Curriculum and Instruction: March 2016

Visible Learning (through Collaboration and Professional Development). We look for visible learning in our students through high yielding instructional strategies.

Read more by John Hattie in any of his Visible Learning books.
https://files.acrobat.com/a/preview/11fcb872-ebb0-44e8-a1fd-e98ba4abaa7c

Literacy through those Visible Learning strategies (developed through collaboration and professional development). Literacy for our students is a top priority. Douglas Fisher, Nancy Frey and John Hattie offer more insight around strategies for literacy through visible learning.

Schools can set school-wide literacy times into their master schedules at designated blocks of time each school year. Read more at https://learningandliteracyblog.wordpress.com/2016/04/03/first-blog-post/
Look at some concrete implementation steps through this powerpoint:
https://files.acrobat.com/a/preview/06f9fb60-dd28-4be9-b08a-16b04ac96e5d

Here is a brief article and a tool synthesizing a variety of research into some top high yielding practices for classroom teachers and for school leaders: Read more https://learningandliteracyblog.wordpress.com/2016/04/03/first-blog

Instructional Resources for Konocti

We are currently piloting GoMath K - 7: While we are currently piloting GoMath, it looks like the team may decide to pilot their second recommend instructional resource in the fall. If this is the case, I will re invite K -7 teachers to be apart of this pilot next fall.

K -7 teachers will look to evaluate ELD/ELA instructional materials (and a lighter pilot for 8 -12 for ELA/ELD) on April 28th after school. All teachers will be invited. Stay tuned.

NGSS: Science Foss Kits and other science materials are being purchased through site funds, both the remainder of this school year and into the next school year.
ELD intensive instructional materials will be both purchased and piloted to support the Newcomers and the Level 1-3 EL students in the Newcomer Center and in the pull out ELD time at the start of the 2016-2017 school year.

All of our subscriptions will be renewed:

Scholastic News Magazines, k – 8

SumDog for K - 7

Reading - A-Z and Raz Kids for K -3

Storia for K -8
Brainpop, K -7

Upfront,, NYTimes, and Science World for High School

My Big World for TK

We are in the process of buying classroom libraries using both site based funds and curriculum and instruction funds. We are starting with K -3 classrooms and then will expand the classroom libraries for the 4th -7th classrooms. All classroom library sets, K -7, should be at school sites by August.

High Schools have school board adopted textbooks for all core subjects including class sets of novels.

Special Education instructional materials - Rewards, Scholastic Action library sets, Read Natural - have all been purchased. Special Education all have access to the above instructional materials and subscriptions.

Every elementary school site has one set of Read Natural.

Survey Reading Inventory will continue for the high schools.

Read 180 will be used for Carle and for Blue Heron.

Star Renaissance will be used for Kinder through 7th grade next year.
Teachers have a logon for the digital library wealth of instructional resources via www.caaspp.org

District wide Data for 2016-2017:

CCSS unit assessments in Math and in ELA, K - 7

HS Finals in each content area, two times a year.

A school-wide write for LLHS and Carle, two times a year.

SBAC district wide common assessment 2^nd – 8^th (and possible 11^th grade), two times a year.

K -1 ESGI for phonics (piloting early literacy instructional resources and assessment tools through Renaissance),each trimester.

2^nd – 7^th Star Reader comprehension assessment with instructional resources, each trimester.

8^th – 11^th Scholastic Reading Inventory with Read 180 and other instructional resources, each trimester.

There still may be a need for additional EL local measures and benchmarks

Structures for implementation:

Regular site collaboration

Regular district collaboration

Coaching conversations at various sites

Peer observations at various sites.

Engaged Teaching and Learning Committee every other month for teacher leaders, coaches and administration

Cognitive coaching training for teacher leaders, coaches and administration

Regular bi-monthly management collaborations

Regular monthly instructional coach collaborations

Regular weekly cabinet meetings.

Professional Development Days (at least one a trimester)

PIP/STP Training (once a month)

Teacher Work Days (after school work time each month; and one Saturday a month since January)
District-wide walk thrus (three rounds this year to walk thru at every school site).

