The Power of the ASW

The ASW tool has circled around the district many times and has become an extremely valuable tool for many teams as they have embarked on a regular and consistent PLC.  ASW stands for “Analyzing Student Work”. The ASW process is intended to help teachers learn about and better understand their students’ strengths and needs in order to develop instruction that is best suited for each individual student or specific small group learning opportunities.

The process of using the ASW tool, in relation to a PLC, looks like this:

The best thing about the ASW tool is that it can be used with summative test data (i.e. MAP, FORWARD, STAR) or it can be used with something that the students are doing in everyday instruction (i.e. Thoughtful Logs responses, process or published writing pieces).  Most recently, the Dual Language teachers at Horning used the ASW tool to assess their students’ writing in regards to literacy standards RI6.1 and RI7.1. Based off of their results they are planning strategy groups to meet the needs of their students.  Kindergarten teachers from Bethesda used the ASW tool to analyze their students ability to rhyme and then formed small group instruction based off of their results. Sixth grade Science teachers and 7th grade Literacy teachers at Les Paul use the ASW tool consistently to gauge the understanding of their students and immediately plan small group instruction with the infusion of additional supports and scaffolds to meet their students needs. See some of their examples below.

Never used the ASW tool before?  The ASW Template will walk you through the process.  Here is an additional article with a protocol for analyzing student work.  Also, reach out to your instructional coach. They would love to be a part of the process! =)

Note: There are many ASW tools floating around and all of them are valuable. It’s not about using the exact tool but it’s about the process.

Credit: To all the wonderful PLCs that I have been a part of including the Horning DL, Les Paul Literacy and Science, and Bethesda Kindergarten.  Keep up the great work!

The Importance of Social Emotional Learning

Many schools in our district have chosen to build Social Emotional Learning into their SAIL plans this year.  For many, this work has been at the forefront of their practice for many years, for some, this has been a new area of focus.  Schools have traditionally prioritized literacy and math and have embraced the idea that if we provide "good instruction" we will address the needs of all of the students in our class; that "good instruction" will automatically equate to high levels of engagement and thus limited behavior problems and improved student growth and achievement.

For teachers, student services staff and principals, the idea that "good instruction" is enough is not necessarily true.  While it is essential to teaching and learning, those of you who work daily with students of trauma and hunger, you know there is another layer that must be in place for students to be successful. 

The article The Future of Education Depends on Social Emotional Learning: Here's Why, Giancarlo Brotto discusses the importance of Social Emotional Learning not only on student achievement but also in their lives beyond school.  As you work with your grade level teams and as SAIL teams are planning for the remainder of this year and beyond, how are you or how is your school incorporating Social Emotional Learning into daily, weekly or 100-Day plans?

The Future of Education Depends on Social Emotional Learning: Here's Why

Reaching all Learners' Families

http://talkingpts.org/

This FREE APP allows any educator to communicate directly to students families in the language families most access.  Click on the link above to find more-share with your staff and colleagues!

Taking PLC's to the Next Level

Taking PLC's to the Next Level By: Marisa Nathan

Professional learning communities can be defined in many different ways. Dufour, Dufour, Eaker, and Many (2010) state that “a professional learning community is an ongoing process in which educators work collaboratively in recurring cycles of collective action research to achieve better results for the students they serve”. This cycle often includes a plan, do, study, act series that is focused around student learning. This is an example of Confianza’s action cycle that is used to help support schools and systems that we work with. 

This resource will focus on the do and study phase of the action cycle. By doing we develop a deeper understanding and make meaning of new learning more easily. I have had the opportunity to work in different schools where there are systems put into place in order to do and to study “strategies” that support ALL learners. 

An example that I would like to share with you is from South High School in Waukesha, Wisconsin. The staff at South High School has created a “Now Showing Board”. The “Now Showing Board” highlights strategies that the staff plan to try out through their PLC process. Every Friday a google form goes out to all staff that asks for a strategy that they will try out in the week to come. It is up to the staff member whether or not they would like to invite others in their room to see the strategy in action. Notice the apple on the “now Showing Board”. If the apple is present that means that the strategy will have technology incorporated in some way. The Waukesha School District is a one to one school district and prides itself on differentiating with the support of technology. 

