The PAACC Framework Playbook

A School Looking For International Validation

St. Theresa Bilingual School was looking to secure international accreditation with Cognia, which is a non-profit that accredits primary and secondary schools worldwide.

As part of the accreditation process, Cognia laid out specific recommendations to St. Theresa’s leadership team for school improvement.

The leadership, under Donna Dixon, took these recommendations and got to work.

With recommendations in hand, Dixon and her team began dreaming up strategies for continuous school improvement.

The areas they needed to focus on were:

• Developing a system of job-embedded professional development
• Fostering more collaborative learning opportunities
• Deepening educators’ understanding of Common Core standards, relevant benchmarks, and the school’s curriculum
• Building community involvement in the school

It was a tall order.

Especially considering their very limited experience in the area of professional development…

The Blind Leading The Blind

Up to this point, Dixon and her team had been in charge of professional development at St. Theresa.

Unfortunately for them, professional development (PD) options were limited within Honduras – to say the least.

Their process mainly consisted of purchasing relevant books and having teachers read them and create presentations for the school.

As one can imagine, the teachers were not engaged.

Because of this, Dixon didn’t see the shifts in instructional practices that they needed to improve the school.

The Introduction That Changed Everything

St. Theresa’s path to Cognia accreditation looked bleak. But just as their goal seemed out of reach, a simple introduction changed everything.

Cognia had introduced Dixon and her team to LINCspring.

After learning about the program, they were excited about its model. They saw the opportunity to vastly expand the professional development content they could offer to their teachers.

Embracing Innovation with LINCspring

Being a trailblazer, Dixon took the brave initiative to create an innovative strategy of aligning their potential work in LINCspring with the recommendations in Cognia’s Accreditation Report.

Specifically, Dixon created a schoolwide playlist from the LINCspring Roadmaps: Learning, Capacity, Technology, and Culture. All of the cycles Dixon selected aligned with the “Insights from the Review” section of Cognia’s report.

In addition, Dixon set up protocols and guidelines for her leadership team to track and supervise the LINCspring playlists in accordance with the Cognia Leadership Capacity Standard.

From there, Dixon leveraged the school’s professional learning communities (PLCs).

She asked each PLC to choose 3-4 cycles they were interested in working on together as a team and she assigned each team certain cycles from her curated list of cycles aligned to Cognia’s recommendations.

These areas included:

• Grouping students for differentiated instruction
• Fostering student agency over learning in classrooms through self-reflection and goal setting
• Supporting student collaboration and developing more student-led instruction and less teacher-guided instruction
• Developing Google classrooms for teachers to provide feedback to students
• Creating community in digital environments

A Newfound Love for Learning

St. Theresa’s new systems helped build teacher buy-in into using LINCspring because it was simple.

Establishing a dedicated, regular time to work in LINCspring is a critical factor in St. Theresa’s successful PD implementation plan.

On school-wide PD days, teachers worked on their assigned cycles, and during their weekly PLC meetings, they worked on the self-selected cycles.

Cleverly Maximizing Teacher Buy-In

Dixon and her co-administrator, Annie, learned they could earn even more buy-in by digging in deep with one grade band and then showing the evidence of progress to the others.

For example, the preschool teachers engaged deeply in LINCspring’s cycle on SeeSaw and started effectively using the tool with students and families.

Once the 1st- and 2nd-grade teachers saw this in action, they saw the benefits of using SeeSaw and were excited to complete the cycle and begin using the tool to build collaboration and community.

Receiving the Validation They Deserve

On March 31, 2020, Cognia awarded St. Theresa its formal accreditation from the Global Commission.

This highly coveted distinction made all of the hard work worthwhile.

In the end, what has made this a success, “is that it allows teachers to take control and ownership of their own professional development in the same way we want it to happen for students over their learning,” said Dixon.

Dixon and her team are encouraged by the improvements taking place across the school.

St. Theresa continues to use LINCspring as part of its strong commitment to continuous improvement and to creating a student-led, personalized learning experience for all of its students in the years to come.

Downloadable PDF of this Impact Story

A School Director Looking To Meet Incredible Expectations

Dr. Anabella Martinez returned to her high school in Colombia, South America with a doctorate from Teachers College, Columbia University in hand. Her doctoral research was on teacher professional development.

Dr. Martinez had started as the academic director but was now the school director for Marymount School, Barranquilla.

As the school director and with her new doctorate in hand, to say expectations for impact were high would be an understatement. A profound impact was to be expected.

How LINC Helped Transform Teacher Mindset

Dr. Martinez was confident she could exceed expectations.

