Council of International Schools

As a comprehensive resource for leaders in international education, the Playbook explores the intricacies of pedagogical decision-making in international schools. It emerged from two years of research, interviews, and analysis of insights from school leaders, teachers, parents, and students at more than 140 schools in the CIS global network who revealed their approaches and evolving teaching methods within their communities.​

"The Pedagogy Playbook is an extensive resource for leaders who are ready to evaluate their effectiveness in managing pedagogical decisions, helping them to make evidence-based changes that balance the school’s vision, community voices, and learner needs,” shared Kim Czenszak, chief operations officer at CIS.

“The tool guides educators as they assess their priorities for learning, make informed decisions about teaching, and incorporate the voices and needs of learners and the community into this process."

"Finalsite was our trusted partner in developing the look and feel of the new microsite," Czenszak said. "We needed a design that could share information in an easy-to-navigate format. By exploring various templates that Finalsite has used with schools and associations around the world, we were able to work together to define a design that would accomplish our goals."

Collaborative Design

To bring the Playbook to life, CIS collaborated closely with our Finalsite project team to use Composer’s intuitive tools, page layouts, and drag-and-drop design elements to create a clean, straightforward layout with simple navigation and bright, branded colors.

"Together, we explored layouts used by other schools and associations and started creating user-friendly and visually appealing pages that explained the methods of their research and our findings." 

"Our online experience manager teamed up with Finalsite’s Professional Services team to scope requirements, build design elements, and provide feedback as we created our content in the Finalsite CMS," Czenszak explained, noting that the collaboration streamlined the development process and ensured the project stayed on track, launched, and shared with its international audience.

"Using the design elements in the CMS made it easy for us to try different approaches to sharing content, have our internal team review, and then publish when we were ready," Czenszak noted.

"We appreciated the critical eye that helped us deliver our vision," Czenszak shared. "We are proud of the outcome and excited to learn how the international education community uses this playbook in their schools." 

Finalsite Global Market Director, Meredith Kaplan, watched the evolution of the project and is thrilled to see it distributed to CIS’ network of more than 900 member schools and countless leaders worldwide.

"What's really exciting about the project is how well it aligns with both Finalsite’s and CIS’ mission,” said Kaplan. “We're both about supporting schools and educators around the world, and the Playbook is a perfect example of that in action. It's not just research sitting on a shelf; it's a living resource that leaders can use every day to make a real difference in international education.”