teacher clarity playbook - corwin

www.corwin.com/teacherclarity

Teacher Clarity Playbook

PD options for building clarity around standards and learning through teacher collaboration

Professional Learning

Guide

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Teacher clarity is about understanding what students need to learn and identifying how they will know that they learned it. To get there, teachers have to analyze standards and plan meaningful instruction and assessments. But planning should be focused on impact, not on instruction. Yes, teams of teachers can talk about how they will engage students in meaningful learning, but they must focus on the impact of those activities on learning. In doing so, they clarify their expectations.


Teachers know what students need to learn

Teachers communicate learning intentions

to students

Teachers and students understand

success criteria

Who is Teacher Clarity for?

Classroom teachers

Instructional coaches

Administrators

PLCs

What is Teacher Clarity

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A Foundation for Deeper Understanding Corwin approaches professional learning with a focus on building educators’ knowledge of evidence-based practices and providing implementation support to help educators move from surface to deep to transfer.

Why Teacher Clarity?The Teacher Clarity Playbook Workshop Series and resources support teachers in collaborative teams to identify learning intentions and discuss ideas for instruction, review student work and figure out if their efforts have been fruitful, and talk about students who need additional instruction to be successful. The best way to improve teacher clarity is to do so in the company of others. Meaningful teacher collaboration builds collective teacher efficacy, which is a constellation of attitudes and beliefs about the efforts of a school to affect student learning (Goddard, Hoy, & Hoy, 2000). When teachers experience success collaborating with peers and those collaborations improve teaching and learning, they notice. These accumulated data points become the collective efficacy that can triple the speed of learning.

Provide targeted educator support of implementation

Activate, co-construct, and apply newknowledge

Understand concepts

Adapted from Fisher, Frey, & Hattie (2016)


TRANSFER

DEEP

SURFACE

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Examine the relationship between teaching and learning by activating skills and knowledge around identifying concepts sequencing learning progressions, elaborating learning intentions, crafting success criteria, and designing assessment opportunities.

Continue to collaborate with colleagues to understand the impact of designing learning through the Teacher Clarity lens. Participate in a deep dive on how to move teams from the “knowing” phase to the “doing” phase and allow participants to reflect on the impact of their teaching.

We recommend planning for 3-5 implementation and coaching days over the course of a school year to ensure successful transfer of skills learned to daily classroom practice and school culture.

These fully customizable services include options such as:

FOUNDATION DAY 1 FOUNDATION DAY 2

IMPLEMENTATION AND COACHING DAYS


Professional Learning Workshops

• Guided classroom visits collaborating with your school leadership team to gather evidence about implementation of Teacher Clarity practices and the impact on student learning.

• Analyze data from guided classroom visits and identify the progress towards implementation and best practices

• Feedback and discussions focused on developing a culture of learning centered around Teacher Clarity

• Leadership coaching to develop a continuous cycle of improvement that identifies next steps to further support the culture of learning and increased student outcomes

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

IdentifyingConceptsand Skills

SequencingLearning

Progressions

ElaboratingLearning

Intentions

ModifyingLearning

Intentionsto IncludeLanguage

Expectations

Determiningthe

Relevanceof the

Learning

CreatingMeaningful

LearningExperiences

EstablishingMastery

of Standards

CraftingSuccessCriteria

DesigningAssessment

Opportunities

Why Engage in Teacher Clarity Playbook Series Workshops?Teacher Clarity Playbook Workshops guide educators through nine modules to build their

understanding of what students need to learn and identifying how they will know that they learned it.

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• Analyze the standards to determine what students need to know

• Sequence learning logically to support content and language development

• Identify the relevance of the learning expectations to ensure that students are engaged and motivated

• Determine how they and their students will know if students are successful in learning

• Identify what it would mean to learn the content and express that in terms of success criteria

• Identify summative assessment tools that can be used to determine mastery of the standards

• Create meaningful learning experiences for students and monitor their response to the instruction

• Identify progress-monitoring tools that they can use to adjust the instruction and supplemental support student receive

• Implement response to intervention efforts if students do not learn

Series attendees will gain a stronger understanding of how to:


Outcomes

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Supporting ResourcesThe Teacher Clarity Playbook, Grades K–12

A Hands-On Guide to Creating Learning Intentions and Success Criteria for Organized, Effective InstructionDouglas Fisher, Nancy Frey, Olivia Amador, Joseph Assof

Succinct, smart, and swift, this book’s nine learning modules takes you systematically through a process that begins and ends with standards. With abundant cross-curricular examples that span grade levels, planning templates for every step, key professional learning questions, and a PLC guide with video and PowerPoints, you have the most practical planner for designing and delivering highly effective instruction.ISBN: 9781544339818

Developing Assessment-Capable Visible Learners, Grades K–12Maximizing Skill, Will, and ThrillNancy Frey, John Hattie, Douglas Fisher

Imagine students who describe their learning in these terms: “I know where I’m going, I have the tools I need for the journey, and I monitor my own progress.” Now imagine the extraordinary difference this type of ownership makes in their progress over the course of a school year. This illuminating book shows how to make this scenario an everyday reality in your classroom—one that will significantly increase your students’ capacity to thrive as they take responsibility for their own learning.ISBN: 9781506389981

PLC+ Better Decisions and Greater Impact by DesignDouglas Fisher, Nancy Frey, John Almarode, Karen Flories, Dave Nagel

Until now, the PLC movement has been focused almost exclusively on students and what they were or were not learning. But keeping student learning at the forefront requires that we also recognize the vital role that you play in the equation of teaching and learning. This means that PLCs must take on two additional challenges: maximizing your individual expertise, while harnessing the power of the collaborative expertise you can develop with your peers. PLC+ is grounded in four cross-cutting themes—a focus on equity of access and opportunity, high expectations for all students, a commitment to building individual self-efficacy and the collective efficacy of the professional learning community and effective team activation and facilitation to move from discussion to action.

