Tag: Targeted and Relevant

Heterogeneous Teams at LPS Richmond

Sophia Thomas, teacher, uses a heterogeneous teaming strategy to support student learning.

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Transcript: Sophia Thomas: I decided to switch after my first team competition to heterogeneous groupings. How did I make that choice? In the first semester, the first unit was done through a whole class model because that’s a time where I’m teaching them all the skills that they’re going to need to be able to do this self-directed learning. From that summative exam, I was able to recognize who was going to be where. I made sure that on every team there was a mix of kids. So, it’s heterogeneous groupings. They have switched teams about three to four times now consistently making sure that the groupings are heterogeneous. It’s really cool because they learn so much from each other. Why teams? I believe that they have the greatest influence and impact on each other. They’re less resistant if they need help. It’s easier for them to ask for help in a team setting. It just lowers the effective filter about your capabilities of what you can do and what you can’t do. The way it was set up is that you’re not only responsible for your own writing. We’re working as a team. If we’re working as a team, as a team you have one goal. We’re here to learn. If someone on your team is not learning or is not accomplishing their goal then the team in itself has not accomplished the goal. That was the message from the start. We also used the idea of what research has proven. Students actually learn best from each other. […] collaborative effort has just allowed kids to experience success. When the team is successful, there is that one kid who, if it was just them working, they’d never get a shout out. But you’re working with a team and your team gets a shout out. That is crazy cool. I had this one kid who it’s like pulling teeth to get anything done. In the last two to three weeks, he’s been like come on man. We’ve got to get this done. I generally need to pull him for individual check-ins. He’s all antsy because he just wants to go back and contribute to his team. That’s what it has done. A kid like that before was like his head was on the desk. I don’t want to do this.

August 9, 2016

LPS Sample Teacher Google Dashboard

This is a sample teacher Google dashboard used for LPS’s Navigate Math course. (LPS has since migrated much of this functionality online in partnership with Gooru.)

August 9, 2016

Common Launch Planning at LPS

LPS initially built and tested their Academic Numeracy course in Google Sheets, and many of those practices have been captured as Blended and Personalized Learning Strategies. LPS has worked with Gooru to create Navigate Math, a free tool any school can use. These screencasts cover strategies that can be applied through both Google Sheets and Navigate Math, though the latter is used in screencasts for demonstration purposes.

August 9, 2016

Teacher Discusses Students Moving Beyond Grade Level at Roots

Roots teacher, Lecksy Wolk, explains the school’s philosophy for letting students move with mastery across grade levels rather than seat-time.

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Transcript: Lecksy Wolk: We move them to the next grade. So ST Math doesn’t necessarily recommend that, because they want kids – usually once you’ve hit the end of ST Math, that’s like the end of your grade and you’ve done it. For us, it’s like okay, so now you can do second grade math. Like, just because you’re in first grade, there’s no reason that you can’t be doing second grade math? And a kindergartner that’s moved up to first grade? Or a first grader that’s moved up to second grade is probably in one of our higher groups getting first or second grade instruction already.

August 9, 2016

Roots Executive Director Provides Overview of Utilizing NWEA MAP

Roots ED and Founder, Jonathan Hanover, discusses how the team uses NWEA’s MAP assessment to understand how the school is doing compared to others nationally.

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Transcript: Jon Hanover: We take the NWEA MAP fall, winter, spring, and that’s kind of our like – all right, like, how are we doing compared to other schools metric. You know, the assessments that we use in-house for those kind of six to eight week cycles, we built them ourselves. Which are great, and it gives us the data that we need instructionally, but it doesn’t give us – especially as we’re in our first year and don’t really – haven’t really benchmarked them yet. It doesn’t give us a great picture of how we’re doing compared to other schools, and that’s what we use math for, is to say – all right, we know – I don’t know, thousands of schools that use math. So we can see kind of how our kids are performing versus other kids.

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.

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.

August 9, 2016

Teacher Discusses Groupings in Literacy at Roots

Roots teacher, Samantha Gambino, shares how she uses literacy assessment data to inform small group creation and instruction.

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Transcript: Samantha Gambino: for me in particular, reading, everyone gets pulled into a small group because literacy, we try to target in everybody’s instruction since it’s such a huge like, part of what you do at school. But based on their skill level and where they are is where I realize who I need to pull. So, if you’re working on rhyming, I go through your data based on your STEP test, which is the overarching test. And I say, okay, you didn’t pass the rhyming part. These four other scholars didn’t pass that part either. Let’s do a small group poll so that I can get all five of you working together on this one skill. So it’s – more so, it’s kind of like taking what we know from our assessments and our informal data, and we put it all together and we say okay, these scholars are having this one thing that they’re missing. Let’s pull them in a group and sort of like, tweak it there into smaller groups. [Interviewer: And it looked like there was some heterogeneous grouping as well?] Yeah, so our whole groups are more based on like, more so like, is everyone able to read in that group? If not, then maybe you should be in a different group. So it’s a lot more so like, our groups, A, B, C, and D is what we have right now. C and D are like, first grade groups, mostly. Those are scholars who have the skillsets to do a lot of first grade work. We do have some kindergartners who are in there, too, because they’ve already passed all of those skills. A and B are mostly our kindergartners right now. Those are scholars who are – they are working on just the kindergarten skills, and we have a couple of first graders who are down there, just based on things that. they need to lift them up to that next like, grade level and things like that.

August 9, 2016

Teacher Discusses Flexibility in Groupings at Roots

Roots teacher, Lecksy Wolk, shares how small group composition is influenced both by academic and behavioral needs.

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Transcript: Lecksy Wolk: it’s interesting because they’re very – they’re not static. We made a change yesterday based on a behavioral need, right? So although we tend to have like, D is quote-unquote our highest group, and A is quote-unquote our lowest group, like, friends that need extra help and friends that are above average, right? And, not above average. I guess that’s the wrong word. But like, just in terms of ability. But, we also separate based on behavioral needs – so like, grouping scholars, it’s like okay, so these three boys, when they’re in the same classroom, tend to escalate each other, and that’s a concern for everyone. Not only their learning ability but everyone’s learning ability. So we might move one up or one down. And then we also change pretty drastically after every testing cycle, just about, and we – usually one content teacher will get to choose. So, we’ll say, writing, you’re gonna separate our groups for D-B-C-A. And then everyone will kind of jump in and like, make adjustments. But that’s pretty much it.

August 9, 2016

Teacher Discusses Small Group Instruction at Roots

Roots teacher, Lecksy Wolk, explains the scheduling and sizing of small groups.

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Transcript: Lecksy Wolk: But the other part of the day, for me, is small groups. So, I – I’m scheduled groups of kids based on very specific needs, based on data that I’ve collected on them in the past testing ground, or anecdotal throughout the day. I can pull groups with them. … So, it’s 15 minutes – is the length – the smallest group of time, and we have – so, a flex block is – sorry, 45 minutes. And, I have three small groups within that at 15 minutes. And kids between – I say my average group is probably like three kids. I’d say my smallest group is two; my biggest group is eight. But most of my groups are three or four.

August 9, 2016