As a district, we developed a trajectory of learning to address the Instructional Delivery and Design component of our Instructional Framework. We collaboratively developed the trajectory of learning across the DOEL with members of Mental Health, CLDE, ESS, GT, Instructional Coordinators, and Instructional Coaches. This learning can be viewed as a resource to build teachers' content knowledge around the various indicators expanded upon within this coaching playbook. The following are models and examples from our PL trajectory. These resources will also be linked under relevant indicators along with research and pertinent resources. 

Discourse:

Purpose

• Introducing The Purpose of Discourse:  (facilitator resource section 23211, asynchronous section 23210)

  • • This course will support participants in defining purposeful and intentional discourse when planning, drawing on their prior knowledge of content standards and disciplinary literacies.  If teachers are struggling to connect the standards to discourse opportunities, this could be a useful micro-learning experience.   

• Determining the Purpose of Discourse in Reading: (facilitator resource section 23213, asynchronous section 23212)

  • • This course will support participants in defining what purposeful and intentional discourse looks like in reading and provide concrete steps for planning for purposeful discourse while reading for all students. If teachers need support in thinking about student-to-text interactions (annotation) in relation to the standard, this microlearning could be a useful learning experience. 

• Determining the Purpose of Discourse  in Writing: (facilitator resource section 23220, asynchronous section 23219)

  • •  This course will support participants to define what purposeful and intentional discourse looks like in writing and provide concrete steps for planning for purposeful discourse while students are writing to learn. If teachers need support in thinking about writing as discourse and measuring student learning through writing samples, this might be useful microlearning. 

• Determining the Purpose of Discourse in Speaking and Listening: (facilitator resource section 23233, asynchronous section 23232)

  •  This course will support participants in defining what purposeful and intentional discourse looks like in speaking and listening and provide concrete steps for planning for purposeful discourse opportunities where students are engaged with sensemaking around the key learning. If teachers are struggling with designing oral discourse opportunities, this might be a useful microlearning

Accountability

• Introducing  Accountability in Discourse: (facilitator resource section 23296, asynchronous section 23295)

  • • Participants will develop an understanding of the component accountability for implementing discourse. 

If educators are trying to identify elements of accountability within discourse and opportunities to monitor for accountability, this may be supportive learning. 

• Norms & Skills of Academically Productive Talk: (facilitator resource section 23300, asynchronous section 23297)

  • • Participants will develop an understanding of how to promote accountability in discourse through explicit norms and skills. If teachers are wondering how to promote accountability in discourse through explicit norms and skills, this could be a useful micro-learning experience. 

• Planning for Target Responses and Misconceptions: (facilitator resource section 23301, asynchronous section 23298)

  • • Educators will identify the ways in which target student responses can inform their monitoring of student discourse and learning. If teachers are wondering how to build and iterate on discourse structures by using student data, this might be a useful micro-learning. 

• Accountable Talk As an Element of Equity: (facilitator resource section 23302, asynchronous section 23299)

  • • Educators will notice, name, and commit to discourse opportunities that promote equity and student voice. If teachers are curious about how discourse can support equity and classroom culture, this might be a useful micro-learning.

Structure

• Intro to Structured Discourse: (facilitator resource section 23241, asynchronous section 23240)

  • Through this course, educators will understand the importance of knowing students in order to create effective discourse structures. Educators will also apply this learning in a content area in order to plan for and implement rich student discourse. If teachers need support with 

  • Creating a Culture of Discourse: (facilitator resource section 23244, asynchronous section 23243)

  • Refining our Practice: (facilitator resource section 23246, asynchronous section 23245)

  • Knowing Students: (facilitator resource section 23224, asynchronous section 23223)

Support

• Intentional Design of Discourse Supports: (facilitator resource section 23303, asynchronous section 23310)

  • In this course, educators will understand the element of “Support” as a critical piece of discourse. If educators are looking for ways to plan for effective discourse for all learners, this learning may be supportive. 

• Handling Disagreements/SEL:(facilitator resource section 23306, asynchronous section 23309)

  • In this course, educators will learn strategies to address student disagreement during discourse. If educators want to think about discourse as both a way to engage in sense making and community building, this might be supportive learning.  

• Moving Away From Supports: (facilitator resource section 23307, asynchronous section 23308)

  • In this course, educators will understand the appropriate time to remove or revise language support to ensure students continue to have productive struggle. If educators are worried about over scaffolding discourse engagements, this could be supportive learning. 

• Utilizing Mulitple Supports: (facilitator resource section 23305, asynchronous section 23312)

  • In this course, educators will understand the purpose of using linguistic, graphic, sensory, and interactive supports. If educators are looking for examples of multiple supports and want to learn how to plan for these supports, this learning is designed for them!

