Featured States of the Month

July 2008: KnowledgeWorks Intiatives States

In past months, you may have seen us highlight the initiatives of individual states as our state of the month. This month, as we eagerly anticipate our annual NCTAF symposium, we are recognizing five states for their innovative thinking and ideas. Representatives from each state will be sharing their initiatives at the 2008 NCTAF Symposium.

In early 2008, NCTAF and KnowledgeWorks Foundation held a conference at the Wingspread Conference Center at the Johnson Foundation in Racine, Wisconsin to create a supportive environment for state leadership teams to work together to articulate a five-year vision for educational transformation in their states. As a result of the conference and ongoing work with NCTAF and KnowledgeWorks Foundation, the five states developed the innovative, forward-thinking initiatives described below. Each team used elements of the KnowledgeWorks Map of the Future to address a chronic problem in the teaching environment. (Click here to download a copy of the Map of the Future.)

Georgia’s Model Learning House: Teachers as Architects of Change

Contact: Vivian Randolph, Assistant Principal, Woodland Middle School, randolph@fultonschools.org     

The vision of the Model Learning House initiative is to create a teacher empowerment and leadership incubator in a high-needs urban middle school, Woodland Middle School, in metropolitan Atlanta, Georgia, that will help educators effectively teach students of the 21st century.  The proposed project will develop specialized learning hubs where teachers and working professionals partner to develop theme- and problem-based interdisciplinary units designed around real-life dilemmas.  The structure will feature flexible staffing and scheduling, sponsored educational excursions, standards-based report cards, summer and after-school programs, expanded learning through technology, and a healthy schools initiative that focuses on nutrition, health, and exercise.  The goals of the Woodland Middle School Model Learning House initiative are to increase teacher empowerment and leadership, to ensure teachers have the knowledge and skills to teach 21st century students, and to improve teacher efficacy, satisfaction, and retention.  Achieving these goals will result in a model that will improve student achievement and success and can be utilized and replicated by other schools and districts.

Hawaii’s Wai’anae World: A Learning Community for Student, Teacher, and Community Success

Contact: Sharon Mahoe, Executive Director, Hawaii Teacher Standards Board, smahoe@htsb.org

Hawaii’s proposal seeks to bring together school and community members of Wai’anae High School as co-learners by embracing current and emerging technology to improve teaching and learning.  Teachers, students, and community elders will collaborate to develop a virtual world, Wai’anae World, in which users play interchanging roles of “teacher” and “learner”. Many new teachers at Wai’anae High School are unfamiliar with the Wai’anae community and its cultural heritage. The virtual world will help induct new teachers into the community’s culture and as a result is likely to reduce teacher attrition, which is an ongoing problem at the school. In addition, the virtual world will increase the pride that Wai’anae students feel in their own culture and ultimately increase student achievement and graduation rates.  The media-pervasive initiative proposes to document the transition of formal learning from the classroom into the world and the new roles or relationships needed to do this.  The project seeks  to develop empowered learning entrepreneurs who collaborate in diverse ways to cultivate learning while also providing a sustainable and supportive environment for teachers and students.

New Jersey’s 21st Century Learning Communities: New Infrastructures for Shared Governance and New Roles for Teachers

Contact: Eileen Avis-Spedding, Manager, Professional Standards, New Jersey State Department of Education, eileen.aviss@doe.state.nj.us

The New Jersey proposal lays out a blueprint for change that will create new collaborative cultures of learning in schools – cultures that broaden and enrich the opportunities for student and educator learning, leadership and participatory governance.  Cohorts of school leaders, working with their staffs, will take part in face-to-face, virtual learning and on-site coaching opportunities, to gain the understanding and skills needed to transform their current schools into collaborative and democratic learning organizations.  In addition, regional teacher leadership academies will prepare cohorts of teachers to take on new leadership roles in schools to support teacher and student learning in rich collaborative environments of shared decision making.  The ultimate goal of the New Jersey proposal is that the lessons of these pilot projects benefit the larger education community and will have state-wide impact.  The New Jersey NCTAF Policy Group, representing education stakeholder groups from across the state, will build a foundation for policy change in the areas of participatory school governance and teacher leadership through current national research, analysis of the New Jersey pilot programs, and examination of the future forces that will impact education.  

South Carolina’s Inside-Out Centers for Learning

Contact: Joanne Avery, Deputy Superintendent, Anderson School District Four, javery@anderson4.k12.sc.us

The South Carolina proposal, the Inside-out Centers for Learning (IOCL), seeks to transform schools into personalized learning and service centers within the context of the larger community and globalization.  Students in the IOCL will engage in personalized experiences that address their individual learning needs and capacities, while teachers work in vertical and horizontal teams to create innovative, standards-based, and individualized instruction. The concept integrates team teaching, looping, community schooling, and other innovative approaches that are all focused on improving student achievement and school performance. By centralizing services, including medical, mental, and dental care, into a central campus and by using the campus as a center with various community stakeholders and services available, the IOCL will serve as a model of integrated, cost-effective educational services that leads to higher student achievement, higher teacher quality, recruitment, and retention, and increased community/parental participation and satisfaction. 

West Virginia’s 21st Century Community Learning Centers

Contact: Craig McClellan, Director, the Center for Education in Appalachia, Fairmont State University, cmcclellan@fairmontstate.edu

West Virginia’s proposal moves teaching and learning from “public education” to “education in public.”   This initiative will reinforce the idea that learning, access to knowledge, and the opportunity that comes with that access, as community responsibilities where public schools are stewards and catalysts for a broader definition of the public-ness of education.  West Virginia will create pilot 21st Century Community Learning Centers (CCLC) in three high schools in Marion County, West Virginia, which will be supported by key stakeholders including local education agencies, the West Virginia Department of Education, and community health, social service, and youth development organizations.  The public engagement will bolster the schools’ efforts and further reinforce a holistic approach to educating students. The CCLC classrooms are envisioned as laboratories where teacher candidates and experienced teachers will engage in effective teaching and participatory pedagogy in partnership with colleges of education.  The result will be a renewed emphasis on “community” and civic participation which will ultimately build stronger communities for West Virginia citizens.

For information on the previous state of the month, click here.