A Look Inside NIET’s 2022 Summer Institute

Each year, the NIET Summer Institute brings together educators from different parts of the country who share a mission to foster strong instructional practices and advance student achievement. On June 28-29, NIET will be with teachers and leaders to explore how we recharge for impact ahead of a new school year.

NIET's summer institute will offer hands-on, interactive training, and educators will collaborate and learn with NIET specialists and peers through a variety of professional learning sessions, as well as have dedicated time to plan with their school and district teams. Participants will also have the opportunity to experience instructional leadership team and cluster simulations. Here’s a peek into what to expect.

Recharge for Impact through: Cluster and Instructional Leadership Team Meeting Simulations

Maximizing existing structures – like cluster meetings and instructional leadership teams (ILTs) – help ensure equitable opportunities for all students and empower teachers and leaders to best support growth across the school campus. During summer institute, participants will have the opportunity to experience authentic learning at its best by actively engaging in a cluster meeting as a teacher, or being immersed in a simulation of an instructional leadership team meeting. 

Throughout the cluster and ILT simulations, student work will be used to guide instructional decision-making with clear connections to the NIET Teaching and Learning Standards Rubric. Participants will reflect upon and evaluate current cluster and ILT implementation and identify next steps for strengthening implementation in their school or district. 

Recharge for Impact through: Student Work Analysis

What does “high,” “medium,” and “low” actually mean when it comes to analyzing student work? Leaders at all levels will have the opportunity to examine what makes student work analysis most powerful when working toward instructional excellence.

Specifically, participants will:

• Define the role that standards and success criteria play in an impactful process for analyzing student work.
• Engage in a standards-driven student work analysis process.
• Use trends in student work analysis to identify opportunities to support individual and collaborative professional learning.

Recharge for Impact through: The Evaluation Process

This session examines leadership practices that increase teacher growth through the evaluation process. Participants will learn to use their instructional leadership team meetings as a structure to build the capacity of team members using evidence from teacher evaluation cycles.

Specifically, participants will:

• Define key actions instructional leadership teams take during the teacher evaluation process to increase student outcomes.
• Analyze a long-range plan designed to build the capacity of ILT members to recharge the evaluation process for teacher growth.
• Draft leadership team meeting outcomes that intentionally strengthen teacher evaluation and support.

Recharge for Impact through: Leveraging Student Work in Teacher Reflection

In this session, participants will deepen their skills in using student work in their coaching. Attendees will use student work to support deep reflection on instructional practices and improve the opportunities students have to engage with rigorous grade-level work.

Specifically, participants will:

• Distinguish between using student work to prove student learning vs. to improve student learning.
• Use student work to gain insight into teachers’ use of content standards, student thinking opportunities, and instructional practices.
• Develop reflection questions to support teachers to take an improving stance.

Recharge for Impact through: Building Teacher Agency

Isn’t it funny how often we talk about fostering student ownership but how rarely we talk about doing the same for teachers? This session examines how NIET’s structures can be a driver for agency and looks at ways to foster agency among teachers.

Specifically, participants will:

• Distinguish between teacher agency and teacher compliance and what this looks and sounds like in practice.
• Discuss how NIET structures can support teacher ownership and teacher agency.
• Plan to support teachers to develop and utilize their agency.

Recharge for Impact through: Team Planning Time

This session is a culminating learning experience where teams will debrief their collective learnings from the two days. Teams will engage in guided planning activities to apply their new learnings and prepare for a successful 2022-23 school year.

Specifically, participants will:

• Debrief shared learnings from summer institute.
• Review available data sources to identify school-level strengths and refinement areas.
• Come to a consensus as an instructional leadership team on essential priorities for the 2022-23 school year.

NIET's National Summer Institute also includes general sessions where all participants can come together and connect, as well as hear from NIET Chief Executive Officer Dr. Joshua Barnett and other NIET leaders. We look forward to seeing more than 400 educators in Arizona on June 28-29. Look for takeaways on social media using the hashtag #NSI2022.