The No Child Left Behind legislation has established strong requirements for schools and districts to meet to ensure adequate yearly progress for all students, bolster teacher quality, provide interventions for students attending low-performing schools, and proficiency in key subject areas for all students.

The Galef Institute supports schools in providing the standards-driven, student-centered learning that is the basis for the consistent positive results that No Child Left Behind requires of all schools. The tools and training provided by the Institute focus on integrating powerful strategies to ensure that schools are not only prepared to meet these challenges, but also exceed future expectations.

Achieving Adequate Yearly Progress
The new federal law requires that schools continue to demonstrate adequate yearly progress toward the goal of all students achieving proficiency in reading and math. If even one subgroup of students falls behind and fails to achieve state standards, an entire school can be designated as “in need of improvement” and placed on the law’s timeline for implementing prescribed reforms.

• Our services are specifically designed to help schools meet performance targets for every student and student group, including second language learners, minority and disadvantaged students, special needs students, and other nontraditional learners.
• Research indicates that gains made by schools implementing the Galef Institute’s school achievement initiative Different Ways of Knowing continue year after year. For example, 82 percent of elementary schools in Southern California implementing Different Ways of Knowing met state performance targets in 2002 compared to 60 percent of elementary schools statewide.
• In Louisville, Kentucky, middle schools implementing Different Ways of Knowing increased their state accountability index an average of 6.5 percent compared to the statewide increase of 1.3 percent.

Continuous improvement requires that schools do more than just drill students in these subjects. It demands a schoolwide change that offers effective teaching methods that help differentiate instruction for student groups. It also requires academically rigorous and challenging learning experiences that engage all students in ways that accelerate their achievement.

• We facilitate that change by working with all faculty and administrators to increase their knowledge and skills in teaching and learning in order to transform the school into a learning community that supports creativity, inquiry, and self-directed learning.
• We provide both coaching support and tools that help teachers model critical thinking, questioning, and reflecting processes so that students become independent learners. We also provide research-validated strategies that expert learners use in reading, writing, and mathematical thinking to close the achievement gap.

• Our educational consultants help teachers plan rigorous curriculum, instruction, and assessment that incorporate standards linked to “big ideas.” Galef consultants also facilitate teaching and learning that support student inquiry and self-directed learning.
• A 1997 University of Kentucky study showed that Different Ways of Knowing training successfully changed teachers’ knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes about how children learn.
• Our dedication to improving teaching and learning practices and building the internal capacity to sustain the professional development process help ensure that teachers will continually meet the standards for “highly qualified.”

• Studies show that students in schools implementing Different Ways of Knowing made greater-than-average gains on standardized tests in reading and math, as well as other subjects. Schools implementing the full Different Ways of Knowing model have raised their math scores by 140 percent, about 1.6 times greater than the average state gain in classes that did not use the model. Reading scores increased 86 percent, which was significantly higher than the comparison group.

How do we help you bolster reading and math scores? In English language arts, for example, Different Ways of Knowing enriches a structured reading program by helping teachers support students’ use of the multiple intelligences as they develop literacy skills. We assist teachers in developing the skills and knowledge to help students accelerate their achievement in vocabulary, fluency, comprehension, and writing.

We help build students’ mathematical abilities by providing teachers with strategies for modeling algebraic thinking; teaching the process of deductive reasoning and problem solving through predicting and gathering evidence, organizing lists, and making models; and teaching systematic logic that involves reflecting on evidence, testing assumptions, and forming conclusions.

• We provide coaching support and tools for modeling research-validated expert strategies that help students deepen their understanding across the curriculum and expand their capacity as powerful communicators.
• We assist teachers in developing the skills and knowledge to help students accelerate their achievement in vocabulary, fluency, comprehension, and writing.
• A three-year, scientific, comparison study found that students in four urban school districts implementing Different Ways of Knowing made significant gains in vocabulary, comprehension, and other measures of language arts—about 8 percentile points’ growth on standardized tests for each year of participation. At the same time, Different Ways of Knowing improved students’ motivation, cognitive engagement, and intrinsic interest in the humanities.
• Analyses of Kentucky’s state test found that students in the Different Ways of Knowing program not only showed increased gains over two years in reading, math, science, and social studies, but also were more involved in their classrooms, more interested in their schoolwork, more eager to participate in learning, and experienced increased opportunities for critical and creative thinking and expanded use of multiple intelligences strategies.