Stanton students, staff preparing for 21st century
Dennis McClain
Stanton H.S. Principal
The Stanton community is very proud of our students and the results they have demonstrated on standardized assessments.
However, the state of Iowa continues to raise the bar on these assessments, so we must continue to improve our instructional strategy tool kit to prepare our students for success on these assessments and in the 21st Century.
Research shows the best thing we can do to improve student achievement is to provide quality teaching in every classroom.
To that end, the teachers and administration at Stanton Community Schools have focused their professional development on proven strategies that promote increased student achievement.
Iowa Core
The Iowa Legislature adopted the Iowa Core Curriculum and required each school district to select an Iowa Core Leadership Team whose purpose was to write an implementation plan for their district.
The plan includes an action plan and timeline for completion of each step. Last year, we studied Iowa Core Characteristics of Effective Instruction which include Teaching for Understanding, Assessment for Learning (Formative Assessment), Rigorous and Relevant Curriculum, Teaching for Learner Differences, and Student-Centered Classrooms.
What Works
Our focus this year includes relating the Characteristics of Effective Instruction to summarizing strategies included in Classroom Instruction That Works by Marzano, Pickering, and Pollock.
Teachers are learning strategies and frameworks that will allow students to improve their summarizing skills.
Good summarizing skills allow students to glean the most important information and clearly and concisely communicate it to others.
These strategies are taught in the classroom and examples of student work are shared with students so that they can see how the work was scored and why particular writings were given higher scores.
We are committed to creating a collaborative learning environment for our teachers as well as our students. This year teachers are stepping out of their classroom and into their colleagues' classrooms to learn from and share with each other.
The conversations that result from these interactions will provide better instruction for our students.
Alignment
Another focus for our teachers this year is aligning our instruction with the Iowa Core.
The Department of Education developed a tool for schools called the Iowa Core Alignment Tool (ICAT).
Our focus this year is on 21st Century Skills and identifying where and when those skills are taught to our students. We will analyze gaps and overlaps and determine what, if any, changes need to be made in our curriculum.
In coming years, we will be looking at other curricular areas including literacy, math, and science.
Technology
A third focus is technology. SMARTBoards (interactive white boards) have been placed in most of our classrooms.
SMARTBoards allow teachers and students to directly interact with any programs on the computer. K-12 staff are attending trainings to learn how to effectively utilize these tools in the classroom.
We are using outside trainers and our own staff to facilitate this learning. In addition to two computer labs, we have laptops available in the high school library for student use and are outfitting a mobile laptop cart for the classrooms.
All of our 6-12 students have access to Google Docs which provides them access to email, calendar, website creation, and suite of documents including spreadsheets, presentations, and forms.
Extra-Curricular Participation
Finally, our student body is very involved in extracurricular activities. Ninety-six percent of our students are involved in at least one extracurricular activity and most of our students are involved in multiple activities.
Extra-curricular activities allow our students to apply skills they've learned in the classroom in a different arena - teamwork, collaboration, critical thinking, and problem-solving, to name a few.
These “soft skills” will allow students to be successful in a changing world.