By Lonnie Harp
The day before school began at College View Middle School south of Owensboro, everything was in order in Mike Riggs’ classroom. The work that remained was an important new facet of his teaching goals — finishing calls to the families of every student in his first class of the day. He takes time to introduce himself and learn about his soon-to-be students.
Riggs said the hours spent on calls make him feel more prepared to connect with the class.
“It’s time-consuming, but it’s worth it,” Riggs said on the cusp of his fifth year teaching. “Parents have shared with me how their kids learn best, which is useful. They’ve talked about their kids’ feelings about social studies — I know what they love to learn and that some are not big fans of history. It’s going to help me, because like I’ve told their parents, part of my goal is to make them like social studies and enjoy history.”
Through the calls, families learned that Riggs wants them involved. He shared his cell number and pledged quick replies. He is eager to see if the pro-active connection to families and new opening activities asking students to identify learning strengths and personal interests will spark a more productive environment.
Riggs’ experiment in forging a stronger connection with students and their families is among dozens of classroom-level improvement projects underway this fall in the Daviess County district. In February, the district introduced a set of professional learning collaboratives — local training sessions for teachers at all grade levels — built to connect and empower more than 100 educators with a self-defined learning plan to improve daily experiences for students.
“Our goal was to get down to the classroom level with this work,” said Jana Beth Francis, the Daviess assistant superintendent. The sessions combined individual and group work organized by district staff. Topics grew from a statewide call by teachers for school districts to put more of their peers in a position to design school improvements. Daviess County focused on developing family partnerships, quality teaching and learning, and culturally responsive teaching.
Francis said that the 2020 Letter from Kentucky Teachers — published in December by the Prichard Committee — made sense. The group of Prichard Committee Fellows was made up of 27 educators from 23 school districts across the state. Francis said the Daviess district has worked to build teacher leadership, and the letter from the Fellows inspired training built to inform and support teacher-led solutions.
MIKE RIGGS, A TEACHER at College View Middle School chose professional learning about building family engagement to create a strategy for better connecting with students and parents in his first-block history class.
At Daviess County High School, English teacher Alicia Wilson said the collaborative led to new strategies she will incorporate this year to build greater engagement among her 9th and 10th-grade students. That involved evaluating the kinds of questions that drive students’ work in class, the types of feedback used to shape assignments, and what steps can give classrooms the feel of a learning community.
“We’ve talked about steps that can lead to students asking deeper questions and not being passive in their learning,” said Wilson, starting her second year at Daviess County. “That will mean more active time working together, more discussion, and hands-on learning.”
The young teacher said she sees the new approaches as a way to tap the flexible, passionate energy she sees in teen students. She hopes to connect student energy with the discoveries possible from books and other reading material.
Teachers who participated in the professional learning collaboratives said the takeaways were identifying small changes to teaching practices that can reach more students or boost learning dynamics.
Celeste Lawson, a veteran teacher at Tamarack Elementary, said she recognized that allowing more “wait time” — pauses between when she poses a question in class or opens topics for discussion — can encourage more students to think and formulate responses and be ready to participate.
“As you are waiting, more hands go up and you can notice students more engaged in thinking,” said Lawson, who has come up with her own techniques she will use this fall to make sure students percolate on questions for at least five seconds before starting conversation.
“The goal is better, deeper answers,” Lawson said. “It’s not a big thing and involves no prep time but there are a lot of good things that can come from remembering to wait. It can build reflection, feedback and good discourse.”
Mike Riggs at College View Middle plans to use this school year to analyze how additional outreach to parents and students in his first block class affects outcomes. If the results produce the expected benefits, he said can imagine incorporating strategies that work for all of his students next year and begin sharing ideas to colleagues.
“It seems like a good approach to make sure I know the kids and am pulling in parents. There’s time for that before we jump into Jamestown and Plymouth,” he said.
ALICIA WILSON OF Daviess County High School, focused on instructional techniques for engaging more students during classwork as part of the district’s professional learning collaboratives in the spring and summer. Photo courtesy of Daviess County School District
Teachers involved in the Prichard Committee group that met last year said that 2020’s shutdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic and discussions about violence caused by racial profiling led many teachers to think deeply about the role they play and the opportunities that schooling provides.
“As a result of this stretching, we have grown,” the teachers stated in the letter they produced. “We have emerged as better teachers and stronger leaders.”
“Public school teachers have always needed the trust and support of their personal and professional communities to create engaging, high-quality learning experiences that align with student needs, interests, and aspirations, let alone during a time of constant change and unforeseen challenges around the corner,” said Brad Clark, who convened the group for the Prichard Committee in September 2020.
Gabi Martinez, who leads migrant education programs in Daviess County, said that the collaboratives there picked up on the connection between classroom success, family involvement, and cultural awareness.
“People in schools want to know more. The conversations about engaging families and being culturally responsive were eye openers for teachers,” said Martinez, who added that the self-study and group discussions of the collaboratives were a good atmosphere for building teacher-led projects.
Martinez expects noticeable change and improvement across the district on classroom and family involvement. “The more inviting you are, the more you’ll get from people,” she said.
The teacher leaders’ group closed by noting that its call for teachers to work together to develop higher quality learning experiences and a school climate that encourages all students needs support from the ranks of educators and the wider school community.
“We ask for your encouragement to continue learning, and the space and grace to test new approaches and ideas,” the December letter noted. “With your help, we can obtain sufficient resources, and pursue a learner-centered mission and vision in every public school in Kentucky.”
Francis said the Daviess sessions were a hit. “We designed the collaboratives as experiences of learning together, which was a style that teachers liked,” she said. “We planted a seed and they were ready to dig deeper.”
TOP PHOTO: Teachers gathered for a High Quality Curriculum training session during the summer break. The session was held at Deer Park Elementary School. Photo courtesy of Daviess County School District
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