School District Working to Continue 'Visible Learning'

Submitted by Valley View School District 365U

Photo: Dr. James Mitchem addresses attendees at the VVSD Summer Leadership Academy

With a year of the groundbreaking Visible Learning concept under their belts, Valley View School District 365U administrators and teacher leaders quickly got to work on year 2 this week at the VVSD Summer Leadership Academy.

“We are heavily engaged in this work as we continue our quest to be the best as measured by the growth and achievement of our kids,” Superintendent Dr. James Mitchem told the more than 120 attendees. “We consider these trainings to be very important so we can develop this at the grass roots level in all of our schools and all of our classrooms.”

“You all are leaders helping to drive change to support our students becoming assessment capable visible learners,” added Assistant Superintendent Rachel Kinder.

“We’re continuing the work you began last year. By the end of the week, you will leave with a strong, solid plan for next school year that will truly help us get to a place where we know the impact we’re having on our students.”

That impact, according author and consultant Dave Nagel, is already evident in VVSD.

“The first year was positive and exciting. We saw some risk takers. But there was also a lot of head scratching and wondering how am I going to pull all this off with PARCC and the new assessment system and teacher evaluations and everything else we implemented,” said Nagel, who last summer helped launch VVSD’s efforts to develop strategies that have a direct impact on achievement for all students. “Valley View is first class. Everything you guys do is literally first class.”
This time around, according to the former high school teacher and administrator, the goal is to continue that momentum of inspired and passionate teaching, ongoing and consistent assessments of student learning and the collection of feedback from all stakeholders.

“We have to know how to build solid teacher/student relationships,” he said, pointing out it takes more than just monitoring and reacting to student data. “Knowing our impact includes effective feedback. It’s teacher voices. It’s student voices. It’s parent voices.

”When our focus is on visible learners, we’re talking about risk taking. We’re talking about perseverance. We’re talking about knowing exactly where you’re at,” Nagel told the group. “We have to link our actions to our words.”

Various groups involving VVSD administrators, teachers and staff will continue to meet and plan throughout the week.