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Virginia School Consortium for Learning

Welcome Back

VaSCL Members

Welcome Back Message Image 1Now that summer is making the September turn to Fall and your staff and students are back in school, we are excited to share the slate of opportunities sponsored by VaSCL this year. We have a great schedule of professional learning opportunities designed to help your divisions and schools accomplish learning goals with all students, especially our young people who need the greatest support from Virginia’s topnotch educators- and more forthcoming for winter and early spring.

We know that classroom teachers implementing new math and English/Language Arts SOLs will need ongoing support and VaSCL staff have designed SOL Implementation Institutes in early October to support evolving instructional and assessment needs that emerge as teachers begin to use the new standards.  Check out info in the professional learning opportunities below.

2024-25 Steering Committee Virtual Meeting Dates:
  • Thursday, September 26, 2024 :
    Virtual Meeting

    9:00 AM - 11:30 PM

  • Thursday, November 14, 2024:
    Virtual Meeting

    9:00 AM - 11:30 AM

  • Thursday, February 20, 2025:
    Virtual Meeting

    9:00 AM - 11:30 AM

Virginia Assessment Collaborative Sept 18 Kick Off! Sign Up Staff Now!

It’s time to register a team or representative for your schools. Team members gain assessment literacy skills they can use and facilitate with staff in your division. We now have VaSCL bank MOUs with Performance Matters, Mastery Connect, Renaissance, and are working on one with Edulastic.
Have you ever wished for time to collaborate with other educators in your content area?
Do you want to work smarter, not harder with assessment practices?
Do you want to increase the positive trend line of student achievement?

If so, then the FREE VaSCL Assessment Collaborative job embedded professional learning is for your teachers, specialists, and you, too! Our Collaborative assessment work teams will convene onsite and virtually this year.

Team members will begin on September 17 virtually for new team members. All members will convene onsite on September 18. If you would like to know more about the focus areas for this year’s work and register team members  (free to VaSCL members) to help build and use the premier SOL aligned bank of assessments and performance tasks, please go to this link. Participants can self-register here!  

Dr. Kelley Aitken, Assessment Coordinator, also will engage with VaSCL work team members in exploration of one new area of focus: Caring Assessment Practices that promote assessment literacy through strengths-based assessment and feedback, student participation in assessment processes, and use of a feedback loop. Reach out to Kelley here This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. for more info.

FALL Professional Learning: Connecting the Dots to Align New Standards, Instructional Planning, Student Support, and Assessment for Learning

Contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. for more info.

Building Better Academic Performance through Balanced Assessment
Please Pick One Virtual Session

To register, click on either an am or pm session below for this assessment literacy mini-sprint. FREE to all VaSCL educators!

Tuesday, Sept 17 9:00-11:30am  or  Tuesday Sept 17 12:30-3:00pm 

Unpacking Math SOL Revisions for Full Implementation Institute
Onsite: October 7, 2024 (9:00am- 3:30pm)

Click Here to Register

Our dynamic, collaborative VaSCL Math Practitioner Team will facilitate this Institute to empower K-12 educators to deepen knowledge of the 2023 Virginia Mathematics SOL revisions, including the new VDOE Instructional Guides by grade levels K-8, Algebra I, Geometry, and Algebra II. Participants will:

  • Unpack the big ideas of the content, process skills in practice, concepts, and connections.
  •  Plan how to use balanced assessments to measure evidence of growth and proficiency of each standard.
  • Leave with the VaSCL balanced assessment map for new SOL math content.
  • Design the learning experiences for students in the new content using Math Forward and VDOE resources.

Finish the day with a renewed sense of confidence in the revisions and adaptable approaches to assess content for learning in your classroom and in your work to support fellow educators in your school and division!

Unpacking Virginia ELA SOL Revisions for Full Implementation
Onsite: October 8, 2024 (9:00am-3:30pm)

Click Here to Register

Our dynamic, collaborative VaSCL ELA Institute facilitator team will empower educators in grades 3-12 to deepen knowledge and understanding of the 2024 Virginia English SOLs. Join us to focus on planning using backwards design; identifying skills and aligning assessment with instruction, all while embedding strategies that help to develop skilled readers and strengthen foundational skills. Participants will work in grade bands to:

  • Unpack the foundational skills within the 2024 ELA Standards of Learning.
  • Strategize to stack complementary skills from the 2024 ELA
  • Standards of Learning that honor a comprehensive approach to instruction.
  • Team to discuss and build innovative assessment ideas that help collect evidence of student learning according to both the content and rigor of the 2024 ELA Standards of Learning.
  • Design integrated learning experiences for students around English & Language Arts skills with a focus on developing skilled readers and foundational skills.

Complete the Institute experience with a clear path forward to implementing the  2024 Virginia ELA Standards of Learning into your planning, instruction, and assessment as you move through the year.

