001[Music] I think of all the things that I am most excited about um given our initial work here in Petersburg, I think is going to be the development and implementation of our instructional framework. The core business of any school district or school division is teaching and learning. And so this instructional framework aligns to that work and that prioritization around um recommitting to teaching and learning. And so I charge the team with taking a deep dive into what's happening in our our classrooms. What resources do we have in place? You know, my 100 day plan had some top priorities. And one of those top priorities was a recommmitment to teaching, learning and performance. And so this framework actually aligns to that. We are so excited um that we are rolling out this instructional framework. The framework
002consists of three chunks but six big phases. And the first phase is the opening and that is what we call our warm-up. During that warm-up time, it is activating prior knowledge, connecting the new learning to the old learning. Um, then we go into where we call the focus session. That session is where the teacher models what kids need to do. And that is something that's so important. Kids need to know the goal for the class and they need to know what what excellence should look like. And so, we're asking all our teachers to model that excellence before they give it to students. Once the teacher modeled it, the teacher would work together with students and and the teacher will guide them by asking probing questions kind of working with them together as a class to
003complete the lesson. And then finally, the students have an opportunity to work with their peers. When I was in school learning, I learned a lot from my peers. So, giving kids time to collaborate with each other. And then the final stage of this is the student has their own time to work independently on the lesson. Once students have worked independently on the lesson, that's the time when the teacher is walking around the classroom actively monitoring instruction. Um, as the lesson ends, the teacher may clear up misconceptions. And that's the final phase. That's where the teacher ends the lesson, but the teacher makes sure that any misconceptions or if if kids don't understand something, that is cleared up prior to them leaving the classroom. The six levels of the instructional framework allow students to slowly practice
004while increasing the level of difficulty each day to give them ample opportunity to review the material, practice, collaborate with their classmates and then eventually progress to independent work where they're able to hold their own and show us what they know as an individual. The gradual release model allows us to provide a form of scaffolding to help build the students up from where they are to allow them to become more independent while they're engaged and also shares the responsibility between the student and teacher. So we both have our clearly designed rules and we can see what each is responsible for especially for a novice teacher and for an experienced one. This model, what we call the gradual release model or our instructional framework, it's all built around getting our students to be more independent in their
005learning instead of depending more on the teacher. At the end of the day, when our students graduate, we want our students to be able to excel in the four E. Whether they choose employment, enrollment in a college, enlistment in the military, or entrepreneurship, we want our kids to be independent. So the gradual release model is a way of creating those habits that will help our kids be independent adults.