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12/23/09: Read the Fall / Winter 2009 issue of PSI Net!
Project for School Innovation
PSI NET: FALL/WINTER NEWSLETTER
December 2009 In This Issue: Support and Study Groups Collaborations Inquiring Minds Dissemination PSI Staff Update 
Seasons Greetings! Dear colleagues,
This issue of PSI Net finds Project for School Innovation's portfolio of activity full, robust and exciting. Our mantra more than ever is about REFLECTION - reflective teaching and reflective school leadership - and about INQUIRY; about ourselves, our colleagues and our results. While INNOVATION has always been a part of who we are and what we do, the word has taken front stage nationally, state wide and per district; Innovation dollars, Innovation initiatives, teaching for Innovation, scaling up Innovative strategies.
PSI's lens through which we will continue to pursue our work of finding and sharing great practices between charter and district schools, has become even more focused on the reflective work we do with school leaders. We have a principals network now of 80+ strong after seven years of conducting SNIP sessions (see write up below) and it has reinforced for us the importance of reflection and inquiry as one of the most critical paths to ANY kind of innovation.
During this time of thanks and good wishes, we offer you the reminder of the only gift you can give yourself - the gift of reflection. It's a great time to think critically about past challenges AND successes and use that to plan for a great year ahead. Give yourself the time, alone or with colleagues, to ask the tough questions that will ease the likely isolation and frustration felt in the throws of educational challenges -What was I doing / thinking / saying that led to that success or that stumbling block? How am I reaching my students/ staff / parents? What is one thing, one small thing that I can modify in the coming year for self / student improvement and sustainability?
Remember the quote by the great Nobel Laureate Linus Pauling when asked how he came up with great ideas,
"Come up with a lot of ideas and then throw all the bad ones out". Here's to a year of thoughtful reflection that gets us ever more close to the sharing of great educational ideas and true innovation! And of course, please help PSI to continue our critical programming for teachers and school leaders by contributing your tax-deductible dollars to PSI before the end of this calendar year (Click HERE to Donate now).
Best wishes for 2010 -
Ruth Feldman
Executive Director, PSI
Support and Study Groups
We convene action-research groups for principals and teachers to examine common challenges and share strategies for success.Support Network for Innovative PrincipalsPSI is pleased to announce that Support Network for Innovative Principals (SNIP) has expanded to include three active cohorts! In addition to our Boston and alumni groups, we are happy to include participants from southeastern Massachusetts and even Rhode Island among our ever-expanding network of school leaders. As always, SNIP participants converge from a variety of backgrounds, schools, and experiences to discuss common challenges and offer support to one another.
This year's SNIP meetings include a renewed focus on cultivating the practice of reflection, something often overlooked in the hectic life of school leaders. PSI is planning a spring retreat for SNIP participants, alumni, and anyone interested in school leadership issues, so stay tuned for updates!
We are pleased to welcome the Harold Whitworth Pierce Charitable Trust as a supporter of SNIP for 2009 - 2010 and their specific commitment to Boston Public School principals.
Collaborations
We partner with other organizations to facilitate projects that support educators in sharing their strengths and expertise.Drop Out PreventionCounting What CountsDespite greater awareness and new found commitment to tackle many underlying issues leading to staggering numbers of drop outs, the high-school drop out crisis seems to still be with us. In an effort to combat this challenge PSI continues its relationship with three area high schools that specifically serve at-risk students who have either dropped out or are at risk of dropping out of school.
The three urban schools that serve at-risk high school youth; Boston Day & Evening Academy, Lowell Middlesex Academy and Academy of Strategic Learning, along with Professor Mike Nakkula of U Penn, collaborated to administer one more year of their specially designed Student Questionnaire to a total of more than 200 students.Through their respective programming and student supports, these three schools have found that the key to success and resilience is in building strong relationships between student and adults. Relationships at school with teachers, guidance counselors, at internships or after school jobs - relationships with caring adults who can help guide and support are often the key to these students' success. Through our continued work with this At-Risk consortium, supported by a grant from AT&T, we have dug deeper into the ways in which these schools educate and retain many students who would otherwise never receive a high school diploma.
To complement the additional year of Student Questionnaires the team also engaged in follow-up student interviews and developed a tracking tool that captures the experience of the "whole student," not just a fractured glimpse of academic achievement or social / emotional needs. Our early results in using the three-tiered methodology of student studies have given us a sense of what is most meaningful to them in their experience at the respective schools, what social supports are needed and appreciated in order to help them achieve academic success and what overall strategies of the school seem to be most helpful in getting them to stay and graduate and prepare for next steps.
Results and tools will be posted on our website in early 2010. To order a previous publication highlighting these schools' work with at-risk students, please click here.
Neighborhood House Charter SchoolNeighborhood House Charter School, PSI's founding organization, recently began work on a three-year project to improve and expand its counseling and student support services. PSI will assist in documenting and disseminating the project's ongoing work, whose goals are described here by Ellie Rounds, Dean of Special Education & Student Support:
"Our goal for our counseling and full service program is to improve the quality of learning time in the classroom by providing the supports our students need. Given our student population's great need for counseling and other support services, we expect that if we reduce classroom disruptions, teach students conflict-resolution and relationship-building skills, involve families to a greater extent in their children's education and well-being, educate our school community on community violence and social issues, and increase the numbers of students who have access to mental health services, our students will be able to focus better in the classroom and their academic performance will improve."Prospect Hill Academy
PSI is engaged with Prospect Hill Academy Charter School as they partner with two K-8 Somerville public schools, the Winter Hill Community School and the Healey School, to promote and develop the core professional development model used at PHA: Collaborative Inquiry.
Liz Murray, PHA Middle School Director and SNIP Participant, with students
Collaborative Inquiry is embedded in the belief that powerful learning occurs when teams of educators intentionally collaborate to design instructional plans and evaluate the effectiveness in their classroom instructions. The cycle is iterative and ongoing with the goal of sustained, systematic, and demonstrable progress over time.
This model is on the one hand surprisingly simple, yet on the other hand challenging to implement as it requires educators to shift the paradigm from more traditional professional development and common planning time to structured and disciplined collaboration with focused outcomes. Teachers need to learn a new set of "technical" skills and need to learn how to effectively collaborate. In many respects, the shift required is cultural in nature and requires a systems approach to move the work forward.
PSI is helping to facilitate and document the ongoing work at the school team and administrative levels and will be documenting the process for further use and implementation. A full report and usable tools and resources should be available by late 2010. Until then, please read our interview with project coordinator Jessie Gerson-Nieder of Prospect Hill Academy below.
Inquiring Minds
PSI Net ProfileInterview with Jessie Gerson-Nieder:
Collaborative Inquiry Coach, Prospect Hill AcademyPSI: In your own teaching experience, what benefits have you seen in using Collaborative Inquiry?
Jessie: When I became a member of Collaborative Inquiry team, I realized that even good teaching and strong lessons are markedly improved when working in a focused and rigorous way with a team of committed fellow teachers. I also realized how much about the efficacy of my lesson I had previously been taking on faith. I was pretty sure my students were learning what I wanted them to learn-I graded homework, class work, projects, essays, and tests. But the process of using data to deliberately identify critical skills I wanted students to master, working with colleagues to come to a clear understanding of what mastery would look like and strategically evaluating the success of my lesson objectives was a revelation. Collaborative Inquiry gave me the information I needed to truly differentiate my instruction by crafting student groups and lesson plans to meet students where they were and move them to where they needed to be. It made me fully realize the importance of common language, priorities, and strategies across grade levels and content areas and gave me an increased sense of confidence that I was giving my students the best education possible.
PSI: At the Somerville district schools, what initial steps are teachers taking to embrace and use Collaborative Inquiry?Jessie: Teachers at the Winter Hill and the Healey, under the leadership of principals Steve Tuccelli and Mike Sabin, have demonstrated an impressive commitment to and understanding of the challenging work of Collaborative Inquiry. Pilot teacher groups have been meeting regularly to look at data, unpack standards, identify non-negotiable skills, develop common rubrics and collaboratively plan rich lessons around those skill areas. They have developed their own entrance and exit slips and shared the successes and the areas of need that this new focus on regular interim assessment reveals. The teacher teams have made great progress in a short period of time and the work is now expanding to include triple the number of groups, putting the project ahead of the timeline laid out in our action plan. The teachers, with their willingness to commit their time, effort, and expertise to this project deserve a great deal of credit for that forward momentum.
