We’re going beyond “just good teaching” to explore excellent student learning.
How We Help
Instructional and Student Learning Growth
Instructional growth exists within teacher collaboration settings and with students. Our professional learning cycle begins with a collaborative workshop and then applies the new instructional moves inside the classroom to collect student engagement data. From there, we use that data to determine the best instructional tweaks to boost student learning.
Professional Journey
The Schoolhouse Project
Currently, he is supporting local Southern California public school districts with Common Core State Standards, SBAC assessments, Depth of Knowledge, and research-based instructional strategy implementation.
In the past decade, The Schoolhouse Project has collaborated with educators from Los Angeles Unified School District, Palm Springs Unified School District, Redlands Unified School District, Morongo Unified School District, and Chino Valley Unified School District.
Our Services
Professional Learning Topics: Design & Delivery
Deconstructing Common Core State Standards: The What, The How, & The Rigor
Participants will deconstruct K-12 Reading, Writing, and Listening/Speaking Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in this workshop. As schools implement CCSS, educators must understand the staircase of the standards to ensure explicit and aligned lesson design and delivery.
Aligning Instruction with SBAC Rigor
IEducators will explore the context of the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium’s (SBAC) claims, targets and assessment question stems. The deep dive will give teachers the knowledge and the tools to align everyday instruction with SBAC rigor and academic vocabulary.
Demystifying Depth of Knowledge
This practical and straightforward professional learning workshop will demystify Norman Webb’s Depth of Knowledge (DOK) to ensure authentic Common Core State Standards teaching. Educators will walk away with DOK 2, 3, and 4 interactive activities to apply to any reading and writing lesson.
Performance Task: Read to Write
This professional learning series explores the rigorous expectations of the Smarter Balanced Assessment’s English-language Arts writing performance task, including the various writing genres and how to design Common Core-aligned writing units and formative assessments.
Gradual Release of Responsibility
During this professional learning cycle, educators will explore the science of explicitly teaching academic skills with intentional and systematic student practice – “I Do, We Do, Collaborative Partners Do, and You Do.”
Close & Rigorous Reading
This professional learning cycle draws from the literacy research done by Nancy Frey and Doug Fisher. Close and rigorous reading strategies support students to make collaborative and independent meaning of complex literary and informational text.
Testimonials
What People Are Saying
“Mr. Tom has an exceptional ability to build relationships, which allowed him to quickly gain trust with the staff. In addition, his model of professional development is inclusive of planning and implementing the lesson design and learning in a classroom providing teachers with an on-the-spot classroom demonstration. This highlighted that he was able to put theory into practice with our own students resulting in staff buy-in.”
The Schoolhouse Project Partnerships
Since 2014, The Schoolhouse Project has partnered with local Southern California school districts.
Say Hello
Kristopher Tom, M.A.Ed. | Lead Instructional Guide
Are you ready to revitalize and "rigorize" learning?
Let's collaborate to increase authentic standards-based learning!
