In order to provide an environment where all students perform up to their potential and are prepared for the future, we will make sure that students:

• Are actively involved in their own learning.
• Use writing as a way to learn.
• Have some ownership over what is being learned.
• Communicate with peers about what they are learning.
• Study subjects in a way that shows them applications to real life.
• Are able to make connections among content areas.
• Are instructed in ways that help all students learn the Core Academic Standards, which Kentucky has determined are essential for all students to know and be able to do.

To help ensure our instructional practice principles are implemented:

Each week, students will have the opportunity to:

• Receive appropriate and meaningful feedback.
• Work with other students in pairs, small groups, or teams.
• Do hands-on activities.
• Use calculators.
• Read books or materials on their own or with a partner.
• Listen to an adult read aloud.
• Discuss different ways to solve problems.
• Have access to appropriate technology and/or equipment.

 

Each month, students will have the opportunity to:

• Read and write in all content areas.
• Complete extended response, short answer, and on demand items.
• Communicate with pictures, charts, graphs, or a web.
• Use a scoring guide or rubric.
• Use resources other than a textbook or worksheet.
• Be exposed to real-life examples that relate to content areas.
• Discuss or read about current events, issues, or topics.
• Watch the teacher do a demonstration.
• Perform or create in an area of the arts and humanities.

Each grading period, students will have the opportunity to:

• Participate in a one-on-one reading or writing conference with a teacher.
• Do projects and investigations.
• Participate in a peer reading or writing conference.
• Read novels, short stories, and poems.
• Read newspapers and magazines.
• Use appropriate technology for research.
• Do real-life activities or projects.
• Design or investigate projects based on their interests.
• Speak in front of a group.

To ensure that the principles and guidelines above are implemented, every teacher shall:

1. Use differentiated instructional strategies, which are both student centered and culturally responsive, to address various learning styles.
2. Use activities and questions that allow all students to be consistently engaged in higher-order thinking and problem-solving skills. 
3. Assign tasks similar to those used for state assessments. 
4. Provide opportunities for students to connect their learning to other topics and subjects and real-life experiences.      
5. Use technology for appropriate and varied learning activities and to extend the classroom into the community and the world.
6. Use instructional resources that are developmentally appropriate, culturally diverse, and varied.
7. Engage in structured PLC work (grade level and/or vertically aligned) to ensure student success.
8. Follow the procedures outlined in our Homework Policy.
9. Provide students with opportunities to evaluate their performance and use the feedback to reflect on and improve classroom practice as needed.

To ensure that these instructional practice principles and guidelines are implemented and teachers are able to fulfill their role, the principal will:

1. Make sure that these instructional practice principles and guidelines are taken into account in both the interview process and in the final selection of all teachers.
2. Encourage and support teachers in their role.
3. Encourage professional development that supports the implementation of this policy.

Arts and Humanities

 

Professional development in dance, drama, music and visual arts will support improved instructional practices, innovative ways of teaching, use of arts-specific technology, and effectiveness in the application of skills, process, and content in the visual and performing arts.

 

POLICY EVALUATION

We will evaluate the effectiveness of this policy through our School Improvement Planning Process.

 

Date Adopted:  _2-27-13__

 

Date Reviewed or Revised:  _____         Council Chairperson’s Initials _____