collaboration

3 Ways to Avoid the Dreaded “Teacher Lottery”

September 3, 2019 by cliweb

We’ve all heard it. Kids talking about their schedules like this, “Yes! I’m going to get an A in math this year because Ms. So-and-so is so easy!” Or, “Dangit, science is going to be so hard. I got Mr. Tough-stuff, and he doesn’t let anything slide.” As teachers, you never want to be considered the easy teacher, but you also don’t want to be the hard teacher that the students dread. But, what if there was no easy teacher or hard teacher, and all learning environments were equally fair? Here are three ways to even the playing field for your students so that the “teacher lottery” becomes less varied.

Set Clear Curricular Expectations

First things first, standards are not curriculum, and neither is a textbook! Depending on the state and content area, some standards are written to be very broad and general. Some are written for a grade band rather than a specific grade level. In many cases, a standard can be interpreted differently by different teachers. Additionally, standards are not organized into teachable units and may not include a level of emphasis or rigor. Textbooks, on the other hand, may include levels of emphasis and rigor, but may not reflect local priorities and may have more lessons than can be taught in one school year. In my Intro to Business class for example, my textbook included 28 chapters. But in any given year, I could only get through 13 of them with my students. The textbook that my school had adopted for that class included more than twice the amount information that I could teach my students.

The solution to both of these issues, is to develop a local curriculum that is organized into teachable units made up of learning targets that are written clearly (so all teachers interpret them the same way), are measurable (avoid verbs like understand, learn, etc.), and is appropriate for the amount of time that you have with your students. This way, the expectations are clear for both teachers and students.

Make End-of-Unit Assessments Common

When all teachers for the same course are using the same assessment to determine success, students are held to the same expectations. To further ensure that teachers are administering the common assessment fairly, include a set of “administration guidelines” as a cover sheet. Information that should be clarified in the Administration Guidelines includes:

the amount of time a student is allowed to complete the assessment (must the assessment be completed within a single class period so students cannot discuss answers when they gather after class?),
any materials they are allowed (are math students permitted to use a calculator, or language arts students a dictionary?),
the amount of assistance a teacher is allowed to give when a student has a question (may a teacher explain the definition of a word, or clarify directions?),
and the criteria for successful completion.

Please note that the Administration Guidelines as explained above are meant for general education students that are not on IEPs. Any student with an IEP must be given the modifications that are outlined within their IEP. Similarly, when administering common assessments to ELL students, consult their ELL teacher to determine appropriate accommodations.

Collaborate as a grade-level team

The big idea for all curriculum and assessment work is to improve classroom practices. By collaborating with your grade-level team, you’re able to share what worked and what didn’t. So, if something didn’t work in your lesson, ask a colleague who saw success to share what strategies they used. It’s OK to be vulnerable, and in fact, improving your teaching depends on it. Look for areas that you can improve and help those that can use your help to find more success in their classroom.

Students have enough to deal with without having to worry about which teacher they’re going to have. It will take a bit of work up front to complete the steps outlined above, but your school will be better for it. Your school doesn’t need easy teachers or hard teachers, they need good teachers.

Need some help with these things? Let us know!

Changes in Professional Development Due to ESSA Requirements and Title Funding

August 6, 2018 by cliweb

ESSA, PD, and Funding The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) recently completed a year of full implementation. While the law is authorized to continue programs from the Elementary and Secondary Schools Act until 2020, there is speculation that funding amounts could change or even be eliminated due to priorities in the annual budget. Even though educators must play the waiting game in order to plan, it is still important to know the features of the law as there have been some key changes.

Title Funding

Formulas for Title II funds have been and will continue to be adjusted until 2020. The past formula rewarded districts with larger populations of students. The new formulas show a gradual increase in order to place a stronger emphasis on funding for districts serving children living in poverty.

Movement of money between specific Title programs is expanded to allow support for other activities. One hundred percent of Title II and Title IV funds (21^stCentury Schools) can be transferred into Title I funds to improve basic programs and ensure economically and socially disadvantaged students. Title II and Title IV programs can also have transfers between them. However, no money can be transferred out of Title I to another Title program.

Professional Development

Use of Title II funding for professional development has been expanded beyond teachers of “core academic subjects.” All teachers, counselors, librarians, and paraprofessionals are now included as well as support for principals, superintendents, and teacher leaders.

ESSA also recognizes the importance of staff collaboration and job embedded skills. Immediate application of those new skills has a greater impact on instruction which transfers to an increase in student learning.

Another point that has been emphasized is that professional development must be data driven, show results, and have follow-up. One-shot training without accountability is discouraged.

According to ESSA, funded programs must be evidence-based. This may include any activity, strategy, approach, or intervention that shows a statistically significant effect on student learning.

Professional development should be customized to the needs of a district. One size does not fit all when meeting the needs of any learning community.

Find Funding, Get Creative

“Educators need to be encouraged to choose PD that challenges them and gives them a hard-earned sense of accomplishment.”
~ Debbie Silver, Former Louisiana Teacher of the Year

It may be hard to predict what happens in the future with Title funding at the national level, but local leaders have to continue to provide opportunities for teacher growth as that will directly affect student learning. If Title funding is unavailable, the general fund and grants from private organizations may be the best options.

