What does it mean to move beyond turn and talk and sentence frames to give students a voice? How do teachers support formal academic language acquisition but also allow space for the essential meaning making and understanding which often happens in a more informal register? How do we build the social emotional competencies that are inherent in strong academic discussions? These are some of the questions teachers are grappling with through their Mills Teacher Scholars inquiry work. In Oakland Unified and Berkeley Unified, teacher scholars at New Highland Academy, RISE Community School, Melrose Leadership Academy and Rosa Parks Elementary are collecting data on their students’ academic discussions to better understand what academic discussion looks like at the various grade levels and subject areas and to understand the core competencies necessary to successfully engage in these discussions. At the district level, Mills Teacher Scholars is working with the Project Development Specialists team in OUSD to frame an inquiry space for specialists to consider what it looks like to support teacher leaders’ understanding of academic discussions and to understand how the tools they create support this understanding. New Highland Academy Group Shares Inquiry Work at School Site Meeting At a recent New Highland Academy Wednesday professional development, NHA teacher scholars shared their data on academic discussions with their school site colleagues and asked for their feedback. “Our Mills Scholars teachers exemplified how PD should be structured. The staff was engaged, reflective, and walked away with several ideas/strategies to try in their classrooms,” said Vice Principal Lorena Reyes.

 Five years ago Mills Teacher Scholars was encouraged to take its brand of teacher-led inquiryoff of the Mills campus and out into local schools. San Leandro Unified Roosevelt principal, Victoria Forrester, welcomed the pilot program to her campus. Five years later 20 teachers—98% of her staff —are engaged in teacher-led inquiry to better understand student learning.  Victoria, also active on the Mills Teacher Scholars advisory board, credits the program with building broad-based teacher leadership among the teachers at Roosevelt, leadership that carries over from the Mills Teacher Scholars work to all the other aspects of Roosevelt’s efforts to improve learning outcomes for all students.

From presenting at the Alameda County Inventing Our Future Integrated Learning Summer Institute to running a workshop for teacher scholars to share their work via blog posts, to strategic program planning, this was a busy summer for MTS staff and teacher leaders.

Mills Teacher Scholars participants have a variety of opportunities to develop as teacher leaders. Recent examples include: 1. Teacher scholars present their learning at the Mills Teacher Scholars Inquiry in Action Event on May 21st 2. Teacher scholars building professional capacity through teacher-led data collection