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Planning For Your First Cluster Cycle
By June 21, your leadership team will need to meet and identify 6-8 areas of needed focus from the TAP instructional rubrics. These focus points should be determined based upon teacher observation data from last year's evaluation results. It will be important to think and reflect on your formal and informal observations from last year to ensure the plans for professional development hone in on the needs within the indicators, down to the descriptor level. -
Develop Outcomes and Follow-up assignments
By Friday July 25th, your team should develop clear outcomes (objectives) for the 6-8 cluster meetings that will make up cycle one. Also you should Identify what teachers will be expected to do in their classrooms as a result of the meeting. This will guide you in your next steps as you design the new learning segment of the meeting. -
Identify New Learning and Student Work Examples
Teams will need to think through their Cluster Long Range Plan for cycle one, and identify how to support teacher learning with relevant student examples. Teams will take the outcomes they have previously designed and make plans for trying the instructional process in a classroom to collect student work that exhibits effective instructional practices. Each of the 6-8 sessions should be guided by field-tested lessons and student work examples. A workshop will be provided July 28th. -
Develop a Field-Testing Calendar
Teachers return on August 4th. Confirm which teachers will participate in the field-testing of lessons that can serve to guide and generate student work examples for the cluster learning. Once teacher participants are confirmed, schedule field-testing for the week of Aug 11-15, once students have returned. Make sure that the leadership team members are available to observe and debrief the field testing process so that critical pieces of learning are identified. -
First Three Weeks
By August 15th, field-testing should be complete for at least the first three sessions of cluster cycle one. Agendas should be compeleted, and the meeting plan should have clear expectations for modeling the classroom application and labeling the student work attributes that resulted from the lesson implementation. Support for teacher development of the learning for their own classroom must also be planned so that teachers walk away from the meetings with clear next steps. -
First Cluster 2014-2015
Present the Cluster Long Range Plan for Cluster Cycle One to teachers during the first week of cluster (Aug 18-22). Identify which areas will be focused on and why. Follow the plan for the first cluster. During this week continue field-testing and planning for weeks 4-8. Also, meet as a team to reflect on teacher reactions to the use of student work examples and their readiness for classroom application of the new learning. -
Make the Plan a "Living Document"
Be prepared to be flexible within your long-range plan. If teachers need more time or support, you may need to spend additional time on indicators and descriptors. The goal for this cluster cycle is to support teachers with understanding the best practices of the rubric, so make sure their needs are met.
