The AVID system prepares us for challenges and demands. All educators connected to AVID have heard this repeatedly. This belief shows up in the recruitment process for new AVID students (application, interviews, etc.). We saw this message play out as we transitioned to remote learning in the spring of 2020 and again when we moved to a hybrid setting in the fall.
Our district and school have chosen to teach our remote and in-person students at the same time. Teachers set up playlists in Canvas (our learning management system), giving students the opportunity to preview the activities and assignments for the upcoming week. A 45-minute synchronous instruction session is included during each 90-minute class period. The asynchronous times at the start and close of each class period allow our in-person learners to review previous material while the teacher helps our remote learners log in. We are still able to provide rigor within our activities and labs by setting up peer cohorts comprising in-person and remote students. Remote students thus learn vicariously through their in-person counterparts and by recording videos demonstrating their understanding of each activity.
New Bern High School (NBHS) adopted WICOR® (Writing, Inquiry, Collaboration, Organization, and Reading) as our instructional framework in 2013. We quickly realized that the strategies we were using with our AVID Elective students would work well with all of our students. We worked to get all of our teachers AVID-trained and became an AVID Schoolwide Site of Distinction in 2018–19. At the time, we had no idea that AVID would serve as the vehicle to help us prepare our students for success in college, the military, and the workforce. Our commitment to the AVID way carried us through Hurricane Florence in 2018, Hurricane Dorian in 2019, and is helping us through this global pandemic.
We are constantly working to make sure our students and staff remember to take control of what we can and minimize excuses. This approach allows us to maximize opportunities and keep our expectations high for all. I will offer a few ideas and examples that have worked and are currently working for us at NBHS.
Inherent in providing rigorous instruction for each student is the need to know that individual student. We must understand the capabilities of each student so that we can provide activities and opportunities aimed at making sure that child does not underperform. At NBHS, we chose a restorative justice (RJ) framework in 2019. RJ began as an alternative to our exclusionary discipline practices. We soon saw that RJ was a guide to help us build better relationships with our students. NBHS worked to establish a stronger culture of communication, create clear expectations instead of rules, teach mindfulness, and foster a growth mindset.
We also use data to drive our decisions in literally everything. Once we establish our goals as a school, we then ask each department, professional learning team (PLT), course section, and student to set goals aligned with our school goals. We track the data for each individual student in our data room, and the data drive conversations on how to improve.
Emphasize the importance of a shared definition of rigor among those in your organization (PLTs, departments, school). Our District Director led our staff through an AVID Professional Learning Module, WICOR to Raise the Rigor, as we prepared to start this school year. We knew we were beginning the semester in a full virtual setting. We wanted to use lessons learned from our spring experience with remote learning. We also wanted to ensure that we were meeting the individual needs of each student. This training module pushed us to define rigor, compare our definition of rigor to AVID’s definition of rigor, and list what rigor looks like for each WICOR methodology.
Having a common language schoolwide helps to facilitate conversations between educators, regardless of the content area. We find visual arts teachers sharing tips for Philosophical Chairs with our history teachers. Our schoolwide approach has put the spotlight on “good teaching” practices. We ask our teachers to plan for WICOR in each lesson and show how each methodology influences the others. For example, as you design your lessons, consider how organizational strategies make each writing, inquiry, collaboration, and reading activity more rigorous. You should also think through how you will scaffold to the more complex levels of understanding needed to reach the learning goal.
Weinstein, B. (2019). Hacking School Discipline: 9 Ways to Create a Culture of Empathy & Responsibility Using Restorative Justice. Times 10 Publications.
AVID Center. (2019). WICOR to Raise the Rigor. [Course content].