P3 – Practice standards-based assessment

P3 – Practice standards-based assessment

This is a standard that I struggle with each year. Do I teach to the test? How am I not teaching to the test if I am preparing my kids for a standardized test? I have been teaching a long time and each year these questions arise. I think what it comes down to is that the standards are written as topics we should cover in our teaching. The idea is that if we are teaching the standards then we will be preparing our students for the test, without that being the purpose of our teaching.

I also sometimes have to make decisions about topics I won’t be covering because I do not have enough time or it is more important to make sure my students truly understand each topic rather than are just exposed to each topic. For example, this year I taught a section of 6^th grade math. I started working with my students on fractions going at the speed my teaching partner was with her 6^th grade math class. It was not working for my students. They were not passing daily assessments or quizzes. I had to make a decision and slow down. What this meant when I it came time for my kids to take the MSP was that we had not gotten to all the topics that would be on the test, but the topics we did cover, my students know. This will benefit them in the long run and will benefit their “long-term math careers” each coming year.

P1 – Practice intentional inquiry and planning for instruction

P1 – Practice intentional inquiry and planning for instruction

This is an incredibly important principle. When thinking about everything I do with my students I should always be planning intentionally. This year I have had the opportunity to not only plan lessons, but have them reviewed by both my mentor teacher and coordinator. This has given me feedback and ideas that I may not have otherwise gotten. I have been teaching for several years (11) and I have not written full lesson plans in a while. Having the opportunity to revisit this process has really allowed me to reflect on my teaching and planning. It helped me take a step back and reminded me that it is a helpful tool to periodically plan full lessons with such intense intent. I do not think it is a sustainable model, it took a lot of time to put together these lessons and I think that the purpose was not so much that should take with us the idea that we need to fill out a lesson plan like this each lesson, but more about reminding us about all the areas in each lesson that we should be intentional about. For example, there were a lot of sections on the lesson plan asking about academic language. When I first saw the lesson plan with this on it, it was not clear to me what that meant. After some conversations with my mentor teacher and coordinator, I better understood what was meant by academic language and realized that this was something I usually do incorporate into my lessons, the lesson plan was just asking me to be more intentional and explicit about explaining why and how I am using it. Here is a copy of a blank lesson plan that I used: Long_Lesson_Plan_Template

P2- Practice differentiated instruction

P2-Practice differentiated instruction

Differentiation is an important skill for a teacher to employ. Finding ways to reach all of our children through differentiation can be difficult. However, there are a lot of resources available that I found helpful in planning for differentiation. One such book is called Teaching Gifted Kids in the Regular Classroom: Strategies and Technique Every Teacher can use to meet the Academic Needs of the Gifted and Talentedby Susan Winebrenner M.S.

One idea from her book that I really liked was called “most difficult first”. This is a way to help plan for students who are gifted and talented. What you do is choose five problems that are representative of a unit and the student has to get 4/5 correct. If the student is able to get 4/5 crest the student can move onto the next unit. When I first saw this I thought, why not have the student get 5/5 correct? The answer has to do with the student’s feeling the pressure to be perfect, and then he/she may not try at all.  I used this method with a student I have in my 6^th grade math class and it has worked great (although I used more than five problems to get my representation of his knowledge. It has helped give me direction as to what topics I should be planning for him. It has also made him more confident and happy in class since he is working at his level. He is so excited that he is having the opportunity to really show what he knows and learn at his level.

O1-Offer an organized curriculum aligned to standards and outcome

O1

Offer an organized curriculum aligned to standards and outcomes- This is an important concept in that it helps keep some uniformity in our teaching. There are thousands of schools across the country and we need to have some homogeneousness in what students are learning. Having state and now national standards will help keep the consistency while still allowing for schools and teachers to be unique in their instruction.

When thinking about what I am teaching my students I use the GLE’s (I will be transferring over to the common core this coming year- http://www.corestandards.org/the-standards). I have been using the GLE’s for the last several years (Here are the reading GLE’s I have been using- http://www.k12.wa.us/Reading/pubdocs/ReadingEALR-GLE.pdf#cover). Although I am not excited about moving to the common core and having to re-familiarize myself with a new format for standards, I really like the idea of having common standards that (ideally) the whole country will follow (currently 45 states have taken on the common core).

I think that it is important for teachers to be aware of standards and plan curriculum accordingly. Using the standards helps guide our instruction so that we have a road map to follow. In some schools teachers are given curriculum. In my school some of the curriculum is given to us to use, but many teachers supplement the curriculum in order to meet the standards and needs of the students in the short time that we have to teach each subject (note: I work in a dual curriculum school, so we have about three hours a day to teach the general studies subjects).

Several of the teachers in our school have begun to look at the common core and have used both the common core and GLE’s in planning for instruction this past year. My school has also brought in a math consultant that we have been using over the years to help the teachers make the move towards the common core.

