1. raise expectations for all students;
2. create a vision to guide reform;
3. develop measurable objectives with timeframes for accomplishing them.

1. Plan
   1. Data Disaggregation: In this step teachers and administrators disaggregate, or analyze, the state standards assessment and/or standardized test data to identify both students' and teachers' strengths and weaknesses and to improve teacher instruction and student learning. Focusing on specific student weaknesses, the teachers and administrators create a plan for student improvement. Identifying teachers' strengths and weaknesses enables administrators to provide effective quality staff development to improve instruction and student learning.
   2. Instructional Calendar Development: Based on the students' strengths and weaknesses, teachers build an instructional calendar that includes all the standards/skills to be assessed. The calendar should allow additional time for areas where students are having trouble and be flexible enough to allow for adjustments.
2. Do
   1. Direct the Instructional Focus: Based on the instructional calendar, teachers teach the targeted skill. The goal here is for quality instruction and student mastery. Classroom activities should be focused and conducive to learning by
      • providing a warm-up
      • highlighting the day's focus
      • focusing on new content
      • reinforcing new concepts
      • surveying student understanding
      Effective teaching strategies for instruction have at their core consistently high-level expectations for students. Additionally, quality instruction includes
      • modeling thinking processes (i.e. think-alouds)
      • providing essential vocabulary for subject area
      • applying learning to the real world
      • using cooperative learning techniques
      • using skill reinforcing drills
      • teaching test-taking strategies
      • celebrating mastery of skills and knowledge
3. Check
   1. Assessment: After teaching the targeted skill, teachers administer a short assessment to check for student understanding. These assessments should be integrated into the curriculum and instruction. The assessments should mimic the format of the state standards assessment. Teacher teams should meet frequently to review assessment results.
   2. Maintenance: Teachers must continuously work to reinforce skills and knowledge until they become part of the student's knowledge base.
   3. Monitoring: School principals and the instructional coordinator assume the primary responsibility for monitoring program success. Monitoring practices include regularly unscheduled classroom visits, one-on-one meetings with students and teachers to review test scores, celebrating successes, using surveys to assess the process, the school climate, and stakeholder satisfaction.
4. Act
   1. Tutorials and Enrichment: Based on assessment results, teachers should provide continuing quality instruction to either build on success or provide additional instruction. Teaching teams should work together to review progress. Extensions must be considered as important as tutorial work and provided for both mastery and non-mastery students. Additional assessments may be given to check mastery.

To learn more about the Continuous Improvement Model, you can read the following texts:

• 8 Steps to Student Success: An Educator's Guide to Implementing Continuous Improvement, by Mary Lehman Barksdale
• 8-Step Instructional Process Primer - A Continuous Improvement Model, by Mary Lehman Barksdale (Available Spring 2007)
• Closing the Achievement Gap: No Excuses, by Patricia Davenport and Gerald R. Anderson