Lead Learners Update 1.3.13

Happy New Year!  We hope you all had a restful, relaxing holiday break enjoyed with family and friends.  Welcome back!

Calendar of Events
1.3 School Resumes
1.7 Admin Meeting (Reserved for problem solving. Refer to John’s e-mail for time)
1.8 Cadre
1.11 PL AM; Clerical PM
1.21 Celebrate of Learning (7:45 - 10:00) @ Prairie Point

ESC Joins Cedar Rapids Site Visit (Ying Ying Chen)
Cheryl, Bill, Ying and John are going to join CR’s site visit from January 8 - 11.  It is common that a district joins a site visit a year before their scheduled site visit. CCSD’s site visit is scheduled for 2013-14.

Iowa Assessment (Ying Ying Chen)
The new format of Iowa Assessment provides no FAY data or % proficient. FAY data will not be available till summer, 2013 regardless which of the following two report systems you choose to use:

1. GW Online Assessment system - you will be able to find % proficient and growth data  URL:  http://www.gwaea.org/apps/assess/signon.cfm
2. Standards Insight (DE reporting system which matches BEDS and is maintained at least a few times a year, but data transfer will take 2-4 weeks.)

Both reports require the user to filter and find the data you are interested.  We have loaded the IA data into Data Director. This system is new and will require initial set up.  We are working on it rigorously and will keep you posted.

Math Task Force Progress (By Ying Ying Chen)
The team reviewed and explored StandardsInsight and the next generation of assessments and began to draft the assessments.  Each level, based on their content knowledge and school improvement focus, worked at a different pace:

• K-4 - Most teams choose a major content of a grade level and began to formulate a unit assessment that is aligned with common core and the next level of assessment (SMARTER Balanced Assessments)
• 5th - almost finished building assessments for all units and added more rigorous assessments in each unit
• 6th - added more rigorous assessments in the unit while continued to build assessments for the future units
• 7-9 - Revised and enriched standards based assessment by adding performance tasks
• 10-12 finished sequencing all units using the StandardsInsight tool on Algebra, Advanced Algebra and Geometry.  Next step is to work with the department on building standards-based units, one at a time.

Next meeting is scheduled for Feb 19.  They will continue to build more assessments for the standards-based units.

A few interesting points from the most recent DE report: (Ying Ying Chen)

• In 2011-12, 43% of Iowa schools were over the average poverty level (The current poverty level, which is based on % of SES, is 40.1%)
• % of Iowa students eligible for free lunch increased from 19.2% to 32.6% in 11 years

• Iowa 4th graders ranked 29/52 on Reading based on 2011 NAEP
• Iowa 4th graders ranked 29/52 on Math based on 2011 NAEP
• 33% of Iowa 4th graders are proficient in Reading; 34% of Iowa 4th graders are proficient in Math based on 2011 NAEP.  The highest performing state, Massachusetts, showed 51% proficient in both Reading and Math.
• Focused strategies to improve Iowa’s education are: Teacher Quality, implementing Iowa Core and RTI
• The RTI model recommended by DE (Chart below): (See details under each column)

Digital Literacy Update (Craig Barnum)
The Media Council has been actively working on revising units and assessments that will provide data for SIAC Smart Goal #3 on students’ digital literacy proficiency.  At our September Council meeting we powered the AASL and ISTE standards.  During the November meeting, we aligned and revised the common summative digital literacy assessments at grades 4, 6, 8, and 10.  We used the time given to us at the December PL day to work out the implementation details with content teachers.  The plan is to have student data back from these assessments and ready to analyze by our final council meeting in April.  

I am really excited by the revisions that have been made to these units.  While they certainly are not perfect, the assessments at each of the targeted grade levels are really improved.  The 4th grade unit is a shell that can work within any of the 4th grade BBH units.  The implementation planning done at the December PL day with the 4th grade teams seemed to go very well.  The 6th, 8th, and 10th grade units/assessments are also integrated within content areas/classes.   Our next council meeting is at the end of January.  We’ll be working on developing common/aligned scaffolds/lessons for the assessments.  I am really looking forward to examining and sharing the data we get back in April.

Math Textbook Adoption Update (by Bill Poock)
K-6 teachers of mathematics are in the midst of preparing lesson plans and materials to teach one unit in a new curriculum (K-6 Math Task Force members only).  Many teams are exploring the materials together as they seek to better understand the curriculum and what support exists to teach mathematics using the standards as our guide.

Each math curricula has its own amount of materials and because of that, we’ll need to be mindful of the need to keep all materials together and in the original boxes so that the materials can be easily transported to the next school in a timely manner to allow teachers ample time to investigate the materials.  See below for the dates for transporting math materials from one building to another.  Tim Potter, Building Delivery, will have additional support on those dates to pick up all math materials and deliver them to the next building.  Please make sure that teachers have ALL materials placed in a location readily accessible by Tim and others to make the delivery process run smoothly--and make sure that materials are placed there on the afternoon of the day before the scheduled delivery date.  Thank you!

Schedule:
January 18th:    all materials picked up and delivered to next school location
February 15th:  all materials picked up and delivered to next school location
March 15th:       all materials picked up and returned to the ESC Warehouse

New Teacher Workshop PM Structure for January 22, 2013 (Bill Poock, Ying Ying Chen, and Cheryl Kiburz)
The next New Teacher Workshop will be held on Tuesday, January 22, 2013.  In addition to peer review on past learning, we will provide new learning with a focus on effective feedback. Since we are only formally meeting in AM, we recommend the following for the PM structure to best support your new teachers:

Demo Lesson with focused strategies/skills such as think aloud and effective feedback
Application:  Allow a large chunk of time for teachers to create/design a lesson within a unit incorporating year long learning (Unit: EU, EQ, LT, CFU/VR, think aloud and feedback)
Coaching with Feedback:  Providing time for new teachers to obtain quality feedback through coaching is an important use of that PM structure.
Implementation Support:   A mid-year self-assessment will be given to new teachers in January following the New Teacher workshop.  End of year assessment will be given in April. You may consider how to structure the following months to reiterate areas of focused learning from the workshops and at your building level.  The assessment will focus on:

• Conceptual lens, EU, EQ, and Learning Targets
• Strategies for CFU and Varied Response
• Think Aloud lessons implemented with frequency (weekly) and fidelity (moves)
• AFL and Feedback

Student Services (by Cheryl Kiburz)
1.21  Due to the “Celebration of Learning” scheduled for the morning of January 21, the district special education teachers will not meet as previously planned in the afternoon.  The district special education teachers will meet for a final time on PL day, February 18, from 1:45-3:45 PM.  
1.29  LETRS
1.30  LETRS

Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling (LETRS)
The district is happy to have a second Co-hort group begin the LETRS training this month.  The feedback from the sessions has been very positive and there are more representatives from the secondary level participating in this next group.  If you have any questions regarding the list of participants, please contact me.