Collaborative Work (CW)

The Collaborative Work (CW) Grant has the single goal of increasing student performance for all students—even those presenting significant learning challenges. The structure will have all teachers in the buildings fully engaging in a collaborative process to support each other and to have all the schools in the region working together in sharing the key elements of their efforts to improve student achievement. The focus on highly effective teaching and learning practices will help assure that all students—those with and without learning challenges—accelerate their learning potential. This collaborative work is aligned to Missouri’s teacher and leader quality standards and to the Missouri Learning Standards.

We will continue in implementing effective teaching and learning practices that demonstrate dramatic and sustainable gains for our students. Such gains, according to John Hattie in Visible Learning for Teachers: Maximizing Impact on Learning, are those described as having “a worthwhile positive effect.” In addition, these targeted practices will be devoted to literacy issues, specifically to reading, writing, speaking/listening, and language development across the curriculum.

The project will highlight three areas of growth: effective teaching and learning practices; common formative assessments; and data-based decision making. The opportunity to individualize and build on what each district has in place will allow us to go deeper and in each of these areas. This is crucial for achieving positive outcomes. The execution of effective teaching practices must be designed with purposeful intent to address individual student learning needs. Once again, according to Hattie, many interactions with student are beneficial, but only some are explicitly and dynamically so. Those explicit efficiencies are at the heart of this effort. Such efficiencies can indeed be transformational.