Category: PD

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A Comprehensive Approach to Rigor, Relevance and Literacy

Learning time
Learning time

2007 wraps up with a week long series of workshops at Lakeland High School in White Lake, Michigan. On Monday, I’ll do an opening session on rigor, relevance and literacy strategies in the content area for the entire high school faculty.  But it doesn’t stop there.

On Tuesday, I’ll guide a group of about 15 teachers in classroom walk–through training. They will form a peer support group to assist teachers in reflecting on their instructional practice. Wednesday, I work with the Lakeland ninth grade team designing interdisciplinary approaches to integrating the themes across the curriculum. On Thursday and Friday, I work with selected departments to assist them in developing lessons in their disciplines. In addition, I’ll be giving an evening presentation for parents, school board and community. They need to have an understanding of new perspectives in teaching and learning.

I have to congratulate school principal, Bob Behnke, on his comprehensive approach to supporting his teachers. He’s leveraging one professional development day and a rotating pool of subs to give his faculty a variety of settings to reflect on instructional practice and develop new approaches.

The week proved to be a very rewarding opportunity for me to work with a creative group of teachers in workshops and walk-through sessions. Here’s some of the follow up emails I’ve received from teachers at Lakeland –

Peter,
It was a pleasure to meet with you today.  Thank you for conducting the inservice in a way that was engaging.  It was a special treat to attend an inservice for something that will definitely benefit me, my students, and our school community.  Too often we are asked to attend workshops that have great ideas and, I’m sure, the best intentions, but they fall short.  I really appreciated having the opportunity to discuss freely the state of education, identify areas where we can apply rigor and relevance in our classrooms, and time to work with my peers.  Walking out of the inservice with materials, resources and ideas I can implement tomorrow is icing on the cake.
Thank you!
Brigid

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Peter,
I wanted to thank you again for the work you did this past week at Lakeland.  I know that the vast majority of the faculty found your information useful and several informed me that they had already incorporated some of the rigor and relevancy into their lesson plans.  This shows me their willingness to realize that they can improve the way they teach to really reach students at a higher level.  This would not have happened if you had not put a mirror to their faces and let them know that they are good teachers who could be doing more.
Sincerely,
Marc

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Peter –
I just wanted to thank you for spending a week in our building, and in particular for the work you did with us on Wednesday regarding the 9th grade teams.  So often our professional development is mostly talk with very little time for application, but I truly appreciated the resources, ideas, and opportunity for professional discussion that your session provided for us.  I particularly loved the digital book idea.  In fact, I’m planning to implement it right away in my current unit.
Thanks again, and take care,
Maggie

Image credit: flickr/Temari 09

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Rigor and Relevance Walk–Through Training for Principals

I’ve been working with Elizabeth Forward School District in Elizabeth PA to enhance the rigor and relevance of their instructional program. I’ve been impressed with the high level of involvement by the full administrative team. We started with half-day workshops for their K-5 and secondary teachers on classroom strategies. I used my TurningPoint audience response system to gather feedback from both audiences. The following day, the administrative team met to analyze the data and develop an action plan.

Soon I will return and we’ll conduct walk-though training for the administrative team. We’ll spend a day working in small teams to observe classrooms in action and alternately meet as a full team to process our observations. By the end of the day we should have a model for conducting walk-throughs that will help principals and teachers to collaborate in a way that is rigorous and relevant to them. Our goal is quick 5-minute walk-throughs that help principals manage the demands of instructional leadership and provide feedback that will enable teachers to reflect on their craft.

I value results over process so I’ve developed a walk-through observation form RR-guide that targets the essentials without becoming a burden to the principal. It designed to serve as the catalyst for a positive principal-teacher discussion. Hopefully that conversation can model the “student-centered” reflection we want to foster in the classroom.

For more on walk-throughs see: Leadership By Walking Around and Walk-Throughs are on the Move!

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Life is Good – For those with 21st Century Skills

This week I had the privilege to be the keynote speaker at the Mid-Willamette Education Consortium Conference “Life is Good” in Salem Oregon. I began the day as the featured speaker at the administrators’ luncheon. The organizer had asked me to recommend a book for the attendees. I selected Tough Choices or Tough Times: The Report of the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce.  It speaks to one of the central challenges of education  – how to ensure that students have ample support for creativity and reflection – think of Bloom’s synthesis and evaluation. The report states:

“Creativity, innovation, and flexibility will not be the special province of an elite. It will be demanded of virtually everyone who is making a decent living. … If someone can figure out the algorithm for a routine job, chances are that it is economic to automate it…. The best employers the world over will be looking for the most competent, most creative and most innovative people on the face of the earth and be willing to pay then top dollar for their services.” more

After lunch I gave my keynote talk to an audience of CTE teachers – I entitled it, “Life is Good – For those with 21st Century Skills” Teachers don’t have time to waste – and they like to leave a workshop with practical ideas. I was pleased when I received this email from one of the attendees.

