Kentucky: Most Likely to Succeed?

By: Renee Boss

At The Fund for Transforming Education, we pride ourselves in leading innovation, and working with business leaders and educators to do so. Over the past few months, we’ve hosted screenings of the film, Most Likely to Succeed, to spark conversations about innovation in education. Many of you have joined us for these screenings, or have reached out for our assistance and support as you host screenings in your schools, universities and businesses. 

In addition to screening the film, we hosted Ted Dintersmith, producer of Most Likely to Succeed. Along with Rachel Belin at the Prichard Committee, we arranged for Mr. Dintersmith to visit two Kentucky schools, and to meet with a group of our partners and board members to discuss what we can do to accelerate the pace of innovation in education in Kentucky. Here’s what he had to say about his visit:

A few months ago, I committed to taking the film Most Likely To Succeed to all fifty states this school year. My very first state — not accidentally — was Kentucky. Many leaders in education told me I’d be really impressed by the vision and expertise of leaders there. I was lucky to connect with Renee Boss, of The Fund for Transforming Education, and Rachel Belin, an advisor to [the Prichard Committee’s] Student Voice Team, who pulled together a fabulous two-day visit for me, with screenings at two schools and meetings with the people who can and will lead Kentucky’s next big education transformation. What impressed me so much was the confidence exhibited by Kentuckians that, having made major strides over the past three decades, the state can lead our nation forward in transforming schools across the state to new and innovative models that prepare our kids for the 21st Century.

Mr. Dintersmith’s quote reinforces what we at The Fund already know: Kentucky leads the nation in transforming education, and we always have. However, this work cannot be done in a vacuum. It requires educators, business leaders, community members, legislators, parents and so many more to get involved. Are you ready to join us?

Share your ideas.

Join the conversation on Twitter using #KYInnovates about how we can move from talk to action as we shape the future of education for students in Kentucky. We want students to be not only college and career ready but innovation-era ready as well. You can also use this google form to provide input. 

Tell your stories.

Connect with us to share your local stories of innovation. We believe the more people see and hear stories of innovative work happening, the more they will be inspired and compelled to take action in their own schools and districts.

Host a screening.

Show Most Likely to Succeed in your school, district, workplace, or community. We can help with logistics and facilitation.

Invest in innovation.

Invest in The Fund, so that we can continue to spark conversation and support action to drive excellence in Kentucky’s public education system. A gift of $350 supports one screening of Most Likely to Succeed.

Innovation Needs Iteration

By: Barbara Bellissimo

So far in 2015, we’ve been on a roll here at The Fund:

• Finishing up our three-year Common Assignment Study and launching our Next Generation Instructional Design network; 
• Expanding our support of Elevating and Celebrating Effective Teaching and Teachers (ECET2) convenings across Kentucky; 
• Launching our Innovative Teacher Leader group; 
• Expanding our board of directors to include more business leaders and representation from all regions of Kentucky; and 
• Bringing new sponsors and supporters together at our first Innovate:Education conference. 

We’ve also visited all nine education cooperatives across the state, presented at many local and national conferences, built our own contact management system, and are working on a teacher portal to make it easy for teachers to find convenings, mentors, professional development and other resources.

Our new office at 696 Teton Trail, Frankfort

But I think the thing we’ve been most excited about is our new office space. Before July 1st, we were using space very generously donated by the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce in Frankfort. As our staff and work expanded, we decided it would be easier and more efficient if we could have our own space, set up to our specifications. We found the space in June, signed the lease in July, and started to move in.

Due to unexpected delays in furniture delivery, we could not hold our first staff meeting in our new space until August 24, almost two months after we moved in! It was one of the most exciting days in The Fund’s history.






Four days later, this happened:

Luckily no one was inside the building when it happened, and the driver got out of her car and went next door to have her hair done (seriously). However, we’ve had to rethink all of our great plans for great meetings in that space for at least a month.

“Innovation does not happen on the first try. Rather, innovation is an iterative process with the goal of improving lives.” --Nathan Hall, 9Lenses

We’re busy iterating our design for using our space, and asking questions:

• How can we bring together our NGID network at the original date & time, but in a new space? 
• How can we maintain the excitement we had in our own space, as we are displaced for the next few weeks? 
• How can we work with our landlord so that this doesn’t happen again? 
• Should we rethink our use and design of the space to mitigate the risk of damage and/or injury if--God forbid--this happens again? 

Note that we are not sitting around complaining about what happened. We’re using our experience of what happened to make future experiences better. It’s a story to which we can refer when we are explaining to teachers, administrators, and business leaders what we mean by innovation and iteration.

Of course we're looking forward to getting our space to its new normal. We're even more looking forward to using this experience to improve our ability to identify scalable innovations that improve outcomes for all of Kentucky's students.

Leadership through Educational Technology

By: Taylor Clements

The recent jumps in accessibility and affordability of amazing technological devices has made its way to the Kentucky education system. However, as with most large shifts in organizational environments, adapting to these changes has been sluggish or non-existent, especially in large, decentralized organizations. As educational leaders begin to move in the right direction, they are relying on classroom teachers to help determine the vision for the tech-friendly learning environment.

As part of this movement, many teacher-leaders across Kentucky are working to ensure the effective use of technology in classrooms. I have been doing this primarily at Atherton High School in Jefferson County Public Schools. This includes working with other teachers on integrating a large amount of resources as tools to increase pedagogy and collaboration between teachers. There are great resources that allow teachers to raise rigor, engagement, and collaboration at a structural level in schools. I try to provide teachers with a working knowledge of the technological resources so that they can use them effectively in their own content classes. These efforts have not been limited to my district.

