Craft Category: Artifacts

Roots Teacher Discusses STEP Testing and Informal Data Use at Roots

Roots teacher, Samantha Gambino, discusses how the team uses STEP testing to inform literacy instruction.

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Transcript: Samantha Gambino: So, a lot of our data is done through – we do what’s called step testing, which is a literacy test that does comprehension and phonics. But also, a lot of informal data is done through our small groups. So when I’m speaking, conferencing with kids, I’ll be making notes on like, do you need help with one-to-one pointing, or do you need help with like, a phonics skill like beginning sounds? And so I make notes of that. I also conference with my other partner, Ms. Wagner, who’s the writing teacher to see like, where are their gaps in learning from reading to writing so that we can target those skills specifically for scholars through the data that we’ve collected.

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August 9, 2016

Roots Executive Director Discusses Flexible Instruction through Data Use

Roots ED and Founder, Jonathan Hanover, discusses how Roots uses data to create long term learning plans as well as adjust near-daily to inform groupings.

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Transcript: Jon Hanover: – one of the things that’s really unique about our model is that we have the ability to strategically form and reform groups throughout the day, which means we’re not stuck in a trap of having to either be completely heterogeneous and random as far as how kids are grouped together. And, we don’t have to be purely homogeneous or tracked, right? It gives us the flexibility to have the right kind of group formation for the right kind of content. We also use data along the way and between cycles to either make adjustments to some of those groups, to schedule additional pull outs. For instance, our math teacher will often notice that these five kids are struggling with this or these ten kids didn’t get this in my lesson today and so will schedule them for remediation the next day.

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August 9, 2016

Teacher Discusses Student Choice at Roots

Roots teacher, Samantha Gambino, explains how choice is integrated into the student day, particularly during independent learning time.

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Transcript: Samantha Gambino: say okay, we have these four authors. Let’s all choose which author we all as a group want to be learning about and we want to talk about. For example, we did Dr. Seuss a few months back, and it was overwhelmingly, the kids wanted to do Dr. Seuss. There were a couple of a scholars who were like, you know, we don’t really want to do Dr. Seuss. So the next unit they were able to choose more so like, what the unit would be. And then, student choice is really strong in the grove, I think, because they get to choose a lot of their playlist. So their playlist is where they go to each station. And the coaches do one-on-one conversations with them, and they say, how are you feeling about your playlist? Where would you like to go more? And scholars will say oh, I need to go to the iPad center more ’cause I want to work on my reading app. And so, that’s where they get a lot of choices more so in the grove, less so in the whole group classrooms.

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August 9, 2016

Teacher Discusses Personalized Learning Experiences at Roots

Roots teacher, Megan Miles, explains how rotations through different activities are personalized to student need and choice.

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Transcript: Megan Miles: when they’re in the grove, each kid has a different grove schedule. So they’re the same activities, more or less, that the kids are doing, but they might be doing – one kid might be going to the flex center and doing a specially designed activity just for them. Another kid may be spending two rotations in the library because they really want to practice their reading, or they like just staying in the library a little bit longer. It helps them calm down – feel calm. Other kids are going from like, iPad, to library, to writing to iPad, to flex, to maker’s – ’cause they need that movement. Or, we might have kids doing a couple of like, different kinds of games in their iPad center to help target like, where their academic priorities are. So, even though all kids pretty much are going to all the centers, they’re not all doing the same activities, and they’re doing them in different orders in a different rate so that it feels a lot more personalized for them.

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August 9, 2016

Teacher Discusses Leveraging Student Feedback at Roots

Roots teacher, Lecksy Wolk, explains how teachers are able to elicit and integrate student feedback to give them more choice and ownership over learning plans.

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Transcript: Lecksy Wolk: I think right now, I think as the technology is new, and as our scholars are new, and we’re kind of we’re all – we’re kind of like, learning to navigate the system together, it’s not as high leverage as we’d want it to be, to be honest. But, what I think is – what we’ve built in is that – so kids have one-on-ones with their coaches. Hopefully once every two weeks, that’s the goal. And they’re asked, how is the grove? How are your activities? How is your class? And it’s very, very easy for us in our system to be like, oh, you don’t like this one activity? Okay. So you still need to do it, but we can add in other activities around it so that we’re like, what do you want to do right before and right after? Right? You’re like, okay. So this is your like, a kid can be like, wow, I really don’t like playing ST Math. Okay. We still need to play ST Math, but what if we put Legos on either side of that so you knew that right after you went to Legos the first time, you were gonna go play ST Math. But right after, you also got to go play Legos again. And it’s a conversation that a five year-old can have with an adult, right? And say like, I don’t like this activity. I want to try something different. Or, I really like this activity and I want to do it twice.

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August 9, 2016

Roots Executive Director Provides an Overview of Creation of Schedules

Roots ED and Founder, Jonathan Hanover, shares the process for scheduling student and teacher time.

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Transcript: Jon Hanover: we built an app that basically allows our habits of success coaches in partnership with scholars to basically plan out their – what we call their playlist where it’s their kind of rotation of self-directed work that they do. So, you know, it might be going to the maker’s space and doing our design challenge with Legos going to the library and doing leveled reading, going to the iPad center and working on ST math, et cetera, et cetera. The kind of list of self-directed activities that kids engage in. And then what the app does which is kind of simple – it’s very simple logic, but it saves all of the – some of the early pioneers in personalized learning struggled with the, just like, how do you just like, reconcile everybody’s schedule on a nightly basis, right? So this basically just says if there’s something on my calendar, show me that, ’cause a teacher has scheduled me for a lesson, and I need to go to it. If there’s nothing on my calendar, show me whatever’s next up on my playlist of self-directed work and I’ll engage in that.

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August 9, 2016

Roots One-on-One Conferencing Spreadsheet

Roots uses one-on-one conferencing spreadsheets so that students are able to benchmark their progress and set goals in a tangible manner. Teachers walk through the tool with students, with updates made in different colors to track change over time.

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August 9, 2016

Teacher Providing an Overview of One-on-One Conferencing at Roots

Roots teacher, Megan Miles, talks about the value of one-on-one student conferencing

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Transcript: Megan Miles: One thing that we do that I really love is that we have one-on-ones. So that’s what one of the coaches was doing this morning. I don’t know if you saw her. But every other day, we get to – we have an hour that we pull kids, and we actually have a meeting with them with like, how are you doing? Like, what – let’s go through each of your classes and talk about them. Let’s set goals for you. And so, that way, we absolutely meet every single kid, and then we’re also really in charge of just, I set all of the kids’ grove schedules, for example. So I’m talking to the teachers about what their academic priorities for each one of my kids – and then organizing their schedule based on that.

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August 9, 2016
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