1. Instructional Shifts that Matter: How School Leaders can Support Teachers to make them happen
Southern Regional Education Board Annual Leadership Forum
April 21, 2017

2. Reflections and implications
Reflections on learning from the field
Considerations for the future
Distributed leadership Support
District enabling conditions
Focus on secondary schools
Partnerships with higher education

3. Our learning line
Everything there is to know
Absolute ignorance

4. Reflections On the past decade of reform
Higher expectations for all students
General agreement on common standards, rigorous assessments, and support for students most in need
School turnaround models that have brought about mixed results
Greater attention to the value of teachers and excellent teaching
But, despite modest gains and rising high school graduation rates, these enabling conditions have not yet led to the increases in successful student outcomes or closing of the opportunity gaps that we all seek.
© Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation |
© Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

5. Key Investments that Have shaped our learning since 2008
Measuring Effective Teaching Project
Intensive Partnership Site
Innovative Professional Development (IPD)
Integration Investments
© Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation |

6. ELA instructional shifts
The Common Core English language arts standards put a complex text at the center of the lesson and move away from isolated, skills-based instruction.
ELA Before
ELA After
Little emphasis on text complexity.
Vocabulary questions often focused on prior knowledge rather than context
Figurative language questions focused on literary terms rather than meaning.
Text Complexity: Regular practice with complex text and its academic language
Primary focus on simple recall or superficial analysis often with decontextualized tasks
Little or no emphasis on using textual evidence
Evidence: Reading, writing and speaking grounded in evidence from text, both literary and informational
Equal representation of informational and literary text throughout the grades,
Limited focus on the quality of informational texts
Knowledge: Building knowledge through content-rich nonfiction
© Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation |

7. math instructional shifts
The Common Core math standards support a deeper understanding of math concepts, while balancing the need for solid foundational skills.
Math Before
Math After
Covered a broad range of content without delving deeply into many, if any, topics
All content was considered of equal importance
Focus: Significant narrowing and deepening the major work of each grade
Assessment was a checklist of individual standards
Each topic taught in isolation each year
Coherence: Coherent progressions from grade to grade and clear connections within grades
Over-emphasis on procedural skill
Lacked focus on building conceptual understanding
Lacked authentic application of math to non-routine problems and real-world situations
Rigor: Increased rigor, as represented by:
Speed and accuracy in calculation
Conceptual understanding of key concepts
Use of math flexibly in problem-solving contexts
© Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation |

8. Leadership practices to support the shifts: ambitious instruction
Set a vision for ambitious instruction
Create systems to support data-driven instruction
Create systems for ongoing professional learning and collaboration
Upgrade curriculum and instructional models
Create opportunities for individualization and intervention
Provide targeted feedback and coaching
© Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation |

9. The journey toward strong implementation that matters
Stage 1: Setting the conditions
Principal is the instructional leader
Focus on setting vision and critical conditions
PD: Focus on setting up systems to improve instruction rather than instruction itself
Stage 2: Upgrading systems and structures
Principal supported by some teacher leaders
Vision, curriculum, and instructional model established
PD: Focus on strengthening collaborative structures to consistently enact ambitious instruction
Stage 3: Consistently enacting ambitious instruction
Distributed instructional leadership
High degree consensus/coherence around vision
PD: Robust structures exist to enact/continually refine ambitious instruction in every classroom
© Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation |

10. Continued efforts: implications for future work
Stronger examples in secondary schools
Supportive district conditions for school level change
Deliberate focus on strengthening distributed leadership teams in schools
Strategic partnership with higher education (teacher and leader preparation)
© Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation |

11. the foundation’s work ahead
Equity
A defining value of the foundation (“all lives have equal value”), but not always explicit or accomplished through a universal approach that doesn’t expressly acknowledge the impact of race and class
Leadership to Drive Change
Evaluation results across a wide range of initiatives and programs revealed that teachers’ experiences and successful implementation of new practices depended significantly on the quality of their leadership.
Schools as the Locus of Improvement
Teachers remain the most important in-school influence on student learning, but their work takes place within the context of the school.
Anchor on Key Indicators of Student Success
Significant advances in the evidence base around which patterns of student behavior, course-taking, and achievement in middle school and high school are predictive of long-term success enable a more context- sensitive and student-facing approach.
© Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation |