Craft Category: Artifacts

Off-Pace Students at Lindsay

A student shares how they think about being off or on “pace” in class, and how they and others stay on track.

Isaac-Cortez.jpg#asset:1431

Transcript: Student: It’s very apparent who’s ahead and who’s behind. We’re all pretty open with that. Like I have some friends that will regularly tell me, “Oh, I’m behind in like physiology,” or something. So it’s pretty open as far as talking about it, and no one’s really like ashamed about it. But what’s really cool about this system is that everybody’s responsible for their own learning, so you know that you need to pick up your pace. And it’s very easy to get back on track. It’s not like how it was in my other school whereas if you miss one day you’re completely done. Here there are a lot of ways to get you back on track.

August 10, 2016

Options for Students Off-Pace at Lindsay

Brandy Quintero,a Lindsay teacher, discusses ways she can intervene to get a student back on pace.

Brandi-Quintero.jpg#asset:1322

Transcript: Brandy Quintero: If it is a lazy issue, then we have after school. We contact parents; we let them know. And like one teacher – two English teachers stay Monday through Wednesday, so then I let them – I offer Thursday, and they can come in after time. We also have personalized learning time. We are still working on that as a school what schedule works best for us.

August 10, 2016

How Pacing is Structured at Lindsay

Teacher Brandy Quintero explains how they use matrices built around the assumption of the average amount of time they expect a student need to complete at standard or skill.

Brandi-Quintero.jpg#asset:1322

Transcript: Brandy Quintero: the pacing matrix is set up with the idea of the average student, this is average, you know. And so you do have students who are going to take a little longer. And so when we set up the pacing guide, when we get to the end of the semester, there’s some extra time, and that’s either for like remediation that I had to do throughout, because I don’t actually just wait to the end to do remediation. So like my Period Three that came in reading at an average third grade reading level, we’re not done, we’re still working on assignments. And so because I had to slow down, we had to remediate in the process. But like this group of kids that we just had after the presentation this last piece, they’ve had everything that they need from me. Like I’ve taught every lesson, not to say that they’re totally perfect at it, but we’re done. And so they’re done before this other class, three weeks earlier than this other class.

August 10, 2016

Using a Capacity Matrix as a Pacing Guide at Lindsay

Brandy Quintero, a teacher at Lindsay, explains why and how teachers decided to integrate a pacing guide into the district’s capacity matrix.

Brandi-Quintero.jpg#asset:1322

Transcript: Brandy Quintero: When we started out with the capacity nature, just it was more like a checklist like, “Do this, do this, do this,” and there weren’t maybe like dates on there; it was just kind of like one to the next. And so we’re actually going to change it next year, because some of our students, especially at the high school and they started it like, “Oh, go at your own pace.” And realize like, okay, a high schooler takes that and says, “I’ll just chill all year long, and in June I’ll do my work.” So we’re having to fix some things. And so we’re going to call it a pacing matrix, and those are already – those have been changed. […] And so the pacing guide has the dates, and what I have done as the teacher is I’ll say, “Okay, I’m the expert in what needs to be taught. I know about how long it should take for each of us,” and so I’ve given the students those dates and they know, “Hey, from 125 to 23 this is what should be done in this period of time.” Now if they can go faster, great, go faster. And so that’s what the capacity matrix pacing guide – and, again, we’re just going to call it a pacing matrix next year, kind of blend them all together. It lets them know kind of the assignments that have to go along with it. And then we also put the – and different grades do it a little bit different. But we’ve put the standard, you know, so how the kid knows, “Hey, these are like assignments right here and this is the assignment that’s going to go in to educate, and this is the standard it’s going to go underneath.”

August 10, 2016

Eng 9B – Pacing Guide

This is a sample 9th grade English capacity matrix and pacing guide for a Unit on Romeo and Juliet.

August 10, 2016

Focusing on Most Important Standards at Lindsay

Brandy Quintero, a Lindsay teacher, discusses how the district identifies certain learning standards to prioritize over others.

Brandi-Quintero.jpg#asset:1322

Transcript: Brandy Quintero: We don’t have every Common Core standard in ninth grade. We’ve kind of focused on the ones that we feel are the most – we try to make a viable curriculum, and so we’ve identified the ones, yes, because we are still in a testing society. The ones that will SBAC will test pretty heavily. But also the ones that we feel like the students, you know, “If you’re going to go on to whatever career you’re going to go onto, like you need to know how to do these particular things just to be successful at whatever career field you choose.