She was energized by LINC’s research-based model of generativity and made it a key part of her teacher professional development strategy. It was the centerpiece of her approach to teacher evaluation.

Dr. Martinez worked with faculty leaders to move to a portfolio approach for supporting teacher development.

And as in the generativity model, teachers move through a rubric defining four key stages (Pre-Spark, Spark, Internalize, and Generate) in five key domains: standards, learning, assessment, technology, and classroom culture.

“It was our goal to address teacher mindsets; to support teachers in promoting self-directed, self-regulated learning for students,” said Martinez. “In order to address our school’s broad vision for global competence, entrepreneurial leadership, and values (spirituality, honesty, excellence, respect, responsibility), it is essential that we teach students to be lifelong learners, put them at the center of our teaching and learning, and offer numerous opportunities to develop student voice.”

Getting Teachers Bought Into 21^st Century Learning

Sandra Noguera, a middle school math teacher at the time, was approached by Dr. Martinez to be the blended learning coach for high schools. Now, she’s the Teacher Learning Specialist, working to support all teachers.

“I work with teachers to develop an annual professional learning plan,” said Noguera. “Teachers select three of the domains to focus on each year. The portfolio is used to assess their annual professional learning projects. Teachers ultimately evaluate themselves using the generativity scale.”

Noguera added, “LINC offers a range of workshops for teachers, helping them to develop 21st-century teaching skills, increase project-based learning, and improve the way teachers use technology in the classroom.”

“Following the workshops, I find myself spending a lot of time helping teachers increase their skills in PAACC (personalization, agency, authentic audience, connectivity, and creativity). For example, teachers frequently confuse offering a lot of activities with differentiation.” “We have created about five Teacher Learning Communities (TLCs) in each grade band,” explained Noguera. “If a teacher wants to focus on using video in the classroom, she can participate in that TLC. The TLCs change annually as teachers identify what they want to focus on.”

Opening Up A World Of Learning Opportunities To Students

Marymount Barranquilla wants teachers to focus on three key learning opportunities:

1. Project-based learning
2. Connection-based learning
3. Service learning.

“Project-based learning happens primarily in the classroom, providing engaging inquiry-based learning for students,” Ms. Noguera explained. “Connection-based learning is when students collaborate with experts, mentors, or students in other schools. And service learning happens when students are at work in the community engaging in volunteer opportunities.”

“Our second graders did a world cultures project this past year. Using Google Hangouts, students talked to peers at Marymount School in Cuernavaca, Mexico,” explained Noguera. “Students had pen pals in the other school and did video chats to explore cultural differences, ultimately making a presentation to their peers in class.”

“Third grade teachers are focused on developing authentic audience. Students will be working with local leaders to find ways to address common social problems in the community,” she added.

Making The Grade And Moving Forward

Dr. Martinez had made the impact everyone had hoped upon her return.

She credits the partnership with LINC for increased use of technology by teachers, a broader variety of teaching strategies in the classroom, and increased use of project-based learning, particularly in elementary classrooms.

But she knows there is much more that can be done to further improve the learning experience for both students and teachers.

Dr. Martinez noted, “Next year, we plan to expand our work to include the LINCspring platform. We have a general sense of where our teachers are in terms of their stage of generativity. LINCspring will help us push teachers to move along the continuum. Teachers need to feel more empowered to set goals and move forward.”

Downloadable PDF of this Impact Story

A School Focused On Creating Tomorrow’s Leaders

In 2017, the leadership team at Colegio Hebreo launched a continuous improvement process for its educators to ensure they could prepare students to become entrepreneurial leaders. Leaders armed with the skills to face current and future challenges.

This evolved into a new professional development plan designed to help meet this strategic goal and achieve international certifications.

The Colegio Hebreo Union team selected LINC as its professional development partner because its services are aligned with their exact goals.

In our early conversations, we discovered clear alignment on the skills and characteristics we believe teachers should possess and a focus on student-centered learning.

Here Is What The Colegio Hebreo Union Team Says About Their Experience:

In 2017, we received LINC’s proposal. We were impressed by LINC’s PAACC Framework and their innovative methodology of professional development under which each teacher could learn at their own pace and focus on skills they needed to develop.

We decided to work with LINC beginning with the second semester of 2017. We were clear that to achieve transformation, and we needed to motivate our teachers and gradually lead them into a new way of learning.

We wanted them to see the value in engaging in personalized professional development, where they could manage their access to knowledge through LINCspring cycles. We had several face-to-face meetings and decided to prioritize these topics for our first year:

• Project-Based Learning
• Formative Assessment
• Blended Learning
• Data Analysis for Decision Making

As our work with LINCspring evolves, we have fewer face-to-face meetings and more autonomous learning through the LINCspring platform.

