Transforming Teaching in Ohio’s Largest School District

Transforming Teaching in Ohio’s Largest School District

America’s education system was a groundbreaking effort to help a growing nation thrive in the 19th century. Now, 200 years later, the world has changed; the horizon looks drastically different. Collectively, we need to redesign our education system to enable all of our children — and, by extension, our nation — to thrive today and tomorrow. “Horizon Three” or “H3” names the future-ready system we need, one that is grounded in equity serving learners’ individual strengths and needs as well as the common good. This series provides a glimpse of where H3 is already being designed and built. It also includes provocations about how we might fundamentally reimagine learning for the future ahead. You can learn more about the horizons framing here.

By Doris Korda and Kathryn Moser

What if classrooms weren’t just places to learn facts but dynamic spaces where teams of students tackle real, unsolved problems for their local community? And what if classrooms weren’t just places with a single teacher, but with teams of teachers, some guiding the problem-solving, some doing workshops, each bringing into the class their different strengths and skills? In Columbus City Schools, this is becoming a reality through an innovative partnership with the Korda Institute for Teaching, a nonprofit that has helped transform hundreds of K-12 schools worldwide.

Sujata Bhatt, in “The Next Horizon,” writes that achieving the H3 educational system depends primarily on humans collaborating and creating solutions to real problems that meet human needs. However, as the Carnegie Foundation reports, most teachers have never experienced the student-driven/inquiry-based learning environment we want them to create.

As the Deputy Superintendent of Columbus City Schools and the CEO of Korda Institute, we’re seeing this transformation happen through a fellowship program that is leading to powerful results with students, teachers and schools across the district. We hope to show that H3 educational systems can be developed in existing institutions, transforming traditional models from the inside.

A Teacher-Centered, Real-World Learning Fellowship Starts the Change

Columbus City Schools (CCS) is the largest district in Ohio, with 47,000 students representing 120 countries and 22% of the student population English Learners. Wanting to improve student and staff engagement after the pandemic, CCS partnered with Korda Institute to implement a two-year fellowship, an immersive professional development model for teams of educators from six middle schools. Educators experiment with new teaching methods and empower students as problem-solvers while traditional teaching roles are being transformed —an approach that ignites curiosity, builds agency, and fosters a culture of collaboration and experimentation in schools.

The Fellowship for 21st Century Teaching & Learning is built on a new set of educator competencies that enable innovation to become embedded in the district’s traditional school structures.

Unlike traditional approaches to teacher professional development, the Fellowship: 

• Is Voluntary: Teachers who choose to join the fellowship form teaching teams to collaborate and experiment with new methods of teaching in their classes.
• Offers Real Problem-Based Teaching Methods: Core to the fellowship is using a teaching method where students learn while solving real, complex, community-based problems on teams
• Centers Experiential Training: Teachers in the fellowship participate in immersive training where they experience the same methods they will use with their students
• Is Highly Collaborative and Strengths-Based: Teachers learn how to bring their strengths to a team as they work together to problem-solve, learn new methods, and team teach.
• Provides Coaches as Teammates: Coaches work alongside teaching teams as they plan and implement projects and become an extension of the team, so they are helpful when teachers most need them.
• Re-engineers School Structures for Innovation Adoption: Principals learn how to restructure schedules and systems to allow for co-planning, co-teaching, redesigned teacher roles, fieldwork, and hands-on learning.

In the first summer of the fellowship, the professional development included a one-week immersion where teachers were given a challenge by a local agency that is the largest provider of social services to refugees in Columbus, a city with a large and growing immigrant population. The fellows worked on teams to create plans to improve life in Columbus for newly arrived refugees, then presented their evidence-based solutions to the agency at the end of the week. 

Through the process, CCS teachers had to research, problem-solve, and collaborate on assigned teams, all while working on a real and urgent challenge. With so many newly arrived immigrants in their schools, the teachers found their work particularly meaningful as they had to learn about the obstacles faced by non-English speaking newcomers. Knowing they would be presenting their solutions to an agency that could make a real difference, teachers stayed late each day working in teams to develop quality solutions.

“Collaborating with my peers has reminded me of why I became a teacher,” said Ashley Pence, a Korda fellow and ESL Social Studies teacher at World Language Middle School. “Having the experiences of solving real local problems on teams as part of the fellowship completely changed my mindset about teaching and learning.”

Transformative Teaching Transforms Learners

Dedicated to supporting newcomer students—children who recently arrived in the U.S.—Ashley was motivated by her own powerful learning experience in the summer to embrace a new way of teaching.

Ashley’s classroom reflects global diversity, with students hailing from countries like Somalia, Brazil, and Algeria. She guides over 140 newcomer students to learn while solving real-world, community-based problems in teams. In the spirit of collaboration, Ashley co-teaches with teammate Derek Braun, an ESL Science teacher participating in the fellowship, to implement these new methods together.

In their most recent project, Ashley and Derek combined their two classes into one class of 60 students and partnered with Green Columbus, a non-profit that plants trees in neighborhoods without greenscapes. Green Columbus presented the class with an urgent, real-world problem: how to promote and protect newly planted trees at inner-city schools in Columbus. Teams of students conducted research, worked collaboratively, tested hypotheses and developed actionable solutions—all while building skills in critical thinking, technology and all forms of communications. Three weeks after getting the challenge, the student teams presented their evidence-based solutions to Green Columbus. One team suggested developing a program in the schools for students to form a club to take care of the trees. Another team discovered that the existing signs beside the trees were in English and non-English speaking students were not able to read them, so their solution included creating new signs in both English and Spanish, with a QR code for additional languages. 

