Lead Learners Update 11.26.12

Tell me to what you pay attention, and I'll tell you who you are.

--Jose Ortega y Gasset

Calendar of Events
11.26 Walpole Workshop (K-4)
11.27 Walpole Workshop (5/6 and 7-9)
11.28 Media Council
11.29 Digital Train the Trainer Day
11.30 Digital Train the Trainer Day
12.3 PL Day
12.4 Cadre Day (Common day)
12.5 Writing Task Force
12.6 Digital Literacy Planning

Celebration of Learning (By Ying Ying Chen)
Cassie Erkens, the consultant we hired two years ago, emphasized the importance of celebration.  Deliberate celebration of learning, according to Cassie, has a positive effect on school culture.  At the system level, we witness success stories all the time.  For example:

• Crest just did a presentation about concept-based learning at the AIW leadership group as most other AIW schools struggle with this practice.
• Heights’ SINA process has been considered a model, and the results have been evident in classroom practice.
• View’s 4th grade teachers have used the new math standards and redesigned their teaching to be more personalized, student-centered, concept-based and standard aligned. They also embed digital tools to manage student assessment and feedback. They will submit their experience for the Iowa ASCD presentation!
• Ridge teachers are well positioned for its Literacy Improvement Cycles and produced team common formative assessments for their literacy units.
• Creek began to use the newly designed, competency-based report card this year and continues to build their units and assessments aligned with standards.
• Point’s PLC structure is engenius that teachers have 80 minutes a week to collaborate.  Their student-joined tuning protocol has been featured by Transform Ed.
• PHS will have their first adult POL (presentation of learning) in December.  What a courageous move!

Our district has been invited to present at the Spring Iowa ASCD Statewide Conference with the focus on Concept-based learning and Iowa Core.  This invitation is not self promoted.  Others have heard about our work and are interested in learning from us.  It is a great honor.  Bill and I will  get some input from you as regarding the content of the presentation. The district is also working on some form of celebration in mid-year.  More details to come.

Q/A (By Ying Ying Chen)
As schools differentiate PD and school improvement focus, we have less opportunities to answer questions directly. This section is written with the intention to clarify questions we heard from the field.  ESC will be happy to schedule additional conferences with individual principals if further clarification is needed.

Q1: What is the relationship between SMART Goals and “Cycle of Improvement”?  
The cycle of improvement is a framework that helps schools reach SMART goals.  We have worked very hard on unit design, Common Formative Assessment and AFL in the past two or three years.  Our weakness has been completing the entire cycle so that we can see the effect of our instruction and respond to student needs. So far, all schools are approaching the work diligently.  Our strengths will come from our administrative PLC when we share our insights, pitfalls and successes.  ESC will also focus on unpacking, prioritize standards and building common assessments with curriculum teams.

Q2:  What is the expectation on Curriculum Mapping/Rubicon?
Rubicon is a tool to help teachers plan quality units individually and collaboratively.  The research-based, locally designed framework (UBD/Concept Based Instruction) helps us, the entire system, to sustain best practice in curriculum work.  

The only tight guidance from the district: principals ask teachers to identify one (or two) subject area to map their instructional units.  This is the same expectation we have had for the past three years.  Teachers could use the same maps from last year and choose to improve some over time. In addition to summer Rubicon orientation sessions, Tutorial 1 (how to begin a unit) and Tutorial 2 (How to transfer a map from Edhesion) have been mailed to all teachers.  Transferring a new unit takes about 5 minutes.

Eventually, when all core curriculum anchor units are sequenced, they will be our planned curriculum (they are “D” - district maps).  Teacher and team maps will be the taught curriculum (they are “B”- building or “I” - individual maps).  Unit assessment results will be the learned curriculum.  We estimate that we should be able to have all “District” units established in four core areas within 18 months.  (Note: Singletons will have only individual maps unless they choose to work with vertical teams and build district maps.)

Q3. Why is it important to use Rubicon?
The most important reason is to keep the research-based framework in front of all teachers as they collaborate on units. The second reason is that teachers will look at standards more carefully when they use the tool to plan units.  Thirdly, Rubicon is our district’s chosen strategy to monitor IC implementation, which is a state mandate.  If a school does not choose this strategy, the school will have to provide other strategies/evidence such as Power School (which is impossible) or ICAT.  Schools that have used ICAT have concerns about its “event” based nature and the results are not deep enough.  Most importantly, Rubicon is sustainable.  Quality units can be preserved, shared and improved over time at individual, team and system levels.  The administrators and the Rubicon Task Force will learn the report function in January.  It is vital that all teachers enter their chosen subject so that we have real data to analyze in January.

Q4: What should be entered on the map?
Teachers should select standards first (check them), then enter EU, EQ, Concepts, Content (just nouns) and Skills/Learning Targets.  They should also build assessments that are aligned with the chosen standards.  Additional information will be teachers’ choice.

Q5: Do we assess the unit recorded on Rubicon when we collect data for SMART goal #1?  Which unit should they assess?
Yes, we should ask the staff to record on a map, then assess the unit.  The reason is that our TPP is highly aligned with the Rubicon template.  It will raise their awareness on quality with the “help bubbles” and other references available to them.  Regarding which unit to assess, our Oversight team did discuss this last year.  The committee agreed that it should be the unit they are currently working on, not just any “old unit”.  Reason for this decision?  It is “improvement” we are after, not compliance.

