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Professional Learning & Support » Instructional Leadership Team (ILT)

Instructional Leadership Team (ILT)

 

Mission Statement:

By creating trusting relationships with educators, the ILT aims to support a reflective and collaborative community of learners.

Background:

The Sea to Sky School District has been on a transformational journey, since the co-planning and co-writing of our strategic plan, Pathways to Learning. A priority for the Board of Education has been to support teacher professional learning as part of our overall strategic plan. The Instructional Leadership Team (ILT ) was formed to harness the leadership experience, passion and skills of school district 48 teachers to support our strategic plan. Over the last several years the ILT has supported schools and classrooms in every school and grade across the district. This handbook is to provide you with information about the many supports and services offered by ILT and how you can access them.

Who are we?

We are a group of K-12 teachers who work to support adult learning through co-planning, co-teaching, and co-assessing. Through the lens of our district learning plan (Pathways to Learning), our team supports teachers to create safe, purposeful and powerful learning environments in order that all students can think critically, create, collaborate, contribute and learn. Our goal is to move professional practice from:

  • Isolation to Collaboration

  • Reaction to Purpose

  • Compliance to Engagement

ILT members apply for the position each year and consequently the list of ILT members changes often, providing school district teachers with opportunities for leadership and professional growth.

 

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If you are interested in accessing the ILT as an individual or as a team, you can contact a team member directly through email or through your principal.

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Meet the Team:

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Our Guiding Principles:

Our approach to supporting teacher learning is guided by our Principles of Learning and our Principles of Pedagogy. Through these principles, we support practices and structures that maximize student learning across all grades and learning styles. The following summarizes our belief system regarding principles of learning and principles of pedagogy.

• Meaningful learning involves emotion and motivation.

• Meaningful learning takes patience and time.

• Brain systems are actively engaged in narratives about meaning.

• Meaningful learning can be experienced and demonstrated by all.

• Brain development is impacted by the environmental setting.

Assessment How can I use assessment in my UBD planner to enhance student learning?

Collaboration How can I use collaboration in my UBD planner to enhance student learning?

Engagement How can I use engagement …?

Play and Exploration How can I use play and exploration…?

Purpose and Authenticity How can I use purpose and authenticity … ?

Technology How can I use technology … ?

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Instructional Strategies:

Teachers have the flexibility to choose appropriate instructional strategies that provide students with the opportunities to access the curriculum and to develop competencies. Strategies that are proving to be successful are project based learning and inquiry.

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Instructional Leadership Team Support:

The Instructional Leadership Team is available to support individual teachers and teacher teams in all schools from K-12. Although ILT members have different titles, they are all available to support a range of topics. ILT members can also custom design learning that will meet your specific needs. The following is a sample of specific supports that the ILT have provided:

The ILT is able to support you through a problem of practice or an area of professional learning that you and others would benefit from. This support can take the form of direct support through release time or through co-planning an opportunity for extending learning.

Some past workshops and sessions:

  • Secret Path: Using a current event to develop a novel study that incorporates Aboriginal content and Aboriginal Ways.

  • Play, Learn, Snack & Chat: After school Kindergarten to grade 3 teachers (literacy, math, play, technology)

  • Play Based Learning workshops: all K/1 teachers

  • Exploration Café: grades 4-9 on Play and Exploration Pathway

  • Connect & Collaborate Café for new or new-to-position teachers

  • Daily Three Café

  • Joy of Literacy

As a team we support classroom teachers with tools, strategies and resources for deep, hands-on, engaging learning for their students:

 

  • To help with implementing the new curriculum

  • To help lesson plan using student-centered methodologies

  • To help with inquiry based learning

  • To network among teachers and schools to bring teams together

  • To help implement new ways for teacher assessment, student-self assessment and reflective practice

  • To collect and archive math and science activities, labs, and projects for district-wide articulation

  • To examine the scope and sequence of content and competencies in course pathways for easier student transition between grades and schools

  • Facilitate workshops for math and science teachers on topics of interest

  • Facilitate observing each other in classes, co-planning, co-teaching and co-assessing among teachers

  • Facilitate planning for Project Based Learning through Universal Backward Design

  • Ross Greene Collaborative Problem Solving (CPS teaches kids to solve problems collaboratively and proactively)

  • Observations/Discussions

  • Observe the student and classroom design, meet with teachers to discuss concerns and possible solutions.

Collaborative Learning Rounds is an opportunity for teachers to work together to improve instruction and deepen student learning. It is conducted mainly by, for and with your teacher team or school team as a reflective, inquiring and learning process. The purpose is to improve student learning and instruction through a classroom based approach to observe and analyze student learning.

 

Rounds Can Be:

  • A team of teachers with a common problem of practice (challenge, inquiry, …)

  • A majority of teachers at a school with a common problem of practice

  • A focus around the school growth plan and goals

  • Focus on one particular area

  • Focus around inquiry

  • Multiple roles/options for your participation

  • Co-Planned Team Project/Problem

  • Work with your teacher team to co-plan a project or lesson with an ILT member

  • Work through your lesson or project as planned

  • Reflect on what went well and what are the next steps for student success in learning

  • As a teaching team develop an area for further inquiry (problem of practice) based on previous conversation

  • With your team and a rounds facilitator observe each other’s classrooms for data to support the next level of work

The Question Formulation Technique (QFT) is a simple yet rigorous process with our pathways competencies in mind, that teaches students to produce, improve and prioritize their questions. The ILT have worked with and learned from educators to develop a teaching strategy that provides a simple, yet powerful way to get students asking their own questions and building off their peers’ questions. ILT members will do a sample activity with your class. This has been a very popular support with many teachers in our district.