School Culture Conducive to Learning
(K-12 Administrative Standard #2)
As part of my role on the Board of Directors of Hinoki International School, a Japanese-English bilingual immersion charter school, in Livonia, Michigan, I regularly engage with issues of providing an effective instructional program supported by technology as chair of the Curriculum Committee, which includes Hinoki's Dean of Students and Prof. Hitomi Oketani, an expert on bilingual education from Eastern Michigan University, who leads Hinoki's Academic Advisory Committee.
As part of my internship at Hinoki International School, I also learned about creating and sustaining a school culture conducive to collaboration, trust, and high expectations, by participating in faculty search committee work, attending staff meetings, and helping identify an appropriate model for educator evaluations.
CURRICULUM AND ASSESSMENT SUPPORTED BY TECHNOLOGY
As mentioned on the Hinoki website and detailed in my curriculum leadership report, our school's "two-way immersion" Japanese-English curriculum is quite distinctive. U.S. Department of Education data suggests that in 2007-2008, about 3.1% (or 2800) of the 90,760 schools nationwide offered some sort of “immersion in a foreign language” program (NCES, 2009). The Center for Applied Linguistics (2011) lists 412 schools in 31 states that feature a “two-way immersion” program. In the vast majority of these, Spanish is the “target” (non-English) language, but Chinese, French, Korean, and Japanese are also represented. Hinoki International School is one of only 4 dual-immersion schools in the US at which Japanese is the target language (see Center for Applied Linguistics, 2011). With the support of the dozens of subject-area experts on Hinoki's Academic Advisory Committee, the standards of the Michigan Curriculum Framework/Grade Level Content Expectations and the Japanese Ministry of Education are blended so that students are taught content in all academic areas in both languages, by alternating teachers and languages on a regular basis in each grade-level group.
One of the most intriguing aspects of Hinoki's two-way immersion curriculum is its use of authentic assessment, by means of individual digital portfolios for each student. These feature photos of students and their work products, as well as teacher-provided evaluations of skill areas such as "language and literacy" (both English and Japanese), "personal & social development," health/physical development, math, science, social studies, and the arts, updated every trimester. These Wikispace portfolios, accessible by password to relatives in Japan and elsewhere, are particularly appropriate in the early elementary grades and for the time-consuming process of becoming bilingual. As noted in the technology plan I drafted for Hinoki, the board recently approved the purchase of Promethean boards for all classrooms and iPads for the higher grades, and teachers are beginning to learn how to integrate these tools into their curriculum.
SUPPORT OF INSTRUCTIONAL AND LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT
One of my two major internship projects was to help develop and disseminate clear, internally-consistent "Administrative Guidelines" to support the 400-page Board Policy Manual (including over 100 individual policies) drafted by the Hinoki International School Board in 2011-2012. The second, related project was to help develop a rigorous, comprehensive, continuous-improvement-focused teacher performance evaluation model, in accordance with new state legislation (MCL 380.1249), aligned with Hinoki Board Policy (Section 3220), and appropriate to our two-way immersion model.
In consultation with the Curriculum Committee and Hinoki's founder & Lead Administrator, Mr. Ted Delphia, I conducted research about the four models endorsed by the Michigan Governor's Council on Educational Effectiveness. Unable to find significant research about the track record of these models in a two-way language-immersion school, I ultimately recommended Charlotte Danielson's Framework for Teaching as the most appropriate for our school's mission and culture, and took part in a Teachscape training webinar. In my comparison of Michigan Approved Educator Effectiveness Evaluation Factors and Charlotte Danielson’s Components of Effective Teaching, I identified 8 priority areas on which Hinoki might want to focus when first implementing the classroom-observation-based performance evaluation model.
At staff meetings in June 2012 and a professional development session in November 2012, I introduced a summary of both the legislative guidelines around educator evaluations in Michigan, and the key components of Danielson's Framework. Beginning in Fall 2012, a Hinoki teacher with administrative aspirations began trying out classroom-observation and feedback-providing strategies, to begin to build an aspect of "open classrooms" and "distributed leadership" into Hinoki's culture. She will continue this as part of her ongoing internship toward Michigan administrator certification.
NEXT STEPS
As happens with many initial plans and timelines, the finalization and implementation of an effective, appropriate teacher evaluation system at Hinoki has taken longer than I had hoped, and 2012-2013 did not turn out to be "pilot year." Perhaps collaborative efforts over the summer of 2013 can result in adaptation and possible translation of key components of the Danielson evaluation rubric, followed by identification and training of classroom observers, with implementation started in fall of 2013.
REFERENCES
Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL) (2011). Directory of two-way bilingual immersion programs in the U.S. Retrieved from http://www.cal.org/jsp/TWI/SchoolListings.jsp
Hinoki International School Board. (2012). Board policy manual. Retrieved from http://bpp.charterinstitute.org/hinokiinternationalschool/
National Policy Board for Educational Administration. (2011). Educational leadership program standards: 2011 ELCC district level.
