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Principal's Instructional Leadership Team - Session II


WCSD leaders gathered this afternoon for the second session of the course, "Principal's Instructional Leadership Team". This year-long inservice supports school site principals and a small team of instructional leaders to collaborate throughout a year of study to develop and articulate a vision of instruction and build capacity for this vision at their school sites. The course focuses on identifying and facilitating core instructional methods that promote a discussion-rich classroom where students are accountable for reasoning and application of skills. The goals of this year-long course include:
  • Increase shared leadership and teacher efficacy 
  • Develop a vision of instruction to inform the 2016-1017 school performance plan
  • Identify the agreed upon processes that will shape a culture for student centered learning
  • Clearly articulate best practices for Tier 1 instruction throughout the school 
This afternoon's session focused on the roles of a school principal in Common Core implementation and some of tools available to support this work.  Leadership teams began by reviewing the norms, goals, and reflected on their work thus far through the course. They then engaged with Riddile's "Five Essential Schoolwide Conditions for Common Core Achievement",  discussing what they can start doing at their school sites to better support the CCSS at their school sites.  Participants later moved to using the Instructional Practice Guides to support collaborative inquiry and create a common vision for instruction, starting by pairing the Guides with videos from Elementary and High School classrooms. Participants ended the session by planning how to implement this work back at their school sites; between now and the third session leadership teams will facilitate professional learning with their staff using the IPGs paired with video and conduct observations focused by the IPGs in classrooms throughout their school sites.  Participants will also read and annotate an excerpted portion of Learning to Improve in preparation for the next session. Materials for this session are linked below. 
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