PLC Success Indicators

I recently read a blog post by Elena Aguilar titled "Effective Teams: The Key to Transforming Schools?". In this article, she explains that we need good teams to retain and sustain teachers and to learn from each other. Although Stilwell Junior High has participated in the PLC process for a few years now, we further emphasized the importance of it this year by embedding time in the school day for departments to meet. We are now learning how to be an effective team with other people who teach the same subject. It is exciting that we have the opportunity to work together in departments, but it can also be unnerving.

To give me a better understanding of how effective PLCs function here at Stilwell, I asked several teachers what they believe to be key indicators of successful PLCs. I collected nearly thirty responses that I organized into two categories: indicators of successful PLC meetings and indicators of successful PLC members.

• Successful PLC meetings
• have agendas that are followed
• have agreed upon norms that members adhere to
• include focused goals
• generate specific outcomes
• Successful PLC members
• have specific roles
• trust each other
• have a voice
• are positive
• are collaborative
• are flexible
• are productive
• collect data and use the results to guide instruction
• listen, respect, and support one another

It is safe to say that frustrating times of the PLC process occur when one or more team members do not follow the indicators of success mentioned above. Therefore, it is critical during our PLC journey that we hold ourselves and our team members accountable to these standards. According to Ms. Aguilar, doing so will, "grow powerful teams that can transform schools".

Source: http://www.edutopia.org/blog/teacher-teams-transform-schools-elena-aguilar

Amazing Things are Happening at Stilwell Junior High!

One of my favorite things about being an instructional coach is having the ability to step foot in the many different classrooms here at Stilwell. So far this year, twenty-three teachers have invited me into their classrooms to observe students learning. I have witnessed students read, write, collaborate, problem solve, explore, analyze, etc. in their quest of learning. It is amazing to watch so many students participate in a plethora of learning opportunities!

Students in a math class are playing a game called Life on a Number Line. The game requires participants to work together to solve problems with integers. In this pictures, the students are working together to learn about absolute values in order to correctly answer one of the questions.

These students are exploring an engineering program in their Technology Education class. This program requires the users to apply mathematical concepts, such as coordinate planes.

Students in eighth grade English are free reading as part of a concept called Literacy Lab. Literacy Lab occurs every Friday. While students free read, the teacher conferences with individuals on reading goals, theme, character development, comprehension, and much more.

New Tech Network students visited the State Historical Society as part of a project launch. In this picture, they are taking a break to research famous Hollywood actors with ties to Iowa.

Formative Assessments - Part Two

Back in March, we wrote a blog post titled Formative Assessments. The purpose of the post was threefold:

1. Give teachers a set of tools tools to use right away
2. Show how to get help with formative assessments
3. Learn how to give quick feedback without sacrificing more time

In this post, we want to give readers some specific examples of how teachers at Stilwell and Indian Hills formatively assess their students.

Stilwell:

Celeste Richardson uses google forms, kahoot!, and ALEKS to gauge her students’ growth. In math resource, the continual progress of a student is monitored. Celeste has tirelessly experimented with best practice to gather this data. ALEKS is a software that allows her to access diagrams, statistics, and other information. In addition, she uses kahoot to “spot-check” her kids’ knowledge of different areas of math. She can then instantly conduct mini-lessons for review. Finally, Celeste values reflective learning and is experimenting with google forms to gather data on her students’ understanding of math practices and processes. We are trying to determine if sorting and evaluating student data is quicker and easier in a spreadsheet.

While Bryan Bacehowski often uses tech-based immediate feedback tools such as kahoot, occasionally he kicks it old-school with individual whiteboards.  He feels the actual writing of responses can provide deeper internalization, and wells as enables him to easily differentiate the level of mastery through response time and thoroughness of each student’s answer. With minimal technology and maximum efficiency, he can see the complete class’ progress before moving on. Bryan then knows if he needs to review concepts from earlier lessons or if he can move on. This kind of formative assessment requires little prep, provides large-group feedback, and connects to the EEI question: How can I connect today’s lesson to past learning.

Rochelle Svestka recently re-designed her advertising unit in Consumer Education. As we all realize, being conscious consumers is an immediate learning need for our students. By creating checklists, Rochelle has better realized her students’ progress throughout the unit. Three separate lists (each created for the specific part of the process) incorporated a week’s worth of learning targets to better enable students to work in groups at their own pace. This type of differentiation led to student leaders and multiple roles. The checklists allowed students the autonomy to discover the process to learn the advertising about creating an advertising campaign.

