The following professional development programs are available to school districts wanting to focus on school improvement. If you would like more information about school improvement professional development, contact Ron Sismondo by email or at 740-283-3347.

Use of Classroom Assessment for Student Learning by Richard J. Stiggins and others is the reference to define the Assessment for Learning process: principles of assessment for learning, assessment methods, and communicating assessment results.  This is not about accountability but about students getting better every day.

Classroom teachers responsible for students eligible to take state assessments (OAT/OGT) need this tool to plan and design lesson plans to match Academic Content Standards performance indicators with the six levels of rigor identified as Bloom’s Taxonomy.  An analysis of each state-tested grade level and content area are available for teachers' use in completing this process.

Use of short-cycle, ongoing evaluations to diagnose student needs, plan next steps in the instructional process, provide students with immediate feedback to improve quality of their work, and promote student self-discipline in their journey to succeed is fundamental to common grade-level assessments constructed by a consensus of teachers for all Academic Content Standards (Whole Faculty Study Group settings).

Common grade-level and academic content area lessons to align with textbooks and/or instructional materials used to deliver instruction will be developed with Bloom’s Taxonomy as a framework. Ohio Resource Center and ODE’s Instructional Management websites will serve as excellent references for lesson plan design.

A Power of Two model brings the regular education teacher (content resource person) and the intervention specialist teacher (methods resource person) together in an inclusive environment to provide whole-group, small-group, and/or individual instruction to diverse student populations.  This model is  productive in primary grade levels as well.

Grade level and/or academic content area staff will determine power standards and essential indicators and then design an instructional calendar to insure student preparation for statewide assessments.  This process will be developed on grade level as well as across grade levels. Across grade level teaming requires teachers to develop consensus for which teacher is responsible for content indicators at introductory, review, and/or mastery levels of performance. This information is then recorded on instructional calendars or maps to avoid gaps and redundancies in actual curriculum taught.

The Academic Content Standards have re-directed educators from traditional course of study work to curriculum alignment (horizontally and vertically), designing of mapping or instructional calendars, essential indicators/power standards, and developing common lesson planning/assessment matching Bloom’s levels of rigor. A transition to these processes from course of study documents is required.

An approach grounded in the concept of mentor and teacher teaming to:

1. Improve student achievement
2. Strengthen content knowledge
3. Strengthen knowledge in math pedagogy

High-quality, on-site professional development will target instructional strategies proven to help students better learn, understand, and apply mathematics.

Standards-based curriculum requires a paradigm shift from traditional (teach/test) instruction and assessment of student learning to a sequence of instruction (calendars/maps); pre-assessment of student readiness, interest, or level of learning; collecting and reviewing data to design instruction to meet core curriculum/intervention/ enrichment needs of students (differentiation); assess students frequently and provide immediate, ongoing feedback.  This shift can only occur from “the inside out” or One Teacher at a Time.