Achievement-Driven Structure and Support

Organizing schools around teams optimizes learning opportunities for students, staff, and administration and is an effective method for systemizing school reform. Horizontal and vertical teaming, interdisciplinary instruction, inclusion of all special needs students, and small learning communities or academies at the secondary level provide opportunities to evaluate and modify curriculum and monitor the effectiveness of instructional strategies.

Horizontal Teaming by Grade Level or Content Area
Participants learn to organize and create a structure that optimizes learning opportunities for all students and staff. This means that students in every classroom have the same opportunities for success. For this to happen, grade-level and content-area teams must begin to align curriculum, instruction, and assessment.

Vertical Teaming, Grades K–12
Participants learn to organize and create a structure that optimizes learning opportunities for all students and staff. Small learning communities and/or academies provide opportunities to engage multiple teaming patterns. Vertical, grade-level, and cross-disciplinary teams work collectively to plan and implement standards-based instruction and connections across content areas. Schools structured in vertical teams will share their successes.

Flexible Grouping
Teams examine research and strategies on flexible grouping, plan for scheduling and grouping students around in-program assessments or other methods, and design a step-by-step process for implementation of the plan.

The Literacy Loop™ Cross-Age Tutoring Program
Working with cross-grade and feeder school administrators
and teaching staff, ALS will assist in the establishment of in-class and after-school interventions using a structured program for cross-age tutoring in reading and writing. This well-established program includes fully developed training materials for tutors, tutees, and teachers.

The Learning Tree™ Intervention Program
English-Language Arts or Mathematics
Participants are provided with a structured format for effective student collaboration, including the use of roles and norms and a process for providing feedback. Assessment and accountability are also addressed.

Proactive Classroom Management
This training guides teachers to develop an effective management system for their classrooms. Teachers explore proactive and preventative strategies for both instructional and behavioral management. Participants are also introduced to current research about the development of the adolescent brain, and analyze the role of "status" in establishing and maintaining a positive learning environment.