Atlanta’s Continental Colony Elementary School: More Conversational & Equitable Classrooms
Meet Atlanta’s Continental Colony Elementary School
Continental Colony Elementary School serves 400 students in grades K-5 in Southwest Atlanta. The school’s mission is to develop compassionate and knowledgeable life-long learners through the progressive implementation of internationally-minded instruction and rigorous assessment.
Continental Colony is proud to be a Title I school. Because the goal of the Title I program is to provide a high-quality education for every child and extra help to students who most need it.
Who’s on the team?
CCES employs 40 teachers and support staff. This allows for each grade level to have four teachers.
Principal Dr. Kristen Horton, in her seventh year at CCES, is a Cahn Alumnus who was previously a teacher in the classroom, and directly coaches six teachers now
Assistant Principal Christopher Gomillion, in his sixth year as assistant principal, taught elementary school for 10 years as well as serving as an instructional coach
Why Continental Colony reached out to TeachFX
Dr. Kristen Horton and her leadership team are committed to a vision for more conversational and equitable classrooms. They know the two are inextricably linked with each other and are vital to their ultimate mission of providing a high-quality education for every child.
Dr. Horton immediately saw TeachFX as a simple way to help teachers reflect on their own practice by providing meaningful feedback. With TeachFX, feedback is provided in a way that doesn’t feel quite as high-stakes as a class observations can.
CCES previously tried another EdTech tool that was meant to help with instructional coaching and reflection. However, teachers felt it was mainly used by the leadership team to film, observe, and give feedback to teachers without presenting the opportunity for them to reflect.
TeachFX stands out by putting the feedback directly in the hands of the teachers. That aligned much better with the school’s vision for empowering teachers to help students embrace more academic ownership.
And…this partnership was made easier for CCES to launch using funding through their Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund budget.
How it started…
Continental Colony Elementary School’s principal, Dr. Kristen Horton
The TeachFX team worked with Dr. Horton and her team to define the following goals:
Increase academic ownership and student engagement.
Help teachers become more aware of the impact of the Wait Time on student outcomes.
At the beginning of the 22-23 school year, a cohort of educators comprised of grade-level chairs and teachers on the reading committee were the first staff members to TeachFX their lessons.
These lead learners participated in a PLC-style data reflection session to reflect on the data TeachFX provided them. TeachFX team members from our Partner Success team also collaborated with CCES teachers and leaders to help rollout out new instructional strategies designed to increase student outcomes based on TeachFX class reports.
And, a pivotal piece of the partnership from early on was the TeachFX team coaching the instructional coaches and school leadership on how to support teachers in their experience of reflecting on and responding to what they were learning from their own TeachFX class reports.
TeachFX soon expanded to nearly all classrooms at CCES.
How it’s going…
80% of CCES teachers are using TeachFX
TeachFX has been widely adopted, with 32 of their teachers having recorded 101 lessons for a total of nearly 1,800 minutes of instruction. This has allowed the leadership team to avoid the daunting task of observing and providing feedback on nearly 1,800 minutes of class observations by empowering teachers to reflect on their own practice through TeachFX’s AI-technology.
Teachers are reflecting on their teaching consistently. Out of 32 teachers, 20 recorded 3 or more lessons - that’s approximately one recording a month.
Teachers who consistently TeachFX their lessons share best practices with their team. This is beneficial for teachers who may need help getting students talking more or even using TeachFX on a consistent basis. One practice shared amongst CCES teachers is to assign a student as tech manager or use the Reminders feature so that they make recording their lessons a daily practice.
Student talk has increased dramatically. Teachers who recorded 3 or more lessons increased the average amount of student talk by 55%. And, the more teachers use TeachFX, the more their student talk has increased. Teachers who’ve used the app eight or more times have seen student talk in their classrooms nearly double.
Teachers are more aware of how much Wait Time they’re giving. Teachers understand the impact that Wait Time has on student voice in the classroom. Teachers increased Wait Time 1 by 195%.
When in the middle of your lesson, it seems like those seconds tick by so slowly. TeachFX class reports helped CCES teachers realize the time they initially provided students to think and process questions during the lesson wasn’t quite as long as they thought. Now, teachers understand when they need to slow down and let students take time to think during their lessons.
The team is learning what it takes to create a culture of conversation in their classrooms.
Cultural shifts in classrooms gradually happen over time.
It’s a virtuous cycle. As teachers use TeachFX to gain a clearer picture of their classroom, and consistently utilize new practices based on what they’re seeing, kids implicitly know the routine and begin responding accordingly. And that cycle with TeachFX is increasingly becoming habit.
“I can record, forget about it, reflect on it, come in the next day and apply it to my instruction.”
Now, CCES teachers and instructional leaders are focusing on hearing and seeing what students can do on their own, then give feedback to students in the moment to help build on classroom conversations.
The TeachFX team is continuing to design a professional learning journey that aligns with where teachers are today and where they want to be. That includes working with specific grade-level cohorts, working on specific teaching practices, and more.
The word is spreading! At CCES, Dr. Horton and Mr. Gomillion constantly share with the superintendent their data and how it’s changing the conversation for their students in Southwest Atlanta. Since Dr. Horton shared what’s happening at CCES with TeachFX, other Atlanta Public Schools principals are intrigued about how this might work for the teachers and students in their buildings.
