Teacher Inquiry

A teacher's lesson may reveal what has been taught.  But how does a teacher, administrator or parent know what has been learned unless they look carefully at student work? 

New Visions has pioneered the practice of teacher inquiry teams analyzing student work to make sound instructional decisions.  Teacher-led inquiry is a key part of our strategy in helping our schools align teaching and learning to the Common Core State Standards.

New Visions instructional specialists work with teams of teachers, not individuals, to build schools' capacity to be professional learning communities engaging in continuous cycles of inquiry including:

• Looking at baseline student work to identify strengths and gaps;
• Giving students tasks that are informed by that evidence, tasks that simultaneously further learning and provide on-going formative assessment of that learning;
• Using formative assessment information to make instructional decisions day by day that lead to student progress;
• Using the same information to critique and improve curriculum and pedagogy;
• Scoring culminating student work products (e.g. a final draft on an LDC module or a post-unit assessment in algebra) using rubrics tied to common core standards;
• Using resulting information on what standards students have and have not met to plan subsequent modules and units and to revise curriculum to better ensure success the next time it is used.