Always need to smile -
Jill shared a couple of stories below with me -
"This type of story makes the "hard parts" of my job worth it."
What a great addition to Friday Flash -
I encourage you all to send me little snippets of things that happen that put a smile on your face.
Providing feedback to students
Town Hall Meeting Stakeholders
Drumming
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| Sam shares what he and Shiny did together over the weekend. Shiny is a kangaroo sent to Mr. Jill's Crew from their Crew Friends in Australia. |
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| Students during speech language with Andrea. |
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| One on one tutorial with Ms. Josie |
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| Lindsey puts her recent Junior Great Books training in to action. |
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| Doug is using Ipad movies to give student immediate feedback on their performance assessment - any guesses about whether kids find this meaningful? |
Collaborative efforts to support
the needs of our first graders:
the needs of our first graders:
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| Jodie leading a small group to think about ways they can be kind. The kids are writing notes to acknowledge kind acts to friends. |
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| Bill works with a small group on ideas of things they can do when they feel sad, okay, happy, worried & scared, and mad. |
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| Student application: This should make you smile... |
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| Elisha works with a group as they make an "I'm Not Bored " book . (Kids tend to make bad choices when they don't know what to do - so they are thinking of different things they can do inside, outside, with others and by themselves.) |
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| Josie works with a group to identify feelings - What's in my heart? Things that make me feel sad, mad, scared... |
Guided Writing Instruction
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| Ann makes learning how to count coins as real as she can. Sierra is buying food! |
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| All School Meeting Leaders |
Calendar
February 3 - 7th:
Lisa's Crew on Winter Voyage
Monday:
8:00 Orientation for Discovery families
9:00 Discovery family meeting
Tuesday:
RTI meeting 7:30 a.m.
Wednesday:
PD - Differentiated as identified during your PLC
(Deborah out of the building for CASE conference on Thursday and Friday.
Bill will be here to support the building as needed.)
February 10 - 14th:
Kenny's Crew on Winter Voyage
Fourth grade to Keystone for Winter Voyage
Tuesday:
RTI meeting 7:30 a.m.
Wednesday:
All School Meeting
PD: Differentiated as identified during your PLC
Friday:
Happy Valentines Day!
No school for students
Professional Development - as identified during your PLC
Three day weekend ahead...no school on Monday, February
Leadership Team Meeting
The Leadership Team met on Monday after school. We reviewed our progress on our Unified Improvement Plan goal - writing. We reviewed the implementation progress of using Every Child a Writer resource for guided writing instruction - it's strengths and limitations. There was consensus that this resource has been a strong support for guided instruction with room for improvements in the larger, more authentic view of writing.
We spent some time discussing and prioritizing the needs of teachers and students over the coming months for the creation of our professional development plan. Rather than list the plan here, Noreene will be sharing the plan in detail with teams during PLC's. On the calendar you'll see listed next to our PD days, 'differentiated as identified during your PLC', and this will be shared and explained during your PLC. Noreene and I spent several hours planning for differentiation with components of modeling effective teaching as per the CITE evaluation. We are pretty excited about what we created!
CITE Evidence
Assessment 2.1, 2.2, 2.3 -
Each student and I are constantly collaborating to assess the quality of
their formative, interim and summative assessments. This is
accomplished through continuous referral of learning targets, summative
assessment criteria taken from learning targets, reflection,
encouragement to accept personal judgements of work and using strategic
questioning to guide students to answer what it is about their work they
could improve or how they can problem solve a challenging situation.
Their answers do not always match mine, but I always allow them to try
them helping them develop the ability to take risks, fail and persevere
and build their resiliency. Examples of my Balanced Assessment System
can be found on my Google doc at
https://docs.google.com/document/d/10vJHBU6RwgW2hiI-uZHXR-3PCIJgtfSOAJZ_1KgQTxU/edit?usp=sharing
of my backward plans for each unit I teach. My blog, Renaissance Art,
at http://artteacherc.blogspot.com/ shows students engaged in all three
types of assessment under the Pages tab at the top of the blog page.
4.3
It looks like play, and it is.
