Educator Preparation Program Roles

Faculty Chair

Before diving in and making curriculum changes to a program to include HLPs, it's imperative that your staff 1) understands HLPs and their function, 2) has buy-in, and 3) has a growth mindset. How you present these new ideas can set the tone for successful implementation. Once the team is on board, the team may want to choose "selected" HLPs to focus on based on the needs of students, college initiatives, and/or vision statements. You may want to roll out these "selected" HLPs at the start of a new semester with some fanfare.

Curriculum Developer and/or Instructor at an Institute of Higher Education

Using a tool similar to the Example Course Analysis Tool can uncover the strengths of current practices and any gaps or barriers that need to be addressed within your courses. Ideally, the tool should be completed by a team familiar with the course so that they may reflect critically upon its design. Following the analysis with the tool, the team should study the information gathered and make “next step” decisions.

Course Instructor Role

If you are a course instructor who will be teaching from a curriculum designed by someone else, (typically online instructors), you may wonder how to ensure you are teaching High Leverage Practices. Using specific language, you can draw on and enhance the experience of the student by highlighting key HLPs in text and assignments. Your guiding or reflection questions in the feedback you give to your students may reflect your knowledge of High-Leverage Practices as well. Provide a variety of HLP and EBP examples and have students identify the practices within those examples. If you teach online, use Instructor Notes to present and/or enhance the understanding of HLP and EBPs. Use a discussion board to get students talking about HLPs. If your course includes field experience hours, provide a tool to students to chart the frequency in which HLPs are used in the guest classroom. (See HLP Evidence Tracking Form)

If you teach in-person, you can support student learning by adding specific HLPs into your lessons where appropriate and then continue to refer to them in your ongoing instruction. Intentionally implement HLPs within your own instruction and ask students to identify the HLP you are using. Use a discussion format to get students talking about HLPs. Role play specific HLPs using Micro-Teaching or Simulated Interactions. Have your students look for HLPs in educational videos or within field experience placements and track their frequency of use and analyze their effectiveness. Repetition is the key.

Field Experience Coordinator Role

From short-term practicums (field experiences), to longer student teaching experiences (capstone) and internships. You will want to determine if the mentor or supervising practitioner is modeling the use of HLPs in the K-12 classroom. The field experience you coordinate may or may not have HLPs embedded into the experience so the student may or may not see HLPs in the teaching placement. Keep in mind, that just because a mentor teacher has not heard of HLPs , doesn’t mean they aren’t implementing them on a daily basis. This is a perfect opportunity to educate in-service teachers of new vocabulary and concepts within the field. Provide information to them regarding HLPs (this could be through the pre-service teacher) and the tools the pre-service teacher may be using while observing and/or participating in their classroom.

Mentor Teacher Role

If you are a mentor teacher or supervising practitioner, you may not be familiar with the term High-Leverage Practices. You may understand and recognize certain practices as being effective, but not necessarily understand the language used to describe these concepts/practices. By familiarizing yourself with the language in the knowledge section above, as well as the indicators in the Learning Walks Process (later tab) you can better equip yourself to give an accurate and informed evaluation of any student teaching or practicum experience in your classroom. When you conference with the pre-service teacher ask them to articulate the HLPs they saw or used that day or class period. Pick a few HLPs that you feel will make the most impact and focus on one of those for a specific amount of time (daily, weekly, etc.). When the pre-service teacher leaves your classroom, they should be able to articulate those HLPs and apply them when working with students.