Educator Effectiveness Training

The Trussville Educator Effectiveness Team met yesterday for a third meeting.  School systems in Alabama have been tasked by the State Department of Education to develop new evaluation plans for their districts.   Teachers and administrators from all four schools met June 12 and July 13 to begin the process of developing a plan for TCS.  The goal of the team is to design an observation tool and expectations that align with our core beliefs.  The study and process will take two years to complete.  The team facilitator is Dr. Alison Grizzle from the SDE.  Plan 2020 calls for the:

"Development and implementation of a professional growth evaluation system for teachers and leaders that includes multiple measures of student growth and achievement."

The team has worked to determine what teachers and administrators in Trussville believe are the top observable things that represent effective teaching.  An initial list includes:

Content Knowledge 
Learning Targets / Standards based instruction 
Active engagement 
Well managed classroom
Positive environment
Student teacher interaction/discourse/questioning 
Differentiation
Assessment 
Rigorous / Relevant Instruction and Learning

Team members have requested feedback from teachers throughout the district as this tool is designed.  The goal is to have a common understanding and consensus regarding effective teaching.

Decisions regarding effective teaching are based on research:

• Kentucky Framework for Teaching 

• Marzano Teaching Evaluation Model

• ​INTASC Standards

• ​Alabama Quality Teaching Standards

• ​Mathematical Practice Standards

• ​Literacy Anchor Standards

• Rigor and Relevance Framework      

Science Training

The Trussville City Schools Science Team met today with area school districts for the first of four meetings during the 15-16 school year to unpack the newly adopted 2015 Alabama State Science Standards.  The team includes administrators and teachers representing every grade level and science content areas.   The team will turn the training around to all science teachers during the year.

The goal of Alabama's K-12 science standards is the achievement of scientific and engineering literacy by all students.  The conceptual framework includes the three basic dimensions for establishing scientific and engineering literacy - scientific and engineering practices, crosscutting concepts, and disciplinary core ideas.  Scientific and engineering practices are a set of skills and tools used by students to investigate, construct models, design and build systems, and develop theories about the world in which they live.  Crosscutting concepts are unifying themes that link scientific and engineering ideas across all domains of science. Disciplinary core ideas in the four domains of Physical Sciences; Life Sciences; Earth and Space Sciences; and Engineering Technology, and Application of Science are broad concepts that provide students with foundational knowledge.  

Looking at Data

"Paine Intermediate teachers, led by academic coaches Kelly McGough and Lisa Lothspeich,  are analyzing their Spring 2015 ACT Aspire Data, Fall 2015 Global Scholar math data, and Fall 2015 STAR reading data in meetings today.  Teachers are reflecting and determining the number of students who are "ready," which skill proficiency was a strength, which skill proficiency was a weakness, and developing an action plan that they will implement to address areas of need.  Teachers are looking at best practices in reading and math and determining their strengths and weaknesses.

More About Learning Targets

We believe that the process of learning should not be a mystery.  Learning targets provide students with tangible goals that they can understand and work toward.  We also know that learning targets must be referred to and used actively during the lesson.  This process transfers ownership for meeting objectives from the teacher to the student, making students active participants in their own learning.  

Every school and every school district in the state will be required to have a goal, also known as a Local Indicator, that they are responsible for achieving by the end of the year.  Our system goal is:

GOAL:  Prepare and support teachers and leaders to utilize learning targets in the classroom to provide more strategic lessons in which students are more focused on their learning goals. 

The strategies and activities that we will use to help us meet those goals are:

STRATEGY 1:  Collaborate with teachers to provide opportunities that will enable teachers to understand the benefits of learning targets and how to use these effectively. 

ACTIVITIES:

• Use professional literature and professional development (book study of Leaders of Their Own Learning) to train staff on the benefits of learning targets to engage students in making progress towards standards and on writing and using learning targets.
• Make Learning Targets a part of the walk-through process to gauge teachers’ use continuously making students aware of the goals for unit instruction.
• Provide time for teachers to continually align standards, learning targets, and assessments, and to craft long-term and supporting learning targets that match assessments.
• Post learning targets and make them available for administrators, parents, and students.

STRATEGY 2:  Provide a variety of opportunities that prepare students to take ownership of their learning and have a clear understanding of the learning expectations for them. 