In order to celebrate the high leverage strategies that are being seen each week, a strategy is chosen to be highlighted in the school’s Monday Memo. This is called the Strategy Spotlight. The strategy spotlight includes the teacher’s name, the strategy and a description along with pictures of the students in action with the strategy.

Another recent phenomena around sharing practice is the idea of hanging a pineapple on your door. Did you know that a pineapple is a sign of welcoming, friendship, and hospitality? I have seen this sign used in other buildings that I have visited. It this resource, How Pineapple Charts have Revolutionized Professional Development by Jennifer Gonzalez, it digs deeper into this idea of sharing practice with one another in order to boost student achievement. 

There are so many great things going on in our schools. I challenge you to think outside the box in order to build capacity in others and highlight the amazing work going on in your building.

Equity through Language

Equity through Language

Equity. We have been hearing this word more and more. Whether from the news, books, or
professional development, everyone is talking about equity. But have you ever thought about
equity within language? As an educator, are you being equitable in the way you use language
supports when teaching content?

Comprehensible input is the
only way we can give equitable
access of content to ALL learners.
Comprehensible input is exactly
that: sharing any input in a way
that all learners can comprehend.
Comprehensible input requires
intentional planning on the part
of a teacher, but can be done
meaningfully with things like
pictures, diagrams/charts
and realia; just to name a few.

Some simple steps a teacher can take will make a world of difference for students'
understanding and ultimately achievement. Valentina Gonzalez demonstrates this beautifully.

As Ms. Gonzalez states towards the end of her demonstration some of the most important
things she did for students were: pointing, using props (realia) and also repeating the words
several times while giving time and space for students to repeat the words themselves. These
multiple points of exposure are huge for all learners. Marzano's research shows that students
need anywhere from 4-40 exposures to a word before being able to use the word themselves.
Four times for those who have a broad vocabulary and forty for our language learners. This
research demonstrates that comprehensible input is a need for ALL our learners.


How do you make your teaching
comprehensible? How do you
ensure ALL learners have
access to what you are saying?
What strategy will you try out or
begin to use to meet the
needs of ALL learners?

Resources:

Comprehensible Input in the Classroom

Oracy Development and Reading

A Game Plan for Meaningful Exposures

Rounding Feedback

I feel like we were just celebrating the day off in October and now in the blink of an eye, November is two weeks away from being over! Sheesher!

I am happy about our rounding progress so far. Although, we have been in twice as many classrooms as is recorded here, we have received feedback from 104 employees across our system.
Please feel free to continue to give us input on the 3 questions we will be asking all year long:

(1) What is working well for you?

(2) Who has been helpful to you?

(3) What ideas do you have for improvement?

The word cloud below shows all of us the top 50 words you used when talking about what is working well for you. AVID is resoundingly gaining positive momentum, teacher teams in schools have been a support to working smarter, and students are celebrated at the center of our work.

As I reflect on my responsibility in our system to relentlessly maximize the leadership capacity of all of us, I am inspired by your passion to ensure educational excellence across our system. Together, we can increase student growth and achievement and change young lives forever!

The Importance of Struggle

What is productive struggle? Why would we want students to struggle?  How do we engage students with productive struggle?  These questions are important to consider when planning for instruction.

There are a variety of definitions when it comes to productive struggle.  According to Heibert and Grouws, "productive struggle - effortful practice that goes beyond passive reading, listening, or watching - builds useful, lasting understanding and skill."  Productive struggle occurs when students do not immediately know an answer and need to work through a problem and think about it in a variety of ways. In Principles to Actions, "Effective mathematics teaching uses students' struggles as valuable opportunities to deepen their understanding of mathematics.  Students come to realize that they are capable of doing well in mathematics with effort and perseverance in reasoning, sense making, and problem solving."  Students are excited and thrive when they have the right amount of productive struggle. 

In math, one of the ways to have this productive struggle is by providing students rich mathematical problems.  In the video below, Diane Briars, past president of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, emphasizes the need for teachers to offer students daily opportunities to engage in problem solving that requires reasoning. 

Students in Kindergarten through high school should be engaged in rich mathematical tasks.  Often times you will hear the terms "low floor, high ceiling" when describing various problems.  This means that all students should be able to find an entry point into the work, and yet allow for students to excel at high levels. As Diane Briars mentions, we are creating inequities if we all are not engaging students in reasoning and problem solving.  

