COMMUNITY
AVID's popular summer professional learning experiences—AVID Summer Institute and AVID DigitalXP—are back!
AVID Summer Institutes are our summer in-person professional learning events where participants learn from AVID’s top educators and network with colleagues from other schools and districts to share experiences, collaborate, and plan their campus implementation or schoolwide AVID strategy for the coming year. More than 40,000 educators are expected to attend Summer Institutes in 10 different locations this summer.
AVID DigitalXP consists of three days of virtual professional learning with premier AVID educators from across the country. This dynamic digital experience provides solutions for any classroom context: in-person, blended, and virtual. AVID DigitalXP also serves as a great vehicle for planning with colleagues and Site Teams for the upcoming school year.
Register today to save places for you and your team! Not sure which Community of Practice to register for? Consult the Communities of Practice Interactive PDF.
Increased confidence, life skills, and a sense of belonging—these are just some of the benefits students participating in iSucceed Virtual Schools report experiencing when they engage with AVID programs and strategies. Hear their success stories in this short video clip.
Tell your story to the AVID Community, and encourage your students to share theirs. Entries will be accepted through February 15.
5 Ways to Finish Your AVID Speaker Contest Application
- Set micro-goals – Take the steps and divide them into smaller parts.
- Create a checklist – List each goal so you won’t forget any of them and backward-map your tasks from the Feb. 15th deadline. Ask yourself what has to be done a week before and who should review your story before you submit.
- Eliminate distractions – Set focus times and determine what you will need to complete during that time.
- Reach out for support – Consider your classmates and teachers as your support network and ask for help when you need it.
- Keep moving past the flaws – It doesn't have to be perfect. Just let your personality shine and tell your story.
Full contest details are available on avid.org/speakercontests. Both written submissions and/or videos will be accepted and, although not required, a video recording of you delivering your speech is highly encouraged. Be sure to submit your essay and/or video to the appropriate link below.
As before, we hope to feature all types of voices from the AVID world, including AVID Elective and AVID Excel teachers and students, AVID Elementary educators and students, and AVID Site Team teachers, counselors, principals, district leaders, and any other educator or student impacted by AVID. We also welcome students who attend an AVID Schoolwide campus to enter the contest. The deadline to enter is Tuesday, February 15, 2022.
You asked and we delivered! The 2022 AVID Site Team suite of resources is designed to engage the Site Team in all phases of the Continuous Improvement Cycle across the school year. And the best part? Summer learning is differentiated.
With our new AVID Site Team Portal, coming soon, you will receive training materials tailored to In-Person or Virtual meetings. Your Site Team will have access whether they are completing their training at Summer Institute, DigitalXP, Path to Schoolwide, ElevateXP, or even if they don’t have the opportunity to attend AVID Professional Learning this summer. Even better—there are now differentiated learning paths! Whether your site is creating a new goal, refining an existing goal by evaluating progress, or ensuring stability of an already achieved goal (or maybe even a mix of all three), we have summer learning for you! Through the portal, Site Teams can access year-long modules to support their goals.
Please continue to watch for updates and dates for Spring 2022 informational sessions regarding all things AVID Site Team!
The AVID College and Career Readiness Framework, when implemented with fidelity, produces college-ready students at rates exceeding national benchmarks across all school types. Moreover, AVID schools create more equitable learning environments as students are enrolling in college at similar rates whether they graduate from low-income, high minority, Urban, Rural, or Suburban schools.
A recent report (2021) published by the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center (NSCRC) illustrates differences in first Fall college enrollment rates depending on the type of school from which students graduate. Class of 2020 graduates from low-income schools reported the lowest college enrollment rates (47%), followed by high minority schools (49%), Urban (53%), Rural (53%), and Suburban (59%) schools. These data show an overall gap in college enrollment of 12 percentage points (i.e., low-income schools at 47% and Suburban schools at 59%). AVID graduates show an overall gap in college enrollment of only 5 percentage points across school types (i.e., Urban schools at 62% and Suburban schools at 67%).
View more information on this study or email research@avid.org to see how AVID creates more equitable learning environments in K–12 classrooms.
Accelerating learning and ensuring every student has access to and success with rigorous curriculum is foundational to developing thriving learning cultures within every classroom and school. WICOR (writing, inquiry, collaboration, organization, and reading) is how we ensure every student engages in learning and experiences success.
A common mistake made by educators is to break WICOR into separate components within their lessons—maybe having their students read on Monday, ask questions on Tuesday, collaborate on Wednesday, organize their thinking on Thursday, and write on Friday. This looks like WICOR, just spread out across the week and with reading and writing reversed. However, WICOR is greater than the sum of its parts.
If you are wondering, What could be wrong with that approach to integrating WICOR?, the answer is that approach really isn’t WICOR. Integrating WICOR into lessons means incorporating every component of WICOR into every chunk of instruction.
In other words, think about WICOR as academic skills that always go together. One skill, like reading, might be heavily leveraged or focused on for the sake of learning. However, that simply means we design lessons where reading is the academic focus skill students are relying on to access content, while writing, inquiry, collaboration, and organization are leveraged with intentionality to ensure every student is successful and engaged. This works for every letter of WICOR. Because WICOR is not something we do one letter at a time, what makes it so powerful is that it reminds us that academic skills are not taught or practiced in isolation.
Classrooms where WICOR is leveraged as a whole, and not merely the sum of its parts, are thriving learning cultures where every student develops the skills needed for living a life of possibility.
Survive or Thrive? There Is Only One Choice
by Deborah L. Anderson, Ph.D., Principal, Steffen Middle School
As we reach the midpoint of this academic year, Principal Deborah L. Anderson provides a powerful blueprint for moving forward as a strong learning community with collective commitment after the challenges of the past few years.
AVID Summer Professional Learning Registration is Open!
Find the Summer PL that’s right for you.
AVID’s professional learning is built around high-quality Communities of Practice designed to meet the diverse needs of educators.
AVID’s mission is to close the opportunity gap by preparing all students for college readiness and success in a global society.
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