Thriving Under Pressure: Leveraging Struggle in the Learning Classroom
Onsite: October 24, 2024 (9:00am-3:30pm)

Click Here to Register

Dr. John Almarode is back with VaSCL to workshop a focus on research that highlights the value of learners engaging in the right level of challenge (ES = 0.60). Yet, this research leaves us, well, struggling with what this looks like, sounds like, and feels like in our classrooms. You will leave this engaging day with actionable ideas that will foster, nurture, and sustain the right level of challenge in your schools and classrooms. The struggle is real – we just need to find ways to grapple with that reality.

Putting AI to Work in the Secondary Classroom Webinar Series
Online: October 16, 23, & 30, 2024 (4:30-6:00pm)

Click Here to Register

Join VASCL practitioners for an engaging and innovative series of virtual workshops focused on leveraging generative AI to enhance instructional practices. T.E.A.C.H. (Transforming Education through AI Connections and Humanity) will guide educators through the practical application of AI to improve curriculum design, lesson planning, assessments, and unpacking standards. Participants will gain hands-on experience and valuable insights into integrating AI safely into their educational practices, ensuring they are equipped with the tools and knowledge to transform their teaching strategies and improve student outcomes.

Improvement Science: Strategic Actions to Address Problems of Practice
Onsite: November 13, 2024

Wondering how you might schedule so learning is constant and time is the variable? Be more strategic about assessment uses for learning? Create engaging and rigorous learning?

Catalyst Speaker Symposium with Dr. Tinkhani White and Dr. Val Brown, Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (registration details coming to Steering Committee members via email)

Bring your division or school team of up to 5 for free to the Symposium.

Tinkhani Headshot scaled 227x350Brown Valeria Pic scaled 233x350Catalyst Co-Speakers, Dr. Tinkhani White and Dr. Val Brown, who work with the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, both bring deep practitioner experience to supporting educators to learn and begin to use improvement science principles. VaSCL division teams will engage with the speakers in work to design solutions to real problems of practice in their own schools/divisions. Dr. White and Dr. Brown will catalyze teams to  “reimagine the educational landscape to promote engaging, rigorous, and equitable learning experiences for all young people.”  Participants will learn about tools, designs, and modalities needed to provide students with richer, more engaging learning opportunities inside and outside of the classroom and schoolhouse. Join with other participating teams to:  

  1. Gain a foundational understanding of guiding principles of Improvement Science
  2. Begin to integrate a science of improvement mindset into local innovation and strategic work
  3. Identify and analyze a specific problem of practice in your school/division using the science of improvement model
  4. Develop a near-action plan to begin using improvement science principles in your division/school to support needed system changes.
Coming Soon to the VaSCL PD Website
  • Vital Coaching Strategies for Instructional Coaches, Content Specialists, and Administrators onsite
  • The new SOL Science Standards: What Educators Need to Know and Be Able to Do webinar series (winter)
  • The new SOL Social Studies Standards: What Educators Need to Know and Be Able to Do webinar series (winter)
  • Big Concepts for our Youngest Learners (winter onsite)
  • Rejuvenate Your Teaching: Join the Educator Wellness Community webinar series (winter)
  • Universal Design for Learners: New and Tried and True Strategies to Increase Accessibility to Learning webinar series
  • ELL strategies that Make a Difference webinar series

Exciting Legislative and VBOE News!

Did you know that your local school board now has “maximum” flexibility to waive existing instructional clock hour requirements compliments of 2024 Virginia Legislation?

"The Board shall provide local school boards maximum flexibility to waive existing instructional clock hour requirements by developing alternative instructional time models in accordance with regulations adopted by the Board and Board guidelines related to instructional time waivers. § 22.1-200.3. Alternative instructional time models permitted."

Here is an excerpt from a VDOE staff presentation to the VBOE in July on the topic of seat time and learning.

“Virginia is in the process of moving from “time-based” policies to a “competency-based” structure to earn credits and capture learning based on demonstrating mastery of content and skills. - This approach allows students to progress at a flexible pace so they can move on when they have mastered the material. A redefinition of “instructional hours” enables principals and school division superintendents to have the flexibility to create learning experiences, environments, and timelines that will be more engaging for students and not when and how long they are physically present in a school building or course. - Total instructional time remains the same; what changes is where, when, and how learning occurs.”

To quote Carnegie Foundation President Timothy Knowles in an interview in The 74:

“...Carnegie Units went on to become the central currency of a dizzying number of aspects of education, ranging from what subjects students are exposed to to how states allocate school funds. But it was quickly understood that while the units were good for, say, establishing whether a public school had delivered its pupils enough hours of teaching to earn its taxpayer dollars, it was not particularly helpful at signaling what a student had learned during those hours in class — now, 117 years later, better known as seat time.” 

This shift in practice aligns with our free to members VaSCL Fall Catalyst Symposium focus with co-speakers working with the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching who will bring perspective on the national movement away from Carnegie Unit seat time requirements as a part of the Symposium. 

A Few Resources of Note:

Best,

Pam Moran
Executive Director
Virginia School Consortium for Learning
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.