Focused Instruction Process

Listen to what administrators and teachers are saying about FIP and the improvements it has made in their schools.

Programs

Focused Instruction Process (FIP)

The Focused Instruction Process (FIP) is a process, not a program. While programs come and go, a process can be continuously improved and adapted by the teachers, parents and administrators. It can be adjusted to meet the particular needs of different schools and it is low cost per school. This process is successful because it is grounded in 40 years of education and business-related research on high performance organizations. In only a short time, the process becomes the norm, and a new learning culture is established in the school.

The Strategic Learning Initiatives approach to FIP is built around teams that focus on shared leadership, professional development, and parent engagement. The SLI teams work with teams of parents, students, teachers, and the principal in each school and across the neighborhood network of schools to accelerate learning, often by two to three times that of comparable Chicago schools. As Cather teacher Barbara Relerford explains, “FIP was so successful in our school, with its focus on reading, that we used aspects of the strategies in other subject areas as well, such as science and math.”

Key ingredients of the Focused Instruction Process:

FIP is a data driven process, using classroom observations and teacher-selected assessments on a weekly basis rather than relying on once a year statewide testing. Teachers and students get the results back the next day, not three months later.
Students are motivated by a desire to do well on each lesson learned. Students who reach mastery are provided with enrichment activities and students who need additional instruction are provided small group tutoring. Entering into Red, Yellow and Green groups for enrichment or additional tutoring motivates the students to want to learn and to help each other in order to move forward into the next group.
Teachers become less isolated by attending regularly scheduled meetings with their grade level teams both inside the school and across all ten schools. They share strategies on what they have learned by discussing “what’s working” and “what needs improvement”. A shared curriculum calendar and input into the shared assessment tools provides teachers and school leadership teams with a new and empowering common ground.
Parents are engaged. Based on the same instructional calendar used by the teachers, workshops are provided to families to teach them how to better support their children’s learning at home.