Embedded Files
RCPS/Inspired Teaching
Rappahannock County Schools has partnered with Center for Inspired Teaching to explore Tier 1 supports that foster supportive learning environments. In collaboration with more than a dozen RCPS teachers and administrators, these practices are being applied in our county's schools and shared with colleagues. Click through the images below to learn more about each strategy and try them out for yourself!
Strategies Included On This Site Will Help To:
Build familiarity with the ABCDE of Learner Needs - a framework aligned with William Glasser’s research into what students require in order to be motivated to learn
Attend to patterns in student thinking through careful observation in order to inform instruction and classroom management
Implement norms, routines, and classroom expectations with student input for both classroom management and classroom discourse - taking into account diverse perspectives and experiences
Build respectful relationships with students and their families
Strengthen communication with families and attending to the unique needs of each family that may require different modes of communication
Learn about each student’s aspirations and contributions in order to better design learning to help them thrive
Provide meaningful feedback to support academic and social and emotional growth
Set learning goals and design meaningful assessments to meet them including the collection and use of observational data
ABCDE of Learner Needs
Psychologist William Glasser defined five core human needs “which provide motivation for all that we do.” Center for Inspired Teaching has framed these needs in the context of school. We learn and grow best when our needs are met, when we’re not thriving, these unmet needs are likely the root of the problem.
ABCDE Practice Cards
Ask your school principal what these little cards are all about! Several teachers in both the High School and Elementary school have decks of cards and there are many ways teachers and students can use this resource to discover and meet their learning needs.
ABCDE Bingo Card
This is another way to look for the ABCDEs of Learner Needs in your classroom. At the end of the day, reflect on the squares on this card and cross out any that you remember seeing present in your classroom. Where do you see gaps that you might try to address tomorrow?
Sunshine/Up-At-Night Students
This reflection activity helps us to focus our attention very closely on two kinds of students in our classrooms and using this focus, zoom out to think about how what we learn can inform our instruciton for the rest of the class.
Ideas for Meeting the Need for Autonomy and Belonging
This is a list of strategies created by teachers engaged in this RCPS project that specifically address these needs.
Ideas for Meeting the Need for Competence and Developmental Appropriateness
This is a list of strategies created by teachers engaged in this RCPS project that specifically address these needs.
Check out this video recording of a workshop that introduced RCPS parents to the ABCDE framework.
You will need to enter this passcode when you click on the link: c22!s!dM
ABCDE-Aligned On-Task Chart
This tool, created by Cecilia Falk, integrates the ABCDEs of Learner Needs into a useful tool for a student to reflect on their own classroom behavior.
ABCDE-Aligned
Teacher Shout-Outs
This tool, created by Cecilia Falk, integrates the ABCDEs of Learner Needs into the Shout-Out structure currently in use at the Elementary School. The prompts encourage us to look for ways in which our students are meeting their own needs and those of others.
We push students' thinking more when we challenge them with questions that require more than a yes/no answer. These starters can help you prepare questions for your lessons that encourage higher order thinking and problem solving.
Rules of Improvisation
A key way to create student-centered, engaging learning experiences is to adopt and improvisational mindset!
Record 30 minutes of you teaching your class then listen back to the recording to take note of the kinds of questions you ask. Reflect on how to make them more meaningful.
Scribe's Record
By capturing what your students most want to remember learning, you’ll strengthen students’ skills of analysis and synthesis, build productive habits of mind and get consistent feedback, on what students value in each class.
Museum of Me
When we honor our students’ individuality we demonstrate mutual respect. And when we give them a chance to showcase the wonder of who they are we create a space for joy. What better way to showcase the student as expert than to make them the curator of their own museum!
Observational Scavenger Hunt
One of the keys to becoming attuned to our learners' needs is honing our observational skills and these skills require more than just our eyes. This "scavenger hunt" can be applied to learning our students or having them learn a new place!
4 Ways to Build Community
The core of community building is about being seen, heard, known, and appreciated for who you are. These activities help students deepen their knowledge of each other in these areas.
Listening With Someone Else’s Ears
This activity invites students to step into the role of someone (or something!) else, imagine what they would say, and listen to what those around that person are saying too.
Profile Pages
Profile Pages is a simple yet powerful activity that helps you to learn more about your students, to make sure introverts and extroverts alike feel heard and valued, and to reveal and strengthen meaningful connections between peers.
Warming Up With Mutual Respect
This series of warm-up activities activates the mind and body but it also offers the opportunity for students to feel seen and heard right as class begins.
Finding Yourself on the Line
Among the many vital things we can learn in school, one of the most valuable for our life beyond the classroom is how our own minds work and how to become more aware of our own response to the world around us.
Interesting, Important, Useful
A key to building mutual respect in your classroom is recognizing and appreciating what your students find important.
Seeing with Different Eyes
Using basic observation and listening skills, this activity can serve as a catalyst for building community in the classroom and deepening understanding of how each of your students thinks.
Document History with First Person Accounts
Some of the most interesting and useful artifacts from history are the first-person accounts we find in journals and interviews. (See the Scrabble School site for examples!)
Authoring My Identity
Students explore the costs and benefits of sharing aspects of their identities, discuss an informational text about “narrative identity,” and apply these concepts to their own lives in an original poem. (From: Facing History and Ourselves)
How to Loop
Looping is a communication technique that transforms how we listen and connect with others. It reveals the meaning underneath emotions and unlocks deeper motivations. (From: Good Conflict)
Hands and Feet Stories
Learning to listen deeply may very well be one of the most important skills we can cultivate as members of a community and one of the ways we can demonstrate our understanding of what we hear is by sharing back what was said.
50 Questions
Teachers don't have to be the ones with all the answers, or all the questions. When we let students' curiosity drive instruciton we increase engagment. The next time you introduce a concept - use this simple handout to see how many questions your students can come up with on the topic.
Aspiration / Contribution Portraits
Do you know what your students aspire to be or do, both in and beyond your classroom? Can they name the contributions they make to your learning environment? This simple art porject can help.
Classroom Feedback Tool
What do the ABCDEs look like in our classrooms? Where is an improvisational mindset evident? What other ideas might grow our practice? This tool can help us offer each other feedback on what we see and what it makes us wonder.
Operating Instructions
This activity invites students to consider what their own operating instructions might look like, and in reflecting on this the students offer their teachers a valuable guide to meeting their needs.
Page updated
Report abuse