Planning for 2015-16

Can you believe we are planning for next year?  May is almost here.  

Our Tuesday staff meeting will be devoted to planning for 2015-16.

Here are the Planning slides for your teams to review at  our staff meeting and the next Day 6 Collaboration.  You will have hard copies packets at the meeting.  Make sure you hand in one copy to Susie for your team with your input. 
Here are important links:
HP Survey
Hudson School District Survey
Summer Library Sign Up

We will also have forms to use to reflect on your SLO.  We will collaboratively score them and some of you may want to reflect and self assess your work on the process as well as the goal.  Remember SLO meetings are scheduled for May 6 & May 20  Sign up outside my office!  Our May 12 our staff meeting will be optional as a support session for Educator Effectiveness.

Learning from others about.... The Badger Exam

Badger Exam Questions and Answers

Thank you to our colleagues who have started the Badger Exam.  They have provided feedback from the Middle School, Houlton, and RiverCrest.  Please check out the questions and answers to the Badger Exam on the link above.

Please add more questions on the Google Doc above we can continue to learn together about the Badger Exam. 

Ellen- Power of Teachers

Power of Teachers

Thank you for all you do to make a difference for our students. 

As I reflect on our students at the talent show yesterday, we have taught students to live the learner qualities.  
They demonstrated: 

• Risk- taking by sharing their talent in front of 500 people.
• Caring by encouraging others and sharing successes.
• Perseverance by working hard.  Brenna started her song 3 times because of technical difficulties and never flinched.
• Teamwork by working together on planning the show and all of the group talents.

I am so proud of our students, teachers, and families.

This doesn't happen by accident.  It is from the continued commitment to teaching, modeling, and caring for each individual student.    

This short video honors the multitude of ways teachers make a difference in this world.
Ellen Power of Teachers

We want to honor your work with a District Happy Hour on May 1.  I hope we can all celebrate together our hard work and the amazing profession I am honored to work in: EDUCATION!  

Badger Exam April 9 Late Start

Badger Exam April 9 Late Start- at HP 
3-5 and Teachers Involved in the Badger Exam will work from 8-10 in the Media Center
K-2 will be preparing for PALS as individuals or as teams
Special Teachers will work on Educator Effectiveness as individuals or teams


How can I prepare myself as a teacher?
Together:
Proctor PowerPoint as a staff
Sign Confidentiality agreement
Performance Tasks 

As teams or individuals:
Teacher Tutorial (Links are located on home page HSD Folder 2)
Watch:

• Logging into the test 3:46
• Test Navigation :34
• Test Tools 10:01
• Reviewing and Submitting 1:31
• Preparing Students :48

How can I prepare my students?
Student Tutorial  15:51  together on SMART Board  
Eliminate Global Notes Section

Bring the students to the lab to practice with...
Sample Test-  Plan for approximately 30 minutes for math and 30 minutes for reading.  You can do one or both if you want.  The purpose is to get familiar with the format and tools. You may sign up on the Skyward calendar or use other devices such as laptops or chrome books.

Other Resources:
Here is the UPDATED schedule for HP Spring Assessments- Badger Exam and MA
TOMS

Testing Day:

Before

1. Check to make sure all testing tickets are there for all students as soon as they arrive.  Let Anita know if some are missing any tickets or if there are errors.
2. Complete the student tutorial in your class on the SMART Board
3. Take the practice test to familiarize students with the format.
4. Communicate to families exact testing times to minimize absences.
5. Bring a quiet activity for early finishers. (Book, drawing, fun packet)
6. Remind students that no electronic devices are allowed. (Kindles, iPads, phones, etc.)
7. Copiers will unplugged and all disruptions will be minimized.

During

1. Read directions.  (Unlimited time)
2. Encourage students to do their best
3. Help students log in- The first digit is a zero not an o
4. Walk around to monitor student work
5. List kids who have not tested and put their test ticket in the appropriate bucket
6. If kids need a break send them for a drink.  No need to PAUSE.
7. Give a 10 minute warning so students can complete flagged items.  You will not be able to go back and finish.
8. When the session is over if you are complete select SUBMIT.  If you need more time and are not complete select LOGOUT.

After

1. Collect tickets and scratch paper and put in appropriate bin to be shredded.
2. All bins will be locked up in Susie's office for security each night.
3. Celebrate the hard work.

Questions and Answers

How many questions on the test?

ELA-  about 45-47 questions

Math- about 40 questions

Math Performance Assessment- 4-6 questions

Please add more questions on the Google Doc above we can continue to learn together about the Badger Exam.

Educator Effectiveness Documentation Log

Educator Effectiveness Documentation Logs

At our staff meeting on Tuesday, you'll have time to work on your documentation

logs. Within the Educator Effectiveness tab on my blog, I have the table showing what components you're responsible for each year of your evaluation cycle and an updated HP timeline

During our work session on Tuesday morning we will  upload documents into my learning plan.   Be thinking of possible documents that fit under the standards 2, 4, 6 and save them on your desktop.  You will need to bring your own computer.

