OPtimize Teaching & Learning Consultancy
How can we build and implement curriculum which serves students’ learning and our school missions? Why is focusing on student proficiency so essential in guiding their growth? What curriculum resources support students’ learning and foster teachers’ confidence as learning leaders? Building students’ learning with a well-aligned and edifying standards-based curriculum is at the heart of our work as teachers and leaders. Working together, OPtimize Teaching & Learning Consultancies provide essential lenses and action plans for strengthening your school’s curriculum, assessment, and instruction.
Healthy schools engage in continuous improvement. A partnership with ISS curriculum experts, including Laura Benson and Michelle Kuhns, is helpful for schools embarking on initiatives to improve teaching and learning. This responsive and customized partnership will help you:
- Create a mission-driven curriculum architecture for learning
- Bring your strategic learning goals into classroom practice.
- Develop a learning environment that promotes joy in learning.
- Establish a standards-based assessment system to support students’ growth and learner agency
- Build capacity in teacher leadership and enhance professional learning team culture
Through Laura’s expertise in curriculum design and her commitment to professional growth, she has played a pivotal role in shaping a dynamic learning environment that promotes excellence. Laura’s collaborative approach, coupled with her genuine concern for the well-being of students and staff, has made a great impact on our learning community. Her impact on ISA has been transformative.
Based on your school learning goals, the OPtimize Teaching & Learning Consultancy includes:
- Aligning and prioritizing the school’s vertical and horizontal alignment
- Professional learning support and facilitation
- Authentically integrating the content areas to deepen students’ confidence and joy for learning
- Establishing sound assessment and healthy grading systems that support a competency-based mindset
- Building student and teacher assessment literacy
- Support in vetting, sourcing, and receiving curriculum resources
- Curriculum guidance for accreditation
Timeline: This consultancy will be customized to meet your school’s unique needs and timelines.
OPtimize Operational Audit
Optimal for schools aiming for operational enhancements and financial resilience. ISS experts understand effective school operations and have developed processes to identify and address operations issues before problems arise.
This package focuses on human capital strategy and organizational development practices to streamline processes for system optimization. Perfect for schools looking to secure operational improvements, financial sustainability, and risk mitigation.
Your ISS professional consultant will provide you with:
- Change management strategy and support
- An objective, expert review of organizational structure and culture
- Analysis of operational policies and procedures in finance, human resources, and facilities management
- Risk mitigation strategy
- Tools, templates, and support services to assist in improving systems, procedures and processes.
“We worked closely with ISS school management and operations experts, and they were able to draw up a cost effective proposal for a change management plan to help the school. In doing so, they were able to consult our community, draw from the resources of ISS and their own professional expertise to come up with a plan that has put us on the path to recovery.”
The Operational Program Audit includes:
- Change management strategy
- Interviews with operational staff and leadership
- Review of organizational structure, operational policies and procedures
- Prioritization of recommendations for immediate and medium-term impact
- Tools to support areas of concern
- Full summary report
Timeline: The ISS Operational Audit can be started and completed in as little as one month, depending on the depth of change required
OPtimize Strategic Planning
Good strategic planning is an art, especially in schools. The ISS approach to strategic thinking for schools that translates into a 3-5 year strategic plan which is manageable and results oriented. This consulting package is limited to two schools per semester so that we can guide you through the initial phases and get you thinking, planning, and acting strategically to see results.
Using ISS’s Strategic Planning Process, Tom Hawkins, Greg Smith, and the team at ISS will help you:
- Assess validity and relevance of your school guiding statements and previous plan
- Gather internal and external perceptions of your school’s strengths, challenges, and opportunities
- Develop a set of strategic imperatives and tactical action plans for implementation
- Create an evaluation and realignment process that allows you to own your plan
The Strategic Planning Process includes:
- Provocations to assess current state of the school and ensure readiness for planning (can be done virtually)
- Situational Analysis to gather perceptions, interview stakeholders, and analyze data relevant to the strategic vision and mission of the school (virtual and on-site)
- Planning Sessions (on-site) to initiate the conversations which result in strategic imperatives
- Implementation of the action plans to ensure strategic imperatives result in positive changes in the school (development and guidance provided virtually)
- Evaluation and Realignment of the plans, imperatives, and performance indicators to ensure implementation is effective and imperatives/plans are realigned as needed
Timeline: This planning process requires approximately three months to undertake, so contact the ISS team directly to launch your strategic plan soon.
OPtimize Technology Audit
Ensure your school’s technology plan is optimized to meet the demands of today and tomorrow. With the ISS Optimize Technology Audit — led by ISS Chief Innovation Officer John Burns — your school will receive a snapshot of current practices, commendations, and recommendations to pursue on your own or with the help of ISS.
This audit analyzes both the learning and operational elements of the school’s current strategy. You’ll receive work on four (4) key areas in regards to technology:
- Vision and Leadership
- Infrastructure and Environment
- Community Engagement
- Curriculum and Pedagogy
The ISS Technology Audit includes:
- Review of organizational structure, strategic plan and mission statements
- Analysis of existing strategy and documentation as it relates to technology including infrastructure plans, 1:1 deployments, curriculum documents, AUPs, job descriptions, and learning spaces
- Interviews with the leadership team, technology team, staff, student and parent cohorts
- Prioritized recommendations for immediate and medium-term impact
- Strategies to address areas of need
- Resources, sample documents and exemplars where relevant
- Full summary report and presentation