completed] projects demonstrated inquiry? What does distributed counseling look like at [our SLC]? After writing, the teachers individually read the two rubrics to compare them with their observations. A week after this initial meeting, the staff planned to examine their own lesson plans for evidence of inquiry. The principal plans to use the rubrics at weekly meetings for the rest of the year.
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