February 25, 2019

KARCHER STAFF BLOG

2018-2019 Karcher Calendar

Facebook Page:  https://www.facebook.com/KarcherMiddleSchool/

BASD Staff Blog:  https://basdstaffnews.blogspot.com

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Kudos

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• Thank you to our advisory team:  Eric Sulik, Wendy Zeman, and Sue Bekken, for all of your work and time to create a great day on Friday for our students focusing on anti-bullying and compassion.  From the feedback I was given the day was smooth, the movie was impactful, and the DRIVEN students did a great job!  Thanks again to everyone for your flexibility with the schedule, to some of you for covering where we were short staff... thank you all!  
• Thank you to Andrea Hancock and Barb Berezowitz for letting us use science time again this year for students to enter their 8th grade year electives into Skyward.  It was perfect having them all together in the library and thank you to all staff that assisted with looking each students sheets over and helping them enter their requests into Skyward.  Thank you Karen Gerold for all the behind the scenes work to making this happen!  

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Information/Reminders

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• Reminder:  Please make sure your sub plans reflect the new semester and reflect the time adjustments starting February 25 to the end of the school year.  Any changes you make please get a copy to Kim in the main office for your sub folders!  Thank you! 
• Please complete by Friday, March 1. 
• Lucky Star Fundraiser for Karcher!!! 
• Staff... there will be coupons in your mailbox for Lucky Star.  Each student should get one full sheet of coupons (and you should get one too).  Then... if students/you bring one coupon and eat on a Tuesday 15% of your bill will come back to Karcher!  It has to be on a Tuesday and you do have to have the coupon with you as they want to staple the coupon to your bill for it to count for the fundraiser.  Please encourage students to go with their families and I encourage you to go as well!  
• This is for EVERY Tuesday in the month of March.  So you could go every single Tuesday, bring a coupon every time :)  
• If anyone needs more coupons, etc we can print off more... students can give them to neighbors, family members, you can give them to others, etc.  Simply... if you have a coupon 15% goes back to Karcher on Tuesdays in March!  

• Friendly reminder:  Your SLO and PPGs for beginning and mid-year should be submitted.  Just so you all know... if you just "save" it I cannot see it, that just saves your data/work for you.  In order for me to see it you have to hit the "submit" button.  I hope you notice I am not so worried about a "due date" but I just don't want this to get away from you so just make sure you are timely when your data is ready and get things submitted.  
• All of our 7th grade students entered their elective course requests for the 2019-2020 school year this past week during science.  Our next steps will be to collect 6th grade student requests and enter them in the computer as well.  
• Student Led Conferences:  
• Monday, February 25 is the last advisory time for students to develop their slides for conferences.  Please make sure you are using a little class time to review and ensure students have a quality slide for your class.  Student Led Conferences is a great time to showcase what we do so please take the time to ensure your classes slide with students is quality.  
• Also... please monitor your own advisory students and talk with those who have not had a parent/guardian sign up yet and reach out to their parent/guardians to set their time slot. 
• Click HERE to see who has already signed up.  
• Click HERE to gain access to the link you can use to send to families to sign up.  
• We have sent this to families twice and will do it again this week but coming from you is very helpful!  
• Student Led then is this Thursday night from 4:00 - 8:00 and Tuesday, March 5 (4:00 - 8:00).
• All Student Led Conferences will be in the library as we have done in the past and then parents/guardians can see all of you prior to or after their conference in your rooms.  If there are specific parents you want to see I would reach out to them to ask them to conference with you!  
• Tuesday, February 26 - Last week of this iTime rotation!  
• Tuesday, February 26 - Special Education Department Meeting in the small conference room from 2:40 - 3:15.  
• Wednesday, February 27 - YAR students will be meeting from 9:45 - 10:45 in room 106!  
• Wednesday, February 27 - PLC for Academic Teachers in the library.  
• Elective teachers since you lost a week of prep due to extended advisory please use this time for prep this week!
• Academic teachers... 
• All iTime groups have been made and entered into iReady.  The naming for this rotation is:  
• March 2019 iTime - (Name) 
• Note... groups are not going to be the same size due to student need. 
• Click HERE to see where students would need to go starting Tuesday, March 5 for iTime.  
• A copy of your advisory with their location (teacher's name) will be in your mailboxes by Friday of this week.  
• This rotation is the one that will fall right before the Forward Exam.  I have talked with a few staff and there is an agreement to focus on doing some review of concepts within the math area and to potentially utilize the Close Readers for the ELA side within all ELA groups.  Please be thinking about this, especially our math and ELA teachers, as your leadership here for content/skills within this iTime rotation for all staff is appreciated.  All ELA groups could be working on the same things you just also can see what your group needs based on the iReady data and Tools for Instruction.  
• So... PLC this Wednesday will be to determine what will be the focus within our PLCs.  Please sit by grade level and by content - either math or ELA depending on your iTime group.  
• Thursday, February 28 - Student Council Leadership Workshop will be taking place in the 21st Century Lab from 9:30 - 11:30.  Our students will be working with students from Milton High School Link Crew!
• Thursday, February 28 - Student Led Conferences from 4:00 - 8:00.  

