As the school year begins to ramp up and students become familiar with their classes and classrooms, they may have noticed a particular blue poster plastered on classroom walls titled, “Building a Strong Foundation.” This poster depicts this school year’s new instructional focus, which is a basis that teachers use to guide their teaching and accomplish goals for the school year.

Specifically, this year’s instructional model focuses on building relationships and engaging classroom climate through four different areas: the big picture, mental engagement, anchoring the learning and assessments. The goal of this model is to emphasize the fundamentals of teaching and instructional planning.

The big picture aspect of the model refers to teachers stating what the main objective of the lesson would be at the beginning of class, through an agenda or warm-up. When students participate in these activities and discussions it is considered mental engagement and anchoring the learning usually consists of a final summarizer about the lesson. Lastly, assessments are the final applications of the previous procedures, done both informally and formally.

New instructional focuses are not necessarily executed each year. Rather, they stem from instructional weaknesses that need to be addressed at the moment and framework material sent from MCPS. “Last year, we worked on equitable teaching and learning strategies and as for us, as an instructional leadership team, it was not as cemented. So, this year after we collected our data from last year, we recognized that we needed to have this focus so that we are meeting the needs of all our students here,” Assistant Principal Eileen Gardner said.

Developing the instructional focus was a team effort from school leaders across various departments. Different contributing factors and conversations led to eventually settling on “Building a Strong Foundation” as the theme. “The conversation started with just administration, and then we kind of hashed out some things and looked at some data that we then brought to the Instructional Leadership Team (ILT), which includes resource teachers, elected faculty representatives, our Restorative Justice coach, Aspire/Connections teachers, among others. It’s a group of staff members who are pillars in different areas of the building who can bring their perspectives to the table when we are doing observations,” Assistant Principal Stephanie Labbe said.

According to Gardner and Labbe, administrators and members of the ILT collected data through classroom observations and discussions with each other. Using this data, they were able to come up with a focus and make sure that it fit into the needs of all staff and students. And generally, staff find it to be a strong foundation for teaching and learning.

French and Spanish teacher Margaret Foeckler has been teaching at this school for 14 years, and said that this year’s focus is “old school” for her. “I’m used to it, I do it everyday,” Foecker said.

Foeckler is comfortable with the layout of the model, but also describes how it has helped her pinpoint her weaknesses when teaching. “This year, I’ve learned from recent meetings and reflecting on my own practices that I need to be a little bit better about finishing up on time to do a summarizer and trying to be very clear about the criteria for success. I’m grateful that we have a school that guides the teachers and puts us all on the same path so that we know what’s expected of us too, just as the students know what’s expected of them,” Foeckler said.

Ultimately, it is important for students to know about these models because they reveal the hard work and dedication teachers put into teaching every day. By knowing what these models are and how teachers utilize them in their classrooms, students are more aware about what exactly they are learning and why.

History teacher and staff development teacher Christy Rice is a part of the ILT, and said that it is important for students to know how staff members are learning too. “We believe it is important for students to know what staff members are doing to improve the learning experience. You all are why we are here,” Rice said.

Foeckler shares similar sentiments. The instructional model helps set a clear criteria of success for students. “Students seem to thrive by knowing how to get an A. Well, you know how to get an A if you know what and why you’re learning something and what the criteria are for success,” Foeckler said.

Knowing the instructional focus this year is beneficial for both students and staff. “We have amazing teachers who are working hard every single day. We know that in classrooms, great things are already happening but for us, with our instructional focus, we want to take those great things and take them to the next level to make sure that we are all on the same page with what we view as sound instruction for all students,” Gardner said.