In social studies, Scott LaPlante assesses his students’ progress on individual assignments with something he calls, “finish a section, bring me a section”. When students receive an assignment, such as an historical atlas activity or a worksheet, they are instructed to check in with Mr. LaPlante after a specific number of items. If a student’s answers are correct, he will initial the section. If there are mistakes, he will work with the student to make the necessary changes. This type of formative assessment gives students immediate feedback on their progress, allows Mr. LaPlante to check in individually with all of his students, and cuts down on time spent grading the assignment when it is turned in the next day. 

Recently, Katie co-taught Heather Hanser’s study skills class as they drafted a thesis and introduction for Mr. Stein’s DBQ on the Mexican War. By teaching the paragraph sentence by sentence, and individually workshopping with each student (made easier in a class of 8 with 4 adults), we were able to give personalized feedback and wait until each student reached success before moving on. The workshop technique allows each student to get formative feedback as he/she completed each step of the writing process, instead of waiting until they’re “finished” to find out if they are on the right track. Writing is a sensitive area of instruction for many students. They don’t think they are good writers, and their work often feels personal. Therefore, it is important that they get feedback throughout the writing process.

Indian Hills:

Given where we are at in the school year, we are taking a different approach to sharing out about formative assessments--we are celebrating what teachers have been working on throughout the school year.

Here is what we are emailing out to staff.  We will come back to this in a way of recruiting some “deeper coaching” opportunities involving formative assessment at the onset of the new school year.  This will include staff members sharing out during staff meetings as well as us sharing some ideas to consider.  This conversation will include the “now what” piece.  

Throughout the 2014-2015 school year, Indian Hills staff members met the challenge to purposefully use formative assessments to guide instructional decision-making.  Here are some of the amazing ways our leaders in education are formatively “assessing for learning”:

• ALEKS--software that differentiates math content for students and provides visual categorization for teachers regarding where students are at with concept proficiency
• Project Check-ins--receiving feedback on progress at various checkpoints throughout a project
• Reading Conferences--conferring with students on a variety of reading goals depending upon student skill level and interests
• White Boards--quick visual check for understanding
• “Comments” in Google Docs--provide feedback while work is “in progress”
• Google Forms--entrance/exit slips, check for understanding, gauging prior knowledge, etc.
• Nearpod--concept review, check for understanding
• Kahoot--concept review, check for understanding
• Writing Conferences--conferring with students to develop proficiency in writing standards as well as celebrate writing growth
• Checklists--quick visual on student progress towards task completion and/or learning target accomplishment
• Learning Target Reflections--students reflect on their learning
• Bell Work Activities--entrance/exit slips, check for understanding, gauging prior knowledge, etc.
• i-Ready--ongoing online personalized student instruction catered to students’ reading level in relationship with Common Core standards
• Discussion/Comment feature in Google Classroom--entrance/exit slips, check for understanding, gauging prior knowledge, etc.

These things are happening in classrooms throughout the building on a consistent basis.  Formative assessments are becoming second-nature as we make research-supported instructional decisions to meet the diverse needs of our students.  We pretty much rock. ☺

As the school year nears its end, let’s celebrate these and all of the other incredible things we do daily to make Indian Hills and Stilwell such great schools!

Improving My Attitude

Usually by this time in the school year, I find myself in an ever-increasing pessimistic mood. I'm counting down until the last day of school, complaining about my job, and grumbling about the workload. I just want summer to hurry up and get here so I can sleep in, enjoy the beautiful weather, and spend more time with my family.

A few days ago, I recognized this negative behavior rearing its ugly head again, and I determined that I needed to make a change. I decided to surround myself with positivity and make the following changes.

• Work out more. Exercise is proven to decrease stress and improves mental health, and it is definitely something I can increase. 
• Eat healthy. Although I'm not a horrible eater, I notice that I tend to consume more unhealthy foods when I am stressed. I should eat a well-balanced diet of complex carbohydrates, fruits, vegetables, and lean protein to help improve my mood (and maybe a little chocolate wouldn't hurt).
• Surround myself with inspiration. I started following Jon Gordon on Twitter; he regularly tweets out inspirational quotes, stories, and videos. His tweets are motivating to me.
• Take time to reflect. At the end of each day, I will reflect on what went well and what did not go well. Then, I will decide what I need to do to make tomorrow a better day.
• Converse in a positive manner. I noticed that when I vent I temporarily feel better, but then my negative mood returns with a vengeance. Conversely, when I speak with positivity, that energy carries me through the rest of the day. 

