By Rob
Struggling students are referred to the Guidance Team. We identify the most significant barrier to student success. We develop a plan to address the barrier. We choose metrics to track the effectiveness of our plan. We document our interventions and meet regularly to track progress.
A teacher may bring a student to the team who’s reading below grade level. We review the student’s reading data. Perhaps we find evidence they need phonics support. We align our school’s resources- this student will meet with our reading specialist for an 8 week phonics intervention. This may lead to improved fluency and the student can then carry the meaning while reading. As a result, their reading comprehension improves. I’ve seen this happen. It demonstrates some of the best work a school can do.
By Rob
One of my favorite summer activities was playing fetch in the park with my dog. After the pooch was worn out we’d sit in the grass and I’d marvel at the swallows that arrive by late morning. These birds would swoop, dive, bank and turn. It was dizzying to see how quickly they’d change directions and commit to a new path.
These last few days I've been immersed in a professional experience that has shifted my direction as a teacher: how to use video as a means for facilitating my own and my colleagues' professional growth.
To use video observation successfully, one key is to look objectively at a video of classroom practice and identify critical teacher actions and student actions that are observable–and to note or record these observable actions without evaluation or judgment. Instead of watching teachers and thinking "I like how they did that" or "that is not a good assignment," my attention shifted to noticing the actions without judgment: "The teacher waited while the student revised his own incorrect verbal answer" or "The student recorded her thoughts on a continuum to self-assess."
Judgment is not forbidden, it just isn't first. By identifying the "observables"–the objective concrete details of teaching and learning–I can build a better foundation for evaluating what I can use to improve my own practice and what specific actions can do this. This all got me thinking.
By Mark
This summer, I've been participating in a book study about challenges in implementing Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts. In that spirit, I sat down today to look at my scope and sequence for the classes I teach (Freshman English Lit and Comp). All along I've been saying to myself and others that this whole Common Core Standards shifting is no big deal: we're already doing that work, it's just a matter of identifying in those standards all the things we already do–we won't really have to do much that is "new."
As it turns out, this whole process really made me rethink what I teach and how I teach. I found that there were many standards which were addressed, reinforced, and assessed in basically every single unit of the sequence. I also found a few standards which never appeared more than once, buried as a footnote in some broader unit. More concerning: some of the projects and assessments that I and my students enjoy the most were supported by only tenuous connections (at best) to the standards.
This coming school year, I anticipate that many of my posts will reflect my process with the Common Core. Interestingly, when I try to characterize my feelings, the first word that pops into my head (however irrational this may be) is the word mourning. Some of those projects that kids seem to connect with so well lack strong connection to Common Core, even if they are the tasks that former students still recall to me ten years later. No matter how much I, or they, love the experience, these are the things I really need to examine and honestly assess whether they belong in my classroom under my new expectations.
As I try to help other teachers make this transition to the new standards, I need to remember that word that popped into my head. As I encounter resistance, I need to remember that isn't just about being "opposed to change." I need to remember that the first reaction when you are told to do something new might not actually be a reaction to that which is new, but rather a quick and confusing pang of loss for something deeply enjoyed that no longer seems to fit.
By Mark
There will be coffee awaiting me in the main office tomorrow in honor of Teacher Appreciation Week.
Coffee: I used to joke with my students that if any of their papers came back with coffee stains from me, it was a bonus 5 points. That comment comes from a deep memory of receiving back many an assignment in Mrs. Jones's class that had coffee rings on the corners.
On my drive in to work this morning, I got to thinking about Mrs. Jones, from whom I took 9th grade science, chemistry, physics, geometry, Algebra II and Advanced Math Pre-Calc. She was basically half the science department and half the math department in the tiny high school from which I graduated.
My freshman year, a rather self-important group of us claimed that we were going to get her fired. She simply expected too much of us. It was unreasonable. A few of us had parents on the school board, so we knew it would be a slam dunk.
By Travis
I took my sons to school with me on national Take Your Child to Work day. It humanized me. I have a good rapport with students because I care about them as people outside of my subject area. I know for many students the intricacies of Shakespeare’s language in The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet is not what is important for their survival that day. I also know that my class may just be a blip on their day of ups and downs. Given this, I work hard to make their time in my class an “up.”
By Mark
Of my seniors, some may graduate, some may become a statistic.
Of the total FTE in my building, some may have jobs next year, some may be RIF'd.
Of the courses on the master schedule, some classes may be scratched, some may be cobbled together.
I may decide to stay in the classroom. So much depends.
All of these this-or-thats will be decided in May. How appropriate.
By Mark
For several years, my building has been identifying and aligning curriculum to standards–first state standards and now Common Core Standards–with part of this process being the identification of the Power Standards! each unit of instruction is to focus upon.
Simultaneously, we are gearing up for a new teacher evaluation system which figures heavily on a teacher's ability to define what his/her students' learning targets are and assess and document student progress toward those targets.
To an extent, both have been an uneasy fit for me as a high school English teacher. It is not so much in the philosophies underpinning these movements. It is that no one that I talk to seems to understand what I've started calling "The English Problem."
By Mark
Everyone has probably heard about, or actually read, the New York Times website article that discussed the supposed downward spiral of teacher morale. It highlighted how teachers working in struggling schools had the lowest morale, and the teachers with greater satisfaction tended to have "more opportunities for professional development, more time to prepare their lessons and greater parental involvement in their schools."
Travis recently shared his one cent about how morale can easily crumble in our present atmosphere. Tamara shared some thought provoking questions, too. And Tom found himself indigo and then entered stage five.
In my meetings and phone calls and emails and faxes (yep, faxes) with legislators the last few weeks, I've found myself repeating the phrase that I feel like I have "a target on my back and the blame for all society's ills on my shoulders." In quiet moments in the car or after my kids are in bed, I too have thought about what other jobs I could apply for.
But the next day, I walk into my classroom, close the door on it all, turn to face them and breathe a sigh of relief.