Our staff promote and train teachers on a variety of teaching methods and strategies aimed at engaging students and ensuring they are growing as critical thinkers.
Guided Language Acquisition Design (GLAD)
Project GLAD stands for and promotes an educational setting that produces effective, literate citizens for a global society. It is a model of respect for diversity in language and ethnicity and also in thinking, learning and personal experiences. It provides support for teachers and students alike to face change and success effectively and confidently.
Guided Language Acquisition Design (GLAD) is a model of professional development with proven replicability in more than 120 school sites. Through Project GLAD training, teachers are provided with research, theory, and practical, effective strategies that promote academic language, literacy, academic achievement, and cross-cultural skills. Tied to English language development standards, the model trains teachers to use district and state standards and curriculum in providing instruction in multi-lingual classrooms.
Response to Intervention
Response to Intervention (RTI) is a framework meant to ensure all students are receiving appropriate instructional support. Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) are meant to foster a team approach among groups of teachers to answer four basic but powerful questions while utilizing student work and assessment as the basis for carrying out RTI. The questions are:
- What do we want each student to learn?
- How will we know when each student has learned it?
- How will we respond when a student hasn’t learned it?
- What will we do for the student who has already learned it? (DuFour, 2008)
In the Richland School District, our teachers receive continuous training on strategies aligned to each of the four questions and the district provides significant programming for students performing at all academic levels.
Instructional Support Team
The Instructional Support Team (IST) convenes to develop individualized solutions for students not responding to standardized academic or behavioral treatments.
