Diagnostic Assessment at Pleasant View
Students take a diagnostic assessment prior to engaging in a learning objective.
August 11, 2016
Tag: Growth Oriented
Summit Personalized Learning: Norms for Self-Directed Learning
Summit has developed a series of resources for teachers, including norms for self-directed personalized learning time (PLT). You can find the complete list, along with additional resources, on pages 3 and 4 of the link (titled “Step 1”), and below are a few of the key suggestions:
- Ensure students are clear on your expectations and structures for PLT
- Set and maintain an expectation for goal setting at the beginning of PLT
- Have students reflect on their progress toward their goals
August 11, 2016
Exhibition Night at Lindsay
Students deliver public presentations to develop real-world skills while concurrently showing proficiency and mastery. Teacher Brandy Quintero shares how these nights work.
Transcript: Brandy Quintero: So exhibition night was created – designed in a way to give students real audiences to present to, and to demonstrate their knowledge to. […] Those are in the evening from like 6:30 to 7:30, so parents, business professionals, people in the community can be here. And I went and sat in. And they get feedback from the people that are in the room on how they presented, what was their level of knowledge, were they able to answer questions that the audience had. And then based on that, I gave them a score or feedback.
August 10, 2016
August 10, 2016
Personalized Playlists at Lindsay
Teacher Marla Earnest explains how personalized learning playlists are created in Empower.
Transcript: Marla Earnest: They use Empower, the program I was telling you about earlier. And Empower has a playlist set up in it. And that playlist is determined based on what the kid, that learner, has gaps in. So at the beginning of the year I look at their overall progress. I look at their CELDT scores. I look at their SRA data and I set up a playlist for them. “Here are the learning targets that you need to show proficiency at before the end of the year.” And they have activities that they can do on their own. So as they’re doing those activities and we’re doing the whole class and I’m putting data in they are able to say, “Oh, I don’t have this learning target completed. Let me do some of these tasks to show that I have proficiency and then Ms. Earnest can give me my 3V and I can see if I am proficient at that.” So they already have a playlist with all their tasks laid out. And so during personalized learning time they go to the computers, they figure out what it is they need to do, they have me there for support, they can ask their classmates for help as they’re working through those things. And then when they feel like they’re ready they can have a 3V application experience at the end.
August 10, 2016
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.
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.
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
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.
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
Focusing on Most Important Standards at Lindsay
Brandy Quintero, a Lindsay teacher, discusses how the district identifies certain learning standards to prioritize over others.
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
Feedback Modifications for English Learners at Lindsay
Teacher Marla Earnest explains how she provides feedback within a performance based system for English language learners.
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