Retrieved from http://npbea.org/
Reeves, D.B. (2009). Leading change in your school: How to conquer myths, build commitment, and get results. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
U.S. Department of Education National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) (2009). Number and enrollment of traditional public and public charter elementary and secondary schools and percentages of students, teachers, and schools, by selected characteristics: 2007-08 (Table 106). From NCES Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS), Public School Questionnaire, 2007-08 and Public Teacher Questionnaire, 2007-08. Retrieved May 16, 2012 from http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d11/tables/dt11_106.asp
As part of my internship at Hinoki International School, I also learned about creating and sustaining a school culture conducive to collaboration, trust, and high expectations, by participating in faculty search committee work, attending staff meetings, and helping identify an appropriate model for educator evaluations.
CURRICULUM AND ASSESSMENT SUPPORTED BY TECHNOLOGY
As mentioned on the Hinoki website and detailed in my curriculum leadership report, our school's "two-way immersion" Japanese-English curriculum is quite distinctive. U.S. Department of Education data suggests that in 2007-2008, about 3.1% (or 2800) of the 90,760 schools nationwide offered some sort of “immersion in a foreign language” program (NCES, 2009). The Center for Applied Linguistics (2011) lists 412 schools in 31 states that feature a “two-way immersion” program. In the vast majority of these, Spanish is the “target” (non-English) language, but Chinese, French, Korean, and Japanese are also represented. Hinoki International School is one of only 4 dual-immersion schools in the US at which Japanese is the target language (see Center for Applied Linguistics, 2011). With the support of the dozens of subject-area experts on Hinoki's Academic Advisory Committee, the standards of the Michigan Curriculum Framework/Grade Level Content Expectations and the Japanese Ministry of Education are blended so that students are taught content in all academic areas in both languages, by alternating teachers and languages on a regular basis in each grade-level group.
One of the most intriguing aspects of Hinoki's two-way immersion curriculum is its use of authentic assessment, by means of individual digital portfolios for each student. These feature photos of students and their work products, as well as teacher-provided evaluations of skill areas such as "language and literacy" (both English and Japanese), "personal & social development," health/physical development, math, science, social studies, and the arts, updated every trimester. These Wikispace portfolios, accessible by password to relatives in Japan and elsewhere, are particularly appropriate in the early elementary grades and for the time-consuming process of becoming bilingual. As noted in the technology plan I drafted for Hinoki, the board recently approved the purchase of Promethean boards for all classrooms and iPads for the higher grades, and teachers are beginning to learn how to integrate these tools into their curriculum.
SUPPORT OF INSTRUCTIONAL AND LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT
One of my two major internship projects was to help develop and disseminate clear, internally-consistent "Administrative Guidelines" to support the 400-page Board Policy Manual (including over 100 individual policies) drafted by the Hinoki International School Board in 2011-2012. The second, related project was to help develop a rigorous, comprehensive, continuous-improvement-focused teacher performance evaluation model, in accordance with new state legislation (MCL 380.1249), aligned with Hinoki Board Policy (Section 3220), and appropriate to our two-way immersion model.
In consultation with the Curriculum Committee and Hinoki's founder & Lead Administrator, Mr. Ted Delphia, I conducted research about the four models endorsed by the Michigan Governor's Council on Educational Effectiveness. Unable to find significant research about the track record of these models in a two-way language-immersion school, I ultimately recommended Charlotte Danielson's Framework for Teaching as the most appropriate for our school's mission and culture, and took part in a Teachscape training webinar. In my comparison of Michigan Approved Educator Effectiveness Evaluation Factors and Charlotte Danielson’s Components of Effective Teaching, I identified 8 priority areas on which Hinoki might want to focus when first implementing the classroom-observation-based performance evaluation model.
At staff meetings in June 2012 and a professional development session in November 2012, I introduced a summary of both the legislative guidelines around educator evaluations in Michigan, and the key components of Danielson's Framework. Beginning in Fall 2012, a Hinoki teacher with administrative aspirations began trying out classroom-observation and feedback-providing strategies, to begin to build an aspect of "open classrooms" and "distributed leadership" into Hinoki's culture. She will continue this as part of her ongoing internship toward Michigan administrator certification.
NEXT STEPS
As happens with many initial plans and timelines, the finalization and implementation of an effective, appropriate teacher evaluation system at Hinoki has taken longer than I had hoped, and 2012-2013 did not turn out to be "pilot year." Perhaps collaborative efforts over the summer of 2013 can result in adaptation and possible translation of key components of the Danielson evaluation rubric, followed by identification and training of classroom observers, with implementation started in fall of 2013.
REFERENCES
Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL) (2011). Directory of two-way bilingual immersion programs in the U.S. Retrieved from http://www.cal.org/jsp/TWI/SchoolListings.jsp
Hinoki International School Board. (2012). Board policy manual. Retrieved from http://bpp.charterinstitute.org/hinokiinternationalschool/
National Policy Board for Educational Administration. (2011). Educational leadership program standards: 2011 ELCC district level.
Retrieved from http://npbea.org/
Reeves, D.B. (2009). Leading change in your school: How to conquer myths, build commitment, and get results. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
U.S. Department of Education National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) (2009). Number and enrollment of traditional public and public charter elementary and secondary schools and percentages of students, teachers, and schools, by selected characteristics: 2007-08 (Table 106). From NCES Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS), Public School Questionnaire, 2007-08 and Public Teacher Questionnaire, 2007-08. Retrieved May 16, 2012 from http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d11/tables/dt11_106.asp