Using the Common Core State Standards to Establish Vertical Alignment

One of the greatest attributes of the Common Core State Standards is its articulation of grade level benchmarks.  The standards outline a step by step progression from one grade level to the next, defining learning outcomes that build upon one another, ultimately leading to mastery of the anchor standard.

One way to help teachers better understand the Common Core, is to develop a “standards ladder” in which the differences between grade level benchmarks or learning outcomes are bold or highlighted. 

By noting the differences between each grade level standard, teachers can easily identify the skills students should have mastered in the previous grade levels, the skills to be instructed, and those skills that are beyond grade level instruction, that could potentially be used to challenge gifted or high level students.  Moreover, the boldor highlighted skills provide teachers with a curricular focus, helping them to pinpoint instructional goals. 

See some examples below:

Developing and Utilizing Protocols to Guide Discussion

One way to focus and engage colleagues in collaborative discussion is to utilize topic specific protocols.  If purposefully designed, a protocol can be used to keep dialogue centered and offer everyone an equal opportunity to participate in conversation.

Consider the following when developing protocols for collaborative work:

1. Set a purpose for discussion –Time is precious. Define the purpose for collaboration and develop a guide that will lead to purposeful, meaningful discussion.
2. Decide what is most important – When outlining timelines for conversation, be sure that participants are spending the majority of time on the most important issues.
3. Ask the right questions – When developing a protocol, be sure to ask critical questions, those that get to the heart of the issue you wish to discuss.   
4. Round it Up –Discussions are best when everyone has an equal opportunity to contribute. Segment your protocols into “rounds” giving all participants an opening for commentary.
5. Leave room for learning – End the discussion with a reflection round, giving colleagues time to share what they have learned from one another.
6. A place for notes – Always leave space for notes so that participants can document their learning and other highlights of the discussion.

Once you have created a protocol, it is time to put it into action.  Assigning roles such as facilitator, time keeper and recorder can be helpful.  The facilitator is put in charge of asking questions and engaging individuals throughout each round.  The time keeper keeps the group on task, while the recorder stays busy jotting notes throughout the conversation.  Utilizing a protocol may feel awkward at first, but with practice, it can be an efficient and powerful way to facilitate meaningful, collaborative discussion.    

Bringing Disciplinary Literacy to Life –Reading Instruction in Every Content Area

One of the hottest topics in education and curriculum today is Disciplinary Literacy. Few people deny that supporting literacy in the disciplines is important, yet the challenge of shifting classroom instruction from purely content to include a mix of higher level literacy skills can seem overwhelming. 

The first step to fostering disciplinary literacy building wide is getting everyone on the same page.  When focused on reading, it is important to remember that most teachers learned to read much differently than our students today, and may not be familiar with the comprehension strategies taught at the elementary level or in language arts classrooms.

One way to do this is to hold mini “workshops” or professional development sessions throughout the school year.  Workshops can provide professional development on how to instruct and assess specific reading comprehension strategies and skills utilizing discipline specific texts in the classroom.  Following each workshop, it is essential that teachers apply these new skills in conjunction with their regular course instruction.  Set a timeline and ask that every teacher in the building provide instruction on the identified strategy and have students practice and apply the skills in each subject area using discipline specific texts. 

Once everyone in the building has had an opportunity to apply the reading strategy in their content area, it is important to make time for small group discussion.  This gives interdisciplinary teams an opportunity to talk about their instruction and to focus on the successes and challenges related to the strategy and skills, as well as provide a time for teachers to learn from one another. After the discussion, teachers should implement the strategy a second time, modifying instruction using what they have learned from their colleagues.

Bringing Disciplinary Literacy to life is definitely a challenge, but taking small steps to bring everyone on board will get you moving in the right direction.   

Making MAPs Meaningful: Individual Student-Teacher Goal Setting Conferences

Ever wonder how you would go about making MAPs assessments meaningful for all of your students?  How to motivate them to take ownership of their own learning, to set goals and create plans to reach them?  Last fall, our middle school consisting of 1300+ students and 100 teachers took this issue head on and succeeded. 

As part of a building wide SMART goal focused on helping all students improve their reading skills, we decided to hold individual student-teacher goal setting conferences with every student following each MAP assessment.  The entire building devoted an hour and fifteen minutes of instructional time four times throughout the school year, to meet with students one on one, to set goals and monitor individual student progress.  At the first conference, advisors shared with students their Baseline RIT score, Growth Target and Target RIT score.  Beyond setting goals, students identified strengths and weaknesses in their reading skills and outlined three to four action steps that they would take to help reach their goal.  After the initial conference, students and teachers used the conference time to discuss their progress, action plans, successes and struggles.  Students even charted their own progress on a graph or individual growth tracking form, which provided a visual to the represent the progress they had made. Everyone was involved! Teachers who were not conferencing with students were in the classrooms meeting with kids and leading activities connected to the reading initiative. 

As teachers were monitoring the individual progress of  their students, administration was monitoring the progress of the building.  By spring of 2012, our middle school made a 7% gain in the number of students who met or exceeded their growth target on the NWEA MAPs reading assessment.  This improvement can be attributed to the steps we took to personalize learning for our students and the efforts we made to make the MAP more meaningful. Clearly, these conferences proved to be a powerful tool used to increase student motivation and ownership and today have been woven into the fabric of our school and culture.   Before you suggest standardized assessments don’t have meaning to your students, consider individual student-teacher conferences focused on goal setting and progress monitoring as a way to build significance.