ISBN: 9781544361796

Visible Learning for Literacy, Grades K-12Implementing the Practices That Work Best to Accelerate Student LearningDouglas Fisher, Nancy Frey, John Hattie

What if someone slipped you a piece of paper listing the literacy practices that ensure students demonstrate more than a year’s worth of learning for a year spent in school? Would you keep the paper or throw it away? We think you’d keep it. That’s why Douglas Fisher, Nancy Frey, and John Hattie wrote Visible Learning for Literacy. They know teachers will want to apply Hattie’s head-turning synthesis of more than 15 years of research involving millions of students, which he used to identify the instructional routines that have the biggest impact on student learning.

ISBN: 9781506332352


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Douglas Fisher is Professor of Educational Leadership at San Diego State University and a leader at Health Sciences High & Middle College. He has served as a teacher, language development specialist, and administrator in public schools and nonprofi t organizations. Doug has engaged in Professional Learning Communities for several decades, building teams that design and implement systems to impact teaching and learning. He has published numerous books on teaching and learning, such as Assessment-Capable Visible Learners and Engagement by Design.

Nancy Frey is a Professor in Educational Leadership at San Diego State University and a leader at Health Sciences High & Middle College. She has been a special education teacher, reading specialist, and administrator in public schools. Nancy has engaged in Professional Learning Communities as a member and in designing schoolwide systems to improve teaching and learning for all students. She has published numerous books, including The Teacher Clarity Playbook and Rigorous Reading.

Olivia Amador is a Professional Learning Consultant with Corwin. As an award-winning elementary school principal, former bilingual teacher, and reading and language arts specialist, her area of focus and expertise is in creating a culture of learning connected to high-impact practices, English language development, teacher collaboration, and leadership development.

Joseph Assof is an eleventh- and twelfth-grade mathematics teacher and the math department chair at Health Sciences High & Middle College in San Diego, CA. He leads his department’s reform efforts to align to the Common Core Standards with a focus on high quality instruction. He is a member of the San Diego County Math Leaders Task Force, whose mission is to support every student in meeting the rigorous expectations of the Common Core. Joseph’s classroom is featured in a number of videos in the book Visible Learning for Mathematics, Grades K–-12.


ABOUT THE THOUGHT LEADERS

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Cathy Lassiter is an education consultant with over 30 years experience as a public school teacher, principal, central offi ce administrator and consultant. She supports large and small districts in the areas of leadership development, school culture, principal and teacher evaluation, collaboration, instruction, assessment and closing achievement gaps.

Dr. Nicole Law is a dynamicand passionate educator whoprovides relevant professional development to schools and districts across the country. Nicole focuses her experience to present instruction on professional teacher teams, leadership improvement practices and structures, school improvement practices, and standards-based instruction and design.

Dave Nagel, a former teacher and principal, has used his experience and expertise to implement effective practices that help elementary through high school students experience achievement gain. Dave has been a teacher and coach to classroom educators and leaders across the country and internationally.

Ricky Robertson has had the privilege to work with students who have persevered in the face of adverse experiences and trauma. Drawing from experience as a teacher and Behavior Intervention Specialist, Ricky coaches educators in developing a relationship-based approach to teaching and learning that inspires transformation through compassion, humor, deep listening, and “real talk.”


MEET THE EXPERT IMPLEMENTATION TEAM

John Almarode is an Assistant Professor at the College of Education at James Madison University. Throughout his career he has conducted staff development workshops, keynote addresses,and conference presentations ona variety of topics including student engagement, evidence-based practices, creating enriched environments that promotelearning, and designing classroomswith the brain in mind.

Dr. Toni Faddis has served as a public-school educator for the past twenty-fi ve years as a teacher, principal, and district leader. She is also a faculty member of the Educational Leadership Department at San Diego State University, teaching a course on ethical leadership, problem-solving, and communication skills to teachers who aspire to become school principals.

Karen Flories works hands on with teachers and leaders to drive learning at surface, deep and transfer levels. Prior to her consulting work, Karen was the Executive Director of Educational Services for 5 years and Director of Literacy and Social Studies in VVSD for 2 years, after serving as the English Department Chairfor Romeoville high school.

Aida Rotell is a nationally recognized consultant whose primary aim is to engage all learners through reading and writing. She worked to create a bilingual program designed to build literacy skills in both Spanish and English, and often uses collaborative learning to build the social and academic language skills of her students.

Corwin has one mission: to enhance education through intentional professional learning.

We build long-term relationships with our authors, educators, clients, and associations who partner with us to develop and continuously improve the best, evidence-based practices that establish and support lifelong learning.

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Get started today! Request pricing and PD proposals at www.corwin.com/teacherclarity

teacher clarity playbook - corwin

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