Team building is an essential component to the success of a healthy crew
and individual and group projects. If kids can't learn to work
together to solve complex problems than the joy that learning together
can bring is lost, as well as solving the complex problem. So, we team
build. Through teambuilding students work to recognize that solutions to problems are often found through the combination of multi points of view. Students also recognize quickly that a goal will not be achieved if honoring peer differences is disregarded and instead struggle to keep alive only one point a few even after it has fractured the team.
Taking time to team build has made all the
difference for the health and development of my crew. Check out the
attached pictures that highlight different solutions to one problem and a
debrief circle we use to discuss struggles and success, honoring risk,
perseverance, leadership and restoring.
2.1
My balanced assessment system
includes formative assessments. All day long, across all subject areas,
I am taking formal and informal formative assessments on my children to
drive my instruction and to meet each individuals needs in order to
support their ability to meet outcomes.I've included a photo of two pages of evidence that speaks to this. The evidence was gathered for one of my student's and was brought to her RTI meeting.
As you can see, I've taken assessments in reading, writing, math, and phonics/language.
Math examples include formal observations such as tests or mini-assessments on white boards, showing Alayna has trouble with concept words such as before/after, reversals of numbers, and difficulty in independently using a number grid while using two digit numbers.
In word work/writing my assessments of Alayna (conferring notes or observations during whole group work) showed that she was having trouble manipulating sounds in words and using known words to get to unknown words. (in ability to go from "look to book" while manipulating letters in a making words lesson , and the inability to know how to write "books" when she knows how to write "look")
Alayn'as spelling tests show that remembering how to spell HFW's as do her tolds of HFW's on running records.
My daily running records, guided reading notes, and formal DRA showed me how hard it is for Alayna to remember how to use more than one reading strategy and how easily frustrated she gets while reading new text. (appealing to problem solve)
Note: Although this is just
an example of one child, I can show evidence of how I do formative
assessments throughout the day on many children in all subject areas)
2.2
My balanced assessment approach
includes systems for giving interim assessments to provide benchmark
progress on student's progress in meeting World Class Outcomes.
I've worked hard this year to create my own rubrics in writing and reading. Please see the writing rubric that I have attached. I use this as an interim assessment to check on the progress of my children during a writing genre. The children self-assess themselves on this interim assessment and then I do the same.
Then during conferring we collaborate together on what they feel are next steps in their writing. I've been so pleased, and admittedly surprised at how well many of them know themselves as writers and how aligned our thinking is. I believe this may be attributed to the fact that the learning targets listed on on this rubric are exactly what is posted on our working wall. Daily we review the expectations I have for them in writing of their stories.
I have made a similar rubric for reading in which we both can assess which reading tools they are using. I am thinking about creating an additonal reading rubric that speaks to their use of "thinking strategies"...but I don't want to over use rubrics. Kind of like we don't want them to have to retell each story they read:)
My observations and notes tell me how each child is growing as thinkers in reading. I ponder how much "formal" assessment to do for interims. I feel as though my informal interims are powerful enough to drive instruction if I keep myself accountable to reviewing them and teaching from them.
My math interims are almost daily as we do lots of white board assessments and as I take notes on concepts that are difficult while they do their Math Boxes.
I have an assessment notebook that shows evidence of all of my interims in all subject areas.
Expedition is where my teammate and I are working on interim assessments during PLC. For this reason I'd give myself ...
I've worked hard this year to create my own rubrics in writing and reading. Please see the writing rubric that I have attached. I use this as an interim assessment to check on the progress of my children during a writing genre. The children self-assess themselves on this interim assessment and then I do the same.
Then during conferring we collaborate together on what they feel are next steps in their writing. I've been so pleased, and admittedly surprised at how well many of them know themselves as writers and how aligned our thinking is. I believe this may be attributed to the fact that the learning targets listed on on this rubric are exactly what is posted on our working wall. Daily we review the expectations I have for them in writing of their stories.
