Broward County High School Redesign

Glossary of Terms

The clarity of this plan and its ultimate success hinges on the ability of all stakeholders who read The Blueprint for High School Redesign to have the same understanding of all terms. To this end, there is a Glossary of Terms. The words and definitions are listed alphabetically under each core principle.

Core Principle One: Personalization | Core Principle Two: Academic Engagement | Core Principle Three: Empowered Educators | Core Principle Four: Accountable Leaders | Core Principle Five: Engaged Community and Youth | Core Principle Six: Integrated System of High Standards, Curriculum, Instruction, Assessments and Supports

Core Principle One: Personalization

Academic Teaming - Academic teaming organizes groups of teachers across departments, so thatteachers share the same students rather than the same subject. This strategy has much the same effect as a house structure. Teaming links teachers, who teach different subjects, in a team that shares responsibility to the curriculum, instruction, evaluation, and sometimes scheduling and discipline of a group of 100-150 students. Teams share the same planning time and sometimes share a specific area of the school building. Though more commonly used in middle schools, academic teaming is showing up in restructuring high schools as a way to personalize the learning environment by providing an integrated view of students' progress and creating a group of teachers who focus together on the whole student. Teams can build a sense of community into the school, enabling students to learn more so they can meet higher standards, (George and McEwin, April 1999; Legters, January 1999).

Alternative Scheduling - Alternative scheduling allows teachers to develop lessons that are more compatible with learning objectives. Alternative scheduling is also conducive to arranging for work-based learning opportunities and integrating business and community volunteers into the curriculum. The length of the class period, the school day, and the school year can be changed to support academic achievement. This is most easily done in smaller schools. One of the more common alternatives, "block scheduling,' provides extended class periods that provide teachers with the time necessary for in-depth lessons and experiential learning. These arrangements permit more time for tutoring and intensive projects, facilitate enrichment, and allow lagging students to catch up and advanced students to delve into topics more deeply. They give schools the ability to set a schedule that best suits their needs. (NWREL - Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory)

Adult Advocate Systems - Adult advocate systems ensure that at least one adult knows each student well. One quarter of students report being concerned that they and their friends lack an adult who talks with them about problems and decisions, (Shell, Poll, Summer 1999). Teachers, counselors, community volunteers, and other school staff can fulfill this "caring adult" role, helping personalize students' experiences in even the largest schools. By meeting with 15-20 students, individually or in small groups, on a regular basis over several years, adult advocates can provide rapport, academic and personal guidance, and links to additional resources when needed. Training for adult advocates and administrative support for the advocate system are critical elements for success. (NWREL)

Advisor Systems - Teacher advisory systems are similar to adult advocate systems; they organize adults to personalize the high school experience and support academic achievement, working with small groups of students. Some schools and districts establish advisory classes that meet weekly, others schedule students for less formal one-on-one group time with teachers. Advisory activities may include helping develop personal learning plans introducing students to career clusters, helping students select courses, and working with students on postsecondary plans and pre-employment skills. (NWREL)

Common Planning Time - A sufficient amount of time each week (180 minutes is recommended) where teachers can meet to have structured dialogue about instructional improvement, individual student progress, student outcome data and important SLC business. (NWREL)

Freshman Transition Activities - Freshman transition activities help ease the difficulties students often encounter as they move from middle to high school. Some schools place all first-year students in their own academy or house setting, sometimes in a separate wing or even a separate building, with extra supports from adults. In other cases, freshman transition includes mentoring from older students, or special career exploration classes designed to set the context for high school as a pathway to college and careers.

Interdisciplinary Teaching - Teachers work in subgroups organized around the students the team shares in common. Team members share time to collaborate on program design, lead learning activities, and troubleshoot students' progress over multiple years. (NWREL)

Mentor - A school employee or community leader who advises students on meaningful career choices.

Ninth Grade Academies - Ninth Grade Transition or Ninth Grade Academies are self-contained units located in a designated area at the school. The academy is staffed with its own dedicated teaching faculty, guidance staff, and social services, to create an intact community for this transition year. These ninth grade academies are organized around interdisciplinary teacher teams that have students and planning times in common.

Personalization - A learning process in which schools help students assess their own talents and aspirations, plan a pathway toward their own purposes, work cooperatively with others on challenging tasks, maintain a record of their explorations, and demonstrate their learning against clear standards in a wide variety of media, all with the close support of adult mentors and guides. (Clarke, 2003, p.15)

Pure SLC's - Students take at least 75 percent of their courses within their SLC - including all their core courses and at least one thematic elective each year; and core and thematic teachers teach their SLC's students 90 percent of the time. (NWREL)

Smaller Learning Communities Structures - Smaller school structures have a number of categories. Effective downsizing initiatives generally utilize multiple strategies to gain the full benefits of a small learning environment. Examples of smaller school structures include academies, house plans, schools-within-schools, and magnet schools. Small school structures, implemented along with other complementary strategies that enhance learning, are most likely to yield beneficial impacts. (NWREL)