In February, I represented my school at a national conference in San Francisco, CA (the College Preparatory Mathematics National Conference) to continue leading teachers in integrating technology at the classroom level. Following this national conference, I worked with another JCPS educator to lead workshops at the Kentucky Society for Technology in Education (KYSTE) spring conference in Louisville. Our sessions discussed not only the effective use of collaborative media in the classroom, but on how district leaders should approach 1:1 learning initiatives. Both sessions were well-received and connected us to other teachers around the state.

There are many other educators in Kentucky who have found their niche in leading educational technology in schools. Especially with many generations of teachers in our schools, the need for professional development on using these devices is paramount. As more educators become familiar with the effective use of the latest classroom technology, we can begin taking our schools to more innovative and amazing places.

This is a guest blog written by one of the teachers in our Innovative Teacher Leader cohort to share about an innovative teacher or practice from their area of the state. To learn more about the work happening in the Commonwealth from these Innovative Teacher Leaders, who are working to redefine teacher leadership in Kentucky, check back throughout the month of March. We’ll be sharing guest blogs all month long.

Engaging Students and Improving Instruction Using One Tool

By: Leslie Bartow

For eight years, I taught 8th grade Social Studies and served as 8th grade team leader in middle school. For four years, I was an Site Based Decision Making (SBDM) Council member who had the privilege of interviewing and hiring two principals. I have served on various school committees; culture, discipline, data, PLC’s, and teaming. As 8th grade Social Studies teacher, I worked in a PLC with the social studies departments at both middle schools. As part of our PLC, we dove into analyzing data to drive our instruction. A huge part of that was the implementation of gradecam, an online multiple choice grading system. Because gradecam immediately grades multiple choice questions, feedback for teachers and students was immediate. Therefore, students did not have to wait for days to receive feedback from their teachers. Teachers could use feedback to make instructional changes on the spot and have intentional conversations with students about their progress. Also, it made the sharing of data with other teachers of the same content quick and easy, which created a culture of using data for instructional purpose, focused on improvement, not a just a wasted planning period of talking but no doing.

For the past school year, I have moved into a new role, curriculum specialist at a K-5 elementary school. My role includes various responsibilities, from co-teaching and modeling lessons in classrooms, to analyzing data to help make needed instructional changes, to mentoring teachers. Soon after my arrival, we integrated using gradecam with our 2-5 grade levels. This has allowed us to really use data in our instruction with students. Teachers are able to quickly grade assessments so that more time can be used for instruction because results and feedback is immediate. For students, it allows for conversation about progressing and really understanding the content, rather than getting a letter grade.

Students get excited about knowing and seeing their progress. They also now discuss their grades and their progress by looking at the item analysis and overall class percentages. It creates a positive classroom environment because the students are engaging with the teacher about what instructional changes need to be made. Gradecam is an excellent resource to allow for improved instruction and student engagement. 

This is a guest blog written by one of the teachers in our Innovative Teacher Leader cohort to share about an innovative teacher or practice from their area of the state. To learn more about the work happening in the Commonwealth from these Innovative Teacher Leaders, who are working to redefine teacher leadership in Kentucky, check back throughout the month of March. We’ll be sharing guest blogs all month long.

Innovation Competition Winner Creates New School Model

By: Abby Terranova

Parents of elementary students in Louisville, Kentucky, will have a new choice in education this fall thanks to teacher leaders Abby Terranova, Jessica Forst, Adrianne Moore, and Jennifer Nelson. This team of young teachers created a plan for a new school that was the winning entry in the Jefferson County Public Schools District of Innovation Competition.

On schedule to be operational for the 2015-2016 academic year, Maupin Elementary: A Catalpa Model School will strive to meet the academic needs of each unique child through a balance of art, music, drama, movement, and experiences in nature. Teachers will follow an alternative curriculum timeline, and instructional work will come when children are developmentally prepared to achieve specific academic goals. The Catalpa Model seeks to bring warmth and joy to education, building a community to support each student as a whole person, and meeting them where their needs are.

Maupin Elementary: A Catalpa Model School will blend Waldorf tradition with the Kentucky Core Academic Standards, building each child’s capacity to think creatively and critically, understand and manage emotion, and work in a focused and willing manner. The daily rhythm will include an arts and movement infused, standards-based main lesson. Each afternoon, students will work to develop practical skills in classes such as gardening, foreign language, folk dancing, or handwork. Parent education and community outreach will expand the Catalpa program far beyond the walls of the school and into the Parkland neighborhood. Teachers will be given very clear instruction in the restorative justice approach to behavior management, seeking to heal relationships and increase tolerance and reciprocity within the community. Children and families will be encouraged to treat the school facility as a community center, and welcomed to participate in a wide variety of extra programs and services.

The school is now a member of the Alliance for Public Waldorf Education, a national organization that works to promote and support the development of high quality public Waldorf education. The Alliance’s focus is the strengthening of the Waldorf community by enlivening the movement and making the development-based education model accessible for all. The Waldorf method is one that has long been employed by public school teachers in Louisville, largely supported by Kentahten Teacher Training, who will also be offering The Catalpa Model’s professional development.

The Jefferson County Public Schools District of Innovation Competition began in 2013 with an open application, originally receiving nearly 80 ideas for implementation. Through three rounds of competition, and a series of presentations to community representatives and education experts, The Catalpa Model was selected by the Jefferson County Board of Education as a winner in August, 2014.