At the elementary level, one way we are making sure all students experience productive struggle is by having grade levels complete various Fosnot units throughout the year.  These units are designed to foster deep understanding of the content by engaging students in solving multiple tasks in a real world context.    Earlier this year, first graders at Whittier were busy working with a unit entitled Double Decker bus.  In this unit, students used the context of passengers getting on and off a bus and modeled the situations with a bead rack.    In addition, students started to write their own addition and subtraction problems that could be solved.

At the third grade level, the Whittier students completed a unit called Groceries, Stamps, and Measuring Strips.  This unit served as an introduction into multiplication, and students were encouraged to find efficient strategies to find the total of a variety of groups. The students started with finding the total number of objects in a grocery store and then moved into working with stamps of different values.  By the end, students were using their multiplication (and measurement skills) to determine the size of buildings if they knew the size of a boy.

While the Fosnot units allow for productive struggle and enable students to make meaning of a variety of concepts, there are many other wonderful problem solving tasks that can be found on Blackboard.  

Jo Boaler describes it best as to why we need our students to productively struggle.

As you continue through this year,  engage your students with productive struggle as they solve a variety of math problems and see their excitement as they gain new understandings.  Even consider how you as a teacher productively struggles as you solve a variety of problems that come your way!

2019 SDW Summer School Program Call for Proposals

Hello!

In an attempt to increase the enrichment opportunities for students in our summer school program, you are invited to submit a summer enrichment course proposal.  Your proposal can be for the elementary, middle school, or high school level. If there is a class that you think students would enjoy, have developed for another setting, etc., you are encouraged to submit your proposal at this time.  Please note you must have a current educator license in order to teach summer school, but we encourage anyone to submit a proposal if you have an idea you would like to share.  

Summer school dates and locations have not been finalized at this time.

Below you will find suggested courses that you may be inspired to teach.  If you would like to use one of the suggested ideas or one of your own, develop the course on the proposal form and submit it.  A summer school principal will contact you if your course proposal is accepted. If you taught an enrichment class during the 2018 summer school session, you do not need to resubmit a proposal for that class.  Summer school principals will contact teachers regarding returning classes soon.

Enrichment course ideas might include:  *Cultural Experiences *Health and Nutrition *Drama *Coding *App Development *Video Editing *Vex *Crafts *Nature Studies *Math Strategy Games *Jewelry Making *Painting *Photography *Woodworking *Mystery Novels *Golf *Quilting *Community Connections *Creative Writing, and More – But don’t let these ideas limit you!

Click Here to Submit Course Proposal

Course proposals are due by November 30, 2018.

Thank you!

Courtney Seidel ALL ADMIN MEETING-post survey

Thank you all for your attentive learning and open mindsets. We really do work with the best team of committed, child centered educators and leaders.

 Post survey open until November 16
https://goo.gl/forms/vlGEMPaeHqNE123A3

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All Admin Tuesday! Check your calendars.

Hosting a Student Teacher

Waukesha is excited to partner with several universities in the area to host field placement students and student teachers.  The partnership is reciprocal.  We offer a place for future teachers to experience hands-on real world training to obtain their license.  We receive an extra set of hands in the classroom, a new perspective, reflective professional dialogue, and the ability to train and possibly hire some great new teachers!

Field placement students are placed in schools for about 40-100 hours.  This is early in the student's college career, often sophomore and junior year.  They are mostly observing, but can jump in and help or co-plan and co-teach if it seems right.  All universities will have requirements outlined.  Some require the independent teaching of one lesson, while others have removed that requirement at this stage.  In order to host a field placement student, you just need one year of experience.

Student teachers are placed for an entire semester and are expected to be planning and teaching.  Again, each university will provide guidelines.  In order to be eligible to host a student teacher, you need to have three years of teaching experience, one year in your current building, and have taken a supervision course.

Interested in hosting, but need the course?  UW-Oshkosh offers a free online course linked here.  At this time, the district does not track if teachers took a supervision course since it can be taken from a variety of institutions.  If you are unsure if you took a course, I suggest just taking the UW-Oshkosh option.  All requests are filtered through the building principal, so potential candidates or their university contact should not contact teachers directly.  If your principal sends an inquiry, consider helping out!