Innovative Schools

Learning-Focused

Innovative Schools has partnered with Learning-Focused to provide Delaware’s charter schools with professional development on Learning-Focused strategies.

What is Learning-Focused?

Learning-Focused is a comprehensive, continuous school improvement model that:

• provides schools with consistent learning
• provides exemplary instruction strategies
• integrates research-based exemplary practices.

Through practical frameworks and strategies that focus on creating and sustaining balanced achievement, Learning-Focused
helps schools make Planning, Prioritized Curriculum, Exemplary Instruction, Assessment, and Organization connections. Learning-Focused, a research based model, is able to integrate with and help prioritize many initiatives already being implemented in schools, creating a focus on increasing student achievement. 

Learning-Focused Workshops

These workshops are implemented in three phases. Phase One workshops are for the school leader and provide a context for the Learning-Focused work and help align resources and existing school initiatives toward the LEARNING- FOCUSED goals.

Phase One workshops include:

Leadership Training – 2 days

This session provides school leaders with necessary knowledge on exemplary practices, continuous improvement, and balanced achievement guidelines.

Leadership Conferencing – 2 days

These individual sessions focus on the specific needs of school leaders. Focus areas include scheduling, collection and use of data to increase learning, accountability, etc. Conferencing is provided by principals that have extensive knowledge and experience with creating exemplary schools.

Starting and Sustaining Exemplary Practices – 1 day

This planning session helps leaders create detailed, specific plans, inclusive of professional development, timelines, responsibilities, resources, goals, benchmarks, and more.

Unlocking the Secrets – 1 day

This workshop provides school leaders with an overview of the training their teachers will receive in the following year and aligning resources with those goals.

Supervising for Learning – 1 day

This session provides school leaders with strategies that help them focus on student learning as a means of providing support and accountability.

Phase Two and Three workshops are designed to help the schools’ teaching staff implement the Learning-Focused strategies in their classroom. Phase Two provides the tools and strategies for teachers and assists them in their practice, while Phase Three is dedicated to refining instruction in targeted areas and building sustainability. The Leadership Conferencing workshop from Phase One is repeated in Phases Two and Three to ensure that resources are continually aligned over consecutive years.

Teacher workshops in Phases Two and Three include:

Learning-Focused Strategies Model – 4 days

These workshops are for teaching staff and are each one day long. These workshops for teachers address:

• Transforming Standards into Learning
• Connecting Exemplary Practices in Acquisition Lessons
• Extending Thinking Strategies and
• Planning Units for Learning

Support Sessions – approximately 4 days

These sessions provide teachers with specific strategies and resources to strengthen their lessons in the area of:

• Vocabulary Instruction
• Math Acquisition Lessons
• Reading Assignments
• Differentiated Assignments
• Catching Kids Up
• Scaffolding Grade Level Learning

Monitoring for Achievement – Ongoing

Monitoring sessions are positioned in between the above workshops and provide administrators and teacher leaders with strategies and resources to conduct walkthroughs,5x5’s, and other monitoring as well as conducting reflection meetings.

Conferencing - Ongoing

Conferencing takes place for a two-day period after a Monitoring for Achievement workshop has been completed. The Conferencing sessions allow teachers to meet with the Learning-Focused consultant in small groups to refine knowledge.