#214EdPrep: Collaborating in Professional Learning

This is the first in a series of blog posts discussing the collaboration of the Collab Lab and our EG Ed Prep students.  Please follow along on our journey using the hashtag #214EdPrep or clicking on the label #214EdPrep in the word cloud!

Students in the District 214 Ed Prep Program at EGHS, taught by Kim Sander, have begun collaborating with the Collab Lab on varied professional learning experiences. This previous post explains a workshop we did with the EdPrep students on how to use Social Media to learn, lead, build community, and to expand their professional portfolio. 

Most recently, the EdPrep students joined teachers in a class visit experience. The class was split into four groups, each accompanied by EG teachers, to observe a class for 20 minutes. We visited the classrooms of Persida Bujdei, Mark Heintz, Bonnie Kale, and Kim Miklusak. 

The focus of the class visit was to look for examples of learning target(s) and how they are communicated, and formative feedback (given by the teacher and/or peers). Here is the a document we used to take notes and to facilitate our conversation afterwards.

After the class visits we returned to the EdPrep Classroom to debrief in a jigsaw conversation.  Each group had at least one student from each class we visited, and at least one teacher facilitator. We discussed what we observed and learned in each classroom.

The students shared insight from both their student and future-teacher perspectives. The teachers were inspired, and we learned from them too! Here are some highlights of their observations:

Schoology quizzes before a test help students understand exactly what they know and don't know.  It isn't graded, it is just for learning.  Several students commented on how much they like these kinds of quizzes that they have done in some of their classes, and that they aren't graded.

Teachers gave clear explanations of how to do the practice for the learning targets, and then did a model problem/reading and then students worked in pairs. The modeling really helps. During the pair work the teachers gave feedback and students give each other feedback too.  We talked about how this intentional scaffolding (I do, we do, you do) supports learning.

The whiteboard tables are so good to foster collaboration and feedback. One student said she was so sorry she was "too old" that she missed out on having the whiteboard tables in her English class last year! 

The pros and cons of Quizlet live and Kahoot for feedback.  Quizlet is good at the beginning of the unit as a "hook" and for collaboration, but if your group doesn't finish before the winning group wins, you don't see all of the questions.  Kahoot is good to make sure every student sees all of the questions and gets individual feedback. It can get boring if teachers do them all of time. But they are so good for feedback.

It is helpful it is to plan activities with a model, small group work and time for students to then do it on their own (scaffolding).

We're looking forward to having the EdPrep students join us again for future professional learning experiences.  We have so much to learn from each other! 

You can connect with them too! Follow their Ed Prep journey via #214EdPrep on Twitter.  You can encourage them with a "like", a "retweet" or a comment!  The would LOVE to hear from you!

Sharing Learning Targets with Students

By Melissa Curtis

We’ve been hearing a lot about clear learning targets and meaningful feedback the last couple of years.  Many teachers I know have been using learning targets in their curriculum for years, but maybe not explicitly sharing them with their students or getting any feedback.  I have been using a simple yet effective way to use daily goals or learning targets in my classes that might be helpful to other teachers.

First, I have created a document called Daily Goals that I post in Schoology.

Students open this document in Notability every week.  They can reuse the same one from week to week and just erase last week’s info.  Some choose to upload it from Schoology each week and “add to existing note” so they have one long note instead of 36 different ones throughout the school year.  Each day when they come into class, I have the daily goal projected on the screen for them to write down in the left-hand column.  I post these in my calendar in Schoology so even when students are absent, they can see the daily goal and any handouts/links we used that day.  Here is an example:

At the end of class, I ask students to write a response to the daily goal.  This should be a thoughtful comment about what we learned that day in class.  It guides students and myself to focus on the clear purpose of the lesson.  By Friday, their daily goals document should look like this:

Every Monday, or first day of the week, I walk around the room and check their goals from the prior week.  I give students a small homework grade of 5 points for this.  The real value though is in getting a snapshot of what students learned that week.  In their own words, they are narrowing down my curriculum into the simplest forms.  I usually spot check one or two days for each student and I can comment on any mistakes they have made.  I can also get a sense of the whole class and clear up any misconceptions as a group.  

