Roots Can Solve it Worksheet
This worksheet from Roots gives an example of how they integrate Habits of Success into their classroom practices.
August 8, 2016
Craft Category: Artifacts
Teacher Discusses Habits of Success Curriculum at Roots
Roots teacher, Lecksy Wolk, explains the school’s Habits of Success curriculum, Dovetail Learning.
Transcript: Lecksy Wolk: habits of success time is actually in the morning during morning circle, and that’s when we do socio-emotional learning. And so we do the like, dovetail where we can give kids like a quote-unquote toolbox where they have lots of things to like, pull out of their toolbox, like their breathing tool, their safe place tool, their take time tool, their use your words tool. But that’s in the 20 minutes when they’re switching between breakfast and lunch.
August 8, 2016
Teacher Discusses Habits of Success Progress Monitoring at Roots
Roots teacher, Megan Miles, shares how growth on Habits of Success skills is monitored throughout the year.
Transcript: Megan Miles: About three – four times a year, the other coach and I sit down and we have what we call our habits of success. And so that’s about – 20 different factors that we rank the kids on. So, like on a scale of one through four. And so, we can track their progress over the year. I mean, a lot of that is anecdotal and it’s what we’re seeing but we’re also checking in with the teachers and getting a pretty good sense. I was like, very nervous about that anecdotal setup at first, but what I noticed especially is I’m doing one-on-ones is, I always ask kids what they want their goals to be. And then, we actually have the habits of success data worksheet that we pull up so kids can see sort of where they are for each of these – when you break them down to like, our power habits, it’s about ten that the kids are looking through and seeing – and those sort of things like, – I follow directions the first time. I try even when it’s hard. I care about other people in my community. Those kinds of values that we want to stress with them. And honestly, nine times out of ten, the thing that they tell me that they want to work on is the thing that they have like, the lowest score on. The thing that they feel really good about is something they have the highest scores on. So, it’s actually interestingly been pretty aligned in this – like, as we’re going through and talking to the kids about them.
August 8, 2016
Teacher Discusses Sharing Information via GroupMe at Roots
Roots teacher, Lecksy Wolk, explains how teachers use a group messaging app to communicate about student needs and plans throughout the day.
Transcript: Lecksy Wolk: Another thing that I can do is – let their coach know. ‘Cause sometimes it’s not – sometimes a behavior is not the cause itself, right? It’s a reaction to something, and that might be something at home. That might be something that happened in a friendship earlier that day, and so I can also be like, hmmm, I noticed that you’re struggling, but I also have seen you solve this problem before. So I’m gonna let your coach know that you could use a conversation, and we have a group meet running where I can just like, let his or her coach know that they need a conversation. And within an hour or so, an adult will come pull them and have a conversation with whatever child they need to talk to.
August 8, 2016
Teacher Explains Benefits of ClassDojo for Behavior Monitoring at Roots
Roots teacher, Megan Miles, shares how ClassDojo is used to collect data on student behaviors in order to inform support provided to students.
Transcript: Megan Miles: right now what we do, and we’re trying to find a system – and most traditional behavior systems are based on this model where like you have the same kids all the time so you can track what they’re doing a little bit easier. So, we’ve been using ClassDojo, which all the teachers have on their phone. And we have different like, Dojos up for like showing our values, Dojos down for talking when you’re supposed to be silent. Or like, running when you’re not supposed to be running. Whatever that is. And so, we will give the kids Dojo down – a lot of it works more as like, an information system where at the end of the day, too, we can pull kids. So I can track kids throughout the day. I know exactly like, what they’re getting the dojos for, when they’re getting them, who’s giving them to them, so I can get a better sense of like, what’s triggering their behavior, and we also print out the reports every day at the end of the day, and those go home with the parents. So that way, like, parents are getting not only like, oh, your kid had a red day, or a green day, or whatever it was. But it’s like, your kid had like, 12 Dojos up, and they had them for this, this, this, this, and this; and they had 6 Dojos down, and it was for these three different things. So that way, parents can have conversations with their kids, too. They can also, which is one thing that’s really cool about Dojo is they can access the app in real-time. So I have – not every parent is using it, but it also have some parents like, honestly, I’ve had dads like, text me and be like, “All right, I need to talk to my daughter. I’m watching her Dojo. I know she has four dojos down. That is not acceptable. Can you have her call me?” And I was like, sure thing. And like, have those conversations in real-time with the kids, which is really cool.