PSI: Collaborative Inquiry emphasizes using student performance data to guide curriculum planning. What are some challenges and limitations to utilizing data in decision-making, and how do you address them?Jessie: I think that because of the realities of high stakes testing and because data seems so unequivocal in a field that is full of difficult decisions and uncertainty, it risks becoming an end rather than a means. Ideally, teachers should understand data well enough to evaluate its full meaning and potential usefulness as they work to plan the best learning experience possible for their students. In Collaborative Inquiry, data isn't just MCAS or MAP scores- although those are certainly valuable, it can also be exit slips, teacher designed assessments, or a common question identified on a well-crafted homework assignment. By expanding the definition of data in this way, and by offering more context and training in how to unpack and understand standardized test results, Collaborative Inquiry supports teachers as they approach data with a sense of purpose and ownership rather than trepidation or resentment. In addition, it answers the question "Now what?" Too often, schools analyze their data at the beginning of the year; identify areas of strength and weakness and then stop. Collaborative Inquiry sees data work as an ongoing parallel process to the work of planning and teaching excellent lessons that address the needs indicated by that data. It is a powerful partnership.
Dissemination
We publish teacher-authored guidebooks and train educators to coach thier peers through workshops and consultations in order to share effective practices within and between charter and district schools.
Co-Teaching for InclusionIn pursuit of our mission to disseminate best practices, PSI has been working to update the Tools and Resources portion of our web site. We recently added a video link to a presentation given by two PSI Associates from the Henderson Elementary School (formerly the O'hearn School)
Darleen Jones-Inge and Terri Wellner, both long-time teachers from the Henderson School (formerly the O'Hearn School) are featured in a short video that highlights the innovative co-teaching approach practiced school-wide at Henderson and describes how this method can accommodate students' various learning needs.
Watch a few minutes of their peer coaching session at Academy of the Pacific Rim, a nearby Boston charter school, as they give helpful tips and recommendations for adopting this different yet compelling model of instruction. Please click here to be re-directed to the video, and visit our Tools and Resources page for further updates.
PSI Staff Update Sumeet GoilPlease welcome Sumeet Goil to PSI! Sumeet graduated from Brown University in May 2009 and will be serving at the Project for School Innovation through a yearlong program organized by New Sector Alliance. Sumeet brings experience teaching and mentoring Providence middle school students to PSI, along with a strong interest in educational reform. He looks forward to assisting PSI with its marketing, evaluation, and collaboration work during this important period of school innovation and reform. Welcome!
Best wishes for a great holiday season!
Stay tuned for program updates and new opportunities at http://www.psinnovation.org-Project for School Innovation -
8/25/09: REGISTRATION OPEN -- 2009-10 SNIP Cohorts
For information and an application to one of PSI's 2009-10 SNIP Principals Groups, click HERE.
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9/3/08: PSI NET Summer 2009- Read about our upcoming events!
PROJECT FOR SCHOOL INNOVATION
PSI NET: SUMMER NEWSLETTER
Editor: Elizabeth SambucoJune 2009 IN THIS ISSUE Support and Study Groups Collaborations Dissemination PSI Net Profile: Sean Shirley Davidson PSI Staff Update Summer Greetings,
When I recently asked my mother, a retired NYC school teacher, what characterized the "best" and "worst" principals she ever worked with, her thoughtful reply served as a confirmation to the successes and struggles we hear about so often in the work PSI does with both teachers and principals.
She told me the "best" principal from her experience was the one that visited classrooms, observed and gave feedback, and really got to know the teachers and the students through conversation and planning time.
