2023 Facilitators Institute Registration Now Open!
Alabama Best Practices Center
by ABPC
1y ago
Did you know? According to Rivet Education, high-quality professional learning is critical for teacher growth and development, yet less than 40 percent of teachers report that the professional learning that they receive has helped them. At the Alabama Best Practices Center, we believe that we all learn from one another and that the knowledge truly is in the room. However, effective facilitation skills are vital to unearthing this learning and capturing it in a way that all participants can access. That is why we believe in high-quality networked professional learning using defined research-pr ..read more
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Announcing the Better Practices | Brighter Students Podcast!
Alabama Best Practices Center
by Stoney Beavers
1y ago
We are excited to announce our brand new Better Practices, Brighter Students podcast! When it comes to centering students and accelerating their learning, we understand that the knowledge is in the room. We believe every child should have access to a world-class education. This podcast elevates educator voices so that we are learning together and collaborating for better outcomes for all students. This podcast is a production of the Alabama Best Practices Center and A+ Education Partnership.    In each episode, we will learn together a topic or strategy related to education, school ..read more
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The 2022-23 Key Leaders Network Will Continue to Focus on High Reliability Schools
Alabama Best Practices Center
by Stoney Beavers
1y ago
By Stoney M. Beavers, Ph.D. Vice President  Alabama Best Practices Center As our network members already know, we will continue to use Leading a High-Reliability School by Marzano and three colleagues: Philip B. Warrick, Cameron L. Rains, and the late Richard DuFour as our guiding text for the Key Leaders Network (KLN). We are looking forward to building on our thinking in the five key areas of reliability that we began to explore during the 2021-2022 school year.   We are excited to continue to bolster the high-reliability school work of the Alabama Math, Science, and Te ..read more
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Our 2022-23 PCN Guiding Text: Questioning for Formative Feedback
Alabama Best Practices Center
by Stoney Beavers
2y ago
We are very excited to announce that the guiding text for this year’s Powerful Conversations Network will be Jackie Acree Walsh’s Questioning for Formative Feedback: Meaningful Dialogue to Improve Learning. This book solidifies Jackie’s place at the forefront of research and knowledge around Quality Questioning and classroom discourse. Even more importantly, it provides practitioners with opportunities to see how other teachers employ questioning strategies in real Alabama classrooms. I’ve asked Jackie to share more of the details below.  Please join us for a highly engaging ye ..read more
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Cathy’s Goodbye: “Round and Round in the Circle Game”
Alabama Best Practices Center
by Cathy Gassenheimer
2y ago
By Cathy GassenheimerExecutive Vice President Alabama Best Practices Center “And the seasons, they go round and round And the painted ponies go up and down We’re captive on the carousel of time We can’t return, we can only look Behind, from where we came And go round and round and round, in the circle game” —Joni Mitchell, The Circle Game The lyrics of Joni Mitchell, one of my very favorite musicians, came to mind as I thought about writing this, my last post for the ABPC Blog. Looking Back from Where We Came It’s hard to imagine that I’ve been with the A+ Education Partnership for 31 years ..read more
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One Last Standing Ovation for the Cathy and Jackie Show
Alabama Best Practices Center
by Guest Post
2y ago
By Dr. Robbie SmithPrincipal Orange Beach Middle & High School Baldwin County (AL) Schools Two roads diverged in a wood and I – I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference. (Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken, 1920) I hear and see this quote often and in my mind this refers to the traveler who was willing to take a risk. To go down the path that had thorns, rocks and mud. The path that had not been cleared by others, but was full of challenges. In my imagining, at the end of the path you find the most beautiful waterfall you have ever seen. The water is crystal cle ..read more
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Tuscaloosa County: How Our Instructional Partners Encourage Teachers to Video Themselves
Alabama Best Practices Center
by Guest Post
2y ago
This group article has been organized and introduced by secondary instructional partner Dr. Kristy Smith. Thanks to all the TCSS instructional partners/coaches who contributed! The Tuscaloosa County (AL) School System was fortunate to send several secondary instructional partners and administrators to learn from the best at the ABPC-facilitated Instructional Partners Network retreats this school year in December and March. We learned or refreshed our learning about Jim Knight’s Partnership Principles and were able to collaborate with coaching and instructional leadership colleagues from aroun ..read more
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We Have Promises to Keep to Our Students in the Middle Grades
Alabama Best Practices Center
by Guest Post
2y ago
Remember your transition into the middle grades? For me, it was junior high. I left a small, nurturing elementary school where I was known and appreciated and moved to a three story huge building, filled mostly with strangers. Even today, when I think about my middle school years, I literally experience an ache in my stomach. Middle grade students face so many challenges. They are still children, yet yearn to be young adults. Their bodies are changing. And, in many cases, the “cocoon” they experienced in elementary school has burst open, providing both opportunities and challenges. To nurture ..read more
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How Our ‘Walkthrough’ Norms Are Helping Us Transition to ATOT
Alabama Best Practices Center
by Guest Post
2y ago
By Dr. Nate AyersPrincipal Etowah High School Attalla City Schools As a classroom teacher, there is nothing more important than protecting instructional time and avoiding distractions within the learning environment. When a visitor enters the classroom, the entire dynamics of that class change, and instantly the teachers are in recovery mode. Unfortunately, this scene is played out in classrooms across our state daily, but does this have to be the case? How can we protect the integrity of the classroom while at the same time help highlight and improve instructional delivery in the classroom ..read more
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A Strategy for Teaching Students to Work Effectively in Groups
Alabama Best Practices Center
by Cathy Gassenheimer
2y ago
By Cathy Gassenheimer Executive Vice President Alabama Best Practices Center Occasionally, my colleague Stoney Beavers or I are asked to share strategies about how to effectively manage small group learning at the middle or high school level. As we know, John Hattie found small groups to be an effective strategy in his research and others interested in effective practices have explored small-group nuances. A recent short article for Edutopia details a specific small group strategy used by a high school teacher and coach. This strategy for giving secondary students explicit feedback on group i ..read more
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