STEM & Flower Learning Consultants consult on a variety of aspects of student learning to foster your staff's development as professionals. After previewing consulting plans below, please contact us to customize a particular consulting session that best meets your staff’s needs. Sessions can be scheduled as two hour, half-day, full-day, or multiple day workshops. Pricing varies with need, staff size and travel accommodations.
Breaking the Ice
At a staff meeting recently, we asked our colleagues, “What does a student grade of 82% mean in your classroom?” The ensuing discussion was monumental and game-changing. We facilitated a Socratic discussion that ignited debates about the purpose of assessment, inspired staff to reevaluate traditional grading practices, and served as a way to organize the insightful, forward-thinking ideas that the staff already held true. STEM & Flower Learning Consultants can cultivate this same conversation with your staff as a philosophical stepping stone into Standards Based Learning. Specific points of interest include separating proficiency from behavior, the value of revising work, the importance of feedback, and suggestions of resources for further discussion.
Nuts and Bolts
After attending a professional development day and hearing teachers speak of implementing Standards Based Learning successfully in their classroom, your staff is energized and optimistic. They’ve been brainstorming ideas and reviewing presenter materials but are stuck with many questions: How does this work in my classroom and in the gradebook? How much work is this going to take? How do I get started? STEM & Flower Learning Consultants can facilitate the next steps in organizing Standards Based Learning for your department, school and district. Topics include step by step walk through to transition from a traditional points classroom to a SBL classroom, common challenges and solutions, and authentic examples of implementation.
Extended Guided Practice
Most teachers would agree that the most valuable resource we have to do our job effectively is time. Having time to process SBL thinking, refine standards, design common summative assessments, and draft formative assessments is crucial to help a staff manifest this mindset. Moreover, during this work time, having experienced teachers who have already traveled down this seemingly daunting road on hand is invaluable. STEM & Flower Learning Consultants can serve as guides “in the trenches” serving shoulder to shoulder as your staff creates the documents that will drastically improve student learning. Specific assistance will include detailed verbiage on rubrics, how to align formatives to enable success on summatives, how to create “first day” documents to address parent concerns, and what a day to day & unit by unit SBL classroom looks like pedagogically and culturally.
Supplementals
While these topics are our primary focus, STEM & Flower Learning Consultants also offer consultation in flipped classroom, 1:1 iPad implementation, growth mindset, culture of learning and #TTOG (Teachers Throwing Out Grades).
Please contact us to discuss pricing. Prices will vary based on needs, staff size, and travel accommodations.