September Times in Konocti Unified

Life-long learners - Adults and Students

                

Konocti lays the groundwork with strong relationships amongst its staff and students.
In an inviting and welcoming environment, staff can, then, embark on several  fundamental practices and ignite that deep learning in students of one year's growth or more. (Knowing people use more than just these four practices) 

Konocti's Instructional Goal is to ensure 1+ for our students

Some fundamental action steps to cause this 1+:
1.)  Clarity - clear expectations through the learning intention and success criteria

2.) Always knowing one's impact based on student progress
3.) Other high leverage strategies within these two instructional pillars


One critical support that improves our instructional practices as a professional, and then advances students learning and well-being is collaboration.

The purpose of collaboration is just that = to improve our instructional practice and then directly impact student learning and well-being. 

When collaboration is "done well", we can achieve such an essential outcome.

The type of collaboration that serves this purpose is one where the conversation is deeply focused around evidence of student learning and the"effective" instructional practices (DuFour, 2004) :
(1.) Such a conversation is steeped in evidence of student progress and achievement,
(2.) The team members identify and share the instructional strategies that contributed to such progress and achievement - success -  sharing - Eureka!
(3.) The team taps into their collective wisdom and makes refinements to current strategies and/or adds new instructional strategies to the repertoire

Such a conversation both affirms and enhances our instructional practices to then implement, continuing the success with students already improving and achieving as well as reaching kids never before reached - the light bulb turns on; the caliber of work surpasses their own expectation; there is a new level of involvement and excitement.

Just as staff collaborate regularly on site and as a whole school district, the principals and I also collaborate two times a month. Once a month our collaborations also strategic in nature. The conversation is steeped in evidence of adult growth and student improvement. The principals and I evaluate our impact based on staff instructional success, and then based on students' academic and social emotional success = 1+ for all of us.