What is the Learning-Focused Schools Model? The Learning-Focused Schools Model was developed by Dr. Max Thompson in response to national, state, and local efforts to increase achievement for all students and to reduce achievement gaps.  The Model provides comprehensive school reform strategies and solutions for K-12 schools based on exemplary practices and research-based strategies.  These practices and strategies focus on five areas: Planning, Curriculum, Instruction, Assessment, and School Organization.  The Learning-Focused Schools Model has provided state of the art professional development and innovative instructional resources, products, and technology to over 2000 schools, districts, and educational agencies across the nation.

What Makes Us Different? We specialize in "Making Connections" to increase student achievement. There is a great deal of research on how to raise student performance. Typically, a teacher or administrator is given bits and pieces of things to try in their classroom or school. Now, using our models and resources, schools are provided frameworks, strategies, instructional methods, and leadership processes to organize and connect the techniques, research, and systems that are most effective for raising student achievement. If you are want to see achievement gains and an organized system for learning, then you are ready to discover how the Learning-Focused Schools Model and exemplary practice solutions can make the connections for your school or district.

Why the Learning-Focused Schools Model and Solutions? The Learning-Focused Schools Model is a comprehensive school improvement model that provides schools with a consistent language for learning that is organized into a framework designed explicitly for raising student achievement. Our framework organizes the US Department of Education's exemplary schools evaluations and the research-based strategies that impact achievement the most: (1) Planning through team-based or learning communities, (2) Prioritizing and mapping curriculum, (3) Effective use of graphic and advance organizers, (4) Instructing vocabulary in context, (5) Using summarizing strategies, and (6) Extending thinking strategies.  Moving beyond those effective strategies, the Learning-Focused Schools Model also specializes in connecting reading comprehension, writing across the curriculum, accelerating and scaffolding learning, balanced literacy, differentiated assignments, and more focused primarily on learning and raising achievement.  Our learning framework rapidly and effectively raises student achievement.

Our services, professional development, resources, products, technology support, and friendly and knowledgeable consultants are of the highest quality. And we look forward to assisting and working with you to increase student performance in your school or district.

Max Thompson is the founder of the Learning-Focused Schools Model and author of many books on raising achievement and school improvement reform.

Why do we need to study the units we develop? How can Unit Study have a direct impact student achievement? Why is teacher collaboration so important?

The answers to these questions will show how unit study can address specific needs including; curriculum, teacher collaboration, student expectations and instruction.

Curriculum: One of the most significant barriers to developing and studying learning units is an overloaded and bloated curriculum. Units must be clearly focused on the most significant and prioritized knowledge and skills. Teachers must regularly review the content of the curriculum if it is to be aligned to the learning students need to be successful. What better level of review than at the unit level.

Teacher Collaboration: Too many teachers in the US work in isolation from their colleagues. The opportunities for significant and meaningful collaboration are severely limited. There is a need for regularly scheduled time for teachers to come together to examine the quality of the learning opportunities and the resulting achievement for their students. Unit Study provides significant opportunities for teachers to collaborate as well as providing the process and the necessary materials needed to be successful. Throughout the process the team of teachers work together to improve the unit and its specific elements with the consistent goal of improving student learning as  a result of participating in the learning unit.

Student Expectations: When teachers are specific and clear about what they expect students to learn we can anticipate a significant impact on student achievement. The development of learning units as a focus on student learning has a greater impact on learning because they focus on the connections between the concepts, knowledge and skills in a way that helps the learner to understand at a much deeper level. Through Unit Study these units are then reviewed to make them even more effective. Key to the success of Unit Study is the appropriation of adequate time to carry out the process and then communicate the revisions to all who use the units. Significant to the process is the use of student achievement data based on their completion of the units.

Instruction: Through the use of unit study schools come to look at instruction differently. No longer can they think about the coverage of material but must look at what they expect students to learn in order to be successful. During the process of studying the unit teachers also look at the effectiveness of the instructional content and strategies regarding student success. It is as a result of this that they make adjustments in the unit and its various components in order to improve student learning.

Unit Study provides schools with the opportunity to consistently and pervasively improve student learning by engaging collaboratively in a reflective process to examine the quality of the learning materials and strategies as well as the quantity of student achievement.

Learning-Focused Unit Study will be available as a notebook in May, 2006. This fall Learning-Focused Unit Study will be a Tool in the Learning-Focused Toolbox, allowing users to study units while developing, and submit their units to an expert team for study review.

Jim Riedl is the co-author of Supervising for Achievement, Power Curriculum, and is author of the upcoming book Learning-Focused Unit Study. Jim is also a National Learning-Focused Consultant.