KARCHER STAFF BLOG
Karcher 2017-2018 School Calendar
Students of the week!!!!!!!
(Running slide show)
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Feed Up, Back, Forward
Teacher response is only one part of an effective feedback system. We must also set clear learning goals and let data influence instruction.
Check for Understanding
At the core of daily teaching is the ability to check for understanding in such a way that teachers learn how to help students. Fostering oral language and using questioning techniques aid this kind of informed check-in (Fisher & Frey, 2007). The evidence on using student talk as a mechanism for learning is compelling; in classrooms with higher rates and levels of student talk, more students excel academically (Stichter, Stormont, & Lewis, 2009).
Language frames help stimulate academic talk in the classroom and also help gauge students' understanding of concepts. Language frames are cloze statements that provide students with the academic language necessary to explain, justify, clarify, and ask for evidence.
In a mathematics lesson, Ms. Kelly introduced her 1st grade English language learners to the language frame "The _____ is _____-er than the ______" to help them contrast the relative size of two objects, a math standard in Ms. Kelly's district. Using a feedup strategy, she explained that the students' purpose was to approximate the size of two objects. She then had the students, in pairs, practice making sentences using this language frame in several different contexts.
On the day we observed Ms. Kelly's class, student pairs were using this frame to compare the sizes of different animals on laminated cards (see www.ascd.org/el to view a video of this lesson). When Joseph, one of the students, said, "The snake is wider than the duck," his partner Mario asked, "Is the snake wider or narrower than the duck?" to cue Joseph to rethink his answer.
Ms. Kelly let the boys know they needed to approximate more accurately and asked each boy to show the width of each animal with two hands spread apart. Joseph could gesture correctly but could not accurately convert his knowledge to spoken language. Ms. Kelly understood that the barrier was language and not the measurement concept, so she concentrated on reteaching the language frame until Joseph could use it correctly (the feed-forward element).
Questioning is vital to checking for understanding, especially as it pertains to giving feedback on incorrect responses. When faced with a student error, we should remind ourselves that the answer usually makes sense to the student and reflects what he or she knows and does not know at the moment. We can rapidly form a hypothesis about what the student might not know to provide a prompt that will help that student achieve the needed understanding. Walsh and Sattes (2005) suggest these follow-up prompts:
- Words or phrases that foster recall ("Think about the role of hydrogen").
- Overt reminders to trigger memory ("The word begins with d").
- Probes that elicit the reasoning behind the answer to identify knowledge gaps ("What led you to think the character would do that?")
- A reworded question that reduces language demands. For example, instead of asking a student to "identify the role of tectonic plates in earth geophysical systems," the teacher might say, "Earthquakes and volcanoes have something in common; let's talk about that."
Use Common Assessments
In addition to providing a way to check daily for understanding, an aligned system includes common formative assessments that enable teachers to coordinate with other teachers in their grade level or department. These assessments are usually based on units of instruction and become part of the pacing guide for each course. Such benchmark assessments gauge increments of student performance and provide teachers with data that spur conversation about instructional and curricular design.
We recommend that teachers meet in advance of teaching a unit to develop common formative assessments. The assessment items teachers select should be geared to diagnose specific kinds of learning so that teachers can discuss any misconceptions students still hold after instruction and recognize patterns among students (Fisher, Grant, Frey, & Johnson, 2007). Teachers should meet as soon as possible after they score each assessment to discuss the relationship between the results and teachers' instruction and to plan next steps (the feed-forward component).
Partial conceptual understanding is a common cause of incorrect responses. For example, Ms. Goldstein's English as a second language class was studying affixes in preparation for a benchmark assessment. Ms. Goldstein explained that the lesson's purpose was to analyze new vocabulary words (feed up). Omar incorrectly identified in- as the prefix for interlude. Rather than simply supply Omar with the correct answer and move on, Ms. Goldstein asked him what the prefixes in- and inter- meant and received a correct reply. "Could the root be '-lude,' or is it '-terlude'?" Ms. Goldstein questioned. Omar stayed with his initial incorrect answer, so she tried again, asking Omar's small group, "Is the prefix in- or inter-? I'll let you figure it out" (providing feedback that something needed to be figured out).
Omar's group talked about the two meanings and how they would affect the overall word. Ms. Goldstein checked a few minutes later on whether Omar and his group had arrived at the correct answer.
After the English as a second language department administered its common formative assessment on affixes, Ms. Goldstein remarked, "I noticed some students in my class getting similar prefixes like in- and inter- confused. This was a pattern in all our classes. How can we teach look-alike prefixes more effectively?" The teachers decided to develop a Jeopardy-style game that included easily confounded affixes to give students practice.
Identify Competencies
Although unit-based formative assessments are valuable benchmarks to inform teachers' instruction, they offer students only snapshots of their progress. Learners need a system to measure their own attainment of course goals. Goals should be a balance of short-term ("I'm going to ask good questions today") and long-term ("I'll pass biology"); however, the gap between short-term and long-term goals can be overwhelming. Creating a system of specific competencies that students should achieve in a course and a series of assessments that measure those competencies and provide clear feedback enable students to measure their progress through any course.
Grade-level teams or departments usually specify course competencies and corresponding assignments. Competencies should reflect the state standards while offering students an array of ways to demonstrate mastery, not just paper-and-pencil tasks. The competency assessments should be numerous enough that students can adequately gauge their own progress at attaining competencies; generally 7 to 10 per academic year is best.
