Go with the Flow

 

    I recently started to do yoga more often.  I was always intimidated by it because I'm really not very coordinated.  My favorite is Vinyasa or flow yoga. I feel like a get a workout because I work up a pretty good sweat because you go from pose to pose in a nearly dance-like movement. (honestly others look more dance-like.  I look clumsy). You breathe through each movement with inhalation or an exhalation.  You keep going through the class in a flowing rhythm.  I started thinking about Vinyasa as a metaphor for guided instruction recently. I also felt that it's a great analogy for "Going with the Flow" an euphemism for managing what life throws at you. Going through the yoga class or the sequence you "go with the flow" naturally.  You feel stronger and accomplished.

    Going with the flow in guided instruction is all about saying just the right thing to get the learner to do the cognitive work.  Specifically, telling doesn't result in learning. You are the yogi as you guide children through the learning.  Learning occurs through interaction with others and when these interactions are intentional learning occurs.  Guided instruction is a teacher behavior or flow.  It's not a resource or classroom structure.  The flow occurs through questioning(checking for understanding), prompting(facilitating students cognitive and metacognitive processing), cueing (shifts attention to focus on specific information, errors or partial understanding) and explaining and modeling (providing the knowledge to complete the task). 

Scaffold to Learn
NOT
to complete a task or activity

The flow is guided by:

1. content (common core standards, learning intentions, and success criteria)
2. Teaching (use of strategies and resource)
3. A system of assessment (how you monitor whether kids know the content independently.)

When you flow through guided instruction you influence what is in the students brain.  You use scaffolds that will be gradually dismantled as students master the content and gain conceptual understanding.

    You have direct and indirect explanations based on the standards.  You model and highlight strategies for the learning to use.  You monitor for productive failure and use questions, prompts, cues and direct instruction to facilitate learning.

    This week you will be analyzing your flow of guided instruction and using student work to determine if you are getting students to do the cognitive work.  Our purpose in PLC and professional development will be to support you in understanding the complexities and helping you to go with the flow fostering rising achievement.

    When you go with the flow you are allowing yourself to experience things as they arise.  When you allow yourself to go with the flow you can become more present and allowing yourself to accept what you encounter.  It gives you the presence of mind to address issues as they happen.  There are so many reasons that it's productive and efficient to go with the flow but let's highlight three of them.  Let's compare these elements with the specific pillars of our school improvement plan.

1.  You experience more and trust your intuition (Know thy standard, learning intention and success criteria): When you experience more you are more prepared because you are planning, comparing and learning.  Your instinct is critical because it guides you through unexpected twists and turns.
2. You are resilient (Reflect on teaching strategies, efficient use of the resource):  When you go with the flow you learn to realize that not everything will go in your favor but you accept the challenges and navigate through them.
3. Realistic Expectations (A system of assessment using student work as the vehicle for analysis): Knowing where you want to end is very important.  Collecting and noticing allows for adjustments to help you realize your goal.

    Guided instruction serves as a linchpin across three areas: building background knowledge, introducing new information and linking it to prior knowledge and working in productive groups work.  It builds student confidence and competence.

Guided instruction, then, is not something that occurs only during a fixed time of day.  It is the bread and butter of what we do as teachers. Fisher & Frey

    Teaching like yoga is an art and a science and it's not something that we accomplish with 100% effectiveness every time.  Knowing the moves and "Going with the Flow", however, will help you and the students accomplish more that day than they did the day before.

Find What We are Looking For

 

A week ago I helped out in Music for the afternoon  It was a great opportunity to see  joy on kids faces as they sang along to animated film clips from great musicals.  I was thinking about that day as I sat down to write the blog this week with the theme of using student work as a means to determine next steps in instruction.  I wasn't sure what to do that day but I did know that kids love singing along and that I was going to let them.  As the day went on my time with kids adjusted based on their reactions and behaviors.  I make slight adjustments to remind kids of a message, following along with the lyrics, and movement or rhythm.  The 30 minutes was enhanced each time I shared the music.  It was more than watching and singing.  It was a choice. It was what kids were looking for because I used the anecdotal observations/student work as they sang.