E2-Exemplify Collaboration within the School

E2 – Exemplify collaboration within the school.

There are several ways that I collaborate within my school. I attend a weekly lower school teachers meeting. I meet weekly with several of the teachers to discuss students we share. I meet weekly with the principal, two assistant principals and head of the Teacher Learning Project to plan for our Teacher Learning Project meetings that take place once a month with the  whole staff. I also meet once a week with the Learning Center team.

I think that collaboration and communication among staff and administration will result in a well-run school. It can be challenging to find time and people to be a part of different teams and meeting in order to keep all lines of communication open. At my school, the Teacher Learning Project has really opened the lines for us. It not only means meeting among our peers and staff, but part of the program also encourages us to spend time in each other’s classrooms, learning from each other. It is amazing how many resources we have right within our own schools. I think it is important that leaders in schools take advantage of the vast amounts of knowledge that already exist in our schools. In addition, we need to remember the importance of reflection and goal writing as part of our daily decisions and planning.

Below are some of the worksheets we have used in our Teacher learning Project meetings:

March study group

Reflective Journaling

Extra-Curricular Observation- Math Night!

Last week I went to math night at my school. It took place on 3-14, Pi day! Each grade from Pre-K through 8^th came up with a couple of math games and activities. The games/activates were set up and run by the classes (the activities did not have to do with Pi, although it was encouraged to try to come up with connected to Pi). Teachers worked with the students to help them generate idea and prepare for the evening. When I walked into the gym my students had prepared the table with my partner teacher. The gym was bustling with activity. It seems like this is the most popular evening activity at my school. Student and parents were all moving around the room excitedly changing from table to table.

My students had two activities at their table. One activity was to write Pi Poetry. We cut out circles for the poetry to be written on. The idea of the poetry was that the first word should be a three letter word, the second a one letter word, the third a four letter word and so on. In class my students came up with word lists that we had hung up for people (since figuring out the different words is challenging on the spot). The second activity was called “Discovering Pi”. People were to measure the diameter and circumference of several different circles and find that the relationship is that the circumference is about three times the diameter, or Pi! How fun!

Students were to take turns, in shifts, manning the tables. There was one student who very much wanted to man the “Discovering Pi” table, so he spent the whole evening at the table. All the other students rotated between the tables and engaging in activities run by the other grades. It was so fun to see the students having such a good time learning! I also loved the opportunity to watch the students take leadership roles with both adults and other children.

Extra Curricular Observation 2- Carnival

Last week we had the annual carnival at our school. Each year there is a day where students get to wear pajamas to school and the Middle School students are in charge of running a carnival. The day is structured so that each grade gets 30-45 minutes of time at the carnival. At the end of the day the Middle School students had time to play at the carnival as well.

At the carnival there were stations with games like a ring toss. There were also a couple of activity stations, like cookie decorating and face painting. At each of these stations the Middle School students rotated around helping the younger children. In addition, there was also a bouncy house, giant blow up slide and blow up obstacle course.

When it was the Middle School student’s turn to play at the carnival teachers were in charges of each of the stations. I was asked to go into the blow up maze and sit at the top because some students were congregating in the back and it was hard to keep track of how many students were in the maze. It was such a blast!

As the students were coming through I was supposed to keep them moving. The students were excited and friendly. Some students wanted to scare others as they came up to the area I was at. They were having the best time and it was so great to see them enjoying themselves and playing with each other. It was a lot of work to keep them moving through the maze, but still fun. When I have a chance to see students outside the classroom it really gives me so much more information about their personalities and interests. I also got a clearer picture of which students are friends and how close they are with each other.

There is one student who is an English Language Learner. I have not worked with her very much; she is my mentor teacher’s student. However, I have had interactions with her and she struck me as very shy and introverted. She also was very blunt, which made her hard to read. While I was supervising this maze, she asked me to help her up the ladder, I helped her and then she said she wanted to stay with me. I laughed and told her that would be fun, but I am here because I am supposed to keep people moving through the maze. She said ok, and told everyone else, “Keep moving!” I told her she can come back around and sit with me for a minute again. She was hilarious and so much fun; we have something that has connected us so now when I see her in the hall, she always smiles and says hi to me. Just that, made the whole supervising experience worth it!

Professionalism- E3

E3-Exemplify an understanding of professional responsibilities and policies.

Part of the responsibility of a teacher is to constantly be growing as a professional in the field. Education is constantly changing and in order to keep up we need to have professional goals, just like we have our students make learning goals (daily weekly or monthly as the case may be), it makes sense that we too have goals to grow as teachers.