Structure I: Academies - Academies are sub-groups within schools, organized around particular themes. For example, career academies combine key principles of the school to career movement- integrating academic and vocational instruction, providing work-based learning opportunities for students, and preparing students for post-secondary education and employment - with the personalized learning environment of a small, focused learning community, teachers and students integrate academic and occupation-related classes as a way to enhance real-world relevance and maintain high academic standards. Local employer partnerships provide program planning guidance, mentors, and work internships. Career academies share with other restructuring initiatives an emphasis on building relationships between students and adults (teachers as well as work-site supervisors and other employer representatives. (NWREL)

Structure II: Houses Plans - House plans divide students in a large school into groups of several hundred, either across grade levels or by grade levels. Students take some or all courses with their house members and from their house teachers. House arrangements may be yearlong or multiyear arrangements. House plans personalize the high school experience, but usually have limited effect on curriculum or instruction. Each house usually has its own discipline plan, student government social activities, and other extracurricular activities, although students may also participate in activities of the larger school. Grouping ninth-graders into a separate house is one way to ease freshman transition to high school. (NWREL)

Structure III: A School-Within-a- School - A school-within-a-school is a small, autonomous program housed within a larger school building. Schools-within-schools are generally responsible to the district rather than to the host school's principal, and are formally authorized by the superintendent and/or board of education. Schools-within-schools have their own culture, program, personnel, students, budget, and school space, (negotiating the use of common space with the host school in the same way office building tenants arrange for use of shared conference facilities). Like academies, the school-within-a-school structure supports constructive relationships between and among students and teachers by grouping students together each year to take core courses with the same group of teachers, thus increasing the supports students receive from peers, teachers, and other adults. (NWREL)

Thematic - Students are tracked by their interest, not their ability; all communities have the same academic standards, SLC placement is by choice, for both students and teachers; each SLC has at least one thematic elective teacher.

Wall-to-Wall SLC's - All students are part of a small learning community and all teachers and administrative staff are, at least, affiliated with one of the SLCs in the school. (Oxley)

Core Principle Two: Academic Engagement

Ability Grouping - For a common core curriculum of high standards, students are assigned to different levels in each major course based upon their prior preparation in the subject. Student diversity is addressed by creating homogeneous classroom groupings so that the teacher can aim instruction at students' current level of skills. (Oxley)

Differentiated Instruction - To differentiate instruction is to recognize students' varying background knowledge, readiness, language preferences in learning, interests, and to react responsively. Differentiated instruction is a process to approach teaching and learning for students of varying abilities in the same class. (Hall)

Engagement - Students are actively involved - emotionally, behaviorally and cognitively - in their academic work.

Inquiry - Based Learning/Teaching - One of the most important teaching practices used today is the use of inquiry in the classroom. With the inquiry method of instruction, students arrive at an understanding of concepts by themselves and the responsibility for learning rests with them. (Queen's)

Students take more responsibility for:

Determining what they need to learn,

Identifying resources and how best to learn from them,

Using resources and reporting their learning, and

Assessing their progress in learning.

Project-Based Learning - In project-based learning, students work in teams to explore real-world problems and create presentations to share what they have learned.

Learning solely for students including:

Deeper knowledge of subject matter,

Increased self-direction and motivation,

Improved research and problem-solving skills, and

Promote lifelong learning experiences. (GLEFF)

Core Principle Three: Empowered Educators

Reflective Practice - The first step in the continuous improvement cycle is reflection on practice. Meaningful reflection entails critical examination of current activities through a team-based process of describing practices, reviewing data on their impact, and comparing them to research-based practices. (Oxley)

Core Principle Four: Accountable Leaders

School vision - Vision presents a realistic, credible, attractive future for the organization- a future that is better and more desirable in significant ways than existing conditions. An effective vision statement articulates a vivid picture of the organization's future that is so compelling that a school's members will be motivated to work together to make it a reality. (Dufour, p.62)

Core Principle Five: Engaged Community and Youth

Collaboration with Community Partners - Teachers in successful SLC's create collaborative relationships with community partners. Teachers work with community partners to design curricula grounded in real-world work and service. (Ancess, 1995)

Collective Responsibility - Data and processes ensuring that SLCs have information on their students' progress and are expected and supported to act on it effectively.

Flexible Use of Resources - SLC staff has full autonomy over the use of their time, staff, space and money.

Core Principle Six: Integrated System of High Standards, Curriculum, Instruction, Assessments and Supports

Alignment - Students are doing work that reflects academic standards deemed to be important by their district and state and have opportunities to master the methods used on their state's high-stakes assessments.

Rigor - Teachers expect and support academic rigor in the work for all students.

Rigorous, Standards-Based Curriculum - Holding all students to high standards to ensure educational equity and access to postsecondary education and jobs is a centerpiece of all current major school reform initiatives ( Legters et al., 2002), including the creation of small schools and small learning communities (Fine & Somerville, 1998). Successful small learning communities establish standards for student proficiency that agree with the community's goals and at the same time equal or exceed state standards (Ancess, 1995).