Megan Middleton: On the Scene

Tyler ISD wrapped up its training this week on the instructional delivery model teachers are expected to use when school starts and the new online curriculum called CSCOPE that teachers can use to help them teach to the new standard.

More than 1,000 teachers from grades K-12 participated in the two-day training sessions that began in June.

Kim Tunnell, director of curriculum and instruction for TISD, said the training has gone very well.

“We’ve had a great attendance from our teaching staff, a willingness to participate in the training … and excitement being built …,” Ms. Tunnell said.

The training was designed to provide teachers with strategies on how to use the 5E model of teaching — the new standard for teaching at TISD designed to engage students more in learning and help them think on a higher level. That model is embedded within the new CSCOPE online curriculum, which the district is providing to teachers and showed them how to navigate during this summer’s training.

The five Es are engage, explore, explain, elaborate and evaluate.

The 5E model is designed to help teachers go from being a “sage on the stage to the guide on the side.”

“While there’s still emphasis on direct instruction, because we know that’s important, it’s not direct instruction for the whole entire lesson because that’s when we lose kids — when we’re not having them explore, when they’re not elaborating, expanding and applying what they know,” Ms. Tunnell said. “CSCOPE just helps facilitate that.”

It’s not a new model, though. What’s new is that the use of the 5Es will be expected of all teachers districtwide.

“Our end goal has always been to help our students be successful,” Ms. Tunnell said. “But what (teachers) haven’t had is a consistent system from which to operate and knowing (they’re) going to have the tools and resources and the support to be able to do what needs to be done.”

What teachers hopefully saw in this summer’s training was “not only the foundation being laid and the expectation but also the desire and the commitment to supporting them in the classroom.

“Because it doesn’t matter what I create at the central office level or what any of us do at a central office level, it’s the teacher in that classroom (who) is the most important person for that child’s achievement,” Ms. Tunnell said.

She said this summer’s training has been validating for some teachers — reaffirming teaching strategies they’re already using and reminding them of some they learned years ago. It has also created a consistent expectation across TISD, spawned networking and sharing of ideas and built some anxiety but also excitement, she said.

Some teachers do seem excited to head back to class in August and use new strategies and activities they learned in the training — from hands-on science experiments to technology that allow students to make “movies.”

“The science that we did today (in training) was fabulous,” Jennifer Long, a fourth-grade teacher at Caldwell Elementary, said this week. “I can’t wait to use it in my classroom. It has me excited. So many times we hear, ‘I don’t like science and I don’t like social studies, they’re boring’ — not anymore.”

Ms. Long said teachers are feeling excited as well as overwhelmed, particularly some new teachers.

“Even with that being said, they are relieved that there is a tool for them to know what to teach, when to teach,” she said.

A teacher at TISD for 29 years, Jan Hood, who will be an instructional specialist at Jones Elementary next school year, said of the training, “I wish I’d had just a smidgen of this when I first started out. I know this is quality teaching. From an inexperienced first-year teacher to someone like us who have been teaching forever, anyone can just grab this and go with it and be successful in the classroom.”

Ms. Hood said teachers sometimes spend hours trying to devise ideas for activities to teach a concept, but with CSCOPE, “Now, it’s all at your fingertips.”

Teachers who have effective lessons and methods they’ve used with students in the past can continue to use those. The new standard for teaching allows flexibility to “capitalize on the teachers’ expertise as long as their students are successful,” Ms. Tunnell said.

As school begins in August and teachers begin putting their training and the 5Es to use, Ms. Tunnell said TISD will offer support.

“We will be visible on campus, available to help teachers, to monitor and to make sure it’s implemented,” she said.

The monitoring system is not designed to be punitive, she said.

“We’re not a hammer,” she said. “Our job is not to come in and point out all the things that are wrong. Our job’s to come in and work alongside them to help them move to where their students can be successful.”

Students will also have to adjust to a new system and an increased amount of rigor.

“What we’re going to require students to do is to think critically and apply what they know. For some of them who are more passive … that’s going to be a shift for them,” Ms. Tunnell said.

She said they are anticipating some bumps in the road as implementation takes place.

TISD has made an investment of time and money with this initiative, purchasing the CSCOPE curriculum as well as materials needed to implement it in the classroom. The district also purchased laptops for teachers last school year to help make accessing the online curriculum possible, “anywhere, anytime.”

“We know in order to make a difference in our students’ lives, it’s our responsibility to have a system in place that supports them and their achievement,” Ms. Tunnell said. “Looking from that aspect, we have to do what’s best for students, instead of what’s easiest for us — which is a shift. It would be a lot easier for us for everybody to do their own thing, but it’s not what’s best for kids.”

And Ms. Long, a teacher for about nine years, said “We’re up for the challenge, and we’re excited. It’s going to be what’s best for the kids —and that’s the bottom line.”

Megan Middleton
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