August 10, 2016

Instructional Modifications for English Learners at Lindsay

Teacher Marla Earnest explains how she modifies learning activities to support English language learners.

Marla-Earnest.jpg#asset:1295

Transcript: Marla Earnest: It depends on the kid. It depends on what level they’re working on. But let’s take a newcomer, for example, a learner that’s been here less than a year. What they would do is we would have a whole class lesson that day which usually revolves around discussion so that they’re using language, we’re building background knowledge and vocabulary. And then having some kind of experience with that. It might be a small group table talk where they’re discussing a particular cultural item that we learned about that day. And then they would work on grammar. We use IXL for grammar. I’m able to choose a level that’s appropriate for them so even though that program might say it’s a second grade level it might be that that particular lesson in IXL meets the emerging standard for ELD. So we choose what lesson they’re going to do based on that. They also will do some sort of writing so that we’re practicing the language and the vocabulary and they can do that in their personalized time. The writing is personalized to them. We use a program called Write to Learn. But Write to Learn also really heavily depends on the learning facilitator to help the learner meet what they need to meet. We have rubrics that we use. They are district rubrics designed for each level of ELD competency. So as they’re writing they have the rubric and I’m able to give them feedback based on that rubric. They give each other feedback; there’s some peer feedback in there as well.

August 10, 2016

Feedback Modifications for English Learners at Lindsay

Teacher Marla Earnest explains how she provides feedback within a performance based system for English language learners.

Marla-Earnest.jpg#asset:1295

Transcript: Marla Earnest: In ELD it looks a little bit different because when they score based on that rubric they’re not going to see like a traditional class here in our school they’re not going to see a one, two, three or four on their report card; they’re going to see emerging, expanding, bridging. They’re going to see their level of language acquisition. So in order to get a four then they could actually take that learning and take it out to the real world. So if they were presenting let’s say on careers they might share that career information with one of our lower grades with one of our sister schools like Kennedy. And they might go and talk to kids about, “So how do you figure out what your perfect career is?” That’s how they would get a four. But on the report card it’s still going to show here’s the level of language I’m using. For us a three is, “Hey, I have the complex knowledge.” But because ELD is language acquisition we’re not looking at complex knowledge versus simple knowledge. We’re not looking at twos and threes. What we’re looking at for proficiency is where are you falling on this continuum of language acquisition? Some kids have some of their standards; they’re showing emerging as their language acquisition. And then some of their standards are all the way at bridging. It depends on where their gaps in their language are. A lot of our kids speak English really, really well, but they’re not yet fluent in reading and writing, so they may be performing at an emerging level. So my job is is if you’re at the emerging level I need to move you up to the expanding level. So I’m giving them strategies to do that.

August 10, 2016

Different Learning Choices Students Make at Lindsay

Brandy Quintero, a teacher at Lindsay, explains how students have choice over when to take an assessment as well as which content areas to tackle.

Brandi-Quintero.jpg#asset:1322

Transcript: Brandy Quintero: So students can come in here. And these are all the standards that are going to be covered in 9B. So a student can go in here and say, “You know what; I think I already know this particular standard. I’m going to just like go through and do it.” And they thought like the level of knowledge in here. […] Once they feel like, “Hey, I’ll do the Learning Accelerator, I’m good,” then they can take the district’s proficiency test and they could be done with that learning target. And so that’s one option of student voice and choice. We also have like – it’s going to look a little different. So when you open up ERWC Module 1, we’re going to have the regular English 9 Module 1, and then we’re going to have Academy of Engineering’s Module 1 and Academy of Health Science Module 1. Now you’re still going to have to read a test and a take it. You’re still going to have to follow the general steps of it. But because AOE needs to be able to focus on the engineering, their articles are going to be different. Their project choices are going to be different.

August 10, 2016

Romeo and Juliet: Leveled Readings

This is an example of a playlist of different levels of a reading. Students can select traditional or nontraditional formats, such as annotated or graphic texts, as well as a Spanish version.

August 10, 2016