Throughout the project, Ashley and Derek found ways to use their own strengths: Ashley worked with students to help them develop their language skills and deepen their knowledge of American history and culture, while Derek found ways to drive the learning of environmental science. 

As Derek shares, “Another exciting element of the fellowship is that we can develop a learning experience that merges our worlds. Where we combine our classes and both teachers are producing and presenting different elements of the learning experience and supporting one another.”

Conditions for a Schoolwide Culture of Collaboration, Experimentation and Belonging

Ashley’s story is just one example of the change that happens when teachers are given the tools to entirely shift their classroom from teacher-centered to student-centered. But the Fellowship for 21st Century Teaching & Learning is about more than instructional practice, it’s about creating a culture where students – and teachers – feel valued, supported, and inspired to grow. 

School leaders and principals play a pivotal role. The dramatic changes the fellowship teachers describe happened because school leaders created the conditions necessary to support a method that focuses on mastery and strengths-based, student-centered learning. Fellowship school leaders had to:

• Create the conditions for students to do community-based work as part of their academic classes, including field research and hands-on work within the community 
• Re-design schedules to allow teachers to collaborate and co-teach 
• Combine classes to allow teachers to experiment with co-teaching roles designed around their strengths and expertise

As Dr. Staci Rouse, Principal of Johnson Park Middle School, said: “the teachers truly felt empowered and it became contagious—it spreads from classroom to classroom. As soon as you see one team light up, the next team wants that energy. This is when a school culture shifts from compliance to true connection.”

This emphasis on problem-solving, experimentation, and generative collaboration also transforms student experiences.

In Ashley’s classroom, newcomer students like Massinissa from Algeria have developed confidence and teaming skills, while Raysaa from Brazil has emerged as a leader with strong communication skills. “This approach gives teaching real meaning,” says Derek. “It’s about solving authentic problems with urgency and purpose, and that sense of purpose is contagious—for both students and teachers.” 

New research conducted with The Ohio State University (based on student and teacher pre/post surveys, interviews with students, teachers, and administrators, as well as classroom observations and student data) affirms these experiences. Across all participating schools, the data shows improvements in student engagement, skill development, critical thinking and deep learning, including improvement in learning of academic standards and CCS Portrait of a Graduate goals.

Teachers Reinvigorated 

Reflecting on her journey, Ashley describes how the fellowship has transformed her perspective on teaching. “Working together as a team on real-world problems has made my teaching feel more connected to my students’ lives,” she says. “I no longer see their learning through a deficit mindset but through their strengths.”

Like Ashley, Al Venturella, another fellowship participant, credits the program with reigniting their passion for teaching: “I was going to leave teaching before I became a fellow. I am teaching today because of the Korda Institute Fellowship and the new way I learned how to teach. I always dreamed of involving the community in my teaching and teaching real-world skills that set my students apart.”

Next Steps: Scaling from Within 

The success of the Fellowship has sparked an organic and growing demand across CCS. Teachers in the fellowship have been talking about their experiences to colleagues in the building or in other buildings. Teachers are not only embracing this new way of teaching but are also raising their hands to join the next cohort of fellows or to take on leadership roles as in-school coaches. This momentum is not the result of a top-down directive—it is an authentic, grassroots movement fueled by teachers’ excitement, enthusiasm, and the undeniable impact they are seeing in their classrooms.

The district is now planning to scale transformative change anchored in this powerful, multi-tiered fellowship program that began with 18 teachers from six schools. The second fellowship will expand to 60 teachers across up to 10 schools, with a comprehensive structure that includes three key strands:

1. A teaching strand to deepen instructional practice with 60 teachers from 10 schools;
2. Leadership strand for 10 school leaders and;
3. A coach development strand for five teachers from the first cohort who aspire to become instructional coaches within their schools.

The plan is for the third fellowship to continue to grow in scope, maintaining the three strands—teacher, leader, and coach development—but with even larger cohorts, with more teachers from the 10 schools and educators from up to 10 new schools as more teachers and leaders express interest from across the district.

This expanding network of teachers, leaders, and coaches will enhance in-district capacity, ensuring that teachers are equipped to take on leadership roles while driving the shift in classroom practices. Ultimately, this fellowship program will create a sustainable, district-wide culture change, aligned with improved teaching practices and student outcomes, fostering a transformation that is both systemic and lasting.

Healthy, dramatic, and sustainable change within existing public schools is possible if we’re willing to experiment with the structures of traditional schools. If we commit to transforming what school looks like across the board – in existing institutions as well as new ones – we can tap into a massive well of human potential and show students how they can make a real and lasting impact on the world around them.

This blog series is sponsored by LearnerStudio, a non-profit organization accelerating progress towards a future of learning where young people are inspired and prepared to thrive in the Age of AI – as individuals, in careers, in their communities and our democracy. Curation of this series is led by Sujata Bhatt, founder of Incubate Learning, which is focused on reconnecting humans to their love of learning and creating.

The post Transforming Teaching in Ohio’s Largest School District appeared first on Getting Smart.