At my school we have spent the last 3 years writing standards for teachers. These standards basically break down what it means to be a professional, growing, and effective teacher (at our school). I in fact, I had the opportunity to be on the team that wrote the standards. Part of the process of the standards also included a mentor program. This opportunity came to us through Brandeis University. Brandies piloted a program of implementing a mentor program into private day schools. What made this program so successful was that the mentor program was directly tied to the standards. In most pairings it was a mentor/mentee relationship. I was a part of the program for two years and in both years I acted as a mentor for new teachers. Another unique aspect of this program was that it was not just a mentorship for new teachers, but it is for all teachers. We are currently in the fourth year of the program and have changed the relationship to be peer mentorships (unless you are a new teacher, in which case, it is a mentor/mentee relationship). I also had the opportunity to travel to Brandies last summer with my Principal and Head of School. It was an amazing experience and I love being a part of this team. This has helped me grow professionally and being a part of the team has helped me truly understand my role as a teaching professional.

Each of our goals is to be tied to one or two of the standards from our school. Attached are my goals for this year, including the school standard the goals are tied too. Professional Goals

Weekly Reflection 14: Reading Lesson-E1

I have a student who I work with on math, reading and writing. On assessments over the last several years, she has scored at least one year below grade level consistently. I work with her six times a week for between 30 and 45 minutes. When splitting up the time between subjects I usually spend four periods a week on math and two on reading and writing. This past week I met with my coordinator to look at some of the data I have been collecting on her. Through the course of this conversation it came up that this student had testing done (last year) through the public schools and qualified for SPED in reading and writing, but not in math. This was not initially at the forefront of my mind since the parents had turned down services through the public schools. During the conversation, my coordinator pointed out to me the importance of addressing these subjects more often, as they would in the public schools. This is not to say that math should not be addressed, but that if she is qualifying for SPED in the public schools in reading and writing, I really need to be spending more time and be using a curriculum to improve her skills in those areas.

This lesson was my first lesson with her since the discussion with my coordinator.

Anticipatory Set: We will discuss what are character traits and use her mom as our example. I will ask her if her mom is nice (for example), she will say yes, and I will say what does your mom do that let’s you know she is nice? We will continue to use her mom while we go through several examples of character traits.

Statement of Objective: The the student will be able to identify 3 character traits of either the mother or Ermaline and the student will use evidence to support her findings. This will be written on the board and we will review it together

Input: I will remind the student to pause when she reads a section that indicates a personality trait of the mother or Ermaline. We will begin reading through the text together.

Guided Practice: As the student reads, I will pause her in her reading of the text when we find a selection that indicates a personality trait of the mother or Ermaline. I will use this as an example of what she should be looking for as we continue to read together.

Independent Practice:  As we continue to read, she will identify personality traits of the mother or Ermaline and use evidence from the text to support

At the end of the lesson, the student needs to state the target and give her input how she learned the lesson.

We used a book and worksheet from readinga-z.com for this assignment. I also found that this book level was a little high, which made her comprehension lower, which made finding character traits particularly difficult for her. She also could have used an entire lesson on character traits prior to this lesson.

 

 

Exemplify professionally-informed, growth-centered practice; this experience informed me and helped my professional growth in how to best teach this student under these circumstances.

Weekly Reflection 13: Math Lesson-O2

Today I was observed by my coordinator with my morning math student. Here was my lesson plan I used in class today.  I thought the lesson went well. My student was able to use the problem solving strategies to reach an answer.

Something interesting that happened was with the following question:

When I asked the student to tell me which operations would be used to solve this problem, she said addition and multiplication (both my coordinator and I would have also said subtraction). I did not want to tell her what to do as this was more of the independent practice piece of the lesson. She then went on to show that she needed to multiply $10 and  3, which equals $30, and then multiply 15 and $5, which equals $75. The student then added $30 and $75 to get $105. She then added up from $105 to get to $150. I would have subtracted $105 from $150 to get $45. It was interesting to see which way she chose to find the answer.

Lesson Plan:

Anticipatory Set: We will review the steps involved in solving a word problem. I will do this by asking her to help me write the learning target (which is: By the end of the lesson I will be able to solve a word problem using the problem solving steps), and we will list the steps together.

Statement of Objective: Today our target is to review and apply steps in order to successfully solve a word problem.  The student needs to state the learning target.

 Input: We will look at one of the problems together. Since this is not the first time we are doing this, we will skip to the guided practice step

 Guided Practice: I will ask student to guide me through the problem. I will ask her questions, such as, what is the first step? What should we do next? What information should we write down? What operation is being used? What is the question? And I will remind her to write the answer to the question out in a sentence.

1-      Underline important information

2-      Pull out important information

3-      Identify the operation and strategy

4-      solve

Independent Practice:  She will have the opportunity to approach and several word problems on her own. I anticipate needing to remind her of some of the steps along the way.

At the end of the lesson, the student needs to state the target and give her input how she learned the lesson, including how she felt about the difficulty of the work.

 

Offer appropriate challenge in the content area.This lesson appropriate for my student, both to challenge her, but also she was able to be successful.