Tag: Actively Engaging

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

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.”

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.

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.

A student explains how he decided to choose and execute against his own “level four” mastery demonstration.

Transcript:

Marco Lopez: She gave us an opportunity for a Level Four, but a Level Four seemed kind of – I didn’t really like it. We do this thing called IXL and there’s like lessons on there, and it teaches us different ways to use like colons and semicolons and stuff like that. So she told us that if we could use all them correctly and incorporate them in our writing, that it could be a Level Four for grammar. And so I did that, and she said that I did an excellent job in that. So I got a Level Four in grammar. And then on theme I also got a four for that with my essay.
Interviewer: So you did an assignment that was different from the original one assigned, but it’s still totally showed that –
Student: Yeah, it still kind of referred the things it would have counted for.
Interviewer: You were excellent at all those learning targets?
Student: Yeah.

Brandy Quintero, a Lindsay teacher, explains how students sign up for Personalized Learning Time.

Transcript: Brandy Quintero: Is the PLT. So kids get to sign up. We have a flex time manager and they get to go in and see what their teachers are offering on Tuesday and Thursday for an hour-and-a-half at the end of the day, and they get to sign up to what class they want to go. If they don’t sign up with a class, they get to go with Ms. Moore who’s our in-school suspension/detention lady. So we’re trying to teach them, “You do have to sign up for something. You can just say, ‘Oh, there was nothing I needed.'” And then we have opportunities for kids who are on pace in all our classes and don’t need that personalized learning time to get caught up for extra support. Some teachers are doing like woodwork, like creative stuff. One of the teachers, he’s looking at maybe doing some like boxing stuff next year. So like just kind of fun things, because you’re on pace, so it’s not a whole elective course for it. But during that PLT time you can work on something else.