Johns Hopkins Talent Development Middle Schools (JHTDMS)
The JHTDMS reform program incorporates an integrated set of standards-based instructional materials, effective instructional practices, assessments and performance stands along with focused and sustained staff development and in-classroom implementation support for each of the major subject areas: reading, Language Arts, and Math. JHTDMS includes an Extra Help Lab in which students that need the extra help will be pulled from an elective class for a ten (10) week period to help enhance their reading and/or math skills.
For more information concerning the Johns Hopkins Talent Development Middle Schools program, click here: http://www.talentdevelopmentschools.com/TDMG.html
For more information concerning the Johns Hopkins Talent Development Middle Schools program, click here: http://www.talentdevelopmentschools.com/TDMG.html
Program Design:
The planned reform based on the Talent Development models will make it possible for our schools to engage all our students in a standards-based curriculum in each of the major subject areas that is coherent, focused, and challenging. To make it possible for all students to succeed in this demanding core curriculum, our teachers must update and upgrade their instructional strategies and content knowledge.
The Talent Development Model has a proven track record of increasing student achievement through teacher learning. For example, the National Staff Council, in their forthcoming Consumer Guide, identifies Talent Development's Student Team Literature Program as one of just seven staff development efforts in the area of language arts that has demonstrably improved Teacher effectiveness and student achievement in the middle grade. Similarly, Talent Development's staff development efforts in middle and high school mathematics, science, and U.S. History have received great reviews fro middle and high school teachers, who credit these efforts with helping them to become more skillful teachers in the subject areas.
The professional development offered in each of the major subject areas combined with follow-up curriculum coaching and implementation support makes it possible for teachers to become skilled in instructional approaches that focus on teaching for understanding, peer assisted learning, explicit mechanisms for providing students with essential background knowledge, developing meta-cognitive strategies, and strategies and materials which engage students in an active way with questions that provoke higher order thinking skills. The Talent Development models provide the curriculum, professional development, coaching, implementation support, capacity building, and structural and organizational reforms need to spread excellence in teaching to every class in every major subject at every grade level.
Student Team Literature and Talent Development Writing
The Talent Development Middle Grades core Reading/English/Language Arts (RELA) curriculum includes Student Team Literature, talent Development writing, plus an extra-help program called computer-and-Team-Assisted Reading Acceleration that provides instruction and reading opportunities for struggling students.
The Talent Development middle Grades Reading/English/Language Arts program represents a coherent research- and standards-based approach to developing the literacy of older students. The program teacher effective reading strategies and operations, extends reading comprehension skills, develops fluency in reading writing, systematically adds important words to students/working vocabulary, and build basic language skills and higher-order thinking, literary analysis, and writing skills. One distinction of this approach is it integrated nature. Skills are not taught in isolation. All objectives in Reading/English/Language Arts are taught through reading, studying, discussing, and responding to high-quality, high-interest books.
The Talent Development Middle grades Reading/English/Language Arts program includes a wide variety of curricular materials that support teachers' use of effective instructional practices, engaging and varied learnning activities and assessments, and students' use of effective peer assistance processes. A primary tool in the talent Development middle grades Reading/English/Language Arets program is the Partnew Discussion guide, which sturctures the teachers' and students' teaching learning activites. Partnew Discullsion Guides are availavle for almost 200 books (fiction and nonfiction books fro every genre, biographies, and collections of short stories or poems). This curriculum is aligned with current Philadelphia Curriculum Frameworks.
The Talent Development Middle School Mathematics Program
The Talent Development Middle grades Mathematics program is centered on the use of curricular materials developed by the University of Chicago School Mathematics Project. The Talent development sequence consists of using University of Chicago School mathematics Project's Everyday Mathematics in fifth and sixth grade, University of Chicago School Mathematics Project Transition Mathematics in seventh grade, and University of Chicago School Mathematic Project Algebra in 8th grade. These are research- and standards-based materials, which are particularly well suited to achieving algebra for all in 8th grade.
Extra Help
In Talent Development schools, students who need extra help in Math or Reading attend a ten-week accelerated learning class (in addition to their regular math and reading classes) that uses cooperative groups and computers to provide intensive learning experiences. students needing extra help to meet high standards have responded enthusiastically to these "extra dose" classes even though the students miss an elective class for ten weeks in order to participates. These extra-dose classes help make de-tracking work well because the teachers of the regular classes feel no pressure to lower their standards: The teachers know that intensive extra help will be received by all students who need additional time and instruction to master the material.
