Expectations at HP

Research says...
High expectations for students is one of the “defining” characteristics of all comprehensive school reform programs. When teachers have high expectations for students and provide tasks that are engaging and of high interest, students build self-esteem, increase confidence and improve academic performance (Brophy, 2008; 2010). 
Read more.

Thank you for your great discussions at our staff meeting about expectations. 
Here is our document:  HP Vertical Expectations Google Doc

Part of Inquiry is that questions lead to deeper questions.  We need to continue asking and answering questions to continually improve.  You may choose a day 6 collaboration meeting to ponder the questions below.


Questions to ponder:

Where are expectations for tying shoes, cutting, coloring?  

Why is handwriting not an expectation anywhere?  

Should keyboarding be an expectation?

How do we encourage QUALITY work?    

How can we teach organization K-5?

How can we support struggling students with homework?

How do we teach more independence K-5?
How do we appropriately challenge our students?

How do we educate parents about what grade level expectations look like?

How do we support students who may not have support at home?

How can we teach socialization and collaboration?

Are we giving too much homework?

What is the purpose of homework?

How does requiring a home link meet the different needs of our students?

What if we gave up homework for a month as a reward?

Are we killing kids’ love of learning?

Connecting at Conferences

The National Education Association has a published list of tips and reminders that are great guidelines to use as we move into our mid-year parent-teacher conferences.

1. If possible, include the child in the conference. A student who can critique their own behavior, performance or study habits completes the reflective circle and creates an atmosphere set for problem-solving. It's also great for the child to hear you sing their praises
2. Be prepared. Have some anecdotal notes, test results, work samples, and so forth to present and discuss in a concrete way, rather than vague references.
3. Ask the parent to bring you up to speed on school years' performance from the home perspective.
4. Be positive and focused on plans to correct any problems you and the parents and/or student agree upon. Be as specific as you can if you have ideas for implementing help. This may include specific plans about how you and the parent will keep in touch in the ensuing weeks. In short, what can the parent reasonably expect you to do to report progress on any new tactics?
5. Recruit the parent by impressing on them that you are a team. This may include suggesting that they take certain responsibilities in helping their student, too, such as monitoring, checking over work, or even signing daily or weekly reports from you.
6. Reflect on the child. Center on how he/she can best achieve progress towards educational success.
7. Be sure the parent knows what to expect as far as progress reports/updates from you throughout the remainder of the year.
8. Provide/remind parents of your contact information  if  concerns should arise.
9. Start and end with something positive about the child.

**What additional tips can you share with colleagues to assist in making the home connection a successful one? Share an idea by posting a comment. Click on  "comment" below to share your valuable insights. **

Student Learning Objectives Reflections

I want to thank all of you for your professionalism and deep reflection of data and dedication to student learning. The strengths of SLO's include:

1. High expectations with goals for student learning.

2. Strong assessments to match outcomes.

3. Deep data analysis and reflections on how to help all students grow.

4. Reflection of the impact on teaching strategies with student learning.

5. Dedication to continuous improvement by refining goals and action midyear.

6. Collaboration to improve teaching and learning.

SLO Questions to Ponder: Please add more ideas to the comments!

How do we maintain expectations for writing to be used all of the time?  

• Post expectations for student reminders.
• Student self-evaluations
• Hold students accountable
• Focus on a few parts of the rubric at a time.

How do we motivate writers? 

• Choice
• Ideas from the workroom were helpful
• Publishing center books available
• Technology- type, apps, dragon dictation
• Collaborative writing,

Should K/1 focus on conventions or craft?

How do we teach peer editing? 

• Observe a teacher- Sue Schaeffer uses a 2 sided form with self and peer assessments
• Author chair and edit together as a class
• Use a buddy class to peer assess and improve work

How do we assess papers in an objective and fair manner? 

• Use anchor papers or exemplars
• Mix papers to assess in May

How can we appropriately challenge ALL of our writers?

• TARGET Time writing groups- advanced and remedial
• Writing contests

MAPS Questions answered by my friend Lynn Lamers who is a NWEA Trainer

Is there a ceiling on MAPS?

•  Technically, there is a “valid” RIT range of 100-320, but there is no true maximum.  Students can score outside that range.

When do we need to switch from MAPS 2-5 to a 6+ version?

• Generally speaking, you transition kids at 6^th grade.  Both tests are capable of reaching above and below the grade range indicated in the name, but of course the 6+ reaches higher and offers more questions as higher level. It also allows for longer reading passages (there is a smaller word limit in the 2-5 test), and the math test goes farther into algebraic concepts.   The only reason for not moving 6^th graders would be if they have extreme mental disabilities and you want to keep them in a lower level test.  You could move high-achieving 4^th or 5^th graders into it if you feel you are not getting a true score from them.  One thing to look at as an indication is the student’s Standard Error.  If it is reaching 5 or 6 or more, it may be an indication the student is “topping out” test; in other words, the program is running out of high level questions to give them.

Can you explain how projected growth is determined?  Is it straight from the RIT score or is it the RIT Score plus student’s age or past performance?

• Projected growth comes from our latest norming study.  It is the mean of observed growth for that grade, subject, season and starting RIT.

