4 Box Data Sorting Tool with Guiding Questions

Here is the tool for today's work during PLC: Please copy it and paste it into a Word Document.

Growth Breakdown By Class

Content Area____________________

Administration ___________________

2. Meets or exceeds proficiency but not typical growth (maintains RIT but not percentile)	1. Meets or exceeds proficiency and meets or exceeds typical growth (maintains/increases both RIT and percentile)
4. Does not meet proficiency or typical growth (maintains/decreases RIT and decreases percentile)	3. Does not meet proficiency but does meets or exceeds typical growth (maintains/increases both RIT and percentile)

Use your Student Goal Setting Worksheets to sort students into the above four categories. Write their names in the table.

After filling in the table, look at boxes 1 and 3. Highlight students who meet expected growth (maintain percentile) one color, and highlight those who exceed expected growth (increase percentile) a different color.

Guiding Questions:

1. What common things describe the kids in each box?
2. What support is currently in place for kids in group 4? What supports could benefit them?
3. What were strands were strengths of kids in group 4?
4. Why do you perceive kids landed in group 2? What strands were relative weaknesses of those students? What could help them move to group 1?
5. Are there any surprises in group 1? Why?
6. What were relative strand strengths for group 1?
7. What is working for the kids in group 3?
8. In group 1 and 3, what is in place that made students exceed expected growth? Did they show growth in specific strands?
9. Which next assessments would be most informative for each quartile?

parent survey

parent survey

Using MAP DeCartes to Write I Can Statements

Last week I had a post about building the data ladder using MAP. Let's take that information now and write I Can statements.

Often people write I Can statements from the state/district standards, but the MAP data ladder is a great way to do this and differentiate the I Can for each student's needs. Keep in mind, we can differentiate in three different ways: the process of a lesson, the presentation of a lesson, or the product of a lesson. In this case, we are going to differentiate the I Can (the learning target); however, in the long run, all kids are still accountable for the state/district standards. But as teachers, we know not all the kids will get there on the same day, and some may have gotten there last week.  This will allow us the ability to scaffold the learning of our struggling students, and enrich the learning of our advanced students.

After you have built your data ladder, as detailed in the earlier post, you will have a single strand highlighted across multiple RIT bands, covering all the students in your class. At this point, you have already grouped those RIT bands as well for instruction; so now it is time to write an I Can statement for each grouping.

If you listed these on the board as a ladder, for example, it would help students see the levels of progression for different skills and enhance the buy in that purpose provides to a lesson.

A Goal is a Dream With a Plan: Goal Setting for MAP

Goal setting can be a bit tricky. We can set MAP goals, but really we should be encouraging kids to set goals for learning, which will be reflected in their MAP scores. To make this happen, goal setting should start right after MAP testing ends. This way you can highlight areas of concern for kids and formulate a plan of how to learn the necessary things to make growth on MAP.  Whether you set class goals or help students set individual goals, remind them that a goal is a dream with a plan; without a plan, a dream is just a dream.

Goals can be set for overall gains or by strand. We'll look at both in this post. To set goals by strand, check the stands on the bottom of the teacher report for overall strands, or on the same sheet for individual strand standing.

You can also use the goal setting worksheet to consider strands or overall goals. Goal setting worksheets are listed under dynamic reports; choose goal setting worksheet from the left hand column. The buttons to produce the documents are at the top of the page. 

Here is a an example. The top, narrow box is goal setting area. That is related to overall goal setting.  In the area to the right of the report, you'll see "FALL 2011-SPRING 2012." Under that heading, you'll see a column titled "TYPICAL GROWTH." That is how much this particular kid needs to grow from FALL TO SPRING to stay at the same percentile. It is the typical growth for a kid with this initial score. If a kid is at the 48%ile in the fall, it may be reasonable to say, "48%ile is pretty good. Let's shoot for that typical growth. We will be happy with that." If a kid is at the 90%ile in the fall, you may say the same thing -- let's shoot for that typical growth goal. 

However, if your kid is in the 10%ile in the fall, you may say "Yeow! 105%ile is not high enough. Typical growth is not enough to catch that kid up! We need to aim for more."

A second part of the goal setting sheet is the narrower columns below; this is the strand goal setting area.  That is where you will see the strands listed, along with their RIT band for the strand. The highest one is in bold; the lowest is in italics.