August 8, 2016
Teacher Provides an Overview of the Community Violation Process at Roots
Roots teacher, Lecksy Wolk, explains the process for addressing behaviors that undermine culture.
Transcript: Lecksy Wolk: all adults in the building are able to give out a CV. So it’s a community violation – for short, CV. And on the front side, we – you know, there’s a list of things that would warrant as a CV. So it comes as no surprise when one is circled – we send it home in the beginning of the year. This is what warrants as a CV, and then a description on the side, so I’ll say child made such and such a choice which resulted in a CV. And then, they – so that goes somewhere else. So I put in the group meet that says this child has received a community violation from our community, so they sit in the back of classrooms, they don’t get to participate in other activities. And then we have a place where a coach comes and gets them later. So, you may have noticed that coaches walk around pulling a scholar out of class with a red paper. They then have a conversation, and the goal is to have it as quickly as possible. Obviously, there’s a million things happening in a school every day, but it happens within the school day.
August 8, 2016
Teacher Provides an Overview of Habits of Success at Roots
Roots teacher, Megan Miles, is a Habits of Success teacher. She shares more about her role and what she does with students throughout the day.
Transcript: Megan Miles: part of our model is based on the idea that in addition to sort of the traditional academic skills that kids need to learn in order to be successful, they also need a lot of social and emotional skills in order to truly be successful. And what they found in a lot of studies are, kids might be able to learn the academics. But if they’re not learning these social and emotional skills, even if they make it to college or whatever it is, they don’t have the skills to cope when they’re out in the world. So, part of what we try to do here is teach them these coping skills, social and emotional skills from the very beginning. And so what that looks like is, I teach a class every morning called morning circle, and we go through a lot of these different skills. We also work with them one-on-one. So you’ll probably see me and the other coaches and habits of success team pulling kids all day when we notice like, behavior issues, and I try to sit them down, coach them through like, working through their problems. We’ve tried that a lot of different ways just recently. We made a worksheet called I Can Solve It, which is really great. It’s been helping kids a lot. So when they come to me with a problem, a lot of times they can say, let’s go get a worksheet and let’s talk about your tools to solve this. And so, we – we’re using a curriculum called “Dovetail” this year which goes through –it’s got 12 tools that kids are learning, like the breathing tool is a really good one. The garbage can tool, where if they have a little problem, they can take it out of their head and throw it away. So, and honestly, I never thought that one would work. That’s like, the very best one. I don’t know, four, five, and six year-olds are really good at just like, throwing little things out. So, it helps them move on with their day. And instead of getting angry or hitting or yelling or whatever it is, we’re trying to teach them like, use your words to solve this problem. What can you say? Use an I statement. Take some time, whatever it is that they need. Advocating for themselves is another big skill that we’re trying to teach them right now.
August 8, 2016
CICS WB Overview of Learner Profiles
West Belden uses Learner Profiles to better understand each of their students and help them meet their learning goals. This overview explains many of the elements and uses of Learner Profiles at West Belden.
August 8, 2016
Teacher Discusses Prep Time and Collaborative Planning at Roots
Roots teacher, Mackenzie Wagner, shares how structured protocols and tools support planning.
Transcript: Mackenzie Wagner: the form that we use right now is effective in guiding next steps for instruction. I’m hoping to make it even more detailed so that it really helps teachers – especially when I think about first-year teachers who might not’ve been through a data-driven process like this before. Basically, guide them step-by-step starting with what, again, like we start with the best growths. But then, really breaking it down into standards and why certain standards weren’t met and why certain standards were met. And then, guiding a really detailed instructional plan. So, right now, our analysis does a really good job of telling us what we’ve done for the last six weeks. I want to make sure we have a template that also tells us what we should be doing for the next six weeks.
August 8, 2016
CICS WB Overview of Personalized Learning Plans
West Belden uses Personalized Learning Plans to personalize learning for every student. The overview explains many of the core elements and uses of Personalized Learning Plans.
August 8, 2016