Non-Negotiable Instructional Practices
The faculty and staff of the Macon County Schools are committed to providing a quality learning environment that will inspire, empower, nurture, and support our students to become highly productive citizens in a global society. We believe that students should participate in multiple learning environments that are creative and nurturing. To achieve this goal:
- (Curriculum) We will teach curriculum with fidelity by:
- Designing lessons aligned to state and national Pre-K – 12 standards and curriculum frameworks.
- Using essential questions to connect instruction to the standard
- Including literacy strategies, graphic organizers, and integration of technology as appropriate in our weekly lesson planning and implementation.
- Requiring verbal and written student responses using the language of standards.
- Using higher-order thinking questions to gauge and deepen students’ understanding.
- (Assessment) We will monitor the progress of our students by:
- Developing common formative assessments that are explicitly aligned to standards.
- (Instruction) All teaching and learning activities will reflect a shared understanding of what students should know, do, and understand and will be built around a common framework for instruction (Gradual Release) that consists of:
- Opening
- Activating Strategies centered on the standard, element(s), and essential questions
- Mini-lesson - Modeling while referencing standards and key vocabulary (I do it/ We do it.)
- Using exemplars (examples of student work that meets or exceeds the standard)
- Work Period – Engaging all students using performance tasks.
- Modeling expectations and helping students to work both cooperatively (You do it together) and individually (You do it alone).
- Closing - Summarizing strategies to check for understanding
- Classroom Environment: All classes will be standards-based which will include but not be limited to:
- Standards and EQ posted
- Daily Agenda Posted
- Lesson Plans available in Classrooms
- Current Content Vocabulary Word Walls posted
- High Frequency Words Posted
- Classroom Expectations Posted
- Our communication with students and parents will include:
- Regularly collecting and analyzing student work and providing teacher commentary.
- Identifying students who are not meeting standards, meeting standards, or exceeding standards using the Classroom Achievement Report (CAR).
- Adjusting instruction based on assessment results (differentiation).
- Collaboratively analyzing and publishing student data in and outside of the classroom with regards to ensuring student data privacy.
- Goal setting with students and parents.
- Having student/parent conferences, including student led conferences.
- Explaining individual student data.
- Listening to student and parent input about learning via survey and conferences.