After the rigorous competition, the Catalpa team has continued to work with the Jefferson County Public Schools Cabinet and Jefferson County Teachers Association to an unprecedented degree.

For more information, please email: maupin.innovation@jefferson.kyschools.us

This is a guest blog written by one of the teachers in our Innovative Teacher Leader cohort to share about an innovative teacher or practice from their area of the state. To learn more about the work happening in the Commonwealth from these Innovative Teacher Leaders, who are working to redefine teacher leadership in Kentucky, check back throughout the month of March. We’ll be sharing guest blogs all month long.

Bread Loaf Teacher Network

By: Christopher McCurry

The Bread Loaf Teacher Network (BLTN) is a community of teachers, students, and administrators affiliated with the Bread Loaf School of English at Middlebury College. Supported during the academic year by Bread Loaf staff and faculty, its primary goal is to encourage year-round collaboration among Bread Loaf teachers, faculty, and their students on innovative projects designed to promote culturally sensitive and transformative literacies. 

Kentucky BLTN, plans, organizes, and hosts bi-annual meetings that connect students and high school teachers with an international community of educators and peers, as well as showcases the collaborative projects designed by BLTN teachers and students. These projects are the heart of the network and the focus of the partnership between the C.E. & S. foundation, which provides generous fellowships to Kentucky teachers each year to attend the Bread Loaf School of English.

We are proud to say that several of our collaborations have received local, state, and national attention as innovative ways to teach standards and assess students. Brent Peters and Paul Barnwell of Fern Creek collaborated with their colleagues and the Navajo Nation to explore food literacy. Their ongoing partnership culminated in the creation of the Navajo Kentuckians. Other projects have included, student constructed community performances, and an online journal seeking to connect students through the idea of home.

BLTN is open to all teachers and students of literacy, no matter the subject or grade level. Educators interested in joining will find energetic, hardworking, student-centered network. Yearly projects are planned in the summer and implemented throughout the school year. The next Kentucky Bread Loaf Teacher Network meeting will be May 16th. If you’d like to attend contact Christopher McCurry: christopher.mccurry@fayette.kyschools.us.

This is a guest blog written by one of the teachers in our Innovative Teacher Leader cohort to share about an innovative teacher or practice from their area of the state. To learn more about the work happening in the Commonwealth from these Innovative Teacher Leaders, who are working to redefine teacher leadership in Kentucky, check back throughout the month of March. We’ll be sharing guest blogs all month long.

Engaging Students To Emerge Successful

By Jeff Sorce

ESTES Leaders, A new college and career readiness program is being implemented at Estes Elementary School in Owensboro, KY. The purpose of ESTES (Engaging Students To Emerge Successful) Leaders is to expose students to different industries and lead them to college and career paths based on their experiences.

Students will be exposed to the following industry areas: public health, education, agriculture, media relations, public safety, tourism, entrepreneurship, advanced manufacturing and trades, and STEM. By traveling to and participating in hands-on activities in these industries, students will be enlightened on what each arena has to offer.

Funded through a special Innovation Grant through the Kentucky Board of Education, this is an innovative way to discuss career paths with the students. They will experience real life situations and present those situations to others. It is our belief that elementary students need to think about how they will become college and career ready by the time they graduate from high school. By introducing them to these various areas, students will start to develop their own career path and show others, including peers and community members, what steps they will take to achieve those goals.

Our students need to have these experiences and and learn these skills to level the playing field, thereby breaking the cycle of poverty. Our students need to see the possibilities and what they can start doing now, at the elementary level, to become successful in those areas. In a recent 2013 survey of parents at Estes Elementary, only 17% graduated high school, and only 6 out of 387 respondents (.01%) had some college experience. This program is designed to allow students to learn how to begin with the end in mind so they can be first generation college graduates.

All teachers in the fourth grade level will be collaborating to meet project needs. In the beginning there will be 24 students participating in this program. These students will be creating Problem-Based Learning projects for all students in fourth grade to eventually participate. Additionally, every teacher and student in the school will be impacted because these 24 student leaders will present their experiences and planned college/career paths to the entire student/teacher body.

The culmination of this project will be a community wide job fair that will be held, where the 24 students will present their findings and experiences. At this fair, adult members of the community will have an opportunity to interview and receive job placements with our community partners working with our program.

This is a guest blog written by one of the teachers in our Innovative Teacher Leader cohort to share about an innovative teacher or practice from their area of the state. To learn more about the work happening in the Commonwealth from these Innovative Teacher Leaders, who are working to redefine teacher leadership in Kentucky, check back throughout the month of March. We’ll be sharing guest blogs all month long.

Connect: A Food Literacy Program that Supports Struggling Readers & Writers

By: Ashley Lamb-Sinclair, NBCT

Students who struggle with reading and writing have an especially difficult time in high school because there is little research about adolescent literacy. In my experience, schools turn to tired, ineffective programs that primarily target the literacy needs of much younger children. As a result, teenagers who already feel disengaged from school feel even more disengaged and frustrated because they are forced through endless hours of futile assessments and humiliating progress monitoring.

My school, which hosts primarily successful students, has also neglected to meet the needs of a small group of struggling readers and writers. Now we are motivated to remedy this issue and address the needs of those students without relying on old measures that have been proven ineffective.

Last summer I met a talented educator, Brent Peters, from Fern Creek High School in Louisville, KY who created a Food Literacy course that engages students through high-interest thematic units based around gardening, cooking, and food culture. A colleague, an administrator, and I went to observe his program and walked away with ideas for creating a model that worked for our school. Now we are developing a combination of collaborative courses to teach reading and writing to struggling learners in ways that engage, rather than frustrate and stifle them.