ACTIVITIES:

• Post learning targets, making them available for administrators, parents, and students, and refer to learning targets throughout the lesson. 
• Connect daily and supporting learning targets to long-term learning targets.
• Teachers formatively assess students’ level of learning with use of learning targets.

We will administer a survey in May to determine if students feel:

• they were more prepared to learn through the use of learning targets,  and 
• learning targets contributed to greater understanding and higher quality student work. 

The Assessment Survey will include statements like:

1.  My teachers regularly post learning targets for each standard or lesson.

2.  My teachers refer to the targets throughout the lesson and check for understanding at the conclusion of the lesson.

3.  Learning targets provide me with an understandable goal that I can work toward.

4.  Learning targets motivate me to accomplish a task when I know it is within my reach.

5.  Learning targets help me create higher quality work.

All administrators and academic coaches have been trained in writing and using learning targets. Throughout the year, teachers will receive additional information about learning targets.  In the meantime, the best way to begin, is to start with knowing what you want your students to be able to do at the end of your lesson.  Write a goal, share that goal with students, and revisit that goal as you teach the lesson.  At the close of the lesson, have students take 30 seconds to reflect and assess whether they met their goal.  We can do this!  We know this strategy will pay off!  

What does Intervention look like?

Students not making adequate progress in the regular classroom in Tier 1 must be provided with increasingly intensive instruction matched to their needs on the basis of levels of performance and rates of progress. These services and interventions are provided in small-group settings in addition to instruction in the general curriculum. As a district, these are the expectations for our students in elementary grades:

• All students receive high quality Tier I instruction in reading and math.
• Students who are not making adequate progress in the regular classroom will receive Tier II, intensive instruction matched to their needs.
• Intervention is a protected time during the day, every day, when only intervention occurs.  This is not a time for administrative duties.  
• Intervention plans should be documented in plan books and preparations completed to ensure that this time is devoted to intervening and reteaching skills to students in small groups.
• Names of students who are receiving intervention are listed in plans.
• Data is collected and documented daily.

Ms. Posey works with students on place value during her intervention time.

Mrs. Johnson pulls a group to practice reading during her intervention period.

Ms. Box works with students to learn spellings of sounds and to decode words during intervention.

Walkthroughs - Learning From Each Other

Walk-throughs for 2015-2016 will begin at HTHS on Monday.  In addition to administrators, teachers will also be participating in the walk-through process.  As a learning community, this is an opportunity for everyone to grow as they glean expertise from colleagues.  The expectation is that everyone should visit at least one person each semester.  Teachers will contact the person they will be visiting in advance.  The walk-through form below will be used by everyone.  Observers are expected to then provide feedback to the teacher they visited..

According to Dr. Cardwell, "We can all learn from each other, and I look forward to learning something new from you this year."

Hewitt-Trussville High School

Classroom Walk-Through Form 2015-16

Teacher:           Date:
Subject/Period:   Number of Students in Class:

Observer:

Circle the section of the lesson you observed
• Beginning of lesson (first 5-10 minutes)
• Middle of lesson
• End of lesson (last 5-10 minutes)

1. What are students expected to learn?  Are students aware of the learning target for the lesson?
• Learning target posted:
• Does the student’s instructional time reflect the learning target that is visible?          
• Are the students still engaged in the learning process during the last 5 minutes of class?  (For example, is the learning target referenced?  Is a formative assessment given?  Is there time for students to ask clarifying questions?)

2. Are the students engaged in rigorous coursework (activities that are challenging but attainable)?   Are students being asked higher order thinking  questions requiring them to apply, evaluate, or synthesize?

3. Is there a supportive learning environment?

• Are students’ learning experiences positive?
• Does the teacher reflect a positive attitude?
• Are the students provided support to accomplish the day’s task?

4. Comments / Suggestions

Teaching our Students about 9/11

From International Business Times:
For teachers who shy away from diving into teaching 9/11, avoiding controversy means depriving students of a critical educational opportunity, proponents of teaching 9/11 in classrooms argue. “Was the Iraq War or the Patriot Act the right response? The kids should be aware of the controversy, and should learn certain skills,” Levine said. “Those are very important civic skills and they’re raised by an issue like 9/11."

