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Successful by traditional measures, the board of the Singapore American School asked Superintendent Kimball Chip, to help make the school as good as it was at college prep. That launched an extraordinary six-year journey fired by more than 100 school visits and intense staff study.
Deputy Superintendent Jennifer Sparrow was Kimball's partner on the journey. She has deep roots in the community, did her student teaching at SAS and has the academic program for a decade.
We have a recent visit to the 4,000 student school, we saw 20 signs of progress in talent development, care and guidance, and high impact teaching.
Talent Development
1. Clear institutional commitments. Clear goals translate into role clarity. Positions have been updated several times. They inform hiring, development and appraisal.
"We pay attention to talent and teacher and mid-level leadership," said Kimball. "People often go to the technical aspects of the work attitude is just as important – the willingness to speak truth, take feedback, and learn from failure."
"You can not innovate in a culture of fear," added Kimball.
2. Professional learning communities. For the last eight years, PLCs have been central to professional learning and improved practice at SAS. They've been supported by strengths-based training and facilitated leadership.
3. School visits. Over 100 faculty members visited over 100 schools on six continents. They took lessons back to SAS and discussed them in PLCs.
4. Teacher leadership. About 160 of the 400 faculty have leadership roles. "If plc is the fulcrum for classroom change," said Kimball.
5. Onsite doctoral program. In partnership with University of Southern California, 16 SAS faculty recently graduated with a doctorate in education. They received a scholarship for a 3 years postdoc.
Care and Guidance
6. Elementary Social Emotional Learning. SAS adopted a responsive classroom model to promote social and emotional learning. "Everybody has been trained on how to talk to children," explained Sparrow. "We stress being safe, responsible, and kind."
"SEL is part of a culture of excellence, possibilities, extraordinary care." Added Kimball. "And in our school visits, we found few schools that are exceptional at all three."
7. Response To Intervention. RTI is used in K-12. "We're getting better at answering PLC question 3 (what if students struggle) and question 4 (what if students already know)," said Kimball. "You can not have RIT without a PLC," added Kimball.
8. Pastoral care. To separate both functions, SAS separated from college and pastoral care. "College applications are becoming more challenging," said Kimball, "and we did not want to impact the college admission process."
A new student life center (below) has social and emotional support and learning.
9. Advisory. A high school advisory period was added and the middle school home base structure was updated. An advisor works with 8-12 learners with a focus on relationships and pastoral care.
"Every good school we visited had a high functioning advisory system," said Kimball.
10. Mentoring. With more project-based learning at SAS, Kimball says the focus has shifted from the quality of the final product to the process of learning. That often includes seeking mentors and serving mentors – skills that will serve them well in college and beyond. Mentoring is particularly important on the campus where a quarter of the student body turns over annually.
In the upper division, self-directed Catalytic projects are a cultural, instructional and course-specific student's directed self-study project. For these projects, students are expected to secure and use a mentor in a relevant field.
High Impact Instructional Strategies
11. Reggio. Two years ago, Reggio-inspired transformation and it has been successful and popular. The Reggio Emilia philosophy is an approach to teaching, learning and advocacy for children.
With Quest, a project-based upper division microschool (see # 17), it was a precursor of the collaborative process change modeling, cultural competence and creativity.
12. Language immersion. A primary Chinese language immersion program has been successful and popular at one time.
13. Middle-grade projects. Twice a year for six weeks, middle school students have time to pursue a passion project during an expanded homeroom period. Teachers received training that included completing their own project. Parents receive frequent communication about the academic intent of the program.
14. Inquiry-based learning. Students are encouraged to pursue inquiry-based learning across the curriculum with a cycle of question, investigate, create, and reflect. Initially, the process begins with teacher-driven prompts, then moves to a shared inquiry, and finally, finally, with individual pacing and product with some teacher support.
15. Maker libraries. The middle school library features a well-stocked makerspace with old and new tools (check out this video). The high school library is a favorite (air conditioned) hang out space (below) and a project lab and makerspace.
16. Catalyst Project. Every student is required to conduct a self-directed project of at least a semester in length during their junior or senior year with. They work with a mentor in a field of learning and work-based learning in specific key areas (character, collaboration, communication, creativity and innovation, critical thinking, and cultural competence, as well as self-awareness and application).