Her experience of the "worst" was of a principal who pretty much stayed in their administrative cloister and who commented that they "had a good school because of all the good teachers" - without ever really having much contact (with teachers or students).This reinforced for me what so many of you share in the PSI network; the value of teachers and school leaders who focus together on providing the best possible opportunity for each student to achieve academically through critical and honest assessment, discussion and planning cultivates an optimum educational experience. Given these circumstances, schools become an environment for both professional growth and student success.Thanks mom, for the insight and reminder. Thanks to you all for continuing to share with one another through PSI. Please make sure to read about all of the continuing opportunities for professional development and dissemination: SNIP VIII -Boston and Southeast, SNIP Alumni cohort, Fall Learning Exchange and our Summer Book Sale.
Have a wonderful summer break!
- RuthSupport and Study Groups
We convene action-research groups for principals and teachers to examine common challenges and share strategies for success.Support Network for Innovative PrincipalsTo date, PSI through the Support Network for Innovative Principals - SNIP, has brought together seven cohorts of public district, charter and pilot principals to meet monthly during the academic year to share their successes and challenges. Over 72 principals from 13+ districts have offered one another advice and support, as they hone their critical listening skills and examine their own leadership strengths and weaknesses. SNIP has been described as unique and extremely valuable by past participants because it allows a level of trust and introspection that gets ignored by most other professional development opportunities. We urge principals who are ready to really look at themselves, their core values and their own leadership style to join us in 2009-10. Are you ready to learn about yourself as you become a more aware and confident leader.Boston Cohort - Start date of October 21, 2009 - Downtown Boston location (Post Office Square)We are pleased to welcome the SHIPPY foundation as one of our supporters of SNIP for 2009 - 2010
Southeastern MA - Location TBA: We look forward to offering the benefits of SNIP to principals who live or work in the South Eastern area of MA.
Alumni Cohort - Registration now open to all SNIP Alumni Cohort I - VII: Our Alumni Cohort will engage past SNIP participants in reconnecting as they deepen their reflection, analysis and skill building around mindful school leadership. As with our other SNIP cohorts the case study method will be used as will small group dialogue and individual reflection which will give participants the opportunity to connect their practice to their principles while discovering even more about their leadership style.
If you are interested in joining our SNIP program in 2009 - 2010 please visit http://www.psinnovation.org/what_we_do/support_and_study_groups/snipCollaborations
We partner with other organizations to facilitate projects that support educators in sharing their strengths and expertise.Drop Out PreventionCounting What Counts
Through funding from AT&T this year, PSI has been fortunate to continue its work with the At-Risk consortium, Counting What Counts. The three urban schools that serve at-risk high school youth; Boston Day & Evening Academy, Lowell Middlesex Academy and Academy of Strategic Learning, along with Professor Mike Nakkula of U Penn, have collaborated to administer one more year of their specially designed Student Questionnaire to a total of more than 350 students.
This year, we've been able to go even deeper in telling the story about what supports and services make a real difference to these students remaining in and completing high school by completing a select number of student interviews. Most importantly, the group has developed a user-friendly tracking tool that was piloted at the end of this school year with the goal of providing further student data for correlation which will ultimately give us a more complete picture of school services and their impact on students' success. This Student Questionnaire together with the refined Tracking Tool will be shared more broadly in order to enable other schools with similar student populations to be able to serve their students most effectively. With this tool, schools will be able to gauge progress in not only academics, but in critical social, career and life skills which are essential to students' long term success. Click here to learn more!Keeping the Promise
We've completed our involvement in the final and third year of Keeping the Promise, KTP, a three-year U.S. Department of Education grant awarded to the Massachusetts Charter Public School Association (MCPSA).
Over the course of Keeping the Promise, we have worked with some of the highest performing public charter schools in Massachusetts that serve high need, low income populations including Boston Collegiate, Community Day, Academy of the Pacific Rim, MATCH, and Roxbury Preparatory -- to assist them in identifying what makes them successful so they can serve as national models for dissemination and replication.
Our collaboration with Massachusetts Center for Charter Public School Excellence and Community Partners Initiative allowed us to leverage the strengths of PSI by bringing together charter and district schools to learn and share successful practices. Highlights form this final phase of the project include the fall and spring forum and spring study tours that interestingly brought together district, charter and charter applicants on the same study tours, exchanging ideas, concerns and common challenges - bridging the sometimes tense divides that exist among educators from different sectors.