How Colegio Hebreo Got Their Entire Team To Buy In

To increase buy-in, we broke our team into five groups and assigned each group a mentor from our leadership team. This allowed our leadership team to lead by example by demonstrating our engagement and completing cycles alongside our teachers.

This helped us ensure all of our teachers were shifting their practices and improving their instruction. Our leadership team plays a fundamental part in this role.

Making The Most Of LINCspring Cycles

Today, we base our entire professional development plan on LINCspring training cycles. Our leadership team selects a set of standard cycles for our whole team to complete together to target specific strategic objectives in our annual professional development plan. We allow teachers to choose the other cycles they will work on according to their interests and needs, giving them voice and choice over their professional development.

The LINCspring cycles have been instrumental in implementing blended learning as a methodology that LINC’s support is precious because it has helped us make the transformation we want in our school by implementing generative change.

Transforming Practice, Student Engagement, And Agency With LINCspring

When we launched this new initiative, we encountered a bit of resistance from teachers to the methodology, and they expressed a desire to continue with face-to-face seminars. As our teachers have progressed, they understand how this work with LINC enables a greater degree of reflection and awareness to transform, improve, and work collaboratively to implement successful educational practices.

Teachers increasingly value the opportunity that the LINC-Colegio Hebreo Union teamwork offers and find it relevant to their growth, rather than an obligation.

The LINCspring cycles have been instrumental in implementing blended learning as a methodology that truly enables personalization in student-centered education. In addition, the elements of the PAACC have guided us in planning classes to develop 21st-century skills.

We do internal monitoring through a plan that each leader structures for their group. This structure allows our teams to have agency and creativity to develop a strategy that supports their progress. These strategies include weekly, individual, or group learning communities.

We also cultivate positive motivation through our social networks. We share achievements and celebrate mistakes as learning opportunities so that our teachers do not fear failure and dare to take risks and innovate.

Through its formative evaluations, the Colegio Hebreo Unión has seen that teachers use data to personalize learning through the station rotation model. A high percentage of the school’s leadership team and teachers have learned to work autonomously, at our own pace, and appreciate that we have the support of everyone to continue to improve collaboratively. There are no hierarchies in place; a teacher can be at a more advanced level than a member of the leadership team, and they collaborate.

Conquering Resistance To Give Students A Fulfilling Learning Experience

At the beginning of our new professional development program with LINC, our students were not very comfortable in the new role we envisioned.

They went from passive to active players in the classroom. We wanted them to leave their comfort zones, as we had done as teachers, and learn to generate learning products differently. This created some resistance.

However, as teachers progressed in their professional development, they guided and accompanied the students in the process. Little by little, the students were motivated by implementing new technological tools and platforms that made learning more fun.

In the same way, evaluation and co-evaluation processes generated a safe and trusting environment where mistakes are allowed and considered opportunities for growth in autonomy and self-management.

Students have benefited from implementing Project-Based Learning and collaborative work and value it as an opportunity to respect each other’s interests and learning rhythms. Additionally, as teachers have better data management, students have benefited from a more personalized education through blended learning models.

Conclusion

Today our teachers are highly motivated and committed to their professional development. They feel that LINCspring is an excellent opportunity for their growth; 85% of those registered on the platform have obtained the Innovator in Action Badge.

We see an increasing interest among teachers who want to engage on the LINCspring platform to participate in this generative change and paradigm shift.

We are involved in a healthy competition in completing cycles so that we all move forward in shifting and improving our instruction to benefit our students. Our greatest joy is seeing how, after 3 1/2 years, our students benefit the most from the excellent learning opportunities that our teachers design for meaningful and learner-centered learning.

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A School Preparing Students For An Increasingly Complex World

The future for today’s students is complex.

As task-oriented jobs disappear, the skills needed for success have been drastically altered.

Because of this, schools need to adapt and equip students with the proper academic and social skills critical for success.

Colegio Marymount Medellin saw the writing on the wall. They needed to transform their school to prepare students for this complex world.

The Much-Needed Wakeup Call

Since the 1950’s, Marymount Medellin used traditional models of teaching. One where the teacher disseminated knowledge and students were passive recipients.

But during a 2018 accreditation review, the school received a wakeup call. The review resulted in feedback noting it needed to be more 21^st century focused and forward-thinking.

This set school leadership on a journey.

And the school quickly realized they needed to provide professional learning to their teachers.