17. Quest. A project-based microschool (below) is open to junior and senior. Units of study focus on interdisciplinary collaborative ventures and often connect students with industries in areas including engineering, information technology, and marketing.
18. Advanced courses. SAS offers more than 40 advanced courses including Advanced Placement (AP) and internally developed Advanced Topic (AT) courses. The AT courses, developed by SAS faculty in faculty, are more in-depth than the AP courses they replace (AT Computational Physics v. AP physics) or fill gaps in the AP offerings (AT Kinesiology).
In a decision that some parents considered controversial, SAS capped the number of AP races a student could take a seven. This was done to promote deeper learning and discourage the AP obsession that was not improving college entrance options.
The decision to increase APs with AT courses was taken after talking with dozens of admissions officers at leading universities. "Admissions officers told us our kids were able but not interesting," said Kimball. The AT courses promote critical outcomes and make SAS students more distinctive. Many of the AT courses on credit from leading universities.
19. Competency. With a parent, hired three curriculum specialists to work with elementary, middle, and high school teams to develop a competency-based curriculum. A well-developed competency framework has been drafted and will be introduced next year. Standards-based grading is already in place K-8.
20. Model Classrooms. In the process of building campuses, they have been developed to expand the landscape of the future, and to study specific options regarding groupings, dividing walls, furniture, lighting and air conditioning systems.
"These flexible learning spaces are different than the open concept of the 1970s," said Kimball. "The goals, strategies, practices, equipment, and materials are different – teachers are actualizing the four questions of PLC in real time," added Kimball.
The progress the SAS has made over the last six years is remarkable. Add SAS to your list of schools
Key Takeaways
[:15] About today's episode with Tom, Chip Kimball, and Jennifer Sparrow.
[1:10] Tom welcomes Chip and Jennifer to the podcast.
[1:21] Tom's and Chip's background together, and why Chip decided to join SAS in 2012.
[2:50] Chip's progress in shaping SAS's education and facility.
[5:26] Jennifer's background as an international educator, and what originally drew her to SAS.
[8:12] Tom highlights some of the remarkable progress at Singapore American School since last visited (2 years ago), such as the talent
agenda.
[11:18] Jennifer's and Chip's thoughts on fostering talent and the importance of their institutional commitments.
[14:18] About SAS Professional Learning Communities (PLCs).
[15:20] Jennifer discusses how the school continues to support, encourage, and monitor their PLC practices.
[17:05] Chip describes some of the investments that they've made to strengthen their PLC practices.
[20:44] Tom highlights another sign of remarkable progress at Singapore American School: care and guidance (such as adding more social-emotional programming). Jennifer and Chip speak about their work towards this and the progress they've made.
[22:53] Two more signs of progress at Singapore American School: How do we get it, how do we accelerate their learning?
[26:11] Why Chip decided to break the roles of college counseling and pastoral care into two separate areas.
[30:27] Jennifer and Chip discuss the next steps to the work that starts with responsive classrooms: advisory.
[32:29] A focal point of SAS: mentoring (both for students and students).
[34:24] Jennifer and Chip talk high impact instructional strategies at SAS.
[37:40] What is "try time" for middle school students?
[43:23] About SAS's third party of inquiry-based learning.
[45:33] About SAS's personalized inquiry catalyst graduation requirement.
[47:45] One of SAS 'most ambitious changes: a leading AP factory and then one that is more strategic.
[52:10] Another academic area SAS is making huge progress in – competency-based learning.
[56:03] About SAS's new learning spaces on campus.
[1:02:57] Tom congratulates Chip and Jennifer on the progress they've made at SAS.
Mentioned in This Episode
Singapore American School Episode 162: "Personalize Learning and Build Agency by Using the 4 PLC Questions" Why Flexible Learning Environments Creating The Future of Learning: Singapore American School
The photos above were taken by Tom Vander Ark. Stay in-the-know with all things EdTech and innovation in learning by signing up to receive the weekly Smart Update. This post includes mentions of a Smart Getting Partner. For a full list of partners, affiliate organizations and all other disclosures, please see our Partner page.
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