I have made a similar rubric for reading in which we both can assess which reading tools they are using. I am thinking about creating an additonal reading rubric that speaks to their use of "thinking strategies"...but I don't want to over use rubrics. Kind of like we don't want them to have to retell each story they read:)
My observations and notes tell me how each child is growing as thinkers in reading. I ponder how much "formal" assessment to do for interims. I feel as though my informal interims are powerful enough to drive instruction if I keep myself accountable to reviewing them and teaching from them.
My math interims are almost daily as we do lots of white board assessments and as I take notes on concepts that are difficult while they do their Math Boxes.
I have an assessment notebook that shows evidence of all of my interims in all subject areas.
Expedition is where my teammate and I are working on interim assessments during PLC. For this reason I'd give myself ...
Teacher analyzes data from formative assessments to monitor progress of all students ...
My determination of a students' "next steps" is based on my assessment of their skill-level and abilities at any particular time. Observations, mental notes, anecdotal notes, and products help me decide what I need to reteach, model, provide more practice for, etc.
Explanation of attached evidence:
After analyzing the ability of each of these students to make sense of complex, informational text (Learning Targets: identify unfamiliar words and phrases, determine what the text was about, generate questions, and persevere in an effort to understand) I determined that they each needed a different level of support. Both needed assistance in deciding how to determine importance (not highlight/underline too much) - as did many others in our classroom. I did a think-aloud/model for the whole crew of how to determine importance when reading informational text. One of these students was competent in meeting the learning targets. The other needed one-on-one assistance in mastering the learning target skills. For example: I thought aloud in front of him to model how a reader might make connections and wonder about what s/he is reading and then generate on-topic questions.
My determination of a students' "next steps" is based on my assessment of their skill-level and abilities at any particular time. Observations, mental notes, anecdotal notes, and products help me decide what I need to reteach, model, provide more practice for, etc.
Explanation of attached evidence:
After analyzing the ability of each of these students to make sense of complex, informational text (Learning Targets: identify unfamiliar words and phrases, determine what the text was about, generate questions, and persevere in an effort to understand) I determined that they each needed a different level of support. Both needed assistance in deciding how to determine importance (not highlight/underline too much) - as did many others in our classroom. I did a think-aloud/model for the whole crew of how to determine importance when reading informational text. One of these students was competent in meeting the learning targets. The other needed one-on-one assistance in mastering the learning target skills. For example: I thought aloud in front of him to model how a reader might make connections and wonder about what s/he is reading and then generate on-topic questions.
Teacher uses interim
assessments that provide an appraisal at benchmarks to determine student
progress on World Class Outcomes :
Students role-played a specific "stakeholder" perspective during our mountain pine beetle case study. In order to effectively participate in our "Town Hall Meeting" discussion (where students attempted to come to consensus on a solution for the mountain pine beetle epidemic in Summit County, Colorado) , it was important that they explore multiple perspectives and anticipate areas in which they would agree or have conflicts with other stakeholders. I designed an individual and group interim assessment so that I could assess whether or not students were familiar and comfortable enough with their own stakeholder role's perspective before comparing and contrasting it to others. The individual assessment consisted of annotated notes and a summary of what the student's stakeholder stood for. I used a thinking routine ("Color, Symbol, Image") in order to assess whether or not each stakeholder group was ready to compare and contrast with each other.
2.2Teacher uses a balanced assessment approach, including interim assessments that provide an appraisal at benchmarks to determine student progress on World Class Outcomes.
I consistently check-in with students in all subject areas in order to assess their level of understanding before moving on to the next stage of my plan. My “interim assessments” come in many forms: formal (written), my own observations, effective and purposeful questioning, exit slips, and more. Often I ask students to express their level of comfort or understanding as a way to self-assess their readiness to move on or go deeper. They let me know if they could use some re-teaching, extra practice, etc. In this way, I do collaborate with students also.
