Expectations for Teaching & Learning

Why this matters: It ensures all students have access to rigorous, standards-aligned instruction, delivered through a guaranteed and viable curriculum with fidelity.

• Design rigorous, standards-aligned lessons that incorporate clear learning goals and grade-level expectations
• Analyze tasks to align instructional decisions with learning goals, ensuring alignment between objectives, activities, and assessments
• Set and communicate high academic expectations to all students
• Reference student-friendly learning targets and success criteria at the beginning, in the middle, and at the end of lessons
• Utilize evidence-based strategies, including explicit instruction, modeling, guided practice, and checks for understanding
• Scaffold for mastery of complex skills, gradually releasing responsibility to students
• Provide daily time for intervention/enrichment, ensuring all students grow from their current level
• Teach using corporation-approved programs
• Use the adopted curriculum as the primary instructional resource
• Implement the gradual release of responsibility structure — I Do (teacher modeling), We Do (guided practice with feedback), You Do (independent practice) — so every lesson moves students toward independent mastery of grade-level content (NEW)
• Ensure grade-level content is accessible to all learners, including students receiving Tier II/III support (NEW)
• Maintain fidelity to corporation-approved scope and sequence (NEW)

Why this matters: It ensures every student receives targeted, data-driven support matched to their current level of need, in addition to strong core instruction.

• Include small skill groups and station-based learning, tailoring support to students' needs based on formative data
• Form small, flexible groups based on current student data (screener results, progress monitoring, and formative assessment) re-forming groups regularly (NEW)
• Facilitate teacher-led small group instruction while other students engage in meaningful, structured independent or station-based work (NEW)
• Tailor the focus and pace of each group to students' current skill needs identified through ongoing formative data (NEW)

Why this matters: It enables personalized instruction and responsive intervention.

• Involve students in goal setting and self-assessment
• Use data to plan and adjust instruction
• Identify Tier I core instruction as the first and most powerful intervention
• Provide Tier II/III supports in addition to core instruction (NEW)
• Participate in ILT-coordinated processes for determining intervention placement and monitoring student progress (NEW)
• Review MTSS data regularly during grade-level PLCs (NEW)

Why this matters: It improves outcomes through collaboration and shared responsibility.

• Meet weekly in PLCs focused on the four critical questions
• Use student data to improve instruction collaboratively
• Anchor weekly PLC conversations explicitly in the four critical questions: What should students learn? How will we know? How will we respond to students who haven't learned? How will we extend learning for those who have? (NEW)
• Include special education, EL, Title I, and specials staff in PLC collaboration and planning (NEW)
• Document and implement instructional decisions made during PLC time (NEW)

Why this matters: It creates safe and welcoming spaces that foster engagement and support student wellbeing — the conditions that make the other four components possible.

• Post student-friendly learning targets and success criteria
• Teach, post, and reinforce routines
• Use practices that support all students
• Promote psychological safety and belonging
• Embed Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (PBIS) in daily practice (NEW)
• Respond to behavior with consistent, restorative approaches that keep students in the learning environment (NEW)
• Build visible relationships and rituals that strengthen student connection and belonging (NEW)

Why this matters: It enhances instruction and connects students with essential digital tools, supporting Core Instruction, Small Group Differentiation, and Data-Based Decision-Making.

• Use Canvas, Skyward, and Google Suite effectively
• Follow MCCSC's Technology Integration Guidelines