March

District direction: Striving for one year of growth for one year of school. We are looking to effectively implement some of the top yielding instructional strategies. Some such strategies might be: teacher clarity, effective feedback (checking for understanding), formative assessment, discussion and questioning, active engagement (synonymous to kids being visible learners). John Hattie's research being the guide as to what strategies work best in education.

District focus area:  Teacher and student clarity around what one is learning for the day and how one knows it is learned for the day. This clarity around learning can be measured by asking students during class visits, and/or by asking teachers. ("What are you learning ? How are you going in your learning? Where to next?")





I have two recent special events to share. One I had the opportunity to share Konocti's mid-year progress at the February school board meeting. It is always a pleasure to share our successes and next steps with our school board.
Second, I had the special privilege to represent Konocti at the Seattle one day Visible Learning Institute. Ten of us attended as participants. In a 15 minute presentation, I shared what and who Konocti is (we are on the map) all about, I share why we Konocti chose to partner with Corwin and Visible Learning this school year. I shared how we are going/doing so far on our journey. My main take away message to the audience = Konocti is a testament that John Hattie's research can be successfully and feasibly implemented into "your" own schools and districts.

Listening to the research again particularly about some key strategies around developing a visible learner, providing effective feedback, and know thy impact, I reflected on how far Konocti truly has progressed. Here are some examples:
**Kindergartners writing quality and coherent paragraphs containing 3 sentences.
**A grade level creating a targeted re-teach (rti) rotation after analyzing student writing and seeing improvement on the written assessment writing after the rotation.
**an entire school posting the learning intention and success criteria on their white boards.
**High school students self-assessing their learning in relation to the example math problems and the success criteria.
**High school students self-assessing their learning in relation to the model paper and in relation to the success criteria (the rubric).
**Elementary ambassadors greeting visitors and sharing the learning intention for the day.
**An entire school spending 30 minutes a day around targeted reading instruction.
** Parents are noticing their kids reading more at home.

And so many more exciting stories around student learning and quality instruction!