Our program is called Connect and currently focuses primarily on one sophomore English course modeled after the Food Literacy course at Fern Creek. The class mission is to reconnect struggling students with the school community using the principles of true learning—creativity, critical thinking, engagement, curiosity, community, empathy, purpose, passion, and play—and to guide students in building confidence to take responsibility for their own learning. In addition, we will use backwards design to create a curriculum focused on ACT literacy skills—both literal and inferential questioning, and analyzing an author’s approach, supporting details, sequential, comparative, or cause and effect relationships, meanings of words, and generalizations and conclusions. Because research regarding adolescent literacy has noted that many struggling learners have little experience with complex texts, our classroom materials will be those of literary merit, and we will scaffold our lessons to make these texts more approachable for students. Most importantly, our classroom model will employ thematic units guided by student interest and need, that engage through hands-on and project-based learning. We will build a garden together and plan classroom community meals, then use the garden and meals to create questions together that guide our units, our reading materials, and our writing tasks.

The timeline for building the program begins this spring by identifying students, interviewing and observing them, creating interdisciplinary summer literacy initiatives and meeting with parents. We will also build the garden and assign students a summer schedule for caring for the garden. This summer, we will conduct home visits in order to learn as much as we can about who our students are as individuals, rather than simply their scores on paper. We will also launch a jumpstart camp at the beginning of the school year in order to build community and work in the garden together, so that we can hit the ground running on the first day of school.

In the future, we will expand our program to include both a freshman and junior English class and other classes in various disciplines as well. Ideally, we would love to see our program grow to include other schools in our district and state as well.

This is a guest blog written by one of the teachers in our Innovative Teacher Leader cohort to share about an innovative teacher or practice from their area of the state. To learn more about the work happening in the Commonwealth from these Innovative Teacher Leaders, who are working to redefine teacher leadership in Kentucky, check back throughout the month of March. We’ll be sharing guest blogs all month long.

Leading from Beside: What I’ve Learned from Lauren Hill

By: Angela Gunter

Teaching is my passion, and I am one of those people who want to be involved in shaping the profession I love so much. Consequently, I am frequently surrounded by other passionate educators who share my drive. I have had incredible opportunities and been blessed to work with many talented, passionate teacher leaders. None, however, have had such a professional influence on me than Lauren Hill, teacherpreneur and AP English teacher at Western Hills High School in Frankfort, Kentucky. Knowing Lauren as I do, she would be shocked to know what an impact she’s had on my career.

I met Lauren years ago at an AP English Summer Institute and noted how she had incredible questions, ones that we were all contemplating but did not have the nerve (or insight) to ask. She later shared with me that she was afraid she was being a nuisance, but she needed to know the answers. In the next few years, I was with Lauren at various trainings and was always struck with how friendly, inclusive, and reflective she was. She conducted an AP student study session at my school for students and was questioning herself, concerned whether she’d done a good enough job. A couple of years later, she conducted a Laying the Foundation training I attended, and, once again, she confided in me that she was worried about how participants were receiving her lessons. She was incredibly engaging and knowledgeable—I couldn’t believe she had such concerns. I realized then that one of Lauren’s strengths was her worry, her conscientious nature. She always wanted to be better, to improve, to not let her participants down. Basically, she CARED!

She encouraged me to become a trainer for LTF, and I did. Now I am invited to teach students and teachers across the nation. Lauren also asked me to join a group called the Center for Teaching Quality, and I did. She invited me to a CTQ conference in North Carolina. Lauren works with many talented teachers, and for her to recognize me, to see me as a teacher leader, was empowering. As a result of my work with CTQ, I have worked with teachers from across the state and across the nation on teacher leadership projects. She also hosted a webinar to help teachers craft proposals for the Teach to Lead conference recently held in Kentucky, and her input helped me turn my idea into a plan. Lauren’s newest project is working with a group of National Board Certified teachers from across the state, and because of her inspiration, I am conducting a similar project next year. When I asked her for suggestions, I was not surprised when she offered her time, resources, and once again, her enthusiastic encouragement.

Lauren Hill leads from beside. She recognizes potential in others and includes them in her journey. We are lucky in Kentucky that dedicated educators are able to pursue leadership opportunities while remaining in the classroom. Lauren and a handful of other teacherprenuers are reshaping and redefining our profession so we can follow in their footsteps and lead while not giving up the most important part of our jobs—our kids. I am confident that her work will represent what teacher leaders can accomplish when given such authority.

This is a guest blog written by one of the teachers in our Innovative Teacher Leader cohort to share about an innovative teacher or practice from their area of the state. To learn more about the work happening in the Commonwealth from these Innovative Teacher Leaders, who are working to redefine teacher leadership in Kentucky, check back throughout the month of March. We’ll be sharing guest blogs all month long.

Beechwood Fourth Graders Dressing the Part for Success

By: Amanda Klare, 4th Grade Teacher, NBCT

I’ve always said that strong leaders recognize a great idea when they hear it. After reading an article about an incentive program from the National Board's daily "Accomplished Teacher" email, I approached my fourth grade team about starting a similar program at our school. My fourth grade team of teachers decided to join me in initiating a new incentive program for our students. This idea has been developed based upon a teacher in Missouri that did something similar with his 5th grade boys (see article here).

