The Lastinger Difference:
Improving Student Learning and Educator Practice
The Lastinger Center has developed a comprehensive school improvement model (based on teacher inquiry within learning communities) which targets individual teachers, entire faculties, small teacher teams, principals and other educational leaders in the systematic and comprehensive examination and refinement of school culture, teachers' perspectives and practices and student learning through multi-year collaboration.
The reform strategies employed by the Lastinger Center in supporting school reform include an array of services tailored to specific school context. These strategies include:
- Learning strategies for coaching colleagues in examinations of teaching and learning at summer institutes with teams of school leaders (including faculty leaders).
- Offering a job-embedded Master's degree program onsite and online to teachers in our partner schools.
- Facilitating and supporting year-long inquiry projects by teachers and principals.
- Embedding external facilitators within schools.
- Providing summer institutes and year-long collegial support structures for principals and district leaders.
- Assisting school leaders in the administration and analysis of formative assessments that encourage data-driven decision making.
The Lastinger Center In Action
The Lastinger Center is committed to working with entire school systems to achieve the goals stated above. Toward this end, we are partnering with Miami-Dade Public Schools, the Early Childhood Initiative Foundation, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and other institutions to launch Ready Schools Miami.