In my experience, students like the structure and routine of a class.  They know when they come in to take out their iPads and start writing down the daily goal.  At the end of class, it provides closure for the lesson and I can call on random students to help answer it for the whole class.  When students are absent, it provides a quick answer to “What did I miss yesterday?”.  It has become an expectation that most students buy into pretty quickly.  Yes, there are some who don’t do it or copy it from a friend, but you can monitor those individual cases pretty easily.  I have been doing this for years and like the simplicity and accountability of the daily goals.  Now, I will start calling them Learning Targets :)

Feel free to use or modify anything you see here!  

Effective Communication in the Gradebook - Part 2 (Science)

By Quinn Loch

Seventh post in a series from our staff-led Institute Day.  This is part II of a two-part blog post, with the first post reflecting on the math component, while this second post focuses on the science component.

Rachel Barry (Math) and Quinn Loch (Science) presented this session, which focused on these two questions:
     1.  How can I show formative feedback in the gradebook?
     2.  How can I communicate progress in the gradebook?

SCIENCE

One of my biggest struggles has been how to record and report progress to students efficiently in the gradebook. I want to have formative feedback that doesn't "hurt" their grade and I also want to show student progress - all without cluttering up the gradebook with countless grades and having to need two separate gradebooks. Below are my current working solutions to these hurdles.

Question: How can I include formative data in the gradebook?

My solution: A "zero-weight" category allows me to communicate understanding during the learning process without penalizing the student. I call this category the "in-progress" category. This is where I post standard-based scores on what I call "progress quizzes." These progress quizzes are closely aligned to our learning targets and act as checkpoints along the way to our summative.

Snapshot of a progress quiz that gets scored 0-4.

Sample Learning Targets

Question: How can I show progress in the gradebook?

My solution: Entering multiple scores within one standard. I report feedback to students from a standards based scale of 0-4. If a student demonstrates an understanding level of "1" and then later demonstrates an understanding of "3", then I'll enter it as 3.1 in the gradebook.

Using decimals to enter multiple scores for the same standard

Question: How can I get students to use this information to close gaps and how can I hold them accountable for their learning?

My solution: Pre-Test Reflections. Here in an example of one that I use in class.

Pre-Test Reflection. Students do not take the summative if they have a 0 on any standard.

I try to do this reflection a couple days before a test so students have time to dedicate practice to, or remediate on, the specific things that they may be struggling with. I have yet to get the question "What should I study?" this year.

A Year In Review

By Mark Heintz

A year ago I wrote about the changes that were going to be implemented for the 2015-2016 school year for human geography.  You can read about that here. Not all of those changes were implemented and some changed along the way due to feedback from instruction and assessments.  A year later, I can tell you it has been a great year from my perspective.  One of the best takeaways of documenting my curriculum and focusing on mastery was that I know what I wanted from the beginning.

I have loved knowing what my course is.  This year, students have been challenged by readings at or above their level.  Students have become better at making a claim and providing specific pieces of evidence that support that claim to support their argument.  Students are writing more, and it is better than ever. There is still a lot of progress to make, but it is pretty amazing.

Since I documented what I wanted and clearly stated the content objectives- clear writing, reading and interpreting charts, graphs, and map skills people can engage in specific things about what my course isn't.  My learning targets that are assessed through multiple choice are low level.  One of the standard objectives for each unit is to define a few vocabulary words.  So, on the test, that is what is being assessed.  That assessment is used to see if the students understand the basics.  The content objectives allow students to explore charts, maps, graphs, and texts around each concept or objective.  There are very few content objectives, but the students made incredible progress towards them and the skills.

A final note, I only put assessments into the grade book.  We had three assessments second semester with four parts each.  There are twelve grades in my grade book.  I have not had behavioral issues because everything we do is centered around the major skills and the clear content objectives.  Students stopped asking, "Is this for points?" I have not been asked if there is anything they can turn in to raise their grade and only have a week left in the school year.  When students ask is there anything they can do to raise their grade, I respond by saying, "Show me you can read, write, or interpret charts, maps, and graphs."  I feel very confident that a student's grade reflects their ability level and knowledge of the content objectives.  That is a good way to end to the year for my as a teacher and for my students who have learned more, and became better readers, writers, and interpreters of charts, maps, and graphs.