We implemented our “4th Grade Professionals: Gentleman in Ties & Ladies in Pearls” incentive program in January. We kicked off the program by hosting a pep rally to get the kids excited about this new tradition we’re starting for our fourth graders. Our district is unique in that we have grades kindergarten through twelfth grade all in one building; therefore, I sought out different people that students would know and look up to in our district to pump up our students. Our high school football coach came dressed professionally and talked about how his men come on Friday to school “knotted up” in their ties, and shared with our students the importance of dressing for success. Also in attendance at our pep rally, were our elementary Site Based Council members, Board of Education members, administration from the district, and high school seniors who are student athletes. Everyone came dressed for the part: ladies in pearls and gentleman in ties. We sent our boys with our gentlemen leaders to learn how to tie a tie. Our girls went with our women leaders and high school senior girls to study what professional women wear, using celebrities and professional women as examples.

The philosophy behind this movement is that professionals wear ties and pearls; our goal is that each student will see themselves as professionals by the time we start state testing. Therefore, students will all feel proud of themselves, and will be ready to work hard as a professional on their test to represent themselves, their families, teachers, and their school.The overall idea of the program is that students will earn points for academic and social performance. Students will earn points for various things such as a 4 on Open Responses, compliments from Beechwood staff members, performing acts of kindness, meeting MAP goals and earning A’s on assessments, etc. 

We have asked for donations from the community for ties and pearls for students to use. The ties have been easy to come by, but we’re still looking for more costume pearls. The goal is that each student, once they have earned 100 points, will choose which tie or set of pearls they’ll wear each day from their classes’ collection.

As we are finishing our second month of this program, it is amazing to see how motivated students are to earn these points. Their faces light up when you sign off on their sheets. We look forward to having our fourth grade students dressed the part to rock the state testing! 

This is a guest blog written by one of the teachers in our Innovative Teacher Leader cohort to share about an innovative teacher or practice from their area of the state. To learn more about the work happening in the Commonwealth from these Innovative Teacher Leaders, who are working to redefine teacher leadership in Kentucky, check back throughout the month of March. We’ll be sharing guest blogs all month long.

Data Notebooks in the Classroom offer Student Voice Avenue

By: Elizabeth Lovett

As an itinerant teacher, I am able to see teacher leadership in six elementary schools. One positive example of teacher leadership is found at my home school which is the only school in my district that scored proficient for this year’s cycle. This school year, the Leader in Me program was implemented, which promotes awareness of leadership potential in all students.

Two teachers, second grade teacher Lea Ann Hammons, and fourth grade teacher Beverly Hensley, used a data notebook tool prior to the “Leader in Me” implementation. Now all faculty members are using these data notebooks as part of the Leader in Me program.. There are three sections in the notebook. One section is for data (test scores), the second is a "brag" section where the student places the work they have chosen, and the third section is where their goals are located. The students and parents are able to track progress and set goals, and it gives an awareness of their status. The data notebook enables the students and parents to talk about ways to improve or enhance their learning.

Lea Ann Hammons designed the data page for the notebook. MAP scores of each content area are given a data page that is broken into Fall, Winter, and Spring sections. The student’s score is placed on this page and the student then writes their reflection on what they would like to improve or work on to raise their score. With the intermediate grades, there is a section for the student to self-reflect on what content areas they feel they are the strongest in and in what content areas they need to improve. These are reflected upon and edited every 9 weeks.

In the intermediate grades (3-6), the students conference with parents using the data notebooks. The teacher’s role in the conference is to be there as a resource while the student leads the conference in explaining the data notebook to their parents. In the lower elementary grades (K-2) the teachers lead the conference with the student's input on their data notebook.

I believe that data notebooks can be implemented into any classroom as a way to promote student voice through self-reflection and development of their leadership skills.

This is a guest blog written by one of the teachers in our Innovative Teacher Leader cohort to share about an innovative teacher or practice from their area of the state. To learn more about the work happening in the Commonwealth from these Innovative Teacher Leaders, who are working to redefine teacher leadership in Kentucky, check back throughout the month of March. We’ll be sharing guest blogs all month long.

Leading from the Classroom by Example

By: Emmanuel Anama-Green

Elevating teacher voice in Eastern Kentucky has certain obstacles. Nonetheless, many teachers are making the effort. I have a passion for the installation of a proficiency-based World Languages Program Review. While one may easily participate and advocate at the state board of education or the EAARS committee for example, for World Languages Program Review, increasingly tight budgets at the local and district levels cause issue with installing this important review.

Collaborating alongside district administrators, superintendents, and curriculum specialists, I have been able to serve the needs of Harlan County’s necessity for augmentation of the World Languages program into a proficiency-based program. Through the usage of technology, district administrators have been able to broaden our proficiency-based curriculum to all of the elementary schools using the Microsoft Lync® program wherein the two Spanish teachers at Harlan County High School broadcast a brief lesson each week.

One way that I have been innovative in my classroom is by utilizing technology and showcasing its impact on a globally-competent classroom. In my unit about hotels and travel, I require my students make three live Skype® telephone calls for formative assessments, and one live Skype® telephone call (without notes) for summative assessments. The students simply have to make an introduction, ask three questions wherein they inquire about costs, amenities, location, etc, and then end an effective conclusion statement. In short, they have to make a successful telephone call. If they are unsuccessful, they must repeat the call until they are successful. I have a similar assessment created for my restaurants unit.

Collaboration and negotiation have proved vital at the state and local level in the time of the World Languages Program Review due to the issue of funding. I was one of several teachers who advocated in Frankfort on multiple occasions for the Program Review. However, I quickly realized that I also had to be innovative alongside administrators at the local level to maintain the velocity of the voice that had been elevated from a state perspective, which is why I am trying innovative techniques in my classroom.

