The THS Marching Band
takes the field at the University of Tennessee!
Saturday, September 7, the THS Wildcat Marching Band took
the field at Neyland Stadium to perform with the Pride of the Southland
Marching Band during the Tennessee Vols -Brigham Young University football
game! This special invitation to perform with the University of Tennessee Marching
Band provided THS students a wonderful college experience and an opportunity to
be part of an evening prime time, Division 1 football game. A BIG THANK YOU to the TCS community for the
financial support, volunteers and chaperones! Your support made this
possible.
Recognitions and
Leadership
This past Thursday, the Tennessee School Boards Association
(TSBA) had its Fall District Meeting for the South Central region at the newly
opened Maury County, Battle Creek Middle School. TCS Board of Education
President Pat Welsh, who also serves as the TSBA South Central District
Director facilitated the meeting.
Among the items discussed included concerns and legislative
priorities for the upcoming year. State
testing, charter schools, vouchers, graduation requirements, and clarity on
what is the definition of an “alternative school” and its purpose were identified. More information will follow.
A high point of the evening was the presentation of the TSBA
Student Recognition Award. This year, THS
senior Spencer Yoder, son of Bill and Lane Yoder, was selected. It was great to have South Central Director, Pat
Welsh, present the award to Spencer! Another highlight was that Mr. Welsh was
elected unanimously to serve a second term as District Director! The evening
was simply outstanding!
Facebook
Several have asked about the status of the TCS Facebook page. As you may know, Facebook has come under fire
recently regarding their practices. Facebook is a website for users to connect with friends,
work colleagues or people they don’t know.
The bump is that when traffic on a Facebook page has the potential to reach
a certain volume, Facebook requires the account to be tied to a real person,
not a business or organization. When the TCS Facebook account was created, it
was not tied to a person but to the organization. Due to our potential reach, Facebook is requiring
the TCS Facebook page to be tied to a specific person and that person’s
identity. Linking the TCS Facebook account
to a TCS employee, and using their identity, has raised several questions which
are being worked through. More
information and updates will follow. You
can continue to follow Tullahoma City Schools happenings on Twitter at
#TCSPublic, on Instagram at tcspublic, and #TCSPublic.
TCS: Transformation and
Redesign
The TCS Mission sets our direction for “challenging and innovative
experiences for all student’s academic, social, and emotional development.” To accomplish this requires strategic
thinking and deliberate actions. To go slow is to go fast.
The plan for the 2019-20 school year is to be one of
research and design. This year the goal
is to take inventory of strengths and resources already in place and identify
areas of opportunity. From instructional practices to classrooms/learning
spaces to identifying community resources, the intent is to take a good hard “look
in the mirror” and at the same time, investigate emerging practices and
research. The outcome will be an
affirmation of what is working and an identification of growth.
There are so many voices selling and telling K-12 education
how instruction should look. Going forward, it is crucial we discern innovation
from novelty. Many TCS staff have done remarkable graduate research on topics ranging
from integrating technology into instruction practices to addressing social and
emotional challenges to learning that students face. The bottom line is that we
need to utilize our internal experts and then design instruction accordingly. This
is a journey we will all take together.
How do we know where we
are going?
In the previous ten months, “Wildcat Well” conversations have
occurred. This group was a representation of TCS educators from across the district
that came together to share TCS institutional history, initiatives, and to look
over the horizon of what we might accomplish.
The Renaissance Group was also established. The Renaissance
group meets weekly and includes the principals, assistant principals, Directors
of Special Education, Technology, Curriculum and Instruction, and myself. Both of these groups recognized the
importance of having some kind of measure and mile markers that could be used
to determine where we are, our growth, and the best estimate of the end result.
The QED Transformational Change model was adopted.
The QED Transformational
Change Model
The Transformational
Change Model looks at indicators of learning environments across three
different strata of change:
§
Traditional – where change is about making
improvements to current practices, thus effectively maintaining the status quo.
