Students' abilities to access and engage in learning are dependent on how curriculum, instruction, and learning activities are designed, perceived, and experienced. Educational research findings in causes of underachievement, motivation and engagement, cognition and learning, language development, and effective literacy instruction combine to identify conditions essential for learners to manage, engage and succeed in complex academic learning. These conditions provide means to evaluate the efficacy of teaching and learning efforts and create and implement responsive solutions to improve academic achievement and behavioral outcome. These characteristics of effective teachning and learning experiences are foundational to our services.
Success in school is contingent on students’ academic literacy skills. Our services include assisting educators and educational leaders in assessing literacy development efforts, identifying areas for improvement, creating plans to expend literacy development energies more efficiently and effectively, and responsively implementing those plans into program, course, and lesson designs, teachers’ instructional practices and students’ classroom learning experiences.
Literacy skill levels directly tie to achievement in school and workplace advancement. A goal of this institute is to provide teachers and education leaders with practical and effective means to lead students in developing skilled academic literacy practices, such as learning how to read informational texts for understanding, identify, interpret, and store essential text-based information for recall, and express complex understandings in articulate forms of academic writing.
While most teachers require secondary and college-level students to practice these literacy skills, few are equipped to lead students in learning how to successfully exercise them, and most leave it to students to figure out how to manage these complex learning activities. Some students, especially those from historically marginalized populations, struggle with the literacy tasks assigned, and many are not meeting achievement expectations. Our services are responsive to these needs.
Some undesirable behaviors exhibited by students in school are difficult to manage, and some responses to challenging behaviors may overwhelm, foster perceptions of non-inclusion and isolation, be perceived as demeaning, and inspire undesirable outcomes. Eliciting positive behavioral choices requires response plans that are manageable, non-punitive, foster perceptions of personal and communal responsibility, empower constructive action, and contribute positively to the learning environment.
Services are available to equip teachers and teacher leaders with essential knowledge to understand the complexities involved in the development of behavioral responses and tools to create conditions that effect positive behavioral choices and build inclusive and supportive learning communities.
Client-specific consultation services may be available upon request.
For more information contact stacycasper@academicliteracy.education.
Assessment and Improvement