How come the projected growth is the same?

• A couple of things happened in the 2011 norming student that flattened out the growth projections.  1) We had a much larger sample size – 5.2 million kids!  When you are taking the average of that many kids, things are going to flatten a bit.  2) Our researchers took out the data of students who took a short time on the fall test and a much longer time on the spring test.  Those kids would have shown “false” high growth, throwing off the mean.  Essentially, they took out the outliers.
• An important consideration here though, is to remember that the projected growth is just that – an estimate of how much the student will grow in a year’s time.  If a student is below grade level, he/she has to make more than that projection to catch up!  The projection basically keeps you where you are:  If you are at the 25^th percentile in 5^th grade, and you meet your projection, you will go into 6^th grade at the 25^th percentile.

 What is the most reliable growth report to measure a teachers’ effectiveness with the same group of students?

• This is more of a personal preference than anything research-based:  I think it’s best to look at Fall to Spring.  Teachers have to own that data, because they’ve had the kids all year.  When you go with Spring to Spring, they can make excuses about the teacher last year, or learning loss over the summer.   Just too many other factors that come into play with S-S.

Common discussions:

It was hard to organize data in a manageable format. Here is a template that may help.

Use multiple measures to show proficiency with common rubric.  Doesn’t need to be ODW only! It can be process writing as well. See the data sheet.

Strong relationship with reading and writing was observed. Read more.

Resources to support you with writing:

Small group writing video

Mentor tests were purchased for the media center. Click here for mentor text ideas. More Mentor Texts

Self and peer assessments are available in the U Drive- HP & WR SMART Goal- Self assessments.

Inquiry into 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi Feb. 7- 23

Thank you to Mrs. Magee and the Fifth Graders who will be teaching us about the Olympics on Kids News.  Tune in each morning to hear these informative reports.  An inquiry into the Olympics is  timely and relevant to our student's lives. 

Goal setting is something both Olympic athletes and our students need to do.  You can use this time for students to reflect on their year and set goals to be shared at conferences.

Our Learner Qualities are used to make us strong students discuss how Olympic athletes display our learner qualities: Caring, Respectful, Responsible, Honest, Open-Minded, Risk-Taker, Curious, Team Player, Perseverance.

Here are resources if you choose to do an inquiry into the 2014 Winter Olympics:

Immerse
My Day Olympic Video

Investigate
Where is Sochi? 
 https://www.teachervision.com/2014-Winter-Olympics/Sochi-Host-City.html

What can my kids read about the Olympics?
Time for Kids

Where are some resources found?
Free lessons from NEA

Who are the athletes?
Team USA

Coalesce
Make sense of your learning.

Go Public
Share your learning.

Writing ideas:

1. Share your dreams of what you want to be when you grow up and the things you need to do to reach your dreams.
2. Persuade people to watch or go to the Olympics in Sochi.
3. Write an informational article for the news about an Olympic athlete.

Data Stories

My new favorite song is  The Story of My Life by One Direction.  

This gave me inspiration to the idea of reflecting on data and making stories and hypothesis from the data to inform our instruction.  As I reflected on data, I made stories about our strengths as a school, areas to work on, and how we can ensure every student is reaching his or her full potential.  Remember we have a lot of formal and informal data that make up the story of each child.  We need to use all the information we have to best meet their needs.  I have provided some reflective questions you can use when reflecting on formal data.  We will spend some time at our progress monitoring meeting on Thursday making our own data stories for our own classrooms.    

Please make sure you get writing data imputed in the T drive by Friday.

Enjoy!

Data Stories

Learning Target:  I can reflect on my data to inform instruction and improve student learning.

Data tells a story.  It is our job to reflect on the data and write the story to support student learning.

Fountas and Pinnell

What students are at their monthly target?  Why do you think they are there?

What students are NOT at their monthly target?  Why do you think they are NOT meeting their target?  What can we do to support their growth?

What students are not growing?  Why do you think they are not growing?  What can we do to support their growth?

Writing

What trends do you see in your students writing? What are their strengths?  Why do you think these are strengths?  

What areas do you see for improvement?

What correlation do you see with your students reading and writing?

MAPS

Look at your students from the 0-20 percentile.  These are students in the red at risk.  Do you agree with this data?  Why or why not?  What are their biggest needs?  Look deeper at strands.   Look at the Descartes according to their RIT score to determine what are the next steps for instruction.

Look at your students from the 21-40 percentile.  These are kids to monitor who would be in the yellow zone.  

Do you agree with this data?  Why or why not?  What are their biggest needs?  Look deeper at strands.   Look at the Descartes according to their RIT score to determine what are the next steps for instruction.

Look at the growth report.  Which students are making expected growth?  Why do you think they are?

Which students are not making their growth target?  Why do you think they are not?  What can you do to appropriately challenge them and support their growth?   Look at the Descartes according to their RIT score to determine what are the next steps for instruction.  

A good goal would be to have 60% of your students meeting their growth target.

DIBELS

Look at your students in red.  These are the most at risk.  Is it consistent with what you observe ibn class and on other assessments?   What areas are their strengths and what areas could they use more support?  Look at DIBELS Online Activities for ideas to support your students.