Peter,

I attended the MWEC kick off last night…and deeply appreciated your presentation.  I was the one who asked about the Checking Account comparison assignment… As a warm-up activity I did as you suggested…had the kids select something they might want to purchase…had them figure out what “things” (later defined that as criteria) they would consider when purchasing their item…They were into it…asked tons of questions to clarify…and did a great job… I had them get away from their computer, walked into the hall…into two lines….then they faced each other (random pairing…on purpose) One designed line explained their CRITERIA to the other line…the second line were actively listening and repeated the criteria back…and vice versa…. While they were still standing outside the classroom, I explained the checking unit and our next comparison activity… They are still working on it, but they are MUCH clearer about the process than any of my previous classes have been. 

THANK YOU for sharing your ideas!  It is always great if you can take one or two things away from a conference, but I have never been able to walk directly back into my classroom and utilize a conference tidbit like this… WONDERFUL!

Carol Kilfoil
Business Education Teacher
Department Chair
West Salem High School
Salem, OR 

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Essential Skills for Today’s School Leaders

North Carolina's Principals’ Executive Program (PEP), is the first and longest-running program of its kind in the United States. PEP is an excellent example of how rigorous, research-based training in modern leadership techniques and instructional strategies can improve teaching and learning in America’s public schools.

I am pleased to be one of the speakers at PEP's 2006 Statewide Leadership Conference “Essential Skills for Today’s School Leaders.” 

Rigor, Relevance and Content Reading Strategies
Download pappas-rigor-NC-PEP.pdf PPT Handout 3.6 MB pdf   
Download PeterPappas-rigor-relevance.WMA  2 hour Audio 30MB wma
This session demonstrates how educators can boost achievement with a consistent focus on common instructional strategies in a student-centered classroom. The presentation includes practical examples of how school leaders can support content mastery and build student literacy skills in vocabulary, comprehension and analysis. For more information visit my site Content Reading Strategies that Work
In this session we used my TurningPoint audience response system to gather feedback and guide our discussion. TurningPoint can produce a variety of reports and can even track results by individual responder. Want to know more about TurningPoint response systems? Contact Mike Venrose at mvenrose@turningtechnologies.com

Publishing – Academic Success for Struggling Readers and Writers
Download pappas-publish-NC-PEP.pdf PPT Handout 3.5 MB pdf 
Download PeterPappas-digital-publishing.WMA 1 hour Audio  14MB wma
This session offers examples of publishing programs that have successfully helped struggling readers and writers, strategies for incorporating publishing workshops into your school's curriculum, and simple technology tips that produce good results. For more information visit my site Read > Think > Write > Publish

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Reinventing your high school? Be sure to focus on instruction.

On October 1 – 3 over 2,000 education leaders from 35 states convened at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C. to learn about exemplary high schools across the country and how to apply their successful approaches and strategies.

Over the course of the weekend I presented a six working sessions called “Focus on Instruction” to most of the attendees. My pitch was very direct – first forge a common view of teaching and learning, and then treat the organization as an instrument for accomplishing the vision.

On October 1st, my talk targeted creating a common vision for rigor and relevance. I included video interviews with the teachers and students at the Eastridge Ninth Grade Academy in Rochester NY. Download PowerPoint notes  (726kb) Visit my Small Learning Communities Website to see my Ninth Grade Academy Video and other resources.

On October 2nd  I offered insights into the elements of a common vision of instruction. Download PowerPoint notes  (934kb) Download PodCast (45 mb) 47 minutes

I was joined by Susan Gunderman, Principal of Kennesaw Mountain High School, Kennesaw, GA (also Dr. Mimi Dyer- Coordinator – Academy of Math, Science & Technology and Lenora Nyeste, KMHS Instructional Lead Teacher) Download their PowerPoint notes (831kb)

The Symposium explored in depth the successful approaches identified in schools involved in the high school initiatives being conducted by the Council of Chief State School Officers and the International Center for Leadership in Education.