Students role-played a specific "stakeholder" perspective during our mountain pine beetle case study. In order to effectively participate in our "Town Hall Meeting" discussion (where students attempted to come to consensus on a solution for the mountain pine beetle epidemic in Summit County, Colorado) , it was important that they explore multiple perspectives and anticipate areas in which they would agree or have conflicts with other stakeholders. I designed an individual and group interim assessment so that I could assess whether or not students were familiar and comfortable enough with their own stakeholder role's perspective before comparing and contrasting it to others. The individual assessment consisted of annotated notes and a summary of what the student's stakeholder stood for. I used a thinking routine ("Color, Symbol, Image") in order to assess whether or not each stakeholder group was ready to compare and contrast with each other.
2.2Teacher uses a balanced assessment approach, including interim assessments that provide an appraisal at benchmarks to determine student progress on World Class Outcomes.
I consistently check-in with students in all subject areas in order to assess their level of understanding before moving on to the next stage of my plan. My “interim assessments” come in many forms: formal (written), my own observations, effective and purposeful questioning, exit slips, and more. Often I ask students to express their level of comfort or understanding as a way to self-assess their readiness to move on or go deeper. They let me know if they could use some re-teaching, extra practice, etc. In this way, I do collaborate with students also.
2.3: Teacher uses
summative assessments to measure student performance of World Class
Outcomes at the end of the learning process
I consistently collaborate with students in most subject areas - in the choice of, assessment of, and use of summative assessment results. I co-design rubrics with students (with our learning targets as a guide) that can be used in an open-ended way. I do this so that they can choose the way in which they demonstrate their mastery/understanding of outcomes. I also consistently build in opportunity for self-assessment, along with student-generated (and sometimes guided by me) next-steps or goals.
This artifact represents two different rubrics for performance assessments (summative) – both with built-in self assessment.
I consistently collaborate with students in most subject areas - in the choice of, assessment of, and use of summative assessment results. I co-design rubrics with students (with our learning targets as a guide) that can be used in an open-ended way. I do this so that they can choose the way in which they demonstrate their mastery/understanding of outcomes. I also consistently build in opportunity for self-assessment, along with student-generated (and sometimes guided by me) next-steps or goals.
This artifact represents two different rubrics for performance assessments (summative) – both with built-in self assessment.
1.1Teacher selects World Class Outcomes from the Douglas County Guaranteed and Viable Curriculum including the 4 Cs (Creativity, Collaboration, Communication, and Critical Thinking).
1.2 Teacher selects World Class Outcomes that integrate content with other disciplines
Because I see effective learning as stemming from authentic, high-interest, real world issues and experiences, integration is a natural result of my planning. I have to intentionally look at the GVCs for different “subjects” in order to make this way of planning “official integration”. But I don’t naturally think of the concepts I am helping students learn as being exclusive to a particular academic subject. (I also tell students that only in the “academic” world do people categorize subjects as separate.)
The attached piece of evidence provides an example of the ways in which I integrate disciplines. This case study (Mountain Pine Beetle) is an integration of science, social studies/civics, literacy, collaboration, critical thinking, and communication. In order for students to be able to build background knowledge on this local, ecological topic – and then research and understand a specific “stakeholder’s” perspective - they needed to be able make sense of complex, informational text. The first three pages illustrate some of our planning in order to scaffold students toward participating successfully in a performance. The last page shows the long-term learning targets we developed around the literacy portion of this science expedition. Please also see my CITE 1.1 evidence.
Because I see effective learning as stemming from authentic, high-interest, real world issues and experiences, integration is a natural result of my planning. I have to intentionally look at the GVCs for different “subjects” in order to make this way of planning “official integration”. But I don’t naturally think of the concepts I am helping students learn as being exclusive to a particular academic subject. (I also tell students that only in the “academic” world do people categorize subjects as separate.)
The attached piece of evidence provides an example of the ways in which I integrate disciplines. This case study (Mountain Pine Beetle) is an integration of science, social studies/civics, literacy, collaboration, critical thinking, and communication. In order for students to be able to build background knowledge on this local, ecological topic – and then research and understand a specific “stakeholder’s” perspective - they needed to be able make sense of complex, informational text. The first three pages illustrate some of our planning in order to scaffold students toward participating successfully in a performance. The last page shows the long-term learning targets we developed around the literacy portion of this science expedition. Please also see my CITE 1.1 evidence.
Have a great weekend!
Deborah
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