The inconsistency and sparseness of coverage has some teachers and those who study education deeply troubled, not only about students’ education but also about the implications for the future of American democracy. In 2011, 21 states directly mentioned 9/11 in their standards for social studies, according to research by Diana Hess, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Jeremy Stoddard, an associate professor in the School of Education at the College of William & Mary in Virginia.

“I’m worried about all of the dehumanizing narratives that can creep in and that can fill that vacuum in the place of a real, detailed, deep understanding of what happened on 9/11,” said Cheryl Duckworth, an assistant professor at Nova Southeastern University in Florida, who has written a book about how 9/11 is taught in U.S. classrooms.

Duckworth and other experts pointed to the fact that in order have a healthy democracy, students need to develop critical thinking skills and a strong understanding of their history so they can engage with their governments.

At HTMS this week, 6th grade social studies prepared lessons on 9/11 that included videos of the attacks, Web Quests for students to research, and assignments that included interviewing adults to gather their perspective of 9/11/2001.  

More About Learning Targets

From "Knowing Your Learning Target" by Moss, Brookhart, and Long:

Regardless of how important the content, how engaging the activity, how formative the assessment, or how differentiated the instruction, unless all students see, recognize, and understand the learning target from the very beginning of the lesson, one factor will remain constant:  The teacher will always be the only one providing the direction, focusing on getting students to meet the instructional objectives. The students, on the other hand, will focus on doing what the teacher says, rather than on learning.  

Students who don't know the intention of a lesson expend precious time and energy trying to figure out what their teachers expect them to learn.  

A  shared learning target unpacks a "lesson-sized" amount of learning - the precise "chunk" of the particular content students are to master.   It describes exactly how well we expect them to learn it and how we will ask them to demonstrate that learning.  

When writing learning targets, answer the three questions from a student's point of view:

1. What will I be able to do when I've finished this lesson?

2. What idea, topic, or subject is important for me to learn and understand so that I can do this?

3. How will I show that I can do this, and how well will I have to do it?

Learning targets have no inherent power.  They enhance student learning and achievement only when educators commit to consistently and intentionally sharing them with students.  Meaningful sharing requires that teachers use the learning targets with their students and students use them with one another.  The level of sharing starts when teachers use student-friendly language - and sometimes model or demonstrate what they expect - to explain the learning target from the beginning of the lesson, and when they continue to share it throughout the lesson.  

Learning Targets

From Leaders of Their Own Learning:

"Even well written learning targets will contribute little to engaging, supporting, and holding students accountable for their learning if they are not referred to and used actively during the lesson.   In addition to frequent checks throughout a lesson, the end of a lesson is also an important moment for checking for understanding." ((p.29)

Mrs. Bivens, third grade teacher, reviews the learning targets at the start of the lesson, clarifying any unfamiliar terms.  She makes sure students understand what their learning target is for the lesson.

Take a look at this learning target from Mrs. Peters' classroom.  She frequently references the targets and clarifies unfamiliar words, and the class collectively checks off the targets when they feel they have been mastered.  

Principals Collaborate at Key Leaders

Leaders from Central Alabama met together in Gardendale today at Key Leaders Network to learn with and from each other.  The focus for their learning this year is Cultures Built to Last, Systemic PLCs at Work.

An Effective Strategy You Can Put in Place RIGHT NOW

From SmartBlog on Education

Ask students to reflect.On the surface, this might appear to be an obvious strategy. Unfortunately, it’s one of the most overlooked, yet best, practices any classroom teacher can use. Consider the elements of a typical lesson: Direct instruction, interaction, practice, observation/assessment, closure. While teachers have many variations on this format, what is typically left out (mainly due to lack of time) is reflection and self-evaluation. The best way to overcome the issue of time is to plan daily reflection into your lesson. How can this be done in a class period that might last 40 minutes? Give your students a space to write — a blog, a social network or even a spiral notebook, and plan as little as five minutes at the end of class for process writing. Build these journal entries around questions such as, What did I learn? Why is it important? What is unclear? How can I explain this in under a minute? Experts such as Thomas Guskey, Dylan William and Alfie Kohn have touted the effect of this kind of reflection and feedback for decades. When you consider that time involved — roughly five minutes — and the value of encouraging independent, self-evaluative learning, reflective writing must be a part of your daily routine.

Read about five right-now strategies that you can put into effect today.