 
This is a guest blog written by one of the teachers in our Innovative Teacher Leader cohort to share about an innovative teacher or practice from their area of the state. To learn more about the work happening in the Commonwealth from these Innovative Teacher Leaders, who are working to redefine teacher leadership in Kentucky, check back throughout the month of March. We’ll be sharing guest blogs all month long.

A Modern Definition of Teacher Leader

By: Pennye Rogers, NBCT and Hope Street Fellow

The term ‘teacher leader’ elicits the connotation of an experienced educator who has left the classroom to accomplish ‘bigger and better’ things. Such a teacher leader might testify before congress concerning education reform, become a consultant to schools and districts in need of improvement, or even write textbooks better suited for student learning. The position of teacher leader is often understood to be above that of a regular teacher and exists outside of the classroom. That may have been the old stereotype but the modern teacher leader is actually much different.

A teacher leader is a dedicated, accomplished teacher, one who cares first and foremost about students. This teacher goes out of their way to help all students gain the skill set needed for success not just in the classroom but in college, career, and life. This teacher also is a mentor to other teachers; sharing their own expertise to help others to become more effective educators. Therefore, all who associate with this accomplished teacher leader benefit as do all of their students. A teacher leader is involved in many things outside of their normal teaching job that affect education policy or decisions. Some teacher leaders work only part time in the classroom and take on what is called a hybrid role. However, all teacher leaders still maintain focus on what is good for students. These teachers serve on committees at the local, state, or even national level to support teaching and learning. They give of their free time to promote education reform that will benefit all students. As busy as these teachers are, they are available to students and colleagues to assist them as needed. Daily, a teacher leader’s contributions to the school, district and state most often go unrecognized. Teacher leaders are not in it for the glory, and certainly not the pay, but to make the world a better place - one student at a time. I am proud to know and work with such a teacher leader.

Jeff Stamps, a Social Studies teacher at Todd County Central High School, is a 27-year veteran teacher. To Jeff, there is no job more important than providing the best education possible for his students. He has taken on curriculum reform in the social studies area and works closely with his department to make certain that all students are taught the appropriate curriculum to master the standards. He frequently travels to Frankfort to meet with state legislators and has met with national leaders in Washington, DC to promote positive education reform. He calls himself an ‘education voter’ and maintains focus on what is best for students and not a particular party. Yet, he is always available to work with his students, offering tutoring sessions before and after school nearly every day. Jeff is a mentor to other teachers as well as to his students. Through his dedication and leadership, our school has risen in their state testing from low in the ranks to the top 9% in the state. Even though he teaches in a small school in a rural community, Jeff has made the name of our school known across the state. Jeff is the epitome of a modern teacher leader in KY.


This is a guest blog written by one of the teachers in our Innovative Teacher Leader cohort to share about an innovative teacher or practice from their area of the state. To learn more about the work happening in the Commonwealth from these Innovative Teacher Leaders, who are working to redefine teacher leadership in Kentucky, check back throughout the month of March. We’ll be sharing guest blogs all month long.

Collaborative Learning for Students and Teachers

​By: Tyler Murphy

“Collaborative learning” is growing ever more popular in the pedagogical lexicon and educators are often eager to incorporate it in their lessons and classrooms. But, like most concepts we hurriedly use with our students, teachers would do well to reflect on applying collaborative learning to ourselves—in our professional  community and in the learning environment of which we are all a part.

Teachers can benefit immensely from collaborative learning—substantive collaboration that extends beyond mandatory participation in PLC or team meetings. While we are quick to look for outside help and resources to enhance teaching and strengthen learning in our classrooms, we often ignore that our most valuable assets are the women and men with whom we work every day.

At Woodford County Middle School, some teachers have worked to capitalize on the knowledge, skill, and experience of our colleagues. To create a truly collaborative environment, it is important that we understand what is going on inside of each other’s classroom, both from a curriculum standpoint and from a pedagogical perspective.

First is the emphasis on curricular collaboration. Teachers can encourage critical thinking and hone transferable skills by demonstrating to students the concepts they discuss throughout multiple classes are integrally connected. The content we examine in Social Studies, for example, can readily link to concepts and skills addressed in Language Arts. To capitalize on this connection, a Language Arts teacher and I partnered on a cross-curricular unit in which the students designed their own country, creating population data, a constitution and form of government, and regional characteristics. In so doing, they applied their knowledge of population, government, and geography to demonstrate their learning of the Social Studies content. But we didn’t stop there: the students also designed a flag, national anthem, and speech to present their country to the world, emphasizing the Language Arts concepts of imagery, argumentative appeals, and the use of symbols. Finally, the capstone of the project was a simulated United Nations, in which the students came together (i.e., “collaborative learning”) as ambassadors of their self-designed countries to solve global crises in their fictional world, writing and voting on resolutions.

The project covered a wide realm of Social Studies and Language Arts content and it was something the students (not to mention their teachers!) truly enjoyed. As we were planning to repeat the project this year, we realized that there is no reason the project should be isolated to Social Studies and Language Arts. Collaboration with the Science teachers revealed that the students’ countries would be perfect to use during a weather unit, in which students have to determine weather patterns for a specific latitude and longitude (coordinates they had already established as part of their project in Social Studies). Now, we had students creating weather forecasts for their countries. Additionally, the Math teachers recognized the value of the population statistics and data students had to create for their countries and incorporated these in their lessons on graphs and linear formulas.

What started as a two-class activity became a multi-disciplinary activity that demonstrated to students the relevance of, and the connections among, the content they explore in each of their classes. Isn’t that how the “real world” works, anyway? And by working together and aligning our content, the teachers modeled to students what collaboration looks like and how it is beneficial.