§
Transitional – where change aims to change current
practices to improve outcomes, with tangible impact on the status quo.
§
Transformational – where change aims to change not only
practices, but outcomes, thereby disrupting the status quo
As change
progresses from left to right (from traditional to transformational), the depth
of the color blue increases accordingly, indicating the depth (and fidelity) of
implementation required. For some indicators the progression from one degree of
change to another is not a smooth or natural one; these are illustrated by a
white gap in the row. The white gaps indicate the need for the educational system
to break with one practice and often a corresponding set of beliefs and
assumptions in order to embrace the next. The two practices cannot exist
side-by-side in any meaningful way.
Similarly, as
the model moves from left to right, the discrete indicators of traditional
change begin to merge into a more holistic transformational picture of a student-centered learning environment, supporting simultaneous change in other
indicators.
Wildcat Well
“roughnecks” and Renaissance Group members looked at the QED model (version 4.1
October 2011) and through consensus established a TCS baseline.
(An update QED Transformational Model Version 5.1 January
2014 has been “crosswalked” with the TCS work from the October 2011 version
4.1)
The assumption is in addressing the identified conditions in
the QED model and moving to Transformational, we will accomplish the District
Mission. The QED model gives direction forward and a big-picture map.
The Renaissance Group consensus determined the first six of
the QED conditions to address for the 2019-20 school year. In the spring of 2020, with educator’s input,
we will evaluate progress on the first six QED conditions and then determine
the next four conditions to focus on for 2020-21. The thinking is that each
following year four conditions would be addressed until all are operational
with a completed target date of July of 2025.
QED 6
|
Condition
|
Traditional
|
Transitional
|
Transformational
|
|
Student Progress*
|
text-driven seat time
|
standards-based instruction
|
proficiency-based
|
|
Learner Motivation
|
meeting requirements
|
interest-driven engagements
|
curiosity, wonder, and passion
|
|
Personalization*
|
group instruction
|
differentiations
|
negotiate learning plans
|
|
Learner Support*
|
remediation of deficits
|
intervention for skill gaps
|
an acceleration based on learner profiles
|
|
Learning Culture
|
based on authority
|
based on defined roles
|
based on relationships
|
|
Leadership
|
hierarchy/seniority
|
designated individuals /group
|
everyone takes responsibility
|
*denotes
potential for technology use.
Early Progress
In addition to Wildcat Drilling and Renaissance Group
conversations, this past spring TCS used the Future Ready Curriculum,
Instruction and Assessment tool to evaluate what we teach, how we teach, and
how we measure achievement. Director of Curriculum and Instruction, Susan
Fanning followed up with conversations across the district regarding
curriculum.
Findings from the Future Ready tool and district
conversations indicated the need to vertically and horizontally align
curriculum. Specifically, curriculum standards and student outcomes are
clearly defined and articulated across grade levels at the elementary and
middle school levels. The curriculum would then be vertically aligned at the elementary,
middle and high school. Work began this
past summer with math and is now complete. English Language Arts (ELA) is up
next. This work connects with Student
Progress, Personalization, and Learner Support.
The instructional model from Harrisburg, South Dakota, in
which students take ownership in their learning, will continue to be studied this
school year. Already some of the “lessons learned” from onsite visits have been
put into practice here in Tullahoma. These practices connect with Student
Progress and Personalization.
Taking lessons from Learning Transformed. 8 Keys to
Designing Tomorrow’s School, Today (Sheninger, Murray. ASCD 2017) TCS staff have been designing
learner-centered spaces. Flexible seating has been designed by teachers and
built by TCS maintenance staff. A GREAT
collaboration.
NEXT...
Next up will be designing channels of
communication district-wide for the free flow of ideas, feedback, and thinking.
Communication is not about speaking, it’s about
listening.
From my most recent read Start With Why. How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action (Sinek. Penguin Group. 2009)
Enjoy
the thrill and excitement of teaching and learning!
This
is what teaching and learning looked like last week