Communal Organization of the School
The communal organization component of the Talent Development Model recognizes that student effort and teacher effectiveness can be greatly increased by implementing innovative approaches to school organization and staffing that allow teachers, students, and families to establish separate learning communities of 200 to 300 students which occupy their own areas of the school and stay together for two or three years, usually with the same team of teachers. Most teams are small (two or three teachers) and are responsible for fewer that 100 students, because most teachers teach two subjects to students whom they serve.
De-tracking of Instruction
Many middle and high schools inadvertently manufacture the low achievement of many students by offering high expectation instruction to only a subset of their students (sorting some students into high-expectation instruction while relegating others to a lower tack featuring a lower-quality education). The Talent Development program has demonstrated that all children are capable of succeeding in demanding college-preparatory courses when given appropriate support. Because tracking causes gross inequalities in students' access to knowledge, instructional resources, and well-qualified teaching, Talent Development students are heterogeneously grouped in their core academic classes. Heterogeneous grouping for core academic classes helps Talent Development Schools reach high levels of academic performance by eliminating lower track sections that teachers choose and that typically feature a modified instructional delivery of that content. To help teachers manage these heterogeneous classes effectively and teach in ways that help students learn, Talent Development staffs provide focused and coherent professional development in the use of subject-specific cooperative learning and teaching-for-understanding instructional methods and classroom management techniques designed or diverse classrooms. By combining heterogeneous classrooms with effective cooperative learning approaches that feature guided peer-tutoring and peer discussion of high-level content, Talent Development Schools cultivate the conceptual learning of all students. This use of structured cooperative learning is also quite effective in building peer support for achievement in the classroom so that positive peer pressure leads students to embrace academic aspirations and encourage students who are not "giving their best" to work harder.
School-Family-Community Partnerships
Talent Development schools participate in the National Network of Partnership Schools. This network, established by researchers at Johns Hopkins University, brings together schools, districts, and states that are committed to developing and maintaining a comprehensive program of school-family-community partnerships. As part of the Network, Talent Development Schools establish Action Teams that carry out school, parent, and community involvement activities in a focused and coherent way. Research shows that students achieve more and at higher levels when their families are involved in their school. Johns Hopkins talent Development encourages such involvement, as well as community partners, especially through the National network of Partnership Schools, which is also part of the Center for Social Organization of Schools.
On-Site Facilitators
One certified curriculum coach, as required by Johns Hopkins Talent Development Program, per subject implemented will provide in-classroom support which includes modelling, troubleshooting, peer coaching, meeting with small groups of teachers to go over upcoming lessons, and making sure that teachers have the supplies and materials necessary to implement the program. It is essential that only expert teachers who are talented peer coaches fill this role.
Professional development
Talent Development Middle and high Schools commit to ongoing planning and professional development needed to implement and sustain the core components of the Talent Development model. Professional development services include initial planning meetings, and follow-up on site-training. School-based teachers and administrators will work with classroom teachers to develop capacity within the school and at the classroom level. Additional support is provided to these school-based coaches through on-site follow-up visits and regular phone and electronic contact with University-based facilitators.
Talent Development Middle and High Schools are provided multiple layers of sustained professional development, technical assistance, and implementation support. The first layer is on-going subject and grade specific staff development that is explicitly linked to the curriculum. This professional development has three primary foci. First, on a quarterly basis, Talent Development professional development sessions model upcoming instructional activities for teachers. Second, these sessions provide both the content knowledge required by these activities and demonstrate effective instructional strategies tied to the activities. Third, they provide the teachers with opportunity to network and learn from each other.
The second layer of support is non-evaluative in-classroom implementation assistance provided by a curriculum coach who performs a wide range of support functions including modelling, troubleshooting, helping the teacher customize the curriculum to his or her classroom, and making sure the teacher has all the materials he or she needs.
Lead teachers in the school who receive intensive training in the instructional program being implemented provide the third layer of support.
The final and fourth layer of support is provided by the Talent Development School instructional facilitators employed by Johns Hopkins University who work closely with both the curriculum coaches, lead teachers, and principals to design the on-going staff development, customize and localize the instructional programs, and keep the instructional intervention on track. Implementation support is most intense in the initial year of implementation of a curricular component, with quarterly classroom visits and intensive professional development. The goal, however, is to develop the district's and school's capacity to sustain the Talent Development Model after the implementation phase. Professional development is an important component in the development of internal capacity to maintain the model independently.
