Cross-Disciplinary, Whole School Education Reform in Secondary Schools: Three Critical Components

The Whole School Success Partnership (TWSSP) worked to develop practices and cultures that emphasized student success in five middle and high schools. Because this project took place in secondary schools where teachers have disciplinary specializations, the whole school approach came with unique opp...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:School-university partnerships 2018-04, Vol.11 (1), p.46-56
Main Authors: Borda, Emily, Warren, Shannon, Coskie, Tracy L, Larson, Bruce E, Hanley, Dan, Cohen, Jessica
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Academic Achievement
Beginning Teachers
Collaboration
College School Cooperation
Communities of Practice
Core curriculum
Education reform
Educational Change
Educational leadership
Educational Research
Faculty Development
High Schools
Instructional Leadership
Integrated Activities
Interdisciplinary Approach
Language Arts
Learning
Middle Schools
Partnerships in Education
Professional development
Science Education
Science Teachers
Secondary School Science
Secondary School Teachers
Secondary Schools
Skill Development
Students
Teacher Collaboration
Teaching
Teaching Methods
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Summary:The Whole School Success Partnership (TWSSP) worked to develop practices and cultures that emphasized student success in five middle and high schools. Because this project took place in secondary schools where teachers have disciplinary specializations, the whole school approach came with unique opportunities and challenges. Here we describe how three critical components of this project, wholeschool vision; tools to translate vision into practice; and ongoing, collaborative teacher learning were enacted to meet these opportunities and challenges. We then detail outcomes revealed by the project evaluation. We found the whole-school approach provided a common ground for facilitating schoolwide change and developing a shared perspective on teaching and learning. To do this, TWSSP integrated its activities with school goals and initiatives, placed teachers in high-functioning professional learning communities (PLCs), and frequently revisited a whole-school vision. The project helped teachers connect across subject-area silos, supporting and sustaining whole school reform. NAPDS Essentials Addressed: 1. A comprehensive mission that is broader in its outreach and scope than the mission of any partner and that furthers the education profession and its responsibility to advance equity within schools and, by potential extension, the broader community; 2. Ongoing and reciprocal profess sional development for all participants guided by need; 3. A shared commitment to innovative and reflective practice by all participants; 4. Engagement in and public sharing of the results of deliberative investigations of practice by respective participants.
ISSN:1935-7125