Reviewing student work with your PLC provides an opportunity to collaborate and reach a level of interdependence around your goal. Interdependence is defined as individual success that is contingent upon the efforts of the entire team.  Therefore, when you use student work to develop lessons, success criteria, assessment, guided instruction goals or to analyze patterns you are working together to meet your goal and find what kids need.  The conditions for this interdependence are based on actively engaging in team processes like setting and sticking to an agenda, using protocols and reflecting on your learning.  Today we are going to do a deeper dive into using students' work and why this is critical in making higher achievement a reality.

I observed Julie Danker in 5th grade reading last week.  She was engaging kids in a discussion about a passage about Frederick Douglas.  She read a small portion and did a think aloud.  She asked kids to read and annotate the rest of the text and then use those annotations to respond to a prompt: What can people do to bring about a positive change? The students wrote a response see below.  As students were working Julie went to individuals and conferred with them.

            Do you have an idea of what to write? Think about what we talked about. These are true things people can do. Did they talk about that in the text? These things have to be in the text.

High Proficient Example

Proficient Example

Approaching Example

The result?  76% of the students were proficient on this assignment.  Great News as these kids were 45% proficient on the Winter MAP assessment in Reading Comprehension.  This would be a fantastic opportunity to discuss these results as a 5th grade team to see how these results could be realized in each section.  The team could ask questions like how did conferring during the writing help assist kids to be proficient.  & What can we learn from the approaching example?  What misconceptions are you noticing?

Bri shared student work samples with me of a lesson she taught on multiplying fractions with 5th grade students.

She writes:  

We are working on multiplying a fraction by a fraction; to do this students must represent the multiplication problem on the grid paper, label the dimensions and units, as well as the units in the product.  S1's work reflects that of a high level of understanding. He labeled the dimensions, units, and drew an accurate representation to match. He was able to explain how the area matched his representation.  S2's work reflects that of a medium level of understanding. She labeled the dimensions and units, and drew an accurate representation to match. However she simply multiplied the numerators and the denominators to determine the area and was unable to explain how the representation matched the total area. S3's work reflected a low level of understanding. She accurately labeled the dimensions, but not the units. She drew a representation to match the dimensions but was unable to determine the total area correctly.

High Proficient Example

Proficient Example

Approaching Example

The result?  75% of the students were proficient on this assignment.  This is an incredible victory because the kids in this class were 47% proficient in Math on the Winter MAP assessment. Bri's analysis is a perfect opportunity to share with the 5th grade PLC.  It allows for discussion on how to write success criteria and provides insight as to what guided instruction may look like for students who are yet to be proficient.

The work students do day-to-day is the conduit for achieving interdependence as a PLC.  It gives you real time analysis and evidence that makes learning visible.  It answers the question is learning taking place? and How do you know if kids are on track to learn the material needed to be proficient at grade level? 

This week as you work through your PLC agenda consider using student work as a means to develop interdependence around your goals in reading and math.  It doesn't happen overnight but I can guarantee you won't find what you are looking for (high achievement and growth) without using student evidence in your discussions.

Please read through the Blog and respond as a PLC to the prompt:

How will we use student work to find what we are looking for?

Why do you go??

This is one of my favorites from last night.

I have to admit.  I never miss the superbowl. 

I'm a reluctant football fan.  My dad loved the Vikings and the Huskers.  When I was a little girl I was forced to watch because I had to be there to hold the antenna so the reception on our TV would come in clearly.  I'm still reluctant and do my chores during the plays but I come to a hard stop for the commercials and halftime show.  It's why I watch.  Did you watch the superbowl?  Why did you watch?

"Why do they go?"  Why do kids come to school? 

The Why

The What

The How 

The Why

I would argue it's more than the requirement or a threat of an attendance plan. I think the majority of kids come to school because it's really the best place to be on any given day.  They get two balanced meals and a healthy snack.  They have a staff member who greets them at the door of the building and their classroom.  They are kept safe and fit. In addition, they experience friendships with their peers.  They come based on a relationship with you.  One of you is the reason a child comes each day.