Standard 2 ~ Instructional Planning

• Differentiation in lesson planning and practice based on data sources
• Outline of a lesson with differentiation for multiple ability levels and learning styles
• Modifications of  classroom level assessments
• Evidence of technology integration
• Computer-generated presentation materials
• Unit overviews- Integrated Unit
• Teacher-made instructional materials (e.g. handouts)
• Written evidence of integrating writing and content reading into classroom instruction (e.g., a list of reading and writing activities in content lessons)
• Evidence of enrichment activity planned
• Annotated samples or photos of instructional materials created by you
• Pre-assessment samples
• List of formative/summative assessment use/examples
• Google Classroom

Standard 4 ~ Assessment For/Of Learning

• Samples of teacher-made formative and summative assessments
• Brief report describing your record keeping system and how it is used to monitor student progress
• Scoring rubric(s) and summary of how used
• Samples of educational reports, progress reports, or letters prepared for parents or students
• Evidence of students’ self-reflection and/or self-monitoring
• Assessment feedback to students
• Evidence of collaboration with instructional coaches
• Electronic pensieve anecdotal records- Running records,Comprehension Checks

Standard 6 ~ Professionalism

• Professional Development Log
• Examples of collaborative work with peers – reflection, description, co-teaching lesson, etc.
• Documentation of in-service training or coursework
• PDP annual reflection
• Parent nights - presentations for group/classroom
• Community service
• Parent perception data
• Service on committees - school, district, civic
• Staff presentation evidence
• Mentoring documentation
• 
  

Sample artifacts for Teachers
Sample artifacts for Specialists

Here is a video teaching you the process if adding an artifact.  One document  for Standard 6 is a professional development log. This is something you can be adding to every year of your evaluation cycle to show you're effective or distinguished in the area of professionalism. This log is available in your my files tab in mylearningplan, and it looks like this.

You can download this document and be adding to it each year from now until your summative evaluation.

Remember all teachers need to upload three documents total this year (except year three probationary teachers:  one document).  Teachers on cycle for evaluation need to have their documentation logs reflected on and submitted to me before May 1st.

Planning for Guided Reading

Planning for Guided Reading

In the world of personalizing instruction, using the DOK that we learned about from TLA members last week is a way to add rigor.

Our SMART Team has designated this week's staff meeting to using the updated data to plan for your guided reading groups to help all students grow as readers and to appropriately stretch them.  You can work individually or as a team.

1.  Create new guided reading groups
2.  Think about how we can add depth to thinking using the DOK or the Fountas and Pinell Continuum.  DOK Wheel   DOK Question Stems
3.  Plan for Guided Reading Groups
4.  Here is another cool resource from Mary Beth Elliot that you may want to check out.
 The Differentator

Revising Learning Targets for Depth, Student Ownership, and Variety

Revising Learning Targets for... 

Depth

Student Ownership 

 Variety

We will be looking this week at how we prepare students for deeper thinking through the use of Learning Targets.  You may be familiar with Blooms Taxonomy of Questions and the Rigor and Relevance matrix to get to depth.   Depth of Knowledge is the framework used by our Badger/ Smarter Balanced Exam.    

Our TLA leaders, Julie Zamzow, Michele Delong, and Lori Head will be sharing how to use Depth of Knowledge (DOK) to shift learning targets to be more rigorous.  Click here for our presentation.  

Your homework for our next staff meeting.
1.  Please bring 1 learning target from any subject to analyze at the staff meeting. 

2.  Please comment on the blog with questions or difficulties you have using learning targets in your classroom.

Immerse/ Frontload
Click here to learn more about DOK:  Learn about DOK

Here are the 4 levels of Depth of Knowledge.

Level 1: Recall and Reproduction

Tasks at this level require recall of facts or rote application of simple procedures. The task does not require any cognitive effort beyond remembering the right response or formula. Copying, computing, defining, and recognizing are typical Level 1 tasks.

Level 2: Skills and Concepts

At this level, a student must make some decisions about his or her approach. Tasks with more than one mental step such as comparing, organizing, summarizing, predicting, and estimating are usually Level 2.

Level 3: Strategic Thinking

At this level of complexity, students must use planning and evidence, and thinking is more abstract. A task with multiple valid responses where students must justify their choices would be Level 3. Examples include solving non-routine problems, designing an experiment, or analyzing characteristics of a genre.

Level 4: Extended Thinking

Level 4 tasks require the most complex cognitive effort. Students synthesize information from multiple sources, often over an extended period of time, or transfer knowledge from one domain to solve problems in another. Designing a survey and interpreting the results, analyzing multiple texts by to extract themes, or writing an original myth in an ancient style would all be examples of Level 4.

Investigate/ Coalesce- Tuesday's Staff Meeting
Information from TLA members at staff meeting.  Click here for our presentation.
DOK Wheel
DOK Question Stems

Go Public
Reflect on your learning targets.   What level in DOK do they fall?
How can you move to the next level with some small shifts.
Rubric to analyze questions or assessment tasks.