Aligning Purpose and Learning Goals: a Model from the Spanish PLC

by Dean Burrier Sanchis

The Elk Grove HS Spanish PLC team of Leslie Guimon, Pam Coté, Carmen Ruíz, Effie Kalkounos, Diana Cappelen, Ricky Castro, Dean Burrier Sanchis and Chris Cirrincione came together for a full-day department meeting in the CollabLab this past Monday. Our scope was very grand as we set out to establish our standards of expectations for our department, analyze our global approach to assessments, grading, gradebook setup, rubric usage, student engagement and overall department goals. Amazingly, we addressed and came away with some great tangibles for each and every one of those areas. Our fearless PLC leader Leslie Guimon took copious notes on the walls of the CollabLab, to the point of literally filling the entire wall, a testament to all that was accomplished.

The team began with brainstorming and note-taking

Certainly our greatest takeaway was the set of internally defined standards that we discussed, devised, wrote out and revised as a team. Our team was able to create a common vision for what we want our students to come out of our program possessing as students. Every team member had a hand in our penning of our Department’s 5 “Enduring Understandings”

The first major step was to define their purpose and learning targets

After creating this set of standards, we went through our assessment categories in our gradebooks and revamped our department wide setup to better reflect the new Enduring Understandings we had created. From there, we went through a backward alignment process from AP down to Spanish 1 to explicitly define the areas and ways we would be addressing the Enduring Understandings as well as our goals and curricular connections to the Understandings at each of our Spanish levels.

Final version of purpose-filled curriculum in a Google doc shared with all team members

Leslie’s notes document just how much we were able to accomplish. Chris Cirrincione took notes electronically and created a great visual representation of our results for today. Pam Coté treated our team to lunch where we continued our ongoing dialogues and renewed our energy. We found the environment of the CollabLab to be very well designed to fit our needs and handle our team’s drive and inspiration. Additionally, Linda Ashida and Kirsten Fletcher helped by adding their support and perspective to our conversations adding their vast experience and pedagogical knowledge, much to our benefit, as well offering suggestions for the uses of technology.

Matching Assessment Methods: Lead Learners #6

By The CollabLab Team

Yesterday's focus in Lead Learners was based on these two essential questions:

1.  How do we create conditions that maximize mastery of learning?

2.  How do we maximize student learning through sound assessment design?

The majority of our time was spent discussing the concept that assessment methods are not interchangeable.  Thus, we talked about the most relevant assessment method to be used for the type of learning target being assessed.  This helps to ensure accurate assessment results.  The four assessment methods are 1) selected response, 2) written response, 3) performance assessment, and 4) personal communication.

In groups, we did an activity where we were to match the strength of each of these assessment methods for the four types of learning targets.  See the grid below:

Many of us were surprised with the research-based results (provided below).  This spurred very interesting dialogue, especially when looking at different content areas!

Following this dynamic discussion, we had four groups of teachers share lesson demos. The first was our Bio team of Quinn Loch and Krista Glosson who discussed how they restructured their standards to increase a focus on key domains.  They also shared how they report grades both formatively and summatively in a non-standards-based online gradebook to communicate the most accurate information on achievement to students and parents.

Our second lesson demo was by Kim Miklusak, discussing the evolution of changes in the AP English Language grading rubrics from 4-degrees to 3 in order to clarify definitions of mastery and proficiency.  This rubric also mirrors the biology rubric to help increase cohesiveness of skills between content areas. 

Next, Bonnie Kale shared the idea of having one essential question in Honors Written and Oral Communications for a unit.  This unifying element allows for students and teachers to synthesize information and skills in order to maintain a focus throughout an entire novel.  This also allows the team to reloop through writing and reading skills all centered around one theme.

 

Finally, Sandra Lee and Katie Winstead shared how they differentiate formative feedback in Prep World Literature.  They build in elements of a pre- and post-test as well as clear learning targets in order to allow them to modify instruction to meet the needs of a wide range of student ability levels.  Regardless of grammar ability, all students learn the same materials at a different pace and with targeted teacher support.

Thank you to everyone who presented and participated yesterday!  We are looking forward to more conversations in upcoming PLTs and at next month's presentation!  To learn more, follow the #EGLLT hashtag on Twitter or stop into the CollabLab for more conversations!

