case studies

See how we’ve helped others

Mindsteps has helped its clients in so many ways. Here are just a few examples of where we have helped our clients to succeed.

Consulting Workshops Special Projects

Consulting:

The College Board

As a part of their ongoing efforts to promote more access to AP programs for minority students, The College Board has launched several Equity and Access initiatives. One such initiative, the AP Start-Up Grant, provides selected high schools with financial and logcistical support to start an AP program. The College Board turned to Mindsteps to help support these schools as they started new AP programs. Mindsteps worked with teachers and principals to:

• develop course syllabi and select and purchase appropriate materials
• improve their instructional strategies to help under-prepared and under-represented students access the rigor of AP courses
• recruit and support students
• develop a long-term plan to expand their course offerings and sustain their program

As a result, the five schools we worked with have successfully started over 30 new AP courses in just three years.

Sustainable Professional Development:

El Paso ISD

The Challenge: El Paso was trying to raise the overall rigor of their instructional program and develop a pipeline of students prepared for advanced coursework. Many of their students where under-prepared for rigorous coursework and their teachers struggled to overcome gaps in students’ background knowledge and skills.

Our Approach: El Paso ISD partnered with Mindsteps Inc. over four years to provide professional development and consulting. Mindsteps Inc. provided yearly district-wide 6 hour GT updates for all middle and high-school teachers and yearly professional development on effective differentiated instructional practices, planning rigorous instruction, and supporting struggling students. We also worked with the district to design and develop proactive support plans that provided interventions to students before they got caught in a cycle of failure.

Results: Middle and high school teachers in the district implemented rigorous instructional practices in their classroom that increased student success in rigorous courses. And, teachers developed proactive intervention plans to help struggling learners access rigorous material. To learn more, read the article about our work in the Journal of the Gifted Child here.

Greenville Public Schools

The Challenge: Greenville Public Schools is working to increase the number of students who are prepared for advanced coursework.

Our Approach: They partnered with Mindsteps to provide professional development that would help teachers increase the amount of rigor and support they provide for students. Mindsteps has provided professional development using our sustainable PD model to guidance counselors, middle and high school teachers, and administrators.

Results: As a result, teachers are successfully implementing rigorous instructional practices in their classrooms, administrators have a system to more carefully monitor and support rigorous instructional practices, and schools have developed a common language and set of expectations around rigorous instruction and engagement.

Heritage High School

The Challenge: Heritage High School has struggled to help its students successfully graduate. Located in Baltimore City, the teachers and administrators have worked hard to contend with the effects of poverty, gang violence, absenteeism, and low student achievement.

Our Approach: We partnered with the school to implement differentiated instructional practices, rigorous instructional practices designed to increase student engagement, and acceleration strategies that would set students up for success and help students overcome significant gaps in their background knowledge. We also worked with the admin team to increase the effectiveness of their instructional leadership.

Results: As a result, teachers are implementing instructional and proactive support strategies that are helping more students engage in and take ownership for their own learning. The admin team is also developing leadership strategies that are providing teachers with more consistent feedback.

Dayton Public School System

The Challenge: The Dayton Public School System was trying to raise the overall level of rigor in their secondary schools while at the same time, helping more under-represented students access higher level courses.

Our Approach: They turned to Mindsteps to deliver a keynote address and a series of summer workshops for both their teachers and their school leaders. Mindsteps provided a two-part workshop for teachers on the principles of effective instruction as well as a workshop for administrators on the essential leadership behaviors they need to support equity and access in their schools.

Results: As a result, the teachers and leaders developed the disposition and strategies they needed to recruit and retain more economically and ethinically diverse students in their honors and AP courses. The teachers developed retention plans they could use to ensure that more students successfully completed their courses and the administrators developed a leadership action plan that helped them better understand their staff’s needs and improve their own capacity to meet those needs.

Special Projects:

Northeastern High School

The Challenge: After two years of not making AYP and another two years of making AYP through safe harbor, Northeastern High School wanted to significantly improve their instructional capacity to better meet the needs of all their students and help more students meet the state standards.

Our Approach: Initially, they turned to Mindsteps to provide differentiated instruction training for its staff. However, after the initial training, they decided to partner with Mindsteps to revise their instructional planning template to include consideration for various types of learners, and to provide leadership coaching to it’s administrative team. We worked with the team to help them conduct more effective walk-through observations, identify the will and skill levels of the teaching staff, and develop a plan to provide targeted support for each teacher matched to their individual professional development needs.

Results: Not only did the school come to a common understanding of differentiated instruction and what it looked like during planning and instructional delivery, but the leadership team was better prepared to support teachers as they adjusted their instruction to meet the various learning needs of their students.