This is a guest blog written by one of the teachers in our Innovative Teacher Leader cohort to share about an innovative teacher or practice from their area of the state. To learn more about the work happening in the Commonwealth from these Innovative Teacher Leaders, who are working to redefine teacher leadership in Kentucky, check back throughout the month of March. We’ll be sharing guest blogs all month long.

TwitterChats for Education

By Tiffany Engels

Social Media tools have made it easier for parents and teachers to connect. Many teachers and administrators have been using Twitter to increase parent and community involvement. Geniene Delahunty, an ESL teacher In Northern Kentucky, and her colleagues have been implementing TwitterChats in the Boone County School District. Geniene is one of the moderators of Parent Teacher Chat (#PTchat) that occur every Wednesday night. She recognized that Twitter could be an alternative way for parents and teachers to collaborate and share resources. It helps all involved to better assist in educating children.

TwitterChats for education are occurring every day and can be extremely beneficial and informative. But how do you take part in a TwitterChat? First, you have to find a chat that you’re interested in and the hashtag (#) it is associated with. According to The Journal in 2013 some popular chats that every educator should check out are #edchat, #edtechchat, #tlap, #ptchat, #flipclass, and more. In Kentucky, you can get involved by following the #kyedchat. It is held on Thursdays from 8-9pm. Next, determine the time the chat takes place. For example, the #PTchat conversation is on Wednesday nights at 9PM. Third, type the hashtag into the Twitter search bar. And last, join in!

The Fund for Transforming Education in Kentucky’s Innovative Teacher Leader Cohort defined a teacher leader as lifelong learners leading the way to student and teacher achievement through diverse strategies, innovation, collaboration, and advocacy. Innovation was defined as an ongoing process of implementing positive change to creatively engage all stakeholders. Boone County teacher Geniene Delahunty exemplifies our definition of innovation in teacher leadership. She uses diverse strategies in the form of social media for parent communication to increase her learning and to implement positive change creatively. She has also inspired me to begin to use Twitter professionally to increase my learning and collaboration with colleagues in a new way.

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This is a guest blog written by one of the teachers in our Innovative Teacher Leader cohort to share about an innovative teacher or practice from their area of the state. To learn more about the work happening in the Commonwealth from these Innovative Teacher Leaders, who are working to redefine teacher leadership in Kentucky, check back throughout the month of March. We’ll be sharing guest blogs all month long.

How Peer Observation Has Improved My Experience

By: Joseph Harris

Peer observation is one of the most beneficial aspects of the Professional Growth and Effectiveness System (PGES) and peer observation has impacted me as a professional. I am proud to report that recently, a piece about my experience with peer observation was featured in Kentucky Teacher.

Throughout the past several years, I have participated in several peer observations. These experiences have pushed me to grow as a teacher and I truly believe that if teachers across Kentucky are willing to open their classroom doors and allow others to learn by watching them teach and vice versa, then a powerful movement can be created. This is exactly what Ms. Connie Huff, a Biomedical teacher, did for me this school year.

Ms. Huff allowed me, an English teacher, to step inside the world of Biomedical Science and learn from a 22 year teaching veteran. Not only did I observe students analyzing a mock crime scene and designing their own experiments, I was able to participate in the different stations around the room. Ms. Huff was acting as a facilitator and I noticed that in each station, students were owning their own learning and were deeply engaged.

When I entered Ms. Huff’s classroom that day, I was looking for formative assessment ideas and classroom management techniques. I walked away with ideas for these, but I also walked away with the encouragement to find ways for my students to own their learning in my English classroom. I’ve been working on this concept since that peer observation. I stepped out of my content for a class period to observe another content area and I highly encourage others to do the same. It made a difference in the way I approach lesson planning.

This is a guest blog written by one of the teachers in our Innovative Teacher Leader cohort to share about an innovative teacher or practice from their area of the state. To learn more about the work happening in the Commonwealth from these Innovative Teacher Leaders, who are working to redefine teacher leadership in Kentucky, check back throughout the month of March. We’ll be sharing guest blogs all month long.

Paving Pathways for World Language Instruction

By: Angie Keaton, NBCT

The mere mention of including World Language into Program Reviews and accountability can strike fear in the minds of teachers and administrators. Multiple questions arise. For example: How will we fund it? Who will teach it? How can we find the time to incorporate it into our schedules? The short answer to all of these questions is innovation.

As a Nationally Board Certified fourth grade reading/language arts teacher in my elementary school, I have already begun the process of finding ways to incorporate project based learning and world language into my instruction. At the beginning of this school year, I set out on a mission to find ways to bring the world to my eastern Kentucky students who are often isolated from exposure to other cultures.

Our E-Pal Project includes teachers in Germany, Italy, and Spain who are also enthusiastic about engaging their students with other cultures and languages. Through this project our students have had opportunities to exchange email and letters, record and exchange videos, and share information about their culture and celebrations. Students are now eager to begin an international book study/literature circle project that will culminate with Skype sessions in the coming weeks.

This is just one way to innovate with World Language instruction. As innovative educators, we must continue striving to find solutions that will help prepare our students to be college and career ready, and give them the skills necessary to be productive members of a global community.

This is a guest blog written by one of the teachers in our Innovative Teacher Leader cohort to share about an innovative teacher or practice from their area of the state. To learn more about the work happening in the Commonwealth from these Innovative Teacher Leaders, who are working to redefine teacher leadership in Kentucky, check back throughout the month of March. We’ll be sharing guest blogs all month long.