The Evolution of the Bio Curriculum

Written by Quinn Loch

The bio team, like most teams at EG, has been reworking its curriculum since I joined it three years ago. The largest changes have been with our learning targets and our grading practices. We are always trying to figure out both what we want students to master and what that mastery looks like.

We recently worked together during a pull-out day and examined our curriculum on a more global scale. Our collaboration led to great questions and conversations. For example, why do we have a "scientific method" unit? Doesn't this unit include the skills that should be developed throughout the year and not just in small doses? Isn't our course supposed to be a year long investigation into the process of science that is just driven by principles in biology? How often should we be assessing skills related to experimental design and analysis? What are these skills? How often do we have labs where we practice these skills and how are we providing feedback on them? Should large themes like change over time (evolution) be taught independently or weaved throughout the year as an important overarching reality of the world around us?

It was great to have this open dialogue and it really helps reset our priorities in a science classroom. We spent the beginning of the day agreeing to eliminate our independently taught scientific method unit. Instead, we would use our standards based rubric that we developed as a way to constantly assess on science skills throughout the year.

By using this rubric, students can track their progress throughout the year on important lab skills like procedure writing, graph making, and conclusion writing. This rubric format was modeled off of what Kim Miklusak and the English team use for writing.

On top of re-evaluating skills in the classroom, we re-worked our content for the year as well. This included re-writing learning targets so that they are more student friendly and re-structuring so that large themes like evolution, energy/matter flow, and interdependence are interwoven throughout the year.

What part of our brainstorm looked like in the Collab Lab.

The biggest challenge still, in my opinion, is how to connect progress and student mastery in the grade book. This is what I consider to be one of the biggest "growing pains" of our transition to standards based grading in biology. As a team, we are on the same page as to our targets and what mastery should look like, but are our students? How are we weighting formative and summative assessments in the grade book? How can we make a student's progress throughout the year clear and understandable? What's the best way to communicate this?

Finding solutions to these challenges is the next step and will help make reassessment more efficient and hopefully increase student ownership.

Instructional Goals vs. Learning Targets

By Kim Miklusak

In our last Lead Learners meeting we spent time analyzing the differences between instructional objectives vs. learning targets.  Specifically one of the documents we were reviewing was this one: Knowing Your Learning Target. 

I remember being told in my first year of teaching: always put your objective on your board.  So I would put something like "Complete questions at end of passage" or something similarly vague, but it felt like an objective because we completed it at the end of the period, and the students knew what task we had to accomplish.  But that's just it, it was a task with no connection to why students were doing it.  They wouldn't have been able to articulate the relevance of the task and maybe at times I couldn't as well!

However, as I've taught for longer and worked more on revising various courses, I understand better now why I sequence units together and what my skills and summative goals are for each unit, each lesson, each task (I'm not there yet, obviously, but it's a clear path I'm on). 

This has brought up a few questions:
1.  Do each of us on our PLTs understand clearly why we do each unit, each assessment, each task?
2.  Do I communicate clearly enough to students why we are doing our lessons each day?  Do I spend the right amount of time reviewing the objective?  Would students be able to articulate it and connect it to the broader instructional objective for the unit?
3.  If I were to word the objective in a way that focused on instructional objectives and used academic language, would students understand it?  Would student-friendly language lose the instructional focus?
4.  If I have multiple tasks in one day, do I only write the objective that I am assessing immediately as opposed to the ultimate one that we will be assessing in a few days?  For example my students were writing an argumentative practice paragraph on a specific text we had just covered.  What I wanted to see was the evidence they selected from the text, but they demonstrated that skill through a paragraph, which prepares them for a full essay they will be writing next week.  Does my objective focus on "evidence selection" or is it "comprehension of a text" or is it "preparing skills to create an argumentative essay later"?  I realize any of these is valid, but my ultimate goal for them to demonstrate these skills is the essay; these other skills are mini-lessons assessed on the way.

More on this later in the year as we continue to work in EGLLT, to revise our courses, and to continue to talk on our teams.

Building Professional Learning Networks at Elk Grove High School and Beyond!