Looking ahead:  

• Tuesday, March 5 - Student Led Conferences 4:00 - 8:00. 
• 2019-2020 Budget Information:
• 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.
• Everyone needs to print a copy of your budget sheets and hand them to Kim.  
• 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 - 2019-2020 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 2019-2020 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. 
• If you are wanting/needing furniture for your classroom please fill out a separate Budget Requisition Form for these items.  When looking ahead we will only be purchasing furniture conducive to move to the new building, meaning, we simply need to be consistent on colors, etc.  So, keeping these items separate from your budget will assist with ensuring consistency.  
• 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 2019-2020 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 8!  
• 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. 

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Pictures from the week

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The epic Civil War Battle in Stephanie Rummler's class!  

Girls Volleyball!!!  

Strength and Conditioning Club!

Students in Kailee Smith and Kelly Fulton's ELA class working on annotated bibliographies.  

Great strategy in the classroom to assist students with forward progress and knowing where they are in relation to the end goal! 

Students in art with Ms. Pelnar - it is amazing to see the differentiation within Jennifer's classroom.  Students who work ahead were preparing for the next skill/project.  Students working a bit slower are given time to complete their project before moving to the "new" one.  And then most students on the "new project" the monster mug!  Jennifer utilizing mini lessons (I do its) with groups of students based on where they are in the progression.  

Showing the success criteria for the students who are working ahead...

Students in 7th grade choir with Rod Stoughton.  Rod did a fantastic job providing timely feedback and consistent and intentional modeling to assist groups of students!  

High School DRIVEN students with our students this past Friday! 

https://www.edutopia.org/article/10-powerful-community-building-ideas

February 18, 2019

KARCHER STAFF BLOG

2018-2019 Karcher Calendar

Facebook Page:  https://www.facebook.com/KarcherMiddleSchool/

BASD Staff Blog:  https://basdstaffnews.blogspot.com/

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Kudos

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• Kudos to Stephanie Rummler and Brad Ferstenou for your work with our student council and leadership students for the Candy Gram sales and distribution this week!  
• Thank you to Kris Thomsen for your willingness to assist in the office this past week and into this week!  
• Thank you to Suzanne Dunbar for assisting in the library more in the past few weeks and for your willingness to take on an iTime group over the past few rotations!  
• And thank you to Steve Berezowitz for your time and efforts with our 8th grade students to ensure their schedules for freshmen year are accurate and appropriate for each student!  Students will continue working with Steve this week in the reading lounge on the 3rd floor.  
• Congrats to Liz Deger on a 1st place finish this weekend for her age group at the Chocolate City Snowshoe Shuffle at the BASD School Forest!  It was great to see you out there Liz!  Great job!!!

Article of the week: 

This is a continuation from the last two weeks - when thinking about what questions to ask during guided instruction ("We do it") below are some great ways to think about questioning.   

Guided Instruction ("We do it") 

by Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey

Chapter 2. Questioning to Check for Understanding

Question-Answer Relationships

Question-Answer Relationships (QAR) is a system designed to teach students how to locate and formulate answers based on specific types of questions often asked about a piece of text (Raphael, 1982, 1984). This system, which has been shown to positively affect student test scores (Raphael & Au, 2005), consists of four types of questions.

The first two types are both explicit questions, meaning that the answer can be found in the text. Right There questions contain wording that comes directly from the text, with an answer often found in a single sentence. Think and Search questions are also derived directly from the text, but the answer must be formulated across more than one sentence.

The other two types of questions are both implicit, meaning that the answer cannot be located directly in the text and must be formulated by connecting what the reader knows with the text. Author and You is an implicit question that requires readers to use both information learned in the text and their own background knowledge to answer. The final type of implicit question is On Your Own, which requires readers to use prior knowledge to answer. In this final case, the text may or may not be needed (Raphael, 1986). It is helpful to think of these as "book" and "brain" questions. Right There and Think and Search are book questions, because the answers can be found directly in the text. On the other hand, Author and You and On Your Own questions are brain questions, in that readers must consider what they know as well as what they have learned from the reading.

Struggling readers often have difficulty in making decisions about how to answer questions. We've all seen a student futilely searching a text passage for an answer that simply is not there. These same students will often choose a direct quote from the passage even when it is not the correct answer. The QAR approach "clarifies how students can approach the task of reading texts and answering questions" (Raphael, 1986, p. 517). QAR teaches students to locate and justify answers by showing them how to identify four types of questions. Learning to identify a question type and its relationship to the text helps students build comprehension by monitoring and clarifying their reading.

Of course, students need instructional scaffolds if they are to use QAR effectively. This scaffolding should start with teachers introducing the question types, if students don't already know them or haven't used them in a while. Figure 2.3 shows a chart that can be used to introduce students to the definitions of each question type. Remember, these scaffolds must be faded so that students get practice with using the tools effectively and independently.

