HSTW Key Practices
HSTW has identified a set of ten Key Practices that impact student achievement by providing direction and meaning to comprehensive school improvement and student learning.
High expectations
Motivate more students to meet high expectations by integrating high expectations into classroom practices and by giving students frequent feedback.
Plan of study
Require each student to complete an upgraded academic core and a career/technical, mathematics/science, and/or humanities concentration.
Academic studies
Teach more students the essential concepts of the college-preparatory curriculum by encouraging them to apply academic content and skills to real-world problems and projects.
Career and technical studies
Provide more students access to intellectually challenging career and technical studies in high-demand fields that emphasize the higher-level mathematics, science, literacy, and problem-solving skills needed in the workplace and in further education.
Work-based learning
Enable students and their parents to choose from programs that integrate challenging high school studies and work-based learning and are planned by educators, employers, and students.
Teachers working together
Provide teams of teachers from several disciplines the time and support to work together to help students succeed in challenging academic and career and technical studies. Integrate reading, writing, and speaking as strategies for learning into all parts of the curriculum and integrate mathematics into science and career and technical classrooms.
Students actively engaged
Engage students in academic and career and technical classrooms in rigorous and challenging proficient-level assignments using research-based instructional strategies and technology.
Guidance
Involve students and their parents in a guidance and advisement system that develops positive relationships and ensures completion of an accelerated plan of study with a career/technical, mathematics/science, and/or humanities concentration. Provide each student with the same mentor throughout middle or high school to assist with setting goals, selecting courses, reviewing the student's progress, and suggesting appropriate interventions as necessary.
Extra help
Provide a structured system of extra help to assist students in completing accelerated plans of study with high-level core academic and technical content.
Culture of continuous improvement
Use student assessment and program evaluation data to continuously improve school culture, organization, management, curriculum, and instruction to advance student learning.
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