INSTRUCTION

AVID Schoolwide instruction occurs when the entire instructional staff utilizes AVID strategies, other best instructional practices, and 21st century tools to ensure college and career readiness for AVID Elective students and improved academic performance for all students.

What are some of the particular strengths of AVID Schoolwide Instruction at your school?

Strengths

One of the particular strengths of AVID Schoolwide Instruction at our school is the consistent implementation of WICOR strategies across all content areas. All classes utilize interactive notebooks, quick writes, and annotation techniques to help students process and engage with content more deeply. AVID elective classes further enhance student learning by participating in Collaborative Study Groups (CSGs) twice a week, guided by Costa’s Levels of Thinking, which promotes higher-order questioning and peer-to-peer problem-solving. Additionally, all students demonstrate strong digital literacy skills by effectively accessing and evaluating information from multiple sources. AVID students also show a high level of responsibility and preparedness by arriving to class with the necessary materials and a readiness to actively participate. They routinely engage in the critical reading process, developing the ability to analyze and interact with complex texts across disciplines. These practices collectively support a schoolwide culture of academic rigor and college readiness.

What aspects of AVID Schoolwide Instruction have room for growth at your school? How might you address these in your AVID site goals?

Room for Growth

While AVID Schoolwide Instruction is a strength at our school, there are several areas that present opportunities for growth. One key area is expanding the use of Collaborative Study Groups (CSGs) beyond the AVID elective class to all content areas. Currently, CSGs are limited in scope, and moving them schoolwide would enhance student collaboration and deepen content understanding across subjects. Another area for growth is implementing the full writing process consistently in all classrooms. While quickwrites are used regularly, there is a need to strengthen students' skills in drafting, revising, and editing to support higher-quality written work across disciplines. Additionally, the focus note-taking process needs more consistency schoolwide. While students take notes, the steps of revisiting, revising, and summarizing notes are not always fully embedded into instruction. Lastly, AVID students sometimes struggle to clearly identify their points of confusion during CSGs, which limits the effectiveness of these sessions. To address these areas, our AVID site team can incorporate the following into our site goals and school improvement plan: provide professional development for all teachers on implementing CSGs and the writing process; create schoolwide expectations and rubrics for focus notetaking; and offer targeted mini-lessons and modeling to help students learn how to pinpoint and articulate their confusion. By embedding these strategies into our ongoing instructional practices, we can strengthen our AVID implementation and support all students in developing the skills needed for academic success.

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