www.AALF.org

Location: Krimmel Intermediate School (One of the Klein ISD schools included in the NSBA Technology Leadership February 2012 School District Site Visit, currently in its 5th year as a one-to-one Tablet PC school, with over 1000 students in grades 6 through 8.

Principal: Mr. Scott Crowe

Assistant Principal: Ms. Stephanie Langner (lead for 100 Model Classrooms Program)

The 100 Model Classrooms Program is designed to build faculty capacity, targeting the very best instructional practices while fostering meaningful, reflective, and actionable collaboration within a professional learning network.

Teachers in the program have one of two roles. They either:

• Volunteer as teacher leaders in their ‘model classrooms’, or

• Are selected, on a rotating basis, to be ‘participant observers’.

Campus administrators select the model classrooms from those who volunteer and assign other teachers to spend one class period as a participant observer. Recognizing that there is much more going on in a classroom than just content delivery, teachers are often assigned to be participant observers in classrooms outside their own content areas. They must attend the class, observe, and participate as though one of the students, in order to experience all aspects of the model teacher’s pedagogy, including classroom management, relationship building and the effective use of technology.

In the days following the lesson, the teachers involved are asked to reflect on what they learned. Using a special campus wiki, both the model classroom teacher and the teacher participant observer respond to these questions:

1. What did you learn?

2. In what other ways might the technology be beneficial for my students?

3. Reflect on ways you can reinforce the content from today’s model lesson in your classroom. (Only participant observers respond to this question)

Response to the 100 Model Classrooms program has been very positive. The teachers feel that the experience is eye opening, particularly when they visit classrooms outside their own content areas. As a result, the program is building camaraderie among the staff at a fairly large school as teachers interact with colleagues they may not see on a regular basis. An added bonus is that teachers learn what is being taught in other subject areas, strengthening cross-curricular instructional support across the campus.

Teachers report that they are excited to be learners in this process, both as model classroom teachers and as teacher participant observers.

***Ms. Stephanie Langner will be presenting a breakout session about the 100 Model Classrooms program during the NSBA Technology Leadership School District Site Visit in Klein ISD from February 19-21, 2012. Click here to learn more, or to register!