Utilize neighboring districts to pool your resources together. Create a small learning consortium while sharing skills of teachers and dollars.

If possible, offer choices for learning. Allow teachers to participate in a local professional development day where they can select their topic. It will require more planning but positive results and use of the new skills are more likely to happen. Utilize local educators as experts as well as those outside the district. It is empowering to the presenters, establishes professional respect for their expertise in content and skills, and promotes the development of leadership capacity throughout the district.

Getting Experienced Help

For more than 25 years, the Curriculum Leadership Institute (CLI) has provided challenging and quality professional development through partnerships with over 85 school districts across the United States. The continuous follow-up allows for a customized approach to meet a district’s needs while building leadership capacity throughout a district. The systems approach is evidence-based. Collaboration is not only encouraged, it is required for success. Teachers, principals, superintendents, board members, and parent representativesfrom across the district meet regularly to discuss academic issues and make recommendations for student learning, school improvement, and accreditation requirements. It is easy to see how CLI meets the ESSA expectations for professional development. If you need or would like assistance, please give us a call at 620.794.1431 or email us at info@cliweb.org. We would love the opportunity to visit with you, establish a partnership, and help put you on the map!

Grade-to-Grade Sequencing of Curriculum

April 1, 2015 by cliweb

Sequencing & Standards

Most of today’s standards either incorporate sequencing in their content, or attempt to do so. A number of organizations provide guidance in helping teachers interpret and converse about sequencing, or what is now often referred to as instructional coherence. We see descriptors like intergrade professional learning, guided by something called a progression document, applied with a variation of the original Professional Learning Community where teachers are able to have grade-to-grade conversations about fluid instruction. Such newly conceived structures are referred to as collaboration across grades and can be used in all subject areas, although the trend is currently being applied predominantly within the teaching of mathematics. Some of these descriptors and other terms are actually used in the standard documents. The most often used phrase is for students to “apply and extend previous understandings,” which is based on an expectation that teachers will be familiar with a subject’s curriculum at multiple grade levels.

The key to successful sequencing lies in the hands of the district to provide the planning time necessary to discuss grade-to-grade articulation of all core subjects.

A Fragmented Approach to Sequencing is Unrealistic

No one can argue with the need for teachers from different grade levels having conversations with each other. However, this not only applies to math, reading, and writing—it applies to all disciplines. Other important disciplines are often minimized, overlooked, or woven into some kind of interdisciplinary theme in current education trends where there is much dependence upon the complex writing used in new math, reading, and writing standards and progressions documents to make decisions about sequencing. The key to successful sequencing lies in the hands of the district to provide the planning time necessary to discuss grade-to-grade articulation of all core subjects. This is a difficult task within today’s school schedules, but one that Curriculum Leadership Institute (CLI) highly encourages.

Textbooks & Software for Sequencing Have Limitations

There was a time when textbook companies that produced resources for use in elementary schools tried to ensure that subjects dependent on skill development (like mathematics, reading, and writing) were logically sequenced for the purpose of deepening and expanding student ability year to year.

That process was called scope and sequence (how much and in what order) by many of the companies, and some even referred to it as curriculum spiraling, such as Jerome Bruner. These terms are still used today, and essentially mean that intentions for student growth (like objectives, outcomes, or outcome components) need to be clear and carefully articulated, using words and phrases that can be translated into an effective progression of instruction and learning. However, not all companies competently apply this articulation, and none of the resources can take the place of a teacher in interpreting and properly using them in classroom instruction.

Another fundamental problem with commercial or informal approaches to curricular sequencing is that they rarely, if ever, go beyond grade six. During the era when junior high schools were converted into innovative and sometimes interdisciplinary middle schools, scope and sequence was either ignored or given minimal importance. High schools throughout those years, and even now, use course progression to handle scope and sequence in the core areas and beyond. In short, grade-to-grade sequencing is important K-12, not just for K-6.

CLI Model is a K-12 Systems Approach to Curricular Sequencing

Proposed solutions to today’s educational challenges with new standards seem to be aimed at individual or small groups of teachers. As mentioned, those groups are often becoming vertically aligned professional learning communities or similar groups. Rarely mentioned in most of today’s recommendations is something the CLI has advocated for over 25 years: system-wide modifications in academic decision-making and action-taking. The advantages to that approach over independent and isolated efforts in schools, grade levels, or departments include these points:

Local curricular alignment with standards is a K-12 effort.
The Subject Area Committee (SAC) process ensures that all teachers of a subject are included as much as possible.
SACs create logical sequencing of unit outcomes and components throughout all the grades, with particular attention given to verbs used and content fields identified.
Curriculums produced by SAC’s go through a rigorous validation process in which teachers using them, offer their critique and suggestions for modification.
The Instructional Planning Resource (IPR) created and sponsored by CLI links an intended local curriculum to classroom instruction, and is an excellent way to guide teaching and learning. Unlike the progressions documents suggested by those who advocate processes inherent in standards documents, the IPR is a usable guide in the sequencing of learning skills and conceptual knowledge.