Baltimore City Public School System
Dear
Colleagues:
Welcome to our
web site for quality teaching. We are pleased to
share with you samples of our performance-based
lessons and assessments. They were developed, taught, and scored by our
teachers. Moreover, our teachers analyzed both their instruction and their
students' performance to improve teaching and learning in our school. These
sample performance tasks represent our on-going efforts to carry out our
vision of school improvement. Please review our vision, mission, and
philosophy below because they provide the direction and approach for us to
improve our school and especially our students' performance.
Our Vision. Our vision of quality education for our students, parents, and stakeholders includes the following:
- High achieving students
- A highly skilled teaching force
- Efficient and effective management
- Actively involved and committed parents
- Partnerships with government agencies, universities, and
corporations
Our Mission. Our mission is to work together to educate the whole child. We will ensure that all of our students achieve intellectually, morally, and socially in a manner that will enable them to take their place in the adult society as full participants in America's democratic process. The motto of our school -- "Students Today, Leaders Tomorrow" -- serves as a guiding beacon for our staff, parents, community residents, and partners to mobilize our many human and material resources to support the development of Kelson students.
Our mission will be
achieved through participation in:
- Preschool readiness programs
- Exposure to a world class curriculum with rigorous standards and measurable outcomes
- Staff
who are both learners and trainers to implement effective instructional
practices.
Our
Philosophy. We believe that all children can
learn when provided with an appropriate educational program in a nurturing
environment. We believe that all children must develop high self-esteem if
they are to have confidence to learn. We believe that students should
experience learning that will enable them to become productive and
contributing citizens in the democratic society of the 21st century. We
further believe that...
All Students:
- have innate talents and gifts
- learn by hearing, seeing, and doing
- must
understand the "why" of learning
All Educators:
- have the capacity to develop these talents and gifts into lifelong habits of learning
- must have greater flexibility to be innovative and creative
- believe that technology is a crucial component for future learning
- must provide an inviting school climate that will foster a positive learning environment
All Stakeholders:
- have the
responsibility for educating the whole child.
TaskBuilder™ We are using the
interactive software -- TaskBuilder™ -- to develop performance
instruction and assessment tasks. This web site includes a sample of our
teachers' performance tasks. Our staff development program focuses on
"Improving Student Learning Through Quality Teaching." The
program applies the WORKFORCE 2000, INC. "TaskBuilder Figure 8
Strategy" -- a month-by-month, grade-level team implementation
strategy for continuously improving instruction and student learning. It
involves planning, teaching, checking, and acting upon the results of
classroom lessons and assessments.
Please consider adopting and
adapting our performance tasks to improve instruction and student learning in your school. Please use the comment text window below to let us know how you
like our performance tasks and what you would do to improve them. Thank you
for visiting our instructional web site.
Sincerely,
Joyce Hughes
Principal
Grade 2
Performance
Instruction Tasks
Grade 3
Performance
Instruction Tasks - Writing to Persuade"
Grade 4
Performance
Instruction Tasks
Grade 5
Performance
Instruction Tasks - Writing to Persuade"
Please enter your comments or questions in the text block below about our approach and sample performance tasks. We appreciate your feedback.