Ultimately, there will be an expectation of increased student achievement. Thus, the proper implementation and sustaining of the models at Oceanview Middle School and Southern High School would result in the schools' gradual achievement of it Annual Yearly Progress goals.
National Network - Systemic and lasting change is far more likely when schools work together as part of a national network in which they share a common vision and a common language, share ideas and technical assistance, and create an emotional connection and support system. The network, at the least, sponsors an annual conference which offers valuable information on new developments and ideas; builds connections between the experienced schools so that they can share ideas on issues of common interests and build significant relationships with other schools pursuing similar objectives; issues a communications newsletter and conducts other communications activities; and, in general, seeks to create an-esprit de corps in what has been accomplished through the comprehensive school reform program.
Management and Monitoring Activities
Talent Development is an intense reform model and its success will require a whole team effort and commitment to build a community of learners. Involvement in professional development will facilitate the complex interacting among many members who will participate in a variety of roles in sharing and learning the content and many components of the model.
This reform will be sustained through the knowledge and experience of the staff and by way of sustained professional development for both veteran teachers as well as new staff members. The Talent Development model contains a component, which involves training our staff members to be curriculum coaches and professional development leaders in order to cultivate the program in the fourth year and beyond.
Assessment and Implementation Feedback
Student Assessment
Periodic student assessments are embedded in subject area instruction in TDMG’s four core curricular areas. Student Team Literature features short, constructed responses as well as multiple opportunities for alternative assessments. Unit tests with a standardized test format are available for many works of literature. TDMG curricula in history, science, and math offer multiple opportunities for student assessment.
TDMG surveys students annually to evaluate student response. To prevent duplication of effort, TDMG works with schools to evaluate student progress as measured in district-mandated standardized tests. TDMG supports and does not duplicate testing requirements of individual districts.
Standards Alignment
As part of our customized approach, TDMG staff work with schools to align curriculum to specific state and district standards and benchmarks. Ongoing Implementation Feedback and Program Evaluation TDMG conducts ongoing program assessment, including regular reviews with the school’s leadership team, analysis of attendance and promotion records, and periodic achievement testing of all or a sample of the school’s students. TMDG conducts annual benchmarking of implementation progress and achievement results. Every year, TDMG surveys students and teachers to gauge implementation, student response, and teacher satisfaction. TDMG may also ask schools to participate in an evaluation of the program conducted by a third-party firm.
http://web.jhu.edu/CSOS/tdmg/program/assessment.html
The Talent Development Model has a proven track record of increasing student achievement through teacher learning. For example, the National Staff Council, in their forthcoming Consumer Guide, identifies Talent Development's Student Team Literature Program as one of just seven staff development efforts in the area of language arts that has demonstrably improved Teacher effectiveness and student achievement in the middle grade. Similarly, Talent Development's staff development efforts in middle and high school mathematics, science, and U.S. History have received great reviews fro middle and high school teachers, who credit these efforts with helping them to become more skillful teachers in the subject areas.
The professional development offered in each of the major subject areas combined with follow-up curriculum coaching and implementation support makes it possible for teachers to become skilled in instructional approaches that focus on teaching for understanding, peer assisted learning, explicit mechanisms for providing students with essential background knowledge, developing meta-cognitive strategies, and strategies and materials which engage students in an active way with questions that provoke higher order thinking skills. The Talent Development models provide the curriculum, professional development, coaching, implementation support, capacity building, and structural and organizational reforms need to spread excellence in teaching to every class in every major subject at every grade level.
Student Team Literature and Talent Development Writing
The Talent Development Middle Grades core Reading/English/Language Arts (RELA) curriculum includes Student Team Literature, talent Development writing, plus an extra-help program called computer-and-Team-Assisted Reading Acceleration that provides instruction and reading opportunities for struggling students.
The Talent Development middle Grades Reading/English/Language Arts program represents a coherent research- and standards-based approach to developing the literacy of older students. The program teacher effective reading strategies and operations, extends reading comprehension skills, develops fluency in reading writing, systematically adds important words to students/working vocabulary, and build basic language skills and higher-order thinking, literary analysis, and writing skills. One distinction of this approach is it integrated nature. Skills are not taught in isolation. All objectives in Reading/English/Language Arts are taught through reading, studying, discussing, and responding to high-quality, high-interest books.
