Learning Together
Office of Instruction Newsletter - Template
A key part of our instructional focus on high-quality Tier 1 instruction is student engagement. It has been exciting to see the many ways students are actively involved in learning across classrooms. Over the summer, our teacher leaders helped identify what engaging instruction can look, sound, and feel like, and their thinking is reflected below. Our goal is to build a shared understanding of engagement, not as a single strategy, but as a series of intentional moves that foster connection, curiosity, and ownership of learning.
What engagement looks like:
- Students talking with one another in collaborative groups
- Turn and talks, choral responses, and whole-class participation
- Movement, roles, and student-led activities with the teacher as facilitator
- Active discussions where students repeat, respond to, and build on each other’s ideas
- Group projects and purposeful collaboration tied to literacy, math, and content goals
What engagement sounds like:
- Back-and-forth dialogue instead of hand-raising marathons
- Student-to-student conversation opportunities
- All voices involved—everyone does something, not just a few
- Roles that create shared responsibility and peer learning
What engagement feels like:
- Safe, welcoming, and fun
- Meaningful, relevant, and exciting
- A space where students learn from mistakes and feel confident and included
- A sense of belonging, success, and pride in participation
As we continue this work, we will make efforts to align our professional learning to support and deepen classroom engagement. We will also be looking for strategies that lift student voice, collaboration, and meaningful participation during upcoming visits to classroom to share with you all. Also, our instructional leaders are available to help you reflect, plan, or extend your thinking as this focus evolves. Thank you for the intentional ways you are bringing engagement to life!
Even if you’re not part of the Equitable Grading Task Force, there are meaningful ways to begin reflecting on your own grading practices. Consider asking yourself:
- Do my grades reflect academic achievement or a mix of factors like behavior and participation?
- Are students provided multiple opportunities to show what they’ve learned?
- Do I clearly communicate learning goals and success criteria to students?
- How do I use assessment data to guide instruction or provide feedback?
Engaging in these reflections, discussing them with colleagues, and exploring small changes in your classroom practices are powerful first steps toward grading that truly supports equity and student learning.
This work connects directly to our goal of developing common, standards-aligned assessments across secondary departments. By developing two common formative and one common summative assessment per instructional unit, teachers are creating shared measures of student learning that strengthen collaboration and consistency. The data gathered from these assessments fuel meaningful, data-driven discussions that inform instructional decisions, identify areas for reteaching, and celebrate student growth. Ultimately, equitable grading and common assessments help ensure that all students have a fair opportunity to demonstrate their learning—and that every grade tells the same story across classrooms.
Congratulations to Danielle Davenport, Waverly Kuzara, and Ryan Potter who were the first three to respond to last month's riddle correctly.
If you know the answer to this month's riddle, click HERE to submit your answer. The first three (3) people who answer the riddle correctly will receive a special prize in their mailbox next week!
Good luck!
October Riddle:
I’m not swayed by effort, behavior, or charm,
I measure what’s learned, not who raised an arm.
Late work? Reassess? I say that’s okay —
I’m changing how learning gets shown each day.
What am I?