Bloomer Bloomer... How does your garden grow?

    A garden requires patient labor and attention.  Plants do not grow merely to satisfy ambitions or to fulfill good intention.  They thrive because someone expends effort on them.  Liberty Hyde Bailey

    Understanding the patient labor and attention needed to have a thriving garden helps describe the commitment required for school improvement processes.  A bountiful garden doesn't just happen.  Gardening is a deliberate process.  The gardener starts with a clear vision for what they want to sow.  Once this is identified a suitable plot is found, taking into account the soil and location.  Before rushing in and planting the skilled gardener takes time to design the garden, giving careful consideration to what different vegetables or fruits will be planted, how far apart the rows need to be and the depth of the variety of seeds needing planted.  After all of this is done the gardener plants the seeds and maintains the garden by tending to it on a frequent basis.  Maintenance requires skill on the gardeners part so that only weeds get pulled and fertilizer applied appropriately.  the degree to which a gardener attends to the soils, design, planting and on-going upkeep determines the abundance of the harvest.  The interdependency between the soil, seeds, upkeep and weather conditions determine the success of the garden.  A landscape design on paper without putting in the hard work to make it happen.

    What does gardening have to do with our work at Bloomer?  Our school improvement plan, strategy is the catalyst so that we may reach our vision to become the school where everyone wants to be.  It's a deliberate process that we plan, teach, assess, reflect and revise.

The core of our work is centered around clarity.  It is in your control to purposefully plan or design the path for your students to learn at high levels.  It starts with a clear learning intention.  Consider the following examples from your colleagues.  Compare those you right to the quality shared below.  It's with clarity that you begin to design a thriving garden.

Kindergarten

LI: Students will be learning to recognize and extend  patterns using sounds/actions created with their teacher.
SC: I am successful when I can recognize the pattern created with my teacher.
SC:  I am successful when I can extend the pattern created with my teacher.

First:

Learning Intention: I will be able to quickly recognize quantities so that I know all the ways to make 10.

I am successful when

I can recognize and represent a given number using counters.

I can tell how many more to make 10 using a tens frame.

I can write an equation for combinations of numbers that make 10.

Second

Learning Intention: We are learning how to find key details in a fictional story.
Success Criteria: I am successful when: 
I can find text evidence to show my thinking
I can tell how a detail helps me better understand the story. 
I can reread to add details in my graphic organizer.

Third

LI  We are learning how to solve big words with the CVCe patters so that we can fluently read and understand books.

SC:  I know I'm successful when:  I can find the CVCe pattern.  I can break a big word into parts, blend the parts back together and read the word.

Fourth

I - I am learning how to focus on an event by using precise words and dialogue in my writing that helps to create a picture in my reader's mind.

SC - I will be successful when I can:
Focus on an event that describes 
-why Dan ran for class president
-dialogue about what Dan is thinking
-Precise words to describe Dan's feelings and reactions.

Fifth

Learning Intention:  I am learning how to multiply whole numbers using the 'ten times" strategy.

Success Criteria

I can use an open array to show my thinking of whole number multiplication.

I can use basic facts to help me solve multiplication problems that are ten time bigger.

I know that when multiplying by ten, the product is ten times the factor.  Which is why a zero can be placed to the right of the answer.

The garden analogy requires maintenance.  That means executing the intention through quality teaching moves and clear feedback.  You monitor through assessment, reflect on the result and then roll through the process again and again.  We will work on all of these areas, however, we begin with clarity.  

The harvest is coming in the spring.  You are planting the seeds and will monitor growth.  Make it happen.

GROW    GROW   GROW    GROW

Engage me Please.

My grandson is 20 months old and is such a joy to watch as he plays and interacts with those around him.  He loves to play ball with his dad.  Max was quite a player in his time so I'm sure that thrills him.  The relationship between the two of them is based on a mutual love and understanding.  However, Luke has learn the purpose of his little bat, a ball and the tee they use to hit.  He stays focused as Max coaches him through how to hold the bat and when to swing  Finally, as you can imagine, it's quite challenging for the little guy to hit an object and then run after it.  Luke did this over and over.  Perhaps for 30 minutes at a time.  I'd say he was engaged in the activity and began to show growth as he went through the paces.   

I thought a lot as I watched him play and began to make the connection to the reading I did from a book titled Engagement By Design  by Doug Fisher, Nancy Frey, Russell Quaglia, Dominque Smith & Lisa Lande.