The Talent Development Middle grades Reading/English/Language Arts program includes a wide variety of curricular materials that support teachers' use of effective instructional practices, engaging and varied learnning activities and assessments, and students' use of effective peer assistance processes. A primary tool in the talent Development middle grades Reading/English/Language Arets program is the Partnew Discussion guide, which sturctures the teachers' and students' teaching learning activites. Partnew Discullsion Guides are availavle for almost 200 books (fiction and nonfiction books fro every genre, biographies, and collections of short stories or poems). This curriculum is aligned with current Philadelphia Curriculum Frameworks.
The Talent Development Middle School Mathematics Program
The Talent Development Middle grades Mathematics program is centered on the use of curricular materials developed by the University of Chicago School Mathematics Project. The Talent development sequence consists of using University of Chicago School mathematics Project's Everyday Mathematics in fifth and sixth grade, University of Chicago School Mathematics Project Transition Mathematics in seventh grade, and University of Chicago School Mathematic Project Algebra in 8th grade. These are research- and standards-based materials, which are particularly well suited to achieving algebra for all in 8th grade.
Extra Help
In Talent Development schools, students who need extra help in Math or Reading attend a ten-week accelerated learning class (in addition to their regular math and reading classes) that uses cooperative groups and computers to provide intensive learning experiences. students needing extra help to meet high standards have responded enthusiastically to these "extra dose" classes even though the students miss an elective class for ten weeks in order to participates. These extra-dose classes help make de-tracking work well because the teachers of the regular classes feel no pressure to lower their standards: The teachers know that intensive extra help will be received by all students who need additional time and instruction to master the material.
Communal Organization of the School
The communal organization component of the Talent Development Model recognizes that student effort and teacher effectiveness can be greatly increased by implementing innovative approaches to school organization and staffing that allow teachers, students, and families to establish separate learning communities of 200 to 300 students which occupy their own areas of the school and stay together for two or three years, usually with the same team of teachers. Most teams are small (two or three teachers) and are responsible for fewer that 100 students, because most teachers teach two subjects to students whom they serve.
De-tracking of Instruction
Many middle and high schools inadvertently manufacture the low achievement of many students by offering high expectation instruction to only a subset of their students (sorting some students into high-expectation instruction while relegating others to a lower tack featuring a lower-quality education). The Talent Development program has demonstrated that all children are capable of succeeding in demanding college-preparatory courses when given appropriate support. Because tracking causes gross inequalities in students' access to knowledge, instructional resources, and well-qualified teaching, Talent Development students are heterogeneously grouped in their core academic classes. Heterogeneous grouping for core academic classes helps Talent Development Schools reach high levels of academic performance by eliminating lower track sections that teachers choose and that typically feature a modified instructional delivery of that content. To help teachers manage these heterogeneous classes effectively and teach in ways that help students learn, Talent Development staffs provide focused and coherent professional development in the use of subject-specific cooperative learning and teaching-for-understanding instructional methods and classroom management techniques designed or diverse classrooms. By combining heterogeneous classrooms with effective cooperative learning approaches that feature guided peer-tutoring and peer discussion of high-level content, Talent Development Schools cultivate the conceptual learning of all students. This use of structured cooperative learning is also quite effective in building peer support for achievement in the classroom so that positive peer pressure leads students to embrace academic aspirations and encourage students who are not "giving their best" to work harder.
School-Family-Community Partnerships
Talent Development schools participate in the National Network of Partnership Schools. This network, established by researchers at Johns Hopkins University, brings together schools, districts, and states that are committed to developing and maintaining a comprehensive program of school-family-community partnerships. As part of the Network, Talent Development Schools establish Action Teams that carry out school, parent, and community involvement activities in a focused and coherent way. Research shows that students achieve more and at higher levels when their families are involved in their school. Johns Hopkins talent Development encourages such involvement, as well as community partners, especially through the National network of Partnership Schools, which is also part of the Center for Social Organization of Schools.
On-Site Facilitators
One certified curriculum coach, as required by Johns Hopkins Talent Development Program, per subject implemented will provide in-classroom support which includes modelling, troubleshooting, peer coaching, meeting with small groups of teachers to go over upcoming lessons, and making sure that teachers have the supplies and materials necessary to implement the program. It is essential that only expert teachers who are talented peer coaches fill this role.