Re-imagining Learning With LINC

For change to take place, turning to an outside source was the best choice.

School leadership connected with LINC’s Latin America team and were impressed by LINC’s research-based approach and expertise.

LINC’s work is built around the Model of Generative Change, the product of over 15 years of research from Stanford University’s Dr. Arnetha Ball. 

The model recognizes teachers as agents, not objects, of classroom transformation. LINC’s school transformation work is grounded in engaging and preparing teachers and leaders for the dramatic shifts happening in the world that impact student readiness for life.

Putting Plans Into Action

Together, the school’s leadership team and LINC began planning a rollout of teacher professional development.

This would push the school into a more student-centered approach. An approach where students would have independence, choice, and voice in their learning.

The leadership team formulated a plan using LINC’s Generativity Roadmap and supporting rubrics. It provided a clear pathway from traditional teaching to innovative, student-centered classrooms.

They designed a sustainable transformation strategy. A strategy that would successfully move Marymount Medellin toward generativity in four quadrants: culture, teacher capacity, learning environment, and technology.

LINC employed consultations, in-person workshops, coaching, and the use of LINCspring, LINC’s easy-to-use, online coaching, and professional learning platform.

From Stagnation To Educational Innovation

The school’s leadership set a goal of building a culture of continuous growth among teachers.

It was set to become a benchmark for educational innovation. A far cry from where the school had been since the 1950’s.

Catalina Caicedo, Marymount’s high school principal, describes the process:

“From the very beginning, we worked together with the LINC team, deciding on the best ways to get our people involved and centered. It was like constructing something together step-by-step, by looking at the diagnosis of needs at each moment. It was a highly motivating process. We used the research approach, followed by trying new ideas in our classrooms to see if they work, each time working to make it better and learning all the time.”

The whole approach to instruction shifted. As Julia Velez, a transitional kindergarten teacher explains:

“Everything has changed. Before all of our content was separated, now we integrate as much as we can. I like to use the analogy of a tree. Before we looked at the parts separately, like studying the leaf, without the trunk. Now we study the tree as a whole to more deeply understand content and interconnections. This is much more fulfilling (and challenging) to us as teachers as it opens broader horizons for students and teachers.”

A School Community Engaged in Growth

In the summer of 2019, after the LINC team provided in-person workshops, Marymount’s leadership invited teachers to complete project-based learning cycles in LINCspring.

Each cycle follows the Reflect, Tinker, Grow model. A model which encourages teachers to try new strategies, reflect on how they went, and tinker with them to improve.

The entire school community engaged in this opportunity.

The LINCspring cycles were instrumental in supporting teachers in employing new project-based learning instructional models.

Teachers received online coaching through the virtual platform and felt their questions were answered quickly and completely, in particular by their LINC Transformation Agent Maribel Vazquez.

Julia Velez commented, “Maribel is always there for us. The coaching has been wonderful. Maribel will help with everything we need to support students.”

Experiencing A Truly Personalized Approach

After the school-wide engagement, teachers have completed cycles in a more personalized way.

They meet with supervisors and receive input from their LINC coaches to determine areas of growth. They then select LINCspring cycles they plan to complete.

This personalized approach is well-liked by the teachers and has resulted in over 1000 hours of completed professional learning on LINCspring.

Velez exclaimed, “I really enjoy it [LINCspring] and it pushes you to become a better teacher every day and to explore different tools and how to incorporate them into your class.”

Alejandra Jaramillo, a middle school English teacher added, “It is very important for teachers to have a say in what they want to learn and LINCspring offers this approach.”

Marymount Medellin Students Are Now More Ready Than Ever

Initially, the shift was a big change for students.

But by doing more of the learning on their own with more autonomy, they quickly began to thrive.

According to 4th-grade teacher Jeremy Montes:

“Students really learned to become problem solvers in the classroom and to work effectively in teams, key skills for today’s global economy.”

Even in a preschool environment, students loved the independence. Velez said:

“We started using playlists with the girls and it was a big success. Students could not get enough of them. They loved the flexibility in choice and engaging in independent learning, following the 21st-century learning protocols.”

High school physics teacher, Yeisson Acevedo, mentioned how by using these new strategies, he got the students to ask deeper questions and could better track student mastery. These strategies resulted in an increased interest in science and math and shifted their mindsets about their skills in these important areas.

Conclusion

LINC has allowed Marymount Medellin students to be more independent, autonomous, and has opened up different possibilities for how to work. English teacher Alejandra Jaramillo sums up LINC’s impact perfectly, “It gives my students the option to be who they are and not who I want them to be.”

Downloadable PDF of this Impact Story