Ninth and 10th grade English teachers at one high school devised a series of 10 competency assessments for their common courses. These included four essays based on schoolwide essential questions, two literary response essays, an oral language assessment that included retelling a story and delivering a dramatic monologue, a poetry portfolio, and tests on persuasive writing techniques and summarizing.
These teachers designed a two-week unit on plagiarizing that, as they explained to students in a "feed-up" message, would help them write their formal essays. The teachers developed a common formative assessment that measured how well students could cite information from a newspaper article, a Web site, a book with two or more authors, and an interview. The results indicated that even after studying plagiarism, many students still couldn't correctly cite online sources. Knowing that students would need this competency to write their first essay, teachers analyzed students' incorrect answers and retaught the specifics of this type of online citation accordingly.
Build Toward State Assessments
An aligned system of assessments should build toward helping students do well on state tests that measure the progress of students and schools. Although we do not believe a few weeks crammed with test-prep worksheets are useful, we do believe that students should understand that tests are a genre, one they are capable of mastering. And we advocate assessment practices that build test wiseness by giving students encounters with test formats in the context of meaningful instruction.
For example, a math teacher might model thinking aloud as she eliminates distractors on multiple-choice questions. When faced with the problem 1/7 + 3/7 and three answer choices of 4/7, 3/7, and 4/14, the teacher might say, "I see one of the choices has 14 as a denominator. But I know you don't add the denominator when adding fractions so that can't be correct." When teachers embed test-format practice within daily checking for understanding, formative assessments, and course competency exams, students acquire the stamina and skills they need to score well on state assessments.
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Kudos
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- Kudos again to Steve Berezowitz and Marian Hancock for all of your work with getting all student course selection sheets completed for the 2018-2019 school year. It is a lot of behind the scenes work in order to get the ball rolling for next year!
- Kudos to our staff on getting your SLOs submitted. Do not worry if you are still inputing data into your SLO for your mid-year. It is ok!
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Information/Reminders...
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- Reminder: It is important to communicate with parents/guardians when it comes to their student's academics. I have had an increase in parent concerns with a lack of communication from staff about what is going on in classes, when exams will be, etc. Please make sure you are sending information to all of your student's parents weekly or biweekly (at the minimum).
- Science - it is your week to have students email their parents/guardians.
- Reminder to all... Providing them with a writing stem prompt helps with the writing process and making suggestions for them to write is encouraged as well. Please take the time during the week to give students the opportunity to craft and write a email to their parents/guardians.
- Monday, February 26 - Secondary Curriculum Committee @ 3:30 - 5:00 in the Karcher library.
- Tuesday, February 27 - Start of iTime rotation #5!
- Wednesday, February 28 - Essential Skills PLC
- Thursday, March 1 - First day for Student Led Conferences.
- Student Plans/Template
- This LINK is the form for the parents to sign up for conferences.
- Your expectation as the advisory teacher is to check the responses to see if your advisory students are signing up for their conferences. Please email families individually or call home to assist with setting up their student led conference if you are not seeing their names in the list.
- Again, please just assist with the students in your advisory in order to assist with our turn out!
- The student led conferences will be held in the library. Everyone will need to bring their chromebook cart up to the library prior to 4:00 on both days for students to access their chromebooks.
- Staff will then be in your rooms for conferences throughout the 4:00 - 8:00 time frame. (Same format as last year)
- Please bring your chromebook cart up to the library on Thursday prior to 4:00 with your name written on a paper on the top so that students are able to locate your chromebook cart. We will have 8th grade advisory carts lined under the windows in the library and 7th grade along the book shelf on the left side of the library.
Teachers:
- 2018-2019 Budget Information:
- We are under what our school budget was for the 2017-2018 school year. So, please stay very close to what you were in terms of your budget for this coming school year.
- All forms are in Google Docs again so... please complete all of our budget information in Google Docs in the below forms and then send them to Kim via Google Docs. Please do not just share, make sure she knows you sent them to her.
- When naming your below documents please use this naming convention so that it is easy to search: Last Name - Budget Requisition Order Form, Last Name - 2017-2018 Budget Worksheet Form (Example: Ebbers - Budget Requisition Order Form)
- THIS form is what everyone needs to fill out for your entire budget. This form indicates the total amount you need/will have for the 2018-2019 school year.
- The above form is all Kim needs you to fill out if there are no items you need on your list prior to the start of the school year. Meaning, if you are wanting to just purchase items as you need them the above form is all you need to fill out.
- Use THIS form to request items that are needed for the start of the school year.
- Example Budget Requisition Form - if you can just print off a shopping cart list
- It is preferred that all Amazon orders take place in August or later for the 2018-2019 school year as items requested now may not still be available in August.
- Also... all online orders the goal is to use our BASD credit card account.
- If you do not know your Function Number (Example: English 122200) email or ask Kim and she will help with what your number is.
- Please send your budget information to Kim no later than March 9!
- Reminder to utilize the Warehouse for items we already keep a supply of within the district versus using your budget for those items - images below are warehouse items. If you would like a copy of this Kim/Jane have it in the main office.
Pictures from this past week!
Rube Goldberg club in action! We currently have four teams... all hoping to compete in April at the Middle School Rube Goldberg competition!
