Engaging students through innovative teaching
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Updates from the Field:
Updates from the Field (or Progress Reports) on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.com by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
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Index of Updates from the Field
Project Update- Letter to Presidential Candidates
By Aleta Margolis - Executive Director, August 05, 2008 07:34 PM
Dear Candidates,
Though there are many issues in this election, few are more important to the future of our country than education.
Center for Inspired Teaching is transforming education by investing in teachers. Our work with thousands of teachers, through courses, mentoring, and whole school partnerships over the past 13 years has proven that teachers are the solution. They are where the rubber meets the road in our schools. Yet all too often teacher quality is not the focus of school reforms. Improving accountability systems, establishing programs to attract new teachers and retain experienced ones, and encouraging new curricula are all valuable strategies in and of themselves, but they will accomplish little if we are not simultaneously investing in the quality of our nation’s teachers.
Inspired Teachers like Carolyn Wells prove this point. Carolyn teaches second grade in a school where less than 30 percent of students are reading on grade level. Her school tried every intervention you can imagine to get kids reading: after school tutoring, new textbooks, less recess, more testing. But what Carolyn noticed was that none of the one-size-fits-all strategies were working for her class filled with 22 individuals. So she came to Inspired Teaching looking for new ways to reach the students who were struggling to keep up. She took an Inspired Teaching course in which she learned to teach vocabulary through movement, to tap into students’ imaginations through storytelling, and to let her children’s various interests guide the reading material – not the chapters in the textbook. She applied what she learned in the classroom and at the end of the year she had the highest reading scores in the school. Carolyn was the solution, and there are hundreds of thousands of teachers out there just like her who have the potential to change what happens in their schools.
With this in mind, as you continue to develop your education agenda Center for Inspired Teaching asks you to consider the following:
1. If our nation is to remain strong and healthy, it is time to establish a higher, and more meaningful, standard for student success. It is not enough for young Americans to do well on standardized tests that assess a narrow set of basic skills. Rather, the graduates of our K-12 system must be prepared to engage fully in civic life. All of our children deserve a rich, relevant, and rigorous school experience that prepares them to think critically, demonstrate understanding, solve complex problems, and apply their learning to the challenges facing our communities.
2. A higher goal for students requires a new role for teachers. It is time to redefine the role of the teacher in the United States from deliverer of facts to developer of future citizens in our democracy. Redefining the role of the teacher will require rethinking our policies and practices in the areas of teacher recruitment, preparation, and evaluation. The effectiveness of an excellent teacher cannot and should not be measured by credentials or test scores alone. Rather, teacher quality policies for a strong democracy will encourage fresh approaches to evaluating what matters: the quality of actual classroom instruction, and impact of that instruction on students’ abilities to be active, productive citizens.
At Center for Inspired Teaching we know there is tremendous potential in our nation’s classrooms. We are calling on the next President of the United States to push for comprehensive education reform that addresses the needs of the new global economy. In order to be successful this reform must include a strong focus on teacher quality. We urge you to bring the challenges we identify above into the current political debate so that the potential of our teachers can be turned into practice.
As you craft your education policy agenda, we would be honored to share with you our years of experience in schools and classrooms and our advice on the best and most effective way to reform our schools.
Sincerely,
Aleta Margolis, Executive Director
A Letter from Inspired Teaching's Executive Director
By Aleta Margolis - Project Update, April 09, 2008 02:42 PM
Dear Friends and Supporters,
At Center for Inspired Teaching, we are continuing to strengthen Washington, DC’s public schools by investing in their teachers. Through inspiring new and veteran teachers, we are enabling them to unlock the innate potential in students across the District and contributing to a positive trend of empowerment in our communities.
Our programs are designed to improve teachers’ ability to think critically and solve problems, so they can do the same for their students, resulting in higher student achievement in school and in life. Teachers are themselves taught how to improve the emotional climate of their classroom, so that children feel safe and can focus on learning, resulting in improvements in behavior and a change in students’ life aspirations. As a result of these changes, students are more engaged in learning and less disruptive, thus decreasing the time teachers spend dealing with discipline problems and increasing the time spent teaching.
Inspired Teaching's most recent evaluation results demonstrate that:
* Inspired Teaching teachers spend over 50% less time on discipline than those who have not taken our programs.
* Inspired Teachers increase student participation by spending more classroom time in productive learning activities (83% vs. 74%) and far more often require students to be active participants in their learning (60% vs. 17%).
* Inspired Teachers engage students in much higher levels of thinking. Students in Inspired Teachers’ classrooms spend more time performing higher-order skills (43% vs. 26%) and Inspired Teachers ask more questions that require students to think at complex levels (62% vs. 32%).
