Overview

AVID is not only a resource for teachers at Queen Creek Unified School District but it is also a way life in our classrooms. Adam Poirier, AVID Specialist for QCUSD, walks us through key successful AVID implementation strategies to ensure we maximize the effectiveness of AVID in our classrooms. When teachers apply 1) grade level consistency, 2) explicit student communication, and 3) share and spread awareness we can maximize the effectiveness of AVID in each classroom.

What is AVID

Advancement Via Individual Determination, AVID, is a College and Career Readiness System aimed at preparing all students for the lives they will lead after graduation. AVID encompasses instructional best practices that are embedded into daily lesson plans that facilitate rigorous and engaging learning opportunities to build skills, habits, and behaviors in a safe, college, and career-going atmosphere. The AVID College and Career Readiness System is a K-12 educational system that provides instructional practices, district-wide system alignment, college and career culture at each site, and professional learning for teachers and administration.

Keys to Successful AVID Implementation

1. Grade Level Consistency: Providing students the same AVID expectations and using the same AVID strategies and language leads to successful horizontal articulation. This then leads to vertical articulation where we can then scaffold our implementation by grade level.

2. Explicit Student Communication: We may know what we are doing in the classroom, but if students do not we lose some of that impact. Letting students know everything we are doing, from identifying level of question that our essential question is to identifying marking the text as a reading strategy, really allows students to understand the how and the why of what we are doing.

3. Share and Awareness: Implementation of any initiative is only as good as the information that is shared with all stakeholders. This includes our students, parents, leadership, and community. The more that everyone is in the know about what, how, and why we are implementing AVID as well as providing examples of how it is working in our classrooms and campuses, the more buy in and success we will see.