After May 1st, I only have twenty-two days left of school. Rather than grumble and complain, I plan to enjoy my dwindling time and improve my attitude. I encourage everyone to join me, and please comment below if you have other ideas to improve one's mood.

Formative Assessments

Formative assessments are a tricky deal. The term seems to be a part of edu-speak (or common language in the world of education), but do we really understand what this means? And more importantly, do we use formative assessments as they are intended to be used?

In Seven Strategies of Assessment for Learning, Jan Chappuis says, "formative assessment is not an instrument or an event, but a collection of practices with a common feature: they all lead to some action that improves learning"(4). In other words, formative assessment is when teachers assess student knowledge and use the information to guide the instruction. This seems simple enough, yet we find it difficult to find the time and resources to effectively do this.

Back in February, I taught a professional development class on formative assessments. The goal of the class was threefold:

1) walk away with a set of tools teachers can use right away

2) see how teachers can get help with formative assessments

3) learn how to give quick feedback to the students without sacrificing more time

The feedback from the participants was positive, so I figured I would provide a cliff-notes version of this class in a blog post.

Goal #1- Walk away with a set of tools teachers can use right away

All one would need to do for this is talk to a fellow teacher or Google "formative assessment examples". But here are three ideas that do not require much preparation beforehand.

1) My Favorite No- Assign students a warm up problem or two. Hand out index cards to the students. Sort the index cards into yes/no piles. Choose your favorite no response and analyze it as a class.

2) Chalkboard Splash- Numerous students respond to a prompt/question on the chalkboard, whiteboard, or a Google Doc at the same time. The teacher calls on students to elaborate on some of the topics, vocabulary, strategies, and systems they see on the board.

3) Hit the Learning Target- Have students show how they have mastered the learning target from the lesson (either verbally or written) before they leave the classroom.

Goal #2- See how teachers can get help with formative assessments

The term "two heads are better than one" can definitely be applied to formative assessments. Teachers can, and should work with others to create and analyze formative assessments, including...
1) Students

• students can assist in identifying high quality work
• they can help identify methods of assessment
• students can assess the assessments

2) other teachers

• other teachers can give examples of assessments they have used
• they look over student work examples and collaborate to make instructional changes (this is especially helpful for colleagues who teach the same courses)

3) instructional coaches

• ICs can brainstorm effective types of formative assessments for specific situations
• they can model how to implement and grade a formative assessment in the classroom
• ICs can also co-teach a lesson, so one person can assess the students and provide feedback while the other teacher facilitates a different activity (plus, they can help make instructional changes based on the data collected)

Goal #3- Learn how to give quick feedback to the students without sacrificing more time

Formative assessments should not take away valuable time from a teacher's life. Below are some strategies for saving time when assessing student learning.

• Have students grade their own assessment
• Have students grade each other’s assessments
• Simplify grading
• Example- grade on a scale of 1-5 (1= did not understand the concept, 3= in the middle, 5= mastered the concept)
• Use technology to assess the learning
• Examples include Kahoot and Flubaroo
• Have only one period do a formative assessment on a certain day, so that a teacher will only have one class set to look over.

• Focus on only one skill at a time
• Example- give 1 paragraph to write, but only focus on the summary and thesis found in an intro paragraph.
• Build time for assessing learning during class

Formative assessments should be a tool that is used frequently in classrooms and guides instruction. It should not be time-consuming, nor a discarded practice. But if used appropriately, formative assessments will improve student achievement.

Instructional Strategy - Thinking Prompts

My favorite part of my job as an instructional coach at Stilwell is seeing the innovative instructional practices of my colleagues. One example of this is Thinking Prompts. While at a training with Jim Knight (The University of Kansas and The Kansas Coaching Project),  I heard him talk about “Thinking Prompts” as an instructional strategy. Others probably have different names for these activities (Bell Work, Hooks, Anticipatory Sets, etc.), but here, I’ll refer to them by Knight’s label.

