How Lincoln Academy is Getting Students Talking Using TeachFX
Meet Lincoln Academy Charter School
Lincoln Academy Charter School is a K-9 charter school located in Pleasant Grove, Utah, serving more than 900 students. With a dedicated team of 145 teachers and teacher assistants, the school's mission is for students at Lincoln to learn and grow with their peers from kindergarten through ninth grade.
In addition to core subjects, students at Lincoln Academy have access to a diverse range of experiences, including computer science, visual and performing arts, and various extracurricular activities
Three years ago, when Amy Carr joined Lincoln Academy as an instructional coach, she set a goal to improve instruction by increasing student engagement but she wasn't sure where to begin.
Identifying The First Step Towards Improving Student Learning
As the new instructional coach, Amy's first priority was to understand teachers’ and students’ everyday experiences before jumping into offering support to teachers.
Amy asked her teachers: "What do you notice about your students?"
Her teachers voiced concerns about post-pandemic changes in how students learn and difficulties in retaining what was taught in class.
And Amy observed on her own that teachers took what she viewed as a more traditional approach to teaching, where students passively received instruction while seated and listening. Many teachers and principals have noticed the same in their own post-pandemic classrooms.
Amy's next question was, "How do we move the needle on our students’ learning?"
TeachFX: The Partner to Help Teachers Bring Student Discourse Into their Classrooms
At Lincoln, moving the needle on student learning was going to start with bringing student discourse into the classroom. To support teachers in shifting their practice toward discourse, Amy would need to find new ways to provide instructional feedback.
And the usual ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to professional development would not suffice. Amy wanted a partner who could support her teachers’ professional development while embracing their varying levels of experience and the diverse needs of their students.
TeachFX would be that new partner for Amy and the teachers at Lincoln – a new way to provide teachers with feedback and personalized professional learning workshops, and to do so with a focus on identifying how they could increase student talk in their classrooms.
To start, Amy and a cohort of eight of her teachers piloted TeachFX together. Starting with a small group of teachers gives the teachers and instructional leaders who partner with TeachFX the chance to learn how they’ll use the app, how they’ll benefit from the workshops we provide, and how to incorporate TeachFX into what they’re already working on.
Inquiry-Based Professional Development Workshops Help Teachers Try New Practices
The TeachFX team designs inquiry-based workshops that help teachers both learn and experience the high-leverage teaching practices that get kids talking.
Ninth-grade teacher Nicole Petersen reimagined and redesigned a lesson she’d been teaching for years, using the practices she’d learned from TeachFX workshops and the reflections she made on her own data. Her new approach created more opportunities for students to engage in think-pair-share activities, and to learn from each other.
After recording this lesson in the TeachFX app, she could see the increase she’d fostered in student talk and celebrate moments where students carried academic ownership.
Quick & Easy Self-Reflection With the TeachFX Instructional Coaching App
It can seem impossible to find time in the day to reflect on what happened even during a single lesson. But with TeachFX, Lincoln’s teachers have objective data that they can reflect on in just minutes.
Each time they use TeachFX to record and reflect on a lesson, they’re expanding on their own continuous cycles of improvement.
Language Arts teacher Shane Nolan uses TeachFX to understand much time he’s talking in a lesson, how that aligns with his intentions, and when he would be more of a facilitator than lecturer. He’s made adjustments to help his students do more of the talking, and can see the effects of the changes he’s making.
Teachers Build Student Engagement While Reflecting on Their Own Teaching Practice
When Science teacher Sean Kuepper shares his TeachFX Lesson Snapshots with his students, he sees how much more engaged his students are when they get to see the highlights of their class discussions, too.
In Nicole Petersen's class, students eagerly remind her to record their discussions because they are excited to see the Word Clouds that show their use of academic vocabulary during a lesson.
“If you are serious about your growth, you need TeachFX”
Lincoln is creating a schoolwide commitment to helping students engage in productive dialogue, build on each other’s learning, and articulate new ideas out loud.
With each lesson recording and each professional development workshop, these teachers are gaining new insights into their own teaching and what’s possible in their classrooms.