These were most inspiring because they encouraged a diverse group of educators to share openly, honestly and give one another helpful, critical feedback with which to refine their school plan and implementation strategy. We are so proud to have been a part of this great project and look forward to our continued work with new districts and strengthening our existing relationships with the charter host schools involved.
The research and findings of Keeping the Promise has been compiled into the documentary, "Beating the Odds" which recently had its Boston premier! The documentary highlights interviews with students, teachers and school leaders. Act fast to receive your free copy! use with educator teams as they adapt other successful school practices for their own school use. Katherine K. Merseth also draws on the findings of Keeping the Promise in her new book, Inside Urban Charter Schools.
For more information http://psinnovation.org/what_we_do/collaboration/keeping_the_promise
Dissemination
We publish teacher-authored guidebooks and train educators to coach thier peers through workshops and consultations in order to share effective practices within and between charter and district schools.
SAVE THE DATELearning Exchange Conference8:30 AM -3:00 PM
@ Wheelock CollegeTeacher-led peer workshops on effective:
-Curriculum and Instruction
-School-wide practice
-Professional Development
Principal retreat for "SNIP" alumni only!
Watch for details and registration forms on our website by late AugustSUMMER BOOK SALEThroughout the summer we will be offering select PSI books from our By Teachers for Teachers and Wisdom of Educators series at half price ($20.00+Shipping) * For more information on our books and ordering information, please visit our website.
*Sale price available June - August only on books in stock.
Inquiring Minds
We recently asked teachers:
How has your learning style impacted your teaching?
They said:
"I am an auditory learner, which definitely influences my teaching. In class, students remember songs that use their vocabulary words, tell stories about fractions, and discuss and ask questions about literature. My class is one continuous conversation, because speech is the best way I know to both lean and convey ideas."
"I don't think I teach according to how I learn. I usually try to find out what the students do best and take steps to get them engaged in the material. Content can shift depending on the response. The process is attempting to shift the methods to best accommodate the various sytles of students' learning.""Needing to understand every little thing fundamentally, allowed greater overstanding of the bigger picture, larger concepts, and things yet to have been proven. I've been able to explain any concept thus far to any style learner because of this."
PSI Net Profile
Interview with Comcast Leadership Award Winner, Sean Shirley Davidson, Dean of Middle School - Neighborhood House Charter School, Dorchester, MANeighborhood House is piloting a collaborative 3 year program of service and training by hosting a City Year team
Comcast Leadership Awards 2009
The Comcast Leadership Award, is bestowed annually upon five nominated City Year alumni. Recipients of the award continue to embody the values of City Year: innovation, teamwork, responsibility, diversity, respect for others, leadership, innovation and personal growth. Click here to learn more about the City Year / Americorps program of "putting idealism to work".
Q: What impact did having been a CY alum yourself have on your current experience as an educator and administrator?
Sean: As a CY alum, I was able to have empathy for how hard it is to be a corps member; it's hard work, minimal pay and lots of hours. I could relate to the intensity of the experience overall and therefore had a profound and truer sense of the work they do.
Q: What 3 - 5 tips would you have for other educators wanting to collaborate with an external organization such as CY?
1) TRAINING, TRAINING, TRAINING! Lots of training to get them oriented and equipped to succeed.
2) Assume nothing
3) Start at the ground level and work your way up; educate them on the big picture like Mission, Vision, Core Principles and Systems of your organization, then move into the actual details and goal of the work at hand. By doing this in phases, the specifics of their work become framed within the larger mission of the organization.
4) Make them a part of the general staff as much as possible; invite them to meetings where appropriate, engage them in professional development time with everyone else - and include them in the fun stuff as well i.e. holiday parties, celebrations.
5) Make sure there is a point person for each partner - for the school and the external organization, so that everyone knows who the main contact person is and communication is efficient and clear as possible. The two point people should have a standing meeting to ensure information is exchanged and planning and implementation are seamless.
Q: What were some intended outcomes form this collaboration and some unintended outcomes?
Intended Outcome: CY was at Neighborhood House to help support the academic achievement and the social / emotional growth of students.