Thinking prompts are “any device a teacher puts in front of students to prompt thinking, discussion, and dialogue.” As I listened to Knight describe different types of prompts, my mind connected my colleagues’ work I have observed over the past few weeks:

• Video clips - Walk by Ben Stein’s class during its first five minutes, and you’ll see him teaching current events. His daily video clips engage students in thinking about social studies in their lives. Laws, history, politics, wars, and social issues dominate the beginning of every period. Kids are immediately engaged and primed to study Stein’s curriculum.
• Cases or short stories - Recently, Katie Ernst found a unique way to explicitly teach an implicit skill: inferencing. “Minute Mysteries” interfaced with google forms and clickers give her students a quick opportunity to study and practice one of the most crucial reading strategies. Instead of teaching reading one way, Katie uses multiple methods and devices to engage students.
• Cartoons - Right under my nose, Tammy Zenti showed an engaging thinking prompt through using comics to also demonstrate inference. Through illustration and humor, Tammy showed kids how they inference without even knowing it. Luckily, I share a classroom with her, and I was able to borrow her comics for my same lesson that day!
• Songs - As an instructional coach, I have learned so much just by walking through the halls. One day, I heard music coming from Ruth Henderson’s room. As a colleague of several years, it doesn’t surprise me to see Ruth employing higher order thinking in her students, but I hadn’t yet seen her use songs. The hilarious youtube clip was perfectly suited for her learning target.
• Quotations - Leslie Nedved shows 180 quotations that directly relate to her daily lessons. Students copy the quotes into their planners, and have a reference (sometimes historical; sometimes pop culture) to start the day. This is one of the many reasons students cite Mrs. Nedved as their favorite and most inspirational teachers.
• Poems - Another teacher who uses every school day to expose students to different thinking is Cameron Gale at Valley. Gale gives his students 180 days of culture through his use of daily poetry. In one year, his students have been exposed to more poetry than most people are in a lifetime. The poets, emotions, and beauty his students experience is undoubtedly part of the success his students feel.

When searching for Thinking Prompts, Knight recommends spending no more than 2 minutes searching. Anything longer takes away critical planning time that teachers need. So, type your topic, theme, or idea into google and briefly peruse the videos, images, and links to see if there’s something that catches your eye. Knight provides a checklist for what makes an effective thinking prompt:

☑Provocative: People cannot wait to talk about it.

☑Complex: There are many different ways to interpret it.

☑Personally Relevant: It speaks directly to individuals.

☑Positive: It fosters learner-friendly emotions.

☑Concise: It’s not too long to view or experience.

Knight recommends 30 seconds for viewing time, but I think up to 3 minutes is appropriate if combined with a series of effective questions to foster discussion - more to come on this.

I know so many other teachers at Stilwell and all WDM schools are practicing Thinking Prompts, but maybe under a different title. Use the comments section below to give a “shout out” to others using Thinking Prompts that I’ve missed here. I’ve appreciated seeing the above examples, and I would welcome the opportunity to see others and/or help incorporate them into your class!

The Power of Video, Part Two

Back in August, I wrote a post titled "The Power of Video". In the post, I talked about the need to videotape ourselves so we can gain a clearer picture of our practice. I also mentioned that upon returning from maternity leave in October that I planned to videotape myself in order to grow as an instructional coach. It may have taken a few months, but I, along with Katie Seiberling and Tammy Zenti (both part-time instructional coaches and part-time English teachers at Stilwell Junior High School) videotaped ourselves in a coaching situation involving co-teaching.

Katie and Tammy approached me a few weeks into January with a request for me to observe them co-teach their 8th grade English class. Although they felt fine about their class, they wanted to look for ways to improve their practice. So we decided that I would observe them co-teach and videotape the lesson.

A few days after the lesson, we met to debrief. We watched clips of the videotaped lesson to observe their teaching styles and interactions with the students. Viewing the video gave us a clearer picture of the lesson, and it allowed Katie and Tammy to brainstorm new ideas for co-teaching in future lessons.

To help me improve my practice as an instructional coach, we also videotaped the debriefing session. While watching the video, I listened to the conversation, analyzed body language and facial expressions, and reflected on my interactions with them. This gave me the opportunity to see what I am doing well and determine what changes I need to make to improve as an instructional coach.

Videotaping both the lesson and the meeting afterwards turned out to be very beneficial. It allowed us to observe the whole picture of what transpired, and we were able to analyze the events. Although it can seem daunting at first, we highly recommend using video as it can be a valuable tool for teachers to improve their effectiveness.

Below are links to the edited videos of the co-taught lesson and debriefing session.

The first three videos are clips of Katie and Tammy co-teaching. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfFm1sshgGs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCj4j5X6yxg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeXHkWOvYbM

The rest of the videos are clips from our meeting after the lesson.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyUP4qB_X4c

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y241v1eTMuc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEaT_kAwUFs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GWizQzzpkk