Q6.  Data collection still feels like compliance, what can we do?
Adult learners need formative assessment, peer and self-assessment just like any other learners.  Using TPP to self-assess does not need to be an event, but a habit.  Capitalize your weekly collaboration by asking teams to reflect and set small goals as they plan authentic lessons to address student learning needs.  Since unit design and AFL are not new learning but maintenance learning, principals can provide guidance without too much direct instruction.  For example:

Tight: each team will reflect their units against TPP at least once/per unit

Loose: when or how to do it and where to record team reflection or goal setting

In addition, schools can celebrate and highlight teams’ successes and reflection through weekly news and on PL days. Their reflection will provide insight to building leaders regarding their next level of work.

More About SMARTER Balanced Assessment (By Ying Ying Chen)
Even though Iowa’s assessment plan is still pending on legislative decisions,  we begin to hear more update about SMARTER.  We keep you posted as our teachers should align their assessment design with the same level of rigor as seen in SMARTER.  A few interesting points:

• An initial pilot school reported that the pilot test was 90 minutes long for only 15-18 problems.  This means, it involves a lot of analyzing, thinking and WRITING, not quick/short answers.
• The actual assessment will be about 4 hours long and the assessment is not timed.
• Invitation for larger scale pilot will happen soon. (Advantage for being in pilot: teachers will have a preview of the assessment)

This reinforces what we have been thinking along the way - we must design more rigorous assessments if we are serious about implementing Iowa Core.  We have been collecting assessment/task samples to prepare our curriculum councils for the upcoming work.  All the hard work you are doing on unit design, common assessment, PLC, AIW and PBL etc. are fully aligned with the thinking behind the assessment design.

Student Services (By Cheryl Kiburz)
12.3   Special Education Teachers meet from 1:45-3:45 PM
         IAA/Literacy Action Plan-Heights
         Reading Instruction- Point
         Challenging Behavior-***change in location--ESC Boardroom

12.6   LETRS Training-Teaching Phonics, Word Study, and the Alphabetic Principle
12.7   LETRS Training-Digging for Meaning: Teaching Text Comprehension

Curriculum Matters (By Bill Poock)
K-6 Math Textbook Adoption Update:
On November 13th, we met as a K-6 Math Task Force Textbook Adoption team to begin the process to recommend a new mathematics curriculum for K-6 for the 2013-2014 school year.  To review, we concentrated on the following:

1. Learned about the 3 shifts in the standards:  focus, coherence, and rigor
2. Needs assessment using district mathematics data (Iowa Assessments and MAP)
3. Needs assessment reviewing K-6 math teachers feedback from survey
4. Investigated the K-8 Publishers’ Criteria and Evaluation instrument we will use
5. Exploring mathematics curriculum online
6. Narrowed down to 3 vendors

We have made the decision to narrow down to 3 vendors:  enVisions, Math in Focus (US version of Singapore Mathematics), and Go Math!.  All three curricula look very different than what we’ve been using in Everyday Mathematics.  With the Common Core State Standards, there is more of an emphasis on learning to mastery, so a spiral philosophy such as Everyday Mathematics is inconsistent with the standards and their intent.
I have started receiving boxes of materials.  LOTS of boxes!  We will meet again on Thursday, December 6th from 4:00 - 6:00 PM in the ESC Boardroom to begin the next component--pilot/review.  Teachers will dig deeper into the evaluation criteria and will also get samples/boxes for use.
Our timeline will run roughly about 19-20 school days with each set of curriculum.  There will be enough materials for the representative on the Math Task Force team (K-6) to have a complete set of materials.  I’m hopeful that we’ll receive additional materials so that other teachers can also view the materials.  The expectation will be that Math Task Force members K-6 will need to pilot/review at least one unit/chapter within the materials.  I will share a timeline/schedule that will need to be adhered to closely and the procedures for making sure that all materials are passed to the next school when appropriate.
Thank you in advance for your patience and flexibility--there are lots of materials and many things to consider as we move forward in this process.  We will run the pilot/review until spring break in March, followed by a vendor presentation of our final 2 vendors shortly after Spring Break vacation.

Walpole/McKenna workshop at GWAEA:  
On Monday, November 26th, your K-1 reps on the Literacy Team will attend the Walpole/McKenna workshop at GWAEA to learn more about effective differentiation of the ELA block for primary grades.  This workshop will be an important foundation for us as we seek to provide more effective differentiated instruction for students who need additional support.  It is also important because your reps on this team will lead the PL session on January 11th (AM session of the AM-PL and PM-Clerical Day).  It will be important that you have follow-up discussions with the members of this team as we determine what is best to be shared with the rest of the K-1 teachers to ensure that we have adequate time to share what is needed.  There will also be a time to share diagnostic reading materials with these teachers and to think about follow-up sessions (1/2 day sessions for each team - kindergarten team and 1st grade team).  More details will be shared as we have more clarity about the materials and the schedule.

The 5-9 reps will attend the November 27 workshop with the focus on vocabulary, comprehension strategies and text complexity. These strategies will strengthen instructional core as they carry out the literacy standards.