PLAN-DO-STUDY-ACT: A systems approach to PLC Meetings

By: Joanna Stevens

Our administration has made common planning time a priority at our school. All sub-PLCs are required to meet weekly. For example: All Algebra 2 teachers meet during fourth period every Tuesday. Sub-PLCs are teacher-led. While administrators and content leads are sometimes present, teachers create the agenda and guide the discussion. Unfortunately, our conversations during these meetings were not always focused on improving student learning. It was easy for our conversations to get off task and turn into gripe sessions.

One of the school’s Educational Recovery Specialists invited me to attend a “Jim Shipley Continuous Classroom Improvement” training during the summer of 2013. As a result of the meeting, I developed a modified version of Shipley’s system approach, PLAN-DO-STUDY-ACT, to strengthen our professional dialogue. 

 

To ensure congruence among all teachers and improve instruction for all students, teachers PLAN together by using the same curriculum and assessments. Teachers identify clear, high standards that will be addressed during the learning time. They identify common assessments that will measure student success with the standard. Teachers spend time discussing the curriculum framework including the unit plan, pacing guide, and essential questions.

Teachers identify what they are going to DO to accomplish their plan. They create instructional activities to engage all learners and use cross-curricular activities when beneficial. Teachers focus on high-yield effective instructional strategies that will ensure learning of the standards. Teachers identify any materials they need to ensure quality instruction.

All teachers STUDY by examining their data with their colleagues. The data varies with formative assessments, learn checks, unit exams, standardized tests, and student voice surveys. Teachers self-examine their own teaching and share things that went well and areas needing improvement in their classroom. Root causes are identified for improvement or lack of improvement. Teachers create a plus-delta concerning this learning cycle.

After analyzing our data, teachers ACT to modify our teaching practices to meet the needs evident after our data discussion. Some of the actions need to be implemented immediately, while others are used to strengthen our unit plans for the next school year.

All math sub-PLCs have utilized the PDSA template for two school years. Beginning this semester, all departments are now required to implement the PDSA process in their weekly meetings. We are currently piloting an updated version of PDSA that focuses on intentional lesson study. As a result of the PDSA process, our meetings and discussion are more collaborative and everyone contributes. The meetings are intentional and focused on improving student learning. We are reacting to our data and using more high-yield strategies to engage our students. Throughout this process, I have increased my effectiveness as a teacher leader. I have learned to motivate teachers, developed stronger communication skills, and discovered how to delegate responsibilities to others. My own instruction has improved as a result of our intentional data analysis and collaborative planning time.
 
This is a guest blog written by one of the teachers in our Innovative Teacher Leader cohort to share about an innovative teacher or practice from their area of the state. To learn more about the work happening in the Commonwealth from these Innovative Teacher Leaders, who are working to redefine teacher leadership in Kentucky, check back throughout the month of March. We’ll be sharing guest blogs all month long.

The Fund Celebrates Its First Full Year

By Barbara Bellissimo, Executive Director

On January 1, I celebrated my first anniversary as the executive director of The Fund, and The Fund celebrated its first full year of operation. I am so proud to share with you some of our accomplishments over the last year.

We continued our Common Assignment initiative, bringing together a group of Kentucky teachers with a group of teachers in Colorado to develop common units of study aligned to Kentucky’s Core Academic Standards (KCAS). During 2014, we more than doubled the number of teachers and districts participating in this work. And we continue to get requests from others wanting to participate. In 2015, we’ll expand the work even further, into new grade levels and content areas.

We joined the extended team and advisory council for the Kentucky Network to Transform Teaching (KYNT3) on both the extended work group and advisory council. The goal of this work is twofold:  increase the number of National Board Certified Teachers (NBCTs) in Kentucky and to innovate and improve teacher leadership opportunities for existing NBCTs. This project is key to the success of our Transforming the Teaching Profession initiative.

Our work in this area involves an expanded network of state and national partners:  Kentucky Education Association, Hope Street Group, the Center for Teaching Quality, Bluegrass Center for Teacher Quality, the Kentucky Network to Transform Teaching, the Kentucky Department of Education, the Education Professional Standards Board, the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence and many individual teachers and superintendents to engage Kentucky teachers to design, execute and continuously improve policies, practice and the profession so that students reach their maximum potential. During 2014 we developed our strategic vision for our work together, and are now focused on defining our Five-Year Goal and Implementation Plans.

On January 25, 2014, we facilitated the first statewide Elevating and Celebrating Effective Teaching and Teachers (ECET2). 45 teachers braved a snowstorm to meet in Lexington to inspire, motivate and celebrate each other. This event was so successful, that we have since facilitated four regional ECET2s (Green River, Ohio Valley, Central KY and Northern KY), and are expecting 300 teachers to join us at the second annual ECET2 KY this January 30-31 in Louisville.

In August 2014, we awarded the initial round of Innovation Fund grants to six different individuals and organizations, to pilot and scale innovative tools and practices across Kentucky. Our interim report on these projects will be available in early February and we are currently fundraising for our 2015 grant cycle.

We grew our team from three to five in 2014, and have already added two more in the first month of 2015! While we were growing our team, we grew our social media and online presence as well. Our Facebook page and Twitter handle (@TheFundKY) now have hundreds of followers. We also redesigned our website so that it’s easier to find information and keep our stakeholders informed about our work, and redesigned our blog to match the new site.

I’m so excited and proud of our work in 2014, and hope you will stay tuned to this blog as we announce even greater accomplishments for our students in 2015!