Written by Linda Ashida

Elk Grove Lead Learners Team (EGLLT)

EGLLT Workshop #5

Who:  40 Learners:

• 26 Teachers/Division Technology Coaches from Elk Grove High School
• 7 Administrators from Elk Grove High School
• 5 Teachers from Grove Junior High School
• 1 District 214 Technology Systems Supervisor
• 2 Innovative Technology Facilitators from Elk Grove and Rolling Meadows High Schools

What: 

• 5th in a series of monthly Professional Learning workshops on focused on Assessment Literacy.  Today's session focused on establishing and communicating clear learning targets.

• Professional learning characterized by examining research-based learning strategies, sharing examples and models of work from our own practice, and planning next steps to improve our practice to impact student learning.

When: 8:00 a.m - 12:00 p.m. 

Where:  Elk Grove High School

Why:  

• Grow our own professional learning
• Build professional learning supports and networks within our PLCs, across disciplines, across schools
• Impact student Learning! 

Today's EGLLT workshop followed the format that characterizes all of our EGLLT professional learning meetings.  Activating our background knowledge (from previous sessions and teaching experience), building background knowledge (often by reading and processing a research-based professional reading), sharing examples of our practice (with the whole group and in small groups), reflecting on and self-assessing our practice, and planning next steps for our instruction.

The focus of today's session was on establishing and communicating clear learning targets. Establishing clear learning targets allows us to align our instruction, our assessments (both formative and summative), and feedback to students, thereby impacting student mastery of essential learning in our courses. It also fosters students motivation, engagement, and ownership of their own learning.

I left EGLLT today feeling inspired and energized, once again, by the interdisciplinary collaboration, conversations, and examples we shared. And, it was great to expand our learning networks beyond Elk Grove High School with participation from from 5 Grove Jr. High School staff and 2 colleagues District 214 colleagues.

To get a better idea of what our day "looked like"  -  the engaged professional learning - check out the photos below:

Principal Paul Kelly starts us off! Sharing our Essential Questions that drive all of our learning for the year, and sharing examples of the impact on student learning.  Our unprecedented Freshman success rate is just one example!

Activating Background knowledge from our previous EGLLT meeting.  Interdisciplinary groups coach each other to demonstrate learning of key concepts.

Discussing the benefits of Clear Learning Targets for Teachers, Students and Parents

Learning from peer examples / models of work:  Quinn Loch shares "I used to . . . " "Now I . . . " and "What I noticed as a result . . ." related to the progress of his science PLC with communicating clear learning targets.

Learning from peer examples / models of work:  Mark Heintz shares the progress of the Human Geography team in establishing clear learning targets and aligning the targets to instruction and assessments.

Learning from peer examples / models of work:  Colleen Mullaney shares examples of her practice from several years ago, and several steps that reflect modifications in her communication of learning targets to engage students more in their own learning.

Associate Principal Megan Knight prepares staff for a self-assessment activity.  After sharing peer examples,  examining models of learning targets, and engaging in an activity to distinguish between learning targets and activities, we prepared to examine our own learning targets and determine next steps to improve our communication of clear learning targets to our students and to align our instruction and our feedback to students in order to improve student mastery of essential learning in our courses.

Intradisciplinary, interdisciplinary and cross-school collaboration:  A division chair from Math/Science and a psychology teacher; our Elk Grove Health teachers; and a PE teacher from Elk Grove High School and Grove Jr. High School reflect on their practice.

The Math / Science team reflects on their practice and plans next steps.

English/Fine Arts and Special Education teams reflect on their practice and plan next steps

Elk Grove High School and Grove Jr. High School reflect on their practice and share ideas to continue their collaboration across schools!

Social Science Division Chair and teacher brainstorm ideas to "break down" the learning targets and scaffold instruction to engage students with the essential learning in their courses.  

Human Geography Teachers take next steps with instructional design and assessment.

When I look back at the photos from the day, I can't help be inspired by the sharing and collaboration and learning with my colleagues.

For more details about the Essential Questions that drive our learning, and the specific learning targets and activities for EGLLT 5,  check out our slide presentation:  EGLLT #5 Clear Learning Targets.

EG Lead Learners: Meeting #4

Getting an Outsider's Perspective

Written by Quinn Loch

At the last EGLLT meeting one of our focuses was on setting clear targets for our students. We saw lots of examples of how teachers communicate their learning targets to their students and it's always great to see how other teachers in the school do things in their classrooms. Sometimes I feel trapped in a bubble and it is inspiring to see things from another angle.

