Amid the profound disruption of the pandemic, some schools and districts have responded with highly innovative staffing and scheduling strategies that could be valuable post-pandemic models. A new report from FutureEd and EducationCounsel,Teaching Innovation: New School Staffing Strategies Inspired by the Pandemic, explores these innovations, the conditions that enabled them, how educators have overcome barriers to the innovations, and what it would take to sustain and scale them beyond the current crisis.
The summary of innovative staffing strategies highlighted in the report includes the following:
- Extending the reach of highly skilled teachers, both to provide high-quality instruction to more students and to provide continuing development and leadership for fellow teachers
- Expanding co-teaching models and teaching teams to enable more small-group and individualized support for students, enable joint planning, ensure students are known well, and distribute teaching responsibilities based on teacher strengths
- Using advisory and coaching models to provide social, emotional, and academic support for students and to build the relationships that research has shown are foundational to learning
- Employing flexible scheduling to provide time for teacher planning and collaboration, including rapid inquiry cycles to adjust and target instruction based on data
- Using flexible scheduling to address student needs, including more time for small-group and individual work, individual and group projects and assignments, and coaching.
For more, see: https://www.future-ed.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Report_Teaching-Innovation-1.pdf
