Time for Teachers: Leveraging Expanded Time to Strengthen Instruction and Empower Teachers
Author: Kaplan, Claire
Date: 2015-00-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Extended School Day,Extended School Year,Faculty Development,Teacher Collaboration,Lesson Plans,Summer Programs,Inservice Teacher Education,Coaching (Performance),Observation,Data,Decision Making,Instruction,Teacher Empowerment,Elementary Schools,High Schools,Middle Schools,Time Management,Elementary School Teachers,Middle School Teachers,Secondary School Teachers

This study looks deeply inside 17 schools that stand at the vanguard of the current revolution in teaching. This new National Center on Time &amp; Learning (NCTL) report reveals the substantive ways in which these schools are providing their teachers with more time to reflect on, develop, and hone their craft, by very explicitly leveraging an expanded-time school schedule and calendar. These schools' expanded time--on average, they are in session almost 300 hours more per year than the national norm of 1,170 hours--affords not only more hours and days focused on classroom instruction, but also a full array of professional learning opportunities. While the average American teacher spends less than 20 percent of her time in school outside the classroom--about seven total hours per week--teachers across the 17 schools featured in this report spend twice that proportion (40 percent) in activities that support their instruction--such as planning with peers or individually, reflecting upon their classroom teaching, and/or learning new content or pedagogies. s explores six specific practices--one each in Chapters Two through Seven--that highly-effective schools have put in place. These practices are: (1) Collaborative Lesson Planning: Improving Teaching through Teamwork. Featuring: UP Academy Boston (Boston, MA); Biltmore Preparatory Academy (Phoenix, AZ); Newton Elementary School (Greenfield, MA); Frank M. Silvia Elementary School (Fall River, MA); The Preuss School (La Jolla, CA); (2) Embedded Professional Development: Building Knowledge through Collaboration. Featuring: Nicolas S. LaCorte-Peterstown School No. 3 (Elizabeth, NJ); Brunson-Lee Elementary (Phoenix, AZ); The Preuss School (La Jolla, CA); Morton School of Excellence (Chicago, IL); KIPP Central City Academy (New Orleans, LA); (3) Summer Training: Establishing Expectations and Planning Ahead. Featuring: Achievement First Amistad High School (New Haven, CT); UP Academy Boston (Boston, MA); YES College Prep--Southwest Campus (Houston, TX); Roxbury Prep, Lucy Stone Campus (Boston, MA); Williamsburg Collegiate Charter School (Brooklyn, NY); (4) Data Analysis: Examining Student Performance to Tailor Instruction. Featuring: McGlone Elementary School (Denver, CO); Newton Elementary School (Greenfield, MA); Frank M. Silvia Elementary School (Fall River, MA); Morton School of Excellence (Chicago, IL); Mastery Charter School--Shoemaker Campus (Philadelphia, PA); The Soulsville Charter School (Memphis, TN); Achievement First Amistad High School (New Haven, CT); (5) ndividualized Coaching: Helping Teachers Succeed through Observation and Feedback. Featuring: Achievement First Amistad High School (New Haven, CT); Douglas MacArthur Girls' Leadership Academy (Cleveland, OH); KIPP Central City Academy (New Orleans, LA); Williamsburg Collegiate Charter School (Brooklyn, NY); (6) Peer Observation: Sharing and Honing Effective Practices. Featuring: Morton School of Excellence (Chicago, IL); Nicolas S. LaCorte-Peterstown School No. 3 (Elizabeth, NJ); Frank M. Silvia Elementary School (Fall River, MA). Using examples and vignettes from the 17 featured schools, &quot;Time for Teachers&quot; documents, deconstructs, and analyzes these practices to reveal how educators strive to make the time they allocate for teacher development most effective. Each of the report's practice chapters concludes with a list of four or five &quot;Keys to Success,&quot; which describe the implementation factors that enable the profiled schools to achieve success within these practice areas, as well as a summary chart that educators can use to assess their own implementation of each practice. The aim of this report is to present these featured expanded-time schools--or, more precisely, the systems and practices they have implemented--as models that educators at any school can adopt and adapt to achieve similar success with their own students. Through analysis of the six time-use strategies, &quot;Time for Teachers&quot; offers a road map for other educators who are looking to adjust and improve how they are using both the time they currently have in their school schedules and any time they may plan to add. Individually and collectively, the accounts of these practices offer all educators insights into why this professional learning time is so valuable and also why an expanded-school schedule facilitates the implementation, and helps to elevate the quality, of these opportunities.