School manuals and handbooks
Part of any successful implementation of a teaching and learning initiative in a school relies on professional learning support that builds both the knowledge and capacity of leaders and teachers.
Effective professional learning focuses on developing the core attributes of an effective teacher. It enhances teachers’ understanding of the content they teach and equips them with a range of strategies that enable their students to learn that content.
Professional Learning in Effective Schools: The Seven Principles of Highly Effective Professional Learning. (Leadership and Teacher Development Branch Office of School Education, Department of Education & Training, Melbourne, July 2005)
Part of this professional learning often includes documentation that supports the implementation goals, such as: professional readings, videos of best practice, teacher strategies outlines, and professional learning presentations and handouts. However, while each file or folder has relevant knowledge and examples, it can be unclear how they work together effectively (and efficiently) to support leaders and teachers, and how they connect to a shared understanding of a school’s teaching and learning principles.
Ultimately, it doesn’t matter how great an educational idea or intervention is in principle; what really matters is how it manifests itself in the day-to-day work of people in schools.
Professional Learning in Effective Schools: The Seven Principles of Highly Effective Professional Learning. (Leadership and Teacher Development Branch Office of School Education, Department of Education & Training, Melbourne, July 2005)
Having clarity and a documented shared understanding of the teaching and learning initiative that is easily accessible and practical for leaders and teachers is imperative to successful implementation and embedding of best practices.
Developing a comprehensive Handbook of Teaching & Learning brings together all the elements that drive a school’s teaching and learning to create a cohesive view of ‘what teaching and learning looks like at our school.’ It brings together evidence-based research or other relevant background knowledge required (e.g., about different reading comprehension strategies) with school-specific curriculum documentation and outlines of pedagogical practices or instructional models within the context of the particular school, including examples of practice. It provides cohesion from the AIP goal all the way through to an individual class lesson. It says ‘these are our school’s teaching and learning principles, and this is how we do it.’
At schoolED we create Handbooks of Teaching & Learning with schools to support their implementation of initiatives that are targeted, professional, and evolving. Designed in a digital format that makes accessibility as easy as a URL, handbooks are able to be updated regularly with new information or examples of practice, including embedded videos. These have included handbooks for specific subjects, literacy handbooks, wellbeing handbooks, and school policies and procedures.