Understanding engagement-and actively pursuing it-can make all the difference between forging a real connection with students and having a classroom that's simply going through the motions. Engagement By Design

There are three essential components to engagement as outlined by the authors of this book.

1. Relationships:  The connection between teacher and content, Student and Content & Teacher and student.

2.  Clarity:  The focus given toward the direction of learning.

3.  Challenge:  The expectation of a rigorous outcome as designed by the activity.

When we think about our work and and how we will continue to make the difference in achievement; we can make a connection to our school improvement plan.  

• 
  Relationship:  We are focused on building an safe environment for students.  We do this actively by collaborating with our peers and student support team.  We know that when we support students early in their struggle we can turn a corner to help them realize success.  Consider the example of Emily Baxter reaching out to individual parents and students through email and video.  She works diligently to ensure each individual's success.  This is very difficult within our current platform so she needs to continue to find new ways to connect with her students.

• 
   Focus:  I observed in many classrooms this week where learning intentions and success criteria were posted. This is an initial first step to remind students what is expected.  However, when the language of the intention is repeated throughout the lesson that creates conditions of focus and engagement.  Additionally, I had the opportunity to watch all three teachers in one grade level and the collaboration around the focus was evident.  Students were engaged at high levels both in person and remotely.  So impressive!

• Challenge:  Challenge comes through deliberate questioning and patience.  During a fourth grade math lesson on arrays this week I observed wait time as students contemplated a prime number.  Becky did not overcorrect as students tried to share criteria for a rule.  They were working with the number 23 (1x23 and 23x1).   Becky asked students to develop a rule.  One student said that 23 was odd.  Rather than correcting she began to take kids through other numbers 18, 15 until they realized that wasn't a viable condition for a prime number.  She also asked kids to set up factors to make certain that 1x23 was the only option.  That's challenge, she allowed students to do the thinking and problem solving.

All three of these examples illustrate high levels of engagement.  All of them from teachers at Bloomer.  All of them with students who were virtual.  

It Can Be Done!

We begin our week with professional development with the intention to review quality learning targets.  This is a topic that will begin to reach all three areas of engagement.  Reflect on your practices and consider how you will develop new systems, activities and relationships to engage your students in this challenging environment.  It is possible because you collaborate and work toward excellence.  

Engagement is an outcome.  

You can purposely create the conditions to make it happen.  

Question for the comment box:  What is your strength within the three components of engagement outlined in this blog (relationship, focus, challenge)?  How do you know?  What is your evidence?  Which area will you work on with your team?  Why is this important?  What will you do?

Bring it On!

 

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.

Teddy Roosevelt was the 26th president of the United States.  He championed pure food and drugs, conservation, and the common man.  He wanted there to be an even playing field.  John Meacham, a Pulitzer prize winning historian, names him as one of the better angels who replace fear with hope and reverses injustice and expands equality.  Roosevelt is an inspiration.

    I find this profile a fitting springboard as we begin to see the results of our labors.   This week we will be getting results from MAP in reading and math.  We can expect that it may not be as we wish.  It may seem like an insurmountable task.  However, we must believe in the worthy cause of hard work and strong mission. We can make it happen around data analysis and differentiated instruction. We will realize high achievement.  When we feel like it's not enough or results aren't as we hoped we get up, learn, analyze, collaborate and begin again.

We will do this together in three steps:

1.  Analyze student work as a team.  Our professional development plan for the rest of the month will be to discuss and conduct the screeners in reading and math.  We will analyze this data along with MAP results.  We will create plans to address gaps and move forward toward a path of high achievement.

2.  Collaborative PLCs begin this week:  We will share a schedule this week to follow.  We will have grade level teams who meet with Kim and Julie or Bri.  We will work together to find paths for teams to meet the goals and objectives of the grade level.  We will meet one time for math and once for literacy from 8-8:40.  The schedule for this  week only:  Wednesday K-1, Thursday 2-3, Friday 4-5.  Beginning the week of the 21st the schedule will start with PLCs of grade level teams only.  You will have the other PLC times to plan and learn together.  

3.  Feedback.  We will begin feedback loops this week.  Kim will come into your room for a mini observation and then meet with you individually to celebrate your work and reinforce what you've worked on with your PLC.  Feedback is our friend and will drive our success.

You do matter. Your voice matters.  Please remember to answer the two surveys sent to you last week.  You should have received one from Mark Schuldt about supports.  K-1 teachers should have received a second survey from him about returning to school with enhancements to the HYBRID plan  

Stand up. Be Proud.  Let your voice be heard.  

YOU ARE IN THE ARENA