Unexpected outcome: It turned out to be an even greater benefit than expected to have CY in the building because it meant not only enrichment opportunities for all students but it also meant that teachers had more time available to work with lower achieving students and to offer student academic support that had previously been a challenge, time wise. It meant that we were able to provide targeted, enrichment and support for students with low foundations.
Ultimately, City Year's contribution helped us to better differentiate instruction across the grades - something we did not originally anticipate as an expected benefit.
While City Year corps members are most known for their success in working with grades 3-5, we recognized that their work with our middle schoolers, in particular, was beneficial. They were able to serve as role models who were young and cool and in college, they were able to forge strong relationships and positively influence the students' behavior and academics, and ultimately their ability to make positive choices.
PSI Staff UpdateMatthew WilkaPSI Alumnus Matthew Wilka
recently concluded a Fulbright Fellowship in Ecuador, where he served as a consultant to a 25,000 student alternative public school system. Working with his fiancée, Jen, Matthew analyzed the system's organization, resource alignment, and external relations through school visits and over 300 stakeholder interviews to support a redesign of the network's leadership structure and program delivery system. Matthew also found time to watch the sun rise from the summit of a 20,000 foot mountain, bask with tortoises in the Galapagos, and eat enough memorable foods to last a lifetime.Elizabeth SambucoPSI welcomes Elizabeth Sambuco as our summer web/marketing assistant! Elizabeth graduated from Simmons College this past May, earning a degree in Public Relations and Marketing Communications. As prior Vice President of the Simmons Marketing Association and avid member of Public Relations Student Society of America, Elizabeth is looking forward to furthering her communication skills and assisting PSI in their marketing efforts.Best wishes for a great summer break!
Stay tuned for program updates and new opportunities -
Project for School Innovation -
7/21/08: PSI's Summer 2008 Newsletter
Click here to read the Summer 2008 edition of PSI Net, featuring highlights from the past year and a look ahead at 2008-2009. -
3/14/08: PSI's Winter 2008 Newsletter
Click HERE to download the Winter 2008 edition of PSI Net! The theme of this issue is "peer coaching." -
1/8/08: Learning Exchange Conference 2/9 - REGISTRATION NOW OPEN
Learning Exchange Conference 2008Saturday, February 9th9:00AM to 3:00PM21 Queen Street, Dorchester, MAThe 2008 PSI Learning Exchange Conference offers educators, student teachers, and school leaders the opportunity to engage with peers as they present on effective practices from Boston-area District and Charter schools.Thank you to all who attended!To download a Conference flyer, click HERE -
11/5/07: PSI's Fall 2007 Newsletter
In this issue of PSI Net, you will find profiles of 'School Leadership' - including an article by Principal Irene Hannigan on the use of writing as a reflective tool; and an interview with teachers from the Richard J. Murphy School about teacher leadership teams. In addition, we share news both from PSI and from our growing network of educators and Model Schools. You may read a PDF copy of the Newsletter here. -
10/2/07: SNIP VI Application and Learning Exchange Registration CLICK HERE
Join the Support Network for Innovative Principals, Cohort VI
STEP 1 - Read the invitation and submit the registration form found on our Support and Study Group page.
STEP 2 - Schedule a brief phone interview.
STEP 3 - Upon acceptance into the cohort, pay $150 tuition via PayPal or arrange alternate payment as needed.
Join us for the first session of SNIP VI on October 30th!
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9/27/07: Registration for SNIP VI
Join the Support Network for Innovative Principals, Cohort VI -- $150.00
STEP 1 - Read the invitation and submit the registration form found on our Support and Study Group page.
STEP 2 - Schedule a brief phone interview.
STEP 3 - Upon acceptance into this cohort, pay via PayPal or arrange alternate payment as needed.
Join us for the first session of SNIP VI on October 30th!
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9/17/07: Application Available for 2007-2008 SNIP Group!
To download the invitation and application for PSI's 2007-2008 Support Network for Innovative Principals cohort, please visit our Support and Study Group page.
Please complete and submit your application by October 5 to Matthew Wilka at mwilka@psinnovation.org.
To learn more about SNIP, please visit our SNIP page.