District-wide walk thrus:

The district wide team was able to visit every school this year. We just finished visits at East Lake School and at Pomo Elementary.
The teams focus on three district wide instructional high yielding goals; questioning, engagement and checking for understanding strategies. There are additional high yielding strategies for schools and teachers.
Across the board, we saw students able to demonstrate their abilities and knowledge through engagement strategies like:
- white boards
- partner share
- table share

Across the board, we saw students responding to a variety of depths of knowledge questions and tasks:
- fundamental questions/tasks
- open ended questions/responses
- Justify and explain/extend on that

Across the board, we saw students responding to teacher feedback in the checking for understanding process:
- students use the graphic organizers to support their learning objective(s) for the day
- students get feedback and/or redirection/reteach on a response to a question or on a task at hand related to the learning objective(s) for the day.
- Students work together and respond to each other's responses and ideas as the teacher facilitates

Across the board, we saw routines with high expectations in the classrooms, and healthy relationships among the teachers and students conducive for the high level of learning listed above.

Across the board, in all subject areas, we saw students reading, thinking and writing!!

Thank you for your hard work and dedication to the well-being of our students, to the literacy of our students, and to the academic success of our students!!
Here is the link to the walk-thru tool we are using: https://files.acrobat.com/a/preview/11fcb872-ebb0-44e8-a1fd-e98ba4abaa7c

The Happenings in Konocti Unified

Walk thrus in many classrooms:
This month I visited Pomo and Lower Lake High School. My goal is to visit every classroom before the end of the school year. Why? It helps me get a good pulse on the teaching and learning here in Konocti as the director of curriculum and instruction. It helps me learn more about each teacher and the students. It informs our next steps in the way of support and progress with instruction and curriculum. I look to refine my skills as an observer to be able to provide valuable feedback to support adult performance and student learning.

District-wide walk thrus:
Some patterns and next steps learned from our classroom visits/walk-thrus were the following:
- Students making learning progress toward the learning objective(s) for the day; especially with a clearly articulated learning objective.
- Students demonstrating their abilities and knowledge with varying types of depth of knowledge questions and tasks; a range of recall questions/tasks complimented with DOK2 and DOK3 questions/tasks.
- Students engaged by having an opportunity to demonstrate their abilities and knowledge through a variety of techniques like pair-shares, turn and talk, table share, and so on.
Our next district-wide walk thru is scheduled for March 22 at East Lake School and at Pomo Elementary.

District collaboration day March 17:
Grade level teams will analyze some student written responses and student results from a recent CCSS Unit assessment.
High schools will look at formative and/or summative assessments to compliment their differentiated instruction - modifications, accommodations, and challenges - to support special education and regular education students; low, middle and high students.

District Engaged Teaching and Learning Committee Meeting (ETLC): This committee is comprised of the instructional coaches, the grade level district teacher facilitators, high school department chairs (principals are welcome) and myself. We met February 18 as an opportunity to share successes around each grade level and department progress in regards to instruction and assessment; in regards to instruction and learning. It was an opportunity to learn and share best practices on a vertical level around student learning and classroom instruction.

Forward progress with the Math Pilot Process:
In our March meeting, we will bring student results from the February math grade level CCSS unit assessment.
The GoMath representative will offer some training on the use of GoMath, especially on the digital side.
Time permitting, we will decide to purchase GoMath and/or recommend piloting the teacher representatives second option at the start of the next school year.

Evaluating and piloting Language Arts/English Language Development supplemenatl instructional materials.
I am pulling together a team of teacher representatives K - 8 to evaluate instructional materials on April 28th. we will review and preview 4 -5 language arts instructional materials, make a recommendation of our top 2 choices, then pilot these materials in the fall of the 2015-2016 school year.
Stay tuned for that invitation and the criteria to be on the ELA/ELD piloting committee.

Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment MidYear Update: This school presentation took place March 2. Look under the C&I department on the Konocti website to see the presentation.

This past week in Kim Marshall's Memo: In This Issue:

1. Skills for the future

2. The changing role of teachers in a high-tech world

3. A Rhode Island school opens up an hour in the schedule every day

4. Dealing with very difficult parents

5. Leaders who are voracious learners

6. Adolescents’ deeper thoughts and needs

7. Short item: Information on Harkness teaching

1. Work-life balance 101

2. Helping students learn self-regulation in their use of technology

3. Is it wise to showcase exceptionally good student work?

4. The power of shadowing a student for a full school day

5. Study techniques that benefit students with A.D.H.D.