• "Unpack" standards and organize your curriculum around big ideas and core processes.
• Engage more students in thoughtful inquiry and discussion to promote deeper understanding of content and a culture of inquiry.
• Signal to students that deep thinking about content is required, not optional.
• Develop independent learners and foster 21st century skills.

Offering dozens of examples, the authors explore the usefulness of essential questions in all K-12 content areas, including skill-based areas such as math, PE, language instruction, and arts education. Their guidance and strategies ensure you know how to

• Identify characteristics that make a question "essential."
• Use essential questions to "unpack" standards.
• Design effective essential questions working from many sources, including standards, desired understandings, and potential student misconceptions.
• Use essential questions as a focus for daily classroom instruction.
• Support respectful and meaningful differentiation.

Related resources:

• Sample Chapters
• About the Authors 

Be sure to attend the Fall Academy with Jay McTighe to learn more about the power of essential questions. 

Perry Community School District (CSD) is proud to share that overall students in the district scored very well on the Iowa Assessments during the 2013-14 school year. Positive gains were seen on every test and in the majority of grade levels. These positive gains translated into very positive changes in the status of the district and schools in relation to No Child Left Behind, the federal education legislation that has been in place since 2000.

Students took the Iowa Assessments during the first two weeks in April. Students in grades 3 through 11 are tested in reading comprehension, mathematics, science, and in grades 3-5, Social Studies. Scores from students in grades 3 through 8 and 11 are used to establish the status of each school and district in relation to the No Child Left Behind legislation.

On August 1, the Iowa Department of Education sent notices to all districts in the state informing them of their status relative to the No Child Left Behind federal legislation. Perry CSD received very positive news, which is shared below.

Summary of Decisions from the Iowa Department of Education for the 2014-15 School Year

District             Removed watch                   Removed DINA (was Delay-3)

High School     SINA 9 (was SINA 8)         Removed SINA (was delay-7)

Middle School Delay-7 (was SINA 7)         Delay 4 (was SINA 4)

Elementary      D elay 7 (was SINA7)          SINA-6 (was SINA 5)

The district experienced two very positive steps. The district was taken off the 'Watch' list for reading and removed from being a 'District in Need of Assistance' (DINA) for mathematics. This is due to significant improvements in student achievement among the elementary, middle, and high school.

The high school was completely removed from the 'Schools in Need of Assistance" (SINA) list for mathematics. The middle and elementary schools moved into 'delay' status for reading and mathematics. The high school and elementary advanced one year in SINA status for reading and mathematics, respectively.

All of these improvement are due to the tremendous effort among teachers to ensure that all students are learning at high levels. Various actions at each building contributed to the success of students. Examples of actions include lunch study table and after school homework club at the high school, teachers meeting with students before and after school as well as during lunch at the middle school, and teachers at the elementary level meeting weekly with literacy coaches to review student assessment data, learn new strategies to try in their classrooms, try those strategies, and share their successes and challenges.  

The district will build on these successes through focused professional learning for administrators and teachers. During this school year principals and teachers will focus on implementing the Iowa Core, integrating strategies for gathering evidence of learning and providing meaningful feedback to students, focus instruction around content and language objectives, and take targeted actions to continue creating a safe, supportive environment for all learners in each building. The district is very optimistic that these gains in student achievement will continue when students take the Iowa Assessments in April 2015.



For additional information about the steps they took to achieve their success in "getting off the list," please contact Kevin Vidergar, Director of Teaching and Learning in the Perry Community School District.

And if you would like to share a story of success from your district, please contact Lou Howell.

School Counselors must be evaluated on the Iowa Teaching Standards, however, the teaching standards do not necessarily correlate with the work of the school counselor. To ease this process, the Iowa School Counselor Association, in conjunction with other stakeholders, has created the Evaluation Supplement for School Counselors. 

This tool crosswalks the Iowa Teaching Standards with the School Counselor Competencies from the American School Counselor Association and provides rubrics to assist both the counselor and the administrator in moving forward. To assist with the process, a series of videos has been prepared and housed on our Heartland EA EduVision site. 

Evaluation Supplement for School Counselors - Overview for Counselors

This video gives the "high-level" overview of the Evaluation Supplement with the history and process for determining how the Iowa Teaching Standards and SC Competencies intersect. The video also explores the ways in which this supplement can be used as a reflective tool for professional growth or in the evaluation process. 

Evaluation Supplement for School Counselors - Overview for Administrators

This video gives the "high-level" overview of the Evaluation Supplement with the history and process for determining how the Iowa Teaching Standards and School Counselor Competencies intersect. The video also explores the ways in which this supplement can be used as a reflective tool for professional growth or in the evaluation process. 

Evaluation Supplement for School Counselors - Standards 1-4

This video examines the first four Iowa Teaching Standards and the intersection of the School Counselor Competencies in the Evaluation Supplement. 

Evaluation Supplement for School Counselors - Standards 5-8

This video examines the last four Iowa Teaching Standards and the intersection of the School Counselor Competencies in the Evaluation Supplement.

Iowa ASCD thanks Heartland AEA 11 for organizing and sharing this information for counselors and to the Iowa School Counselor Association for their work in producing these resources. 

•  Be sure to check out the latest guidance on early literacy alternate assessments from the Iowa Department of Education - released August 29, 2014.  This document contains official guidance for �279.68
   
•  Check out Dr. Buck's September message - Are you changing the way the work is done?  Don't forget the culture!

• Learn more about opportunities and resources for Social Studies in the September issue of the Social Studies Update.

• The Social Studies Conference is October 6 (evening) and October 7 at Prairie Meadows.  The theme is Sailing the "C"s:  Getting to the Core with Social Studies.  Check out additional Information here.

• A conference aimed at math and science teachers will be held October 21 - 22 at Iowa State University in Ames. The joint conference is intended to better serve members of the Iowa Council of the Teachers of Mathematics and the Iowa Science Teachers Section of the IowaAcademy of Science.  Check out additional information here.

• The Special Education Conference is set for October 22 in Des Moines.  The themes of this year's conference is Purposeful and Powerful Teaching for Learning with Disabilities:  Effective Use of Gradual Release to Close the Achievement Gap.  Register here.

Iowa ASCD is the source for developing instructional leadership and translating research into daily practice. Serving more than 1400 educators - teachers, principals, superintendents, directors of curriculum, technology specialists, college professors, AEA staff - Iowa ASCD strives to develop the collaborative capacity to impact the learning of each and every student in Iowa.