Let's look at this chart reflecting on the percentage of kids that are currently coming to school 95% of the time.  This means that at the time this data was downloaded they had miss 5 or fewer days.  Students who are chronically absent—meaning they miss at least 15 days of school in a year—are at serious risk of falling behind in school.  Specifically, only 11% of these students have a chance to be proficient.

The What

Kids come to school because they receive high quality instruction and aren't bored learning.  You have been work on a safe and engaged classroom.  Remember engaged means that kids are working on the learning and know why they are learning.  This is done through the clarity of your learning intentions and success criteria along with an authentic learning activity.  

Please reflect on the two look fors that we use as a basis for feedback.  When you hit these consistently each day they will come to school.

Component		Environment	Student	Teacher
Learning Intention and success criteria		Learning  Intentions and Success Criteria are visible and are in student friendly language. They are clearly posted in a consistent area, where students know they can turn to.	Students can use the success criteria to determine if they met the learning target. Students can explain what they are learning  and  how they are successful.	Learning intentions are based on common core standards, stated in student friendly terms (icon/pictures) and referenced throughout the gradual-release lesson. Success Criteria are clear steps to achieving the learning intention, stated in student friendly terms (icons/pictures) and referenced throughout the gradual-release lesson. The application for strategic reading and math behaviors stated i,e “so that I can…”

Engagement

There are co-constructed charts around learning and routines.

Students are demonstrating classroom routines and procedures as it pertains to the particular activity/lesson. Students know what they are learning, not the activity.

Teachers will increase student engagement by facilitating the use of talk moves during all parts of the lesson. Teachers use their knowledge of knowing their students to engage them in things that interest them.

The How

We are working diligently to make the WHAT a reality at Bloomer.  In order for a high level of success we first need to get kids to come to school.  It starts with you!  How can you support our efforts?  Every single one of your efforts will make a difference.  We will begin a campaign this week and need your help.  You will have a role and it will matter.

Don't Count Your Chickens...

 

When I wanted to introduce the work of the week I thought about this idiom when thinking about the celebration and work that needs to continue to finish our year strong.  We are  in the position to look at our data and celebrate, genuinely.  However the benchmarks keep moving so if we counted our chickens at this point and do nothing we would be in a different position in the Spring. When you look at this data you are witnessing growth; tremendous growth actually.   There are so many areas to note.  Please take a specific look at the improvement in the area of Lexia and the percentage of students who scored a 2 or more in reading and math.  Additionally, there has been tremendous growth for many of you on Math.  

The essential ingredients for a data-driven culture have little to do with data.  A data driven culture happens when everyone in our building starts to change what you talk about and how you will respond to it.  It is an essential ingredient for high performing schools.  It's worth the effort.  

It's the conversation that matters.

Decisions need to be made based on analyzed data or we run a risk to make the decisions based on opinion, conjecture, assumptions or anecdotal offerings.  We we don't use data we run the risk of counting your chickens before they hatch.

Data insures that decisions are made to optimize time, resources and your teaching talents.  We will be using data to continue our growth and to make sure that those student who have the opportunity to be proficient will be.  Your decisions will be optimized for students who are proficient also.  The goal is growth. 

A key part of being a data-driven culture  is you have to be able to stomach the idea that you haven't arrive at where you need to be."  It's not a 'gotcha.  We all need to succeed together.

Teachers and staff need to see how students are learning, design interventions based on data and see growth.  When this occurs you get hooked and excited.

Moving forward we will be using student work during PLC and the Tuning Protocol to review the effectiveness of instructional strategies, interventions, and resources.  You know you have accomplished something when you analyze and make decisions based on student work  We will be spending time in professional development looking at data and making decisions after analyzing.  

Phase II

Student Work/ Assessment

Tuning Protocol

Formative Assessments

Analysis of Student Work

 How will we know when each student has acquired the intended knowledge & skills

How will you know?  Please reflect at the end of your PLC today on this blog.

Chickens hatch when the time comes.  

Achievement happens when you intentional plan and respond to data.  

You can influence how a child will learn and grow.