Post Kinds: Article

A Model Critique is a protocol for quickly studying a high-quality piece of work and identifying the elements of quality that make it “work”. In Continuous Improvement, you should use it when a Networked Improvement Community has identified an effective practice that they want to spread.

A project feels big and ambitious to students because of the audience they’re showing the product to, and the venue where they’ll share it.

This article is an edited excerpt from an episode of the High Tech High Unboxed podcast. You can listen to the full episode here. In this excerpt, Andy Sprakes, co-founder and chief academic officer at the XP School Trust in Britain tells Unboxed editor Alec Patton about the mistake he has never forgotten from his first-ever project, and how that mistake shaped the school’s entire culture.

A learning target is an “I can” statement written in student-friendly language (for example, “I can graph linear equations.”

This collection is called “stories of improvement with tangible results” and we’ve split these stories up by category—chronic absenteeism, on-track rates, and college access—to make it easy for you to find the story you need!

In 1971 I started working at The Group School (TGS), an alternative high school in Cambridge, Massachusetts. My connection to TGS started shortly after I ran afoul of the administration at the high school where I had been teaching, for sponsoring an event that included speakers from women’s liberation and gay liberation, and for publicly calling for a school walk-out to protest the escalating war in Vietnam.

This collection of curated student work spans the hallways of High Tech High schools. See examples and take the techniques so you can use the ones that will work on your school.

Our regional attendance network designed a sequenced communication cadence that rolls out in three waves: a “Start Strong” attendance campaign in the fall, followed by winter and spring campaigns. Early evidence suggests that such campaigns positively impact attendance not only during the campaign but continue to produce positive impacts for a short time afterwards.

Improvement isn’t just a method. It’s culture.

In April, I had the great pleasure of moderating a “crossover” panel that spanned the Deeper Learning Conference and the National Summit on Improvement in Education.