Professional development
Talent Development Middle and high Schools commit to ongoing planning and professional development needed to implement and sustain the core components of the Talent Development model. Professional development services include initial planning meetings, and follow-up on site-training. School-based teachers and administrators will work with classroom teachers to develop capacity within the school and at the classroom level. Additional support is provided to these school-based coaches through on-site follow-up visits and regular phone and electronic contact with University-based facilitators.
Talent Development Middle and High Schools are provided multiple layers of sustained professional development, technical assistance, and implementation support. The first layer is on-going subject and grade specific staff development that is explicitly linked to the curriculum. This professional development has three primary foci. First, on a quarterly basis, Talent Development professional development sessions model upcoming instructional activities for teachers. Second, these sessions provide both the content knowledge required by these activities and demonstrate effective instructional strategies tied to the activities. Third, they provide the teachers with opportunity to network and learn from each other.
The second layer of support is non-evaluative in-classroom implementation assistance provided by a curriculum coach who performs a wide range of support functions including modelling, troubleshooting, helping the teacher customize the curriculum to his or her classroom, and making sure the teacher has all the materials he or she needs.
Lead teachers in the school who receive intensive training in the instructional program being implemented provide the third layer of support.
The final and fourth layer of support is provided by the Talent Development School instructional facilitators employed by Johns Hopkins University who work closely with both the curriculum coaches, lead teachers, and principals to design the on-going staff development, customize and localize the instructional programs, and keep the instructional intervention on track. Implementation support is most intense in the initial year of implementation of a curricular component, with quarterly classroom visits and intensive professional development. The goal, however, is to develop the district's and school's capacity to sustain the Talent Development Model after the implementation phase. Professional development is an important component in the development of internal capacity to maintain the model independently.
Ultimately, there will be an expectation of increased student achievement. Thus, the proper implementation and sustaining of the models at Oceanview Middle School and Southern High School would result in the schools' gradual achievement of it Annual Yearly Progress goals.
National Network - Systemic and lasting change is far more likely when schools work together as part of a national network in which they share a common vision and a common language, share ideas and technical assistance, and create an emotional connection and support system. The network, at the least, sponsors an annual conference which offers valuable information on new developments and ideas; builds connections between the experienced schools so that they can share ideas on issues of common interests and build significant relationships with other schools pursuing similar objectives; issues a communications newsletter and conducts other communications activities; and, in general, seeks to create an-esprit de corps in what has been accomplished through the comprehensive school reform program.
Management and Monitoring Activities
Talent Development is an intense reform model and its success will require a whole team effort and commitment to build a community of learners. Involvement in professional development will facilitate the complex interacting among many members who will participate in a variety of roles in sharing and learning the content and many components of the model.
This reform will be sustained through the knowledge and experience of the staff and by way of sustained professional development for both veteran teachers as well as new staff members. The Talent Development model contains a component, which involves training our staff members to be curriculum coaches and professional development leaders in order to cultivate the program in the fourth year and beyond.
Assessment and Implementation Feedback
Student Assessment
Periodic student assessments are embedded in subject area instruction in TDMG’s four core curricular areas. Student Team Literature features short, constructed responses as well as multiple opportunities for alternative assessments. Unit tests with a standardized test format are available for many works of literature. TDMG curricula in history, science, and math offer multiple opportunities for student assessment.
TDMG surveys students annually to evaluate student response. To prevent duplication of effort, TDMG works with schools to evaluate student progress as measured in district-mandated standardized tests. TDMG supports and does not duplicate testing requirements of individual districts.
Standards Alignment
As part of our customized approach, TDMG staff work with schools to align curriculum to specific state and district standards and benchmarks. Ongoing Implementation Feedback and Program Evaluation TDMG conducts ongoing program assessment, including regular reviews with the school’s leadership team, analysis of attendance and promotion records, and periodic achievement testing of all or a sample of the school’s students. TMDG conducts annual benchmarking of implementation progress and achievement results. Every year, TDMG surveys students and teachers to gauge implementation, student response, and teacher satisfaction. TDMG may also ask schools to participate in an evaluation of the program conducted by a third-party firm.
http://web.jhu.edu/CSOS/tdmg/program/assessment.html