Reports
from SERVE-Leads Districts
It would be difficult, even overwhelming, for a school or
district to begin working on all their identified Standards
of Classroom Practice at one time. When given an opportunity
to think about what kind of statement about a quality learning
environment might generate a meaningful professional development
focus, the idea of teachers being responsible for giving
students "quality work" to do came to the fore
with the SERVE-Leads district teams. That is, work assigned
to students should be purposeful, cognitively challenging,
and result in useful feedback to students on how to improve.
Thus, this Standard of Classroom Practice was selected as
an initial focus. One of the tools SERVE located to help
teachers reflect on the quality of their assignments is
a process for collecting "typical" teacher assignments
and scoring them on a number of dimensions identified in
the research literature as being important for student achievement.
The
following are reports from some of the districts participating
in SERVE Leads that are in the early stages of introducing
initiatives to help teachers apply definitions of quality
to the work they assign students. It is interesting to
note that no district took the same approach in beginning
these conversations about quality work with their teachers
and schools.
Additional
Resources:
Los Angeles
Community
District #2 