* Inspired Teachers create an environment conducive to learning by focusing their discipline strategies on problem-solving and building relationships, rather than punitive behavior modification systems (95% vs. 37%).
* Inspired Teaching measures five elements of the work environment that research has shown to relate strongly to teacher job satisfaction and retention: leadership/school culture; professional development; facilities and resources; teacher empowerment; and time. Evaluations at partner schools show improvement in all of these areas.
Our work continues to be in high demand with principals and teachers requesting more school partnerships and programming, in response we have nearly tripled our staff. This year we inaugurated the Inspired Principal Institute, designed to reinvigorate and support veteran principals leading DC area schools. And, in this academic year we have worked with nearly 20 different schools!
It is my sincere hope that you will join us as we continue to transform DC’s schools through the power of Inspired Teachers and the potential of all students.
Sincerely,
Aleta Margolis
Executive Director
P.S. To learn more about Inspired Teaching's research-based professional development programs, which range from in-depth school partnerships to professional development courses for teachers, please visit the organization's Web site: www.inspiredteaching.org.
CIT featured in the Washington Post
By Aleta Margolis - Project leader, September 10, 2007 04:42 PM
Inspired Teaching is featured today on the front page of the Washington Post education section in an article entitled "Center Focuses on Teachers, Not Test Scores" by Valerie Strauss:
Standing in a circle, three dozen teachers listened to an instructor rattle off a math problem. "The square of 4 times 3 plus 5 times 7 minus 8."
They attempted to calculate it in their heads, but not everyone got the right answer, and it wasn't because they couldn't do the math. The teachers realized that not everyone accurately heard the instructions. Some thought the instructor said -- or meant to say -- square root of 4, rather than the square of 4. (So their first calculation was 2 instead of 16.)
"It may seem simple, but this is why it is so important to be sure that you and your students are on the same page," Aleta Margolis, founding executive director of the nonprofit Center for Inspired Teaching, told the D.C. teachers attending a summer workshop. "If teachers can get confused, think about what happens with children."
Relating to students, handling difficult administrators, designing inventive lesson plans and working well with colleagues are among the topics hundreds of teachers are tackling as part of a training effort by the D.C.-based center, which was founded to help teachers become better at what they do.
To read the full article, click on the link below!
Links:
A Letter from Center for Inspired Teaching's Executive Director, Aleta Margolis
By Aleta Margolis - Executive Director, March 22, 2007 06:18 PM
Dear Friends and Supporters,
On a daily basis we are bombarded with stories about the failure of our schools. A million students drop out each year. Nearly half of all African American, Hispanic, and Native American students fail to graduate. Research increasingly cites boredom and lack of engagement as leading factors influencing these dismal statistics. Luckily there’s a solution: Inspired Teachers.
Center for Inspired Teaching is changing the way children are educated by investing in their teachers. Since 1995, through innovative courses, mentoring, and intensive school partnerships, over 5,000 teachers have been transformed into Inspired Teachers, improving instruction for over 125,000 students.
We believe every child possesses the ability to think critically, learn and understand information, and solve complex problems. It takes an Inspired Teacher to develop this ability and enable students to reach their full potential.
Inspired Teachers employ a range of tools to keep their students mentally, physically, and emotionally engaged. They teach young people to become knowledgeable, self-disciplined, and compassionate citizens.
We’ve been committed to this kind of teaching for 11 years and our research shows that Inspired Teaching does three things for teachers:
• Decrease time teachers spend maintaining discipline; increase teaching time.
• Improve teachers' ability to think critically and solve problems, so they can do the same for their students, resulting in higher student achievement in school and in real life.
• Improve the emotional climate of teachers' classrooms, so children feel safe and can focus on learning, resulting in improvements in behavior and a change in students' life aspirations.
In our Intensive School Partnerships we see these changes on an institutional scale. Two years ago, partner school Tyler Elementary was labeled one of the lowest achieving schools in DC. In 2006 it was one of only 3 schools to show growth in reading and math, and posted the highest special education scores and the highest gains in student attendance in the District.
In response to our growing success story, we have experienced a significant rise in the demand for our programs. To meet the demand we have: doubled our staff and trained alumni teachers so we can expand our course offerings; tripled our school partnerships; and reached more teachers and students than ever before. Our goal is for every child to have an Inspired Teacher and we plan to continue growing to make that goal a reality. We are grateful for people like you who support us in continuing this vitally important journey.
Sincerely,
Aleta Margolis
Executive Director
P.S. We also have a new blog! Become part of our conversation by accessing it at, www.inspiredteacher.blogspot.com
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