1. LEADING INSTRUCTIONAL IMPROVEMENT
Richard F. Elmore
Harvard Graduate School of Education
Leadership: An Evolving Vision
July 2010

2. BUILDING HIGH-LEVEL INSTRUCTION THROUGH OBSERVATION AND ANALYSIS OF PRACTICE

3. THE INSTRUCTIONAL CORE
Principle #1: Increases in student learning occur only as a consequence of improvements in the level of content, teachers’ knowledge and skill, and student engagement.
Principle #2: If you change one element of the instructional core, you have to change the other two.
Principle #3: If you can’t see it in the core, it’s not there.
Principle #4: Task predicts performance.
Principle #5: The real accountability system is in the tasks that students are asked to do.
Principle #6: We learn to do the work by doing the work.
Principle #7: Description before analysis, analysis before prediction, prediction before evaluation.
THE INSTRUCTIONAL CORE
CONTENT
TASK
STUDENT
TEACHER 3

5. OBSERVE, DESCRIBE, ANALYZE, PREDICT

6. TWO TEACHERS, TWO TASKS SAME DEPARTMENT COMMON PLANNING TIME
COMMON UNIT OF STUDY

7. THE STANDARD STUDENTS WILL DEMONSTRATE UNDERSTANDING OF HOW TO COMPUTE FRACTIONS, DECIMALS, AND PERCENTAGES, AND HOW TO APPLY THIS KNOWLEDGE TO REAL-WORLD PROBLEMS

8. THE COMMON CORE STANDARDS: FRACTIONS

9. THE PROBLEM OF PRACTICE: ARE STUDENTS ABLE TO USE MATHEMATICAL LANGUAGE AND REASONING TO EXPLAIN THEIR WORK?