The ISA Seven Principles
Focusing on improving academic achievement, the Institute for Student Achievement (ISA) is a leading school redesign partner that facilitates the creation of small autonomous schools and the transformation of large comprehensive high schools into academically rigorous, personalized learning environments that prepare all students for success in college and beyond.
A set of Seven Principles defines and guides the ISA Model. Building upon these Seven Principles, the Institute for Student Achievement collaborates with schools to create comprehensive plans and implementation strategies for school redesign that are customized to meet the unique needs of schools and districts.
1. College preparatory instructional program 3. Dedicated team of teachers and counselors 4. Continuous professional development 5. Extended school day and school year 7. Continuous organizational improvement
1. College preparatory instructional program Preparing students for college
Beginning in the ninth grade, ISA schools encourage students to view themselves as future college students and, through their four years in high school, prepare them for admission to and success in college.
The ISA instructional program focuses on intellectual, social, and emotional development. Through an inquiry approach to curriculum and instruction, the ISA schools concentrate on rigorous intellectual development such as the development of critical thinking skills and the habits of work necessary for rigorous intellectual productivity such as time management skills. There is simultaneously an emphasis on embedding literacy and numeracy in content areas across the curriculum, to ensure that students develop strong comprehension skills in all subject areas. Student achievement is assessed using multiple measures to ensure that diverse students’ learning and progress is captured.
Coupled with the emphasis on intellectual rigor, ISA’s post-secondary education preparation includes close faculty counseling, financial aid guidance, visits to college campuses, relationships with college admissions officers, parent information, courses at local colleges and regular assessment of student performance, as well as internships and community service.
Building a safety net of support services across the school
ISA’s unique model of Distributed Counseling™ ensures that all members of the school have a role in making it a caring community. All the adults in the school are responsible for knowing students well and providing a caring, safe and supportive environment for them. Students also take a proactive role in activities such as peer mediation and conflict resolution.
Counselors collaborate closely with teachers to help them expand their role to include serving as an advisor to a group of students. This close student-teacher relationship helps promote higher levels of achievement and school affiliation and prevent students from falling through the cracks. Counselors support teachers in various ways to help them implement counseling strategies into their pedagogy. This includes conducting case management sessions with teacher teams to problem solve student issues. The result is that students have a caring adult who knows them well, teachers have collegial support in solving problems, and counselors have more time to focus on in depth counseling and guidance and pursuing community services that support students and their families.
3. Dedicated team of teachers and counselors Providing a consistent, four year support network
Throughout their four years of high school, students work with a consistent team of teachers and a counselor. This structure personalizes the school environment, creates strong, long-term connections between students and their teachers and counselor, and ensures that the support network is engaged and knowledgeable. The strong relationships generated by the team organization enables teachers to elicit higher levels of student performance.
4. Continuous professional development Establishing a Professional Community
ISA provides teachers and principals of small schools and small learning communities with continuous professional development opportunities including the ISA Summer and Winter Institutes and individualized coaching on issues ranging from classroom management strategies to the design and implementation of inquiry-based projects to performance and portfolio assessments. The ISA Leadership Network provides principals and vice principals with a strong support network through interaction with other leaders of ISA small schools and small learning communities across the country.
Additionally, teachers’ content knowledge and pedagogical skills are strengthened through regularly scheduled common meeting time for curriculum planning, problem solving, and reviewing student work and progress.
The professional development principle intends to help schools develop standards of professional practice, build capacity as a professional community, and develop a sense of collective responsibility for student and school outcomes.
5. Extended school day and school year Extending personalized and challenging learning opportunities Recognizing that learning continues beyond the traditional school day and year, the extended day and extended school year enable staff to provide students with structured time, individual attention and other supports necessary for their success with the school’s challenging, college preparatory curriculum. The extended time frame for learning provides additional opportunities for effective skill and talent development. Students have the time they need to get assistance with homework, test preparation, career- related activities, internships and community service projects.
Encouraging parents to participate in their children’s education ISA embraces and encourages parental involvement because of its positive impact on student achievement and satisfaction. Parents are encouraged to take an active role in school activities, to share their knowledge of their child with teachers and counselors, and to give staff feedback on their children’s experience and progress. Teachers and counselors keep parents informed of student performance, and work together as a team to provide strong support.
7. Continuous organizational improvement Program Accountability: monitoring progress and refining program components Striving for total quality management, ISA teams meet regularly to ensure that the program is aligned with the ISA Seven Principles and is fulfilling its goal to create and sustain an intellectually rigorous and caring, personalized learning environment. Schools use multiple mechanisms to assess their organizational and program effectiveness including: critical friends processes, peer observations, reviews of student work, analysis of student performance data such as course pass rates and attendance, and growth on ISA writing and math assessments, surveys of students’ attitudes and expectations about school and their future, and documentation reports on the implementation of ISA principles.
|
Why ISAISA in the NewsISA Mission |