It got me wondering if my students could understand the learning targets that I provided them. This understanding is crucial for the student. If students don't know what they're aiming for, how can they succeed and meet the goals that you set for them? It can be difficult to step back and get an objective look at your own learning targets, so I turned to my colleagues from other content areas for feedback. If my colleagues couldn't follow or understand the learning targets, how could my students?

Inspired by Mark Heintz, I printed the learning targets for one of the freshman biology units along with some of the assessments, skills practice, and readings for the unit and taped them up to the whiteboard wall in the Collab Lab.

Over the next couple of days, some of the DTC's made comments and asked some questions. It was apparent that not everything was clear. There are areas where I am lacking specificity and some of the language isn't very student-friendly, especially for a freshman student. Of course I want my students to know words and descriptors like "differentiate", but I can communicate things in a more straightforward and unambiguous manner that would lead to less confusion.

Some of the changes are easy fixes, but should go a long way in leading my students' to success. The feedback that I received gave me a fresh perspective and would encourage my colleagues to do the same. 

Why Am I Giving a Multiple Choice Quiz?

By Kim Miklusak

My daughter will be taking a quiz in the coming weeks where she has to name the 13 colonies.  I've been helping her study on Quizlet, and she loves it!  We've been practicing typing in the names, spelling, and identifying each state on the map.  The problem is that I don't know how she is being assessed on these names.  Does she get a blank sheet of paper and has to write them from memory?  Will there be a list and she has to circle the 13?  Is there a map?   Does spelling count?

None of this is a criticism of my daughter's teacher by any means!!  However, the whole experience as a parent has made me reflect more--and especially based on the discussions in Lead Learners over the past weeks--about the nature of assessments we give in our classrooms.  Oftentimes we give a multiple choice test or matching test because it is the easiest for us to grade.  We believe it assesses the students' content knowledge.  But I'm telling you right now, my daughter won't do well on this test if she has to write them all from memory.  And I can't help but think: if only they were to let her pick the way she wants to show her content knowledge, she would ace it!

...so as a teacher, why do I not want the same thing?  Specifically as an English teacher, I understand the time commitment and workload.  But I also know that I could just as easily give perhaps two or three different options for students to demonstrate their knowledge and skills various times throughout various units.  As long as the rubrics were equitable and the content demonstration was equal, wouldn't it be worth it?

EG Lead Learners Team Meeting #3

Today was our third meeting of the Elk Grove Lead Learners Team. First, here is a brief overview of the EGLLT:

At Elk Grove High School, our Lead Learners Team is an interdisciplinary team of staff that comes together monthly to collaborate and learn, with our ultimate goal to improve learning for our students.  We are a team of staff that in many schools, and formerly at Elk Grove High School, would be called the "staff development team." Our EGLLT is a group of 30 staff members and it includes our principals, division chairs, counselors, teachers from all departments, and teachers from the feeder schools; it is truly a collaborative venture.

Our objectives for today's meeting were:

-Participants will be able to recognize and explain the difference between Clear Purpose and Clear Targets

-Participants will be able to recognize and explain the difference between Formative and Summative Assessment

-Participants will be able to use Formative Assessment every day to check for understanding and maximize student learning

The hope for the first two objectives was to get the entire school to use the words the same.  

Establishing Clear Purpose & Clear Targets

The EGLLT discussed the difference between a purpose and a target.  The purpose in the teacher actions, approach, logistics, etc. while the target is the content, skills, etc.  

Formative & Summative Assessment
One of the activities used to differentiate between formative and summative assessment was this Google Form. After completing this form, we discussed the results in our groups. We also talked about the best uses of each type of assessment as well as how all of these can be used to inform students of their learning. In small groups, we created six-word statements to define formative assessment.

Seven Strategies of Assessment for Learning
In a jigsaw activity, we learned the background of the Seven Strategies of Assessment for Learning. Then, teachers presented examples of each strategies. Thank you to Kirsten Fletcher, Leslie Guimon, Rachel Barry, Tom Boczar, Matt Bohnenkamp, Kristen Guth, Paul Kelly, Quinn Loch, and Kerry Frazier for sharing your practices!