FOI Overview NatCon

Click on the teal circles to learn more.

Diagnostic Teaching

Educators align lesson design with targeted learning outcomes and model gradual release of responsibility and a blended approach as they purposefully integrate WICOR, scaffolds, and instructional routines into learning tasks and assessments to engage all students in content and support each of them in achieving success.

Strategic Lesson Design

Strategic Lesson Design

• Design learning objectives that connect to the standard and Essential Question (if applicable).
• Explicitly teach and review learning objectives throughout lesson.
• Provide rubrics for self-assessment and transparency.
• Include reflection opportunities at the end of each objective.

Examples

Access VIDEO

Clear Learning Objectives

• Greet and interact with students at the door.
• Celebrate students (academic growth, sports accomplishments, special occasions).
• Select intentional classroom seating and design classroom layout conducive for collaborative structures.
• Incorporate energizers and community building activities.
• Amplify student voice within lessons.
• Incorporate student roles into the classroom to foster ownership.

Examples

Access VIDEO

Positive Relationships

• Language Coaching
• Physical Cues
• Collaborative Structures
• Lines of Communication
• Seating Arrangements (desk elbow partners)
• Philosophical Chairs
• Socratic Seminars

Examples

Access VIDEO

Appropriate Environment

Positive Relationships

Educators build a collaborative community that fosters connection, cooperation, and respect so each individual feels included, accepted, and integral to the collective success.

Appropriate Environment

Educators create rigorous, student-centered, skill and content-based learning objectives that students and teachers use to direct, monitor, and reflect on progress toward mastery.

Clear Learning Objectives

Clear Learning Objectives

• Utilize backwards planning from the standard.
• Teach expectations for collaborative structures (A/B Partner, Think–Pair–Share, Rehearse and Revise).
• Design learning objectives that connect to the standard and Essential Question (if applicable).
• Provide rubrics for self-assessment and transparency.
• Include reflection opportunities.

Examples

Access VIDEO

Strategic Lesson Design

Educators consider and monitor student engagement, understanding, and outcomes before, during, and after lesson design and delivery and adapt lesson content and instruction in real time to accelerate and support students in achieving the desired learning outcomes.

Diagnostic Teaching

Educators create a physical, philosophical, and digital space that is inclusive, empowering, and accelerates academic inquiry and success.

Appropriate Environment

• Comfortable
• Collaborative
• Authentic
• Language-rich
• Relevant
• Serves instructional needs

• Empowering
• Fosters accountability
• Safe to be scholarly
• Culture of curiosity
• Hard work, risk-taking, and use of academic language celebrated

Physical Environment

Philosophical Environment

Digital Environment

• Digital Citizenship
• Evaluate resources

• Supports collaboration
• Creation vs. consumption
• Use digital tools to accelerate learning

Foundations of Instruction

When educators implement the FOI, they create a high-impact learning environment in which all learners develop skillsets and strategies to successfully access and engage in challenging content while building the confidence to apply mindsets and behaviors that support their success in the classroom and beyond.

The AVID Foundations of Instruction (FOI) is a guide to what educators do in the Instruction Domain to accelerate learning and deliver on the promise of the AVID College and Career Readiness Framework. The FOI is a set of practices that guide the design and delivery of instruction so lessons engage by design, model rigor, accelerate learning, and develop agency.

• Diagnostic checklist is used to collect data and make instructional decisions.
• Formative assessment data is used to inform instruction (Exit Tickets, Fist-to- Five).
• Teacher checks for understanding throughout lesson and uses data to determine next steps.
• Formative and summative assessments connect to learning objective, Essential Question, and unit theme.
• Language coaching happens throughout.

Examples

Access VIDEO

Diagnostic Teaching

Positive Relationships