Questioning: 

• Purpose

• Accountability

• Structure

• Support

Feedback:

• Purpose

• Accountability

• Structure

• Support

Differentiation:

• Purpose

• Accountability

• Structure

• Support

1. Equity: The individual and collective actions we take to ensure success for every student and staff member regardless of their race, gender, ethnicity, physical ability, nationality, age, religion, or sexual orientation.  We understand that students and staff have different strengths and needs and acknowledge that equitable treatment of students and staff requires differentiated supports. We commit to creating systems and structures that reinforce equitable human interactions, resources, strategies, conditions, and outcomes (Aurora Public Schools, 2022). 

2. Varied Learners: Today's classrooms include learners from a range of cultural and linguistic backgrounds, with lived experiences that may or may not be reflected in the curriculum. In order to reach and teach all students, educators must adopt an anti-oppressive and antiracist orientation and draw upon the guidelines of Universal Design for Learning (i.e., engagement, representation, and action & expression) and Culturally Responsive Pedagogy to create classrooms that are humanizing, engaging, affirming, meaningful, and grade-appropriate.  

3. Anti-oppressive and Antiracist Orientation: Educators who adopt an anti-oppressive and antiracist orientation acknowledge that our educational system is inherently racist and oppressive to those who identify as members of a non-dominant community. Adopting an anti-oppressive and antiracist orientation requires active efforts to challenge and dismantle all forms of oppression as they manifest inside and beyond our schools.  An anti-oppressive and antiracist orientation is not an endpoint to attain, but dispositions to work toward (Kumashiro, 2000). 

4. Universal Design for Learning: UDL is a framework to improve and optimize teaching and learning for all people based on scientific insights into how humans learn (CAST, 2022). UDL guidelines consider:

• Engagement & Motivation: Learners differ markedly in the ways in which they can be engaged or motivated to learn. There is not one means of engagement that will be optimal for all learners in all contexts; providing multiple options for engagement is essential. 

• Representation: Learners differ in the ways that they perceive and comprehend information that is presented to them. There is not one means of representation that will be optimal for all learners; providing options for representation is essential. 

• Actions & Expression: Learners differ in the ways that they can navigate a learning environment and express what they know. There is not one means of action and expression that will be optimal for all learners; providing options for action and expression is essential. 

5. Culturally Responsive Pedagogy: CRP draws upon the scholarship of Gloria Ladson-Billings and Geneva Gay (among many others), and is a student-centered approach to teaching in which the students' unique cultural strengths are identified and nurtured to promote student achievement and a sense of well-being about the student's cultural place in the world. 

• Recognizes the rich and varied cultural wealth, knowledge, and skills of diverse students

• Seeks to develop dynamic teaching practices and multicultural content, with multiple means of assessment

• Nurtures students’ academic, social, emotional, cultural, psychological, and physiological well-being

• Involves support and input from parents, caregivers, grandparents, and community members

• Puts learning in context for students who can connect a topic to their current lives or community

6. Pedagogy: Approach to teaching, and the theory and practice of learning, and how this process influences, and is influenced by, the social, political and psychological development of learners. Common pedagogical approaches include: 

   • • Direct Instruction: Teachers develop carefully planned lessons designed around small learning increments and clearly defined and prescribed teaching tasks. 

     • Constructivist: Learners are actively involved in the learning process, creating their own meaning and knowledge of the material

     • Collaborative: Multiple learners work together, like in small group instruction, and they all contribute and help each other learn

     • Inquiry-Based: Students address real-world problems, like in project-based learning, by asking questions and doing further research

     • Integrative: Using multiple academic disciplines and common language, students engage with cross-curricular material

     • Reflective: Both teachers and students reflect on lessons, projects, and assessments to see how to improve them in the future

7. Core Practices or High-Leverage Practices: The central actions of teaching or the things that teachers do that are most likely to support meaningful student learning. 

   • • Grossman (2018) and colleagues define core practices as “identifiable components of teaching that teachers enact to support learning. These components include instructional strategies and the subcomponents of routines and moves. Core practices can include both general and content-specific practices” (p.184). 

     • Ball and colleagues define high-leverage practices as those that are used constantly and are critical to helping students learn important content and are also central to supporting students’ social and emotional development. 

8. Curriculum: Curriculum, or what is taught in a given class or subject, refers to an interactive system of instruction and learning with specific goals, contents, strategies, measurement, and resources. The desired outcome of the curriculum is the successful transfer and/or development of knowledge, skills, and attitudes.