Mililani High School Instructional Leadership Team

Effective instructional leadership team (ILTs) are powerful levers for making change in schools. These teams typically include the principal, assistant principal, instructional coaches (coordinators), teacher leaders, and other school leaders and can provide a systematic way for schools to execute their most important priorities.

MHS Targeted Instructional Area

A Targeted Instructional Area is the one specific instructional area of the curriculum the school has chosen as most important for its students to know and do well in order to be successful in life.

Mililani High School's TIA is Critical Thinking

Critical Thinking is defined as: The ability to apply reasoning and logic to various situations while focusing on: Questioning, Discourse, Reasoning, and Thinking Maps.

Brief History

During SY 2012-2013 the ILT was formed and we focused on choosing a Targeted Instructional Area.

• Teachers started discussions with PLCs, Depts, and the curriculum council to narrow down a TIA
• Teachers then narrowed down options to 3 final areas: Critical Thinking, Argumentative Writing, Content area Literacy
• Teachers continued with discussions and blogs with different groups and the final choice according to the majority vote was Critical Thinking

During SY 2016-2017, the ILT visiting schools in Chicago to look at other Critical Thinking protocols

• The primary protocol the team looked at was the Instructional Practices Inventory that was created by Dr. Jerry Valentine from the University of Missouri
• Plans were made to make a transition from our previous protocol to the IPI
• The primary focus was for all teachers to be trained, so that feedback would be meaningful and useful

During SY 2017-2018, all teachers were trained in the IPI protocol

• The ILT was trained to be official data collectors for school-wide data measurements
• all other teachers received a modified training, so that they could participate in classroom walkthroughs, provide IPI coded feedback, and understand the feedback they received
• while all teachers participated in the IPI walkthrough process, the ILT worked with Dr. Valentine to create a modified form that teachers could use for feedback purposes only
• the ILT would conduct a separate walkthrough that would serve as the official school-wide data

During SY 2018-2019, teachers requested specified walkthroughs to visit their own department

• 2 out of the 3 quarterly walkthroughs remained as random assignments (teachers would visit two classrooms that were randomly chosen)
• 1 out of the 3 quarterly walkthroughs would be a department walkthroughs, which allowed teachers to see instructional practices within their own department

During SY 2019-2020, teachers requested specified walkthroughs to visit their own PLCs

• this is still being discussed and may be implemented in the SY 2020-2021 school year
• Due to Covid 19 closures, walkthroughs were not implemented in the second semester

During the SY 2020-2021, MHS hopes to continue with the walkthrough process as usually scheduled

• 1 out of the 3 quarterly walkthroughs will be a random assignment (teachers would visit two classrooms that were randomly chosen)
• 1 out of the 3 quarterly walkthroughs will be a department walkthrough, which allows teachers to see instructional practices within their own department
• 1 out of the 3 quarterly walkthroughs may be a PLC walkthrough, which will allow teachers to see instructional practices within their own Professional Learning Community