Teaching and Learning

Willie E. Garrison II has been in education for the past 18 years.  He is a graduate of Oral Roberts University (B.A. - Secondary Education) and National Louis University (M.A.- in School Administration).  He previously worked in the Wauwatosa School District as the Director of Equity; Student and Family Services. 

Over the past six years he worked extensively in developing equitable practices for the  Wauwatosa School District, which included leading equity for all practices with targeted focuses on leadership, building strong relationships, and academic success for all. He is responsible for leading Wauwatosa's first Equity Plan which was implemented during the  2018-2020 school years.  The Equity Plan supports the district's strategic objectives and serves as the actionable guidelines to move equity work forward.  Within the equity plan, Teaching and Learning is a significant focus, themes include:

• Advanced Placement Review/Reboot focusing on increasing students of color participation.   
• Reviewing curriculum materials- focusing on cultural relevance
• Curriculum development- Which included adding two major courses Black Literature and A.P. Human Geography for all students 10th grade 

During his leadership, he planned and led district/community-wide professional learning opportunities with a focus on educational equity.  The professional learning opportunities included training around Identity, Cultural Relevance, Understanding Implicit/Explicit Bias, Microaggressions/Impact on our daily lives, and Stereotype Threat.

Willie is a member of the Closing the Achievement Gap Consortium (CAGC) Executive Team Leadership, as well as the Grants and Funding Coordinator.  In this role, he developed planning teams for the New Teacher Orientation Book Study, and he has served in a leadership role for the African American Male Initiative (AAMI).  He is also a member of the planning team for the African American Female Initiative, (AAFI). He has been instrumental in providing the CAGC with consistent leadership and represented the Wauwatosa School District in many of the CAGC's extended commitments. Mr. Garrison is a current Doctoral student at Concordia University and is on track to complete the program during 2020-2021 academic year. He is excited to bring his energy for education to the Brown Deer School District with a focus on continuous improvement in all areas of education.

Data Literate Educators

The goal of the Brown Deer School District is to provide teachers with the time and resources to become data literate educators. According to the Data Quality Campaign, data-literate educators continuously, effectively and ethically access, interpret, act on, and communicate multiple types of data from state, local, classroom, and other sources to improve outcomes for students in a manner appropriate to educators’ professional roles and responsibilities.  

Data Resources

Formative assessments are also used in classrooms on a daily basis. Formative assessments help paint a portrait of what students know and understand, as well as topics that they are having difficulty grasping.  Serving as checkups, formative assessments give you the chance to correct students’ mistakes and iron out any difficulties early in the learning process.

Data in our Professional Learning Communities (PLCs)

PLC's entail whole-staff involvement in a process of intensive reflection upon instructional practices and desired student benchmarks, as well as monitoring of outcomes to ensure success.  PLC's enable teachers to continually learn from one another via shared visioning and planning, as well as in-depth critical examination of what does and doesn't work to enhance student achievement.

Teachers use summative and formative data on a weekly basis to identify areas of growth and collaborate on curriculum implementation and instructional best practices.


Data Inquiry Process for Continuous Improvement


Student data needs assessment provides the pathway to inquiry and analysis of root causes in practices. A practices needs assessment provides a solid informed basis for implementing improvement actions.

Plan:
Identify specific improvement actions, barriers and necessary data inquiry to develop a blueprint for implementation and ongoing monitoring
Do:
Follow planned implementation of actions and data collection with fidelity
Study:
Analyze both student and practices data to determine the degree to which intended outcomes are being achieved; clarify and communicate findings
Act:
Apply adjustments in actions as determined from analyzing and interpreting the student and practices data studied to improve the process and outcomes