Buckeye Local School District

Academics

Academics

Increasing Student Engagement & Active Learning Through Proven Coaching Models

By Rocco Adduci, Buckeye Local Schools Curriculum Director

Over the past six years, Buckeye Local Schools has partnered with the Korda Institute to transform teaching and learning throughout the district. This transformation centers around providing our students with opportunities for deep learning experiences through community based challenges. Local community partners provide teams of our students with real, urgent problems that remain unsolved. Student teams, through research and field work, provide our local partners with solutions. Our students, by learning this way, develop the skills necessary to enjoy life successes.

Our primary focus this year at Edgewood High School has been to significantly increase student engagement and active learning in the classroom. To accomplish this, EHS administration is utilizing a coaching model to support teachers in developing lessons that actively engage students in developing their skills and expanding their knowledge.

Providing all of our students with real, deep, and meaningful learning opportunities is our focus. We have embraced the coaching model to support staff, and build a culture of professional learning, so that we may actively engage all of our students.

Buckeye Introduces Three New Academic Programs

By Danyel Ryan, Buckeye Local Schools Improvement Coordinator

Education has evolved into not only educating students in the area of academics, but in the realm of behavior and social emotional learning (SEL) needs or educating the whole child. Buckeye Local schools realizes this and is digging in deep this year with the Multi Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS). The first being Branching Minds. Branching Minds is a platform to store all of the district's data so that teachers can more easily understand what students are struggling and why. With all data, such as academics, demographics, attendance, social emotional screeners, behavior and progress monitoring in one location it will be easier for teachers to view and understand it.

The second program we purchased is Edulastic. Edulastic is an electronic bank of assessments that correlate to the state standards. This is something that the administration struggles to find for teachers when it comes to curriculum. Often teachers have to create their own assessments which is very time consuming and then may not compare to the rigor required by the state. Teachers will be able to use this for daily formative assessments, and summative (end of unit) assessments. They can also create their own assessments within the program.

The last program is IXL. This program is used for tier 1 instruction (all students), intervention to close the achievement gap, and an enrichment for gifted students. This is to supplement the teachers' regular delivered instruction. The students will be given a benchmark assessment at the beginning of the year and the program places the student where they are at academically. The students then will be able to work on skills at their own level whether it is below or above grade level. With these three programs added to our curriculum, we will work towards closing the achievement gap and do what is best for our students by educating the “whole child”.