In the next post, we'll talk about setting goals based on strands and what that might look like.

Build a Data Ladder with MAP

Here is a new level of using your MAP data to plan your instruction. Step by step, here we go:

1. Determine what you plan to teach. For example, you might decide, based on your general impressions of your data, that you want to work on Measurement.

2. Print the PGID or DesCartes for that strand.

3. Pick a skill. Follow that skill through the RIT bands and highlight them. Maybe you choose telling time, for example. (Hand courtesy of Kaye Peters.)

4. See which bands overlap or could easily be taught together. If you chose telling time, you might see how that progresses -- from the hour, to the half hour to the 5 minutes to the minute. Make groupings that feel good to you. Maybe it seems reasonable to group to the hour and to the half hour, and the one minute people need to go in a group alone. 

6. Think about what you already teach for this topic; it's likely that how you normally teach will reach some of the groups. This will help you think about how you will extend the lesson to reach everyone on both sides of "typical."

5. Then, look at the RIT bands for your kids in measurement. 

6. Place the kids on the appropriately highlighted strand, and yippee! You can now again think of what you have normally taught, and by looking at the RIT bands, determine where you might need differentiation.

7. Plan to extend/simplify/adapt what you teach to meet all the bands, so each kid can grow with this lesson.

Teach Like a Champion: No Opt Out

In the book "Teach Like a Champion," (Jossey-Bass, 2010) teacher Doug Lemov outlines 49 techniques that increase learning in classrooms. What I have enjoyed about this book is the practical, concrete nature of his techniques. His premise is that specific considerations are critical for maximized learning and use of time in the classroom, even though these techniques and procedures sometimes seem too mundane to merit consideration.

Technique #1 is "No Opt Out."  According to Lemov, No Opt Out means

"a sequence that begins with a student unable to answer a question should end with the student answering the question as often as possible."

There are several ways for this to happen, but in all cases, the student who either doesn't or can't answer the question is revisited after prompting or hearing someone else answer the question. In some cases, the student just repeats the answer they have heard from another student. In others, after prompting, the student is able to answer the question independently. In either case, the student recognizes that their answers and learning matter, and that voluntarily opting out of answering will not save them work.

Next Technique: Right is Right

Creating a Parent Survey About After School Needs

Our work today on parent outreach has generated a few good questions. One of the biggest is "What do parents need/want for after school programming for themselves and their children.

We know that the most successful Title 1 schools focus heavily on parents and home-school connections. After today's meetings, it seemed like we need to survey GV parents to see what they would like in after/before school offerings.

I hope to be making a survey that parents can complete during conferences that will guide us in looking for the right resources for our families.

What questions would people like to ask to find out parent needs?

Parent Involvement

We have had some interesting discussion about parent involvement today in our skills clinic sessions. It's pretty clear how much we want our parents to be involved in their student's education, and research shows it is absolutely critical to student success. In fact, family participation in education was twice as predictive of academic success in school than was the economic status of the family. That success rate increases as the intensity of parent involvement increases. See the details of these studies here.

When thinking about parent involvement, a complete program will include these six items, called the Epstein Model of parent involvement:
Parenting
Communicating
Volunteering
Learning at Home
Decision Making
Collaborating with the Community

In all these types of involvement, two way communication is critical. The community must reach out to the school, for example, in collaborating with the community. But the school must also reach out to the community, working to make the whole community a better place.

What are some of the ways we are meeting these six items for parent involvement?

Jan. 24 and Feb. 10: Mark Your Calendars

Sign up now for these exciting activities.  All topics on these days will be related to goals people have set for their evaluations. As always, a sub will be provided by me. Email me if you would like to attend.
I Can Statements -- Feb. 10
Parent Communication -- Jan. 24
Online Resources (facilitated by Susan) -- Jan. 24
Organizing/Tracking Assessments -- Feb. 10
Progress Monitoring -- Feb 10
Differentiation: Materials -- Feb 10
Student Behavior: Nonverbal Cues -- Feb 10

Jane Hill Skills Clinic POSTPONED

Due to MAP testing conflicts, we need to reschedule the Jane Hill/ESL clinic we were planning until Friday, Feb. 10, from 1:30-2:30.

Sorry for the inconvenience.