Figure 2.3. Question-Answer Relationships

Question Type	Description	Question Stems
In the Text (Book Questions)
Right There	Words in the question and answer are directly stated in the text. The question is explicit, and the words or phrases can be found within one sentence.	How many...? Who is...? Where is...? What is...?
Think and Search	Information is in the text, but readers must think and make connections between passages in the text.	The main idea is...? What caused...? What happened when...?
In My Head (Brain Questions)
Author and You	Readers need to think about what they already know, what the author tells them in the text, and how these fit together.	The author implies...? The passage suggests...? The author's attitude...?
On Your Own	Requires the reader to use prior knowledge to answer. The text may or may not be needed.	In your own opinion...? Based on your experience...? What would you do if...?
Source: From After School Content Literacy Project for California (p. 186), by D. Fisher, N. Frey, and L. Young, 2007, Sacramento: California Department of Education. Reprinted with permission.

Once students have been introduced to the question types and have had modeling and practice with them, the questions are useful in checking for understanding. For example, while reading the social studies text, the members of Justin's group created questions that would guide their conversation about the text following the reading. Justin turned the headings into questions, while other members of his group used various other question-generating techniques. During their discussion, the students agreed on the question type and used that information to formulate their responses. Consider the following student-generated questions from their reading about ancient civilizations:

• Why are the early humans important for us to know about? [Think and Search]
• Who were the early humans? [Right There]
• How were the early humans discovered? [Think and Search]
• How would we adapt to their life? [Author and You]
• What were the Ice Ages? [Right There]
• What do people today need to survive? [On Your Own]

Although reading and discussing the text is important, the questions students generate allow the teacher to check for their understanding of both the content of what they read as well as their ability to find answers to questions.

In addition, teachers can use QAR to check for understanding of groups of students. When they do not respond appropriately, QAR has a built-in system for providing prompts. Mr. Bradshaw was reading aloud from a biography, The Man Who Ran Faster Than Everyone: The Story of Tom Longboat (Batten, 2002). Pausing, he asked the class to talk with a partner about what they knew about the Olympics. After two minutes, he interrupted their discussion and began reading:

The ancient story goes that when the Persians invaded Greece in 490 B.C., landing near the coastal village of Marathon, they outnumbered the Greeks six to one and seemed certain to win the battle. But the ferocious defenders slaughtered 6,400 of the Persian enemy and sent the rest fleeing in their ships. A Greek messenger named Pheidippides, so the story continues, was dispatched to Athens to deliver the glad news of the unexpected victory. Pheidippides raced the 24 miles from Marathon to Athens, pausing for nothing—not for rest nor water nor a change of sandals. He rushed to the ruling chamber in Athens, looked into the worried faces of the elders, and summoned the breath to shout: "Rejoice! We conquer!" His duty done, Pheidippides dropped dead. (p. 23)

After the teacher completed the section, he asked the class a few questions. Consider the conversation the class had as Mr. Bradshaw used questions to check for understanding and plan his guided instruction:

Mr. Bradshaw: Angelica, what does the author mean by "defenders"?

Angelica: People who protected things, like their land and stuff.

Mr. Bradshaw: Class, do you agree? Thumbs up or down. [All the students have thumbs up.] Trevor, who won the war?

Trevor: It says right in the text that the Greeks did, but I also know that from history.

Mr. Bradshaw: Right on. Class? [All the students have thumbs up.] Andrew, describe the journey of the messenger.

Andrew: He died.

Mr. Bradshaw: Sad, but true. And along the way? Devon, tell us more.

Devon: He ran 24 miles, from Marathon to Athens. He didn't stop for nothing. He just ran.

Mr. Bradshaw: Class? [About three-fourths of the students have their thumbs up.] Oh, some disagreement. Tara, care to add?

Tara: He did all that, but it was to get the message through. He didn't have no cell phone or anything, but he had to get that message to the people in Athens.

Mr. Bradshaw: Yes, that's true. The message to the elders was an important one, and, given the times, there wasn't really another way. But why does the author say "the story continues"? Why that language, Caroline?

Caroline: That's what authors do. They continue the story.

Mr. Bradshaw: Class? [Nearly all of the students have their thumbs up, indicating they agree with the Caroline's statement.] Ah, I see that we'll need to focus a bit more on author's craft and author's intent. Remember, every word matters. There has to be a reason why the author says this. Let's read on and see what we can find out.

Quality Questioning

We've discussed a number of question types and two different systems for generating questions. Now, let's focus on the questioning process. Implementing such a process provides clues for you to use to guide the learner through prompts, cues, and explanations and modeling. Without a process, questioning can become random and will not result in learning. Without a process, teachers create questions on the spot, and these questions are often lower-level recall questions that do not provide opportunities to clarify and extend students' understanding. This is a problem because we know that students attend to information based on how they are asked about that information. In other words, if they're asked lots of recall questions, they learn to read for that type of information. For example, Reynolds and Anderson (1982) showed that text information relevant to questions was learned better than text information irrelevant to the type of questions being asked. Yes, the type of questions asked does matter.

We are also reminded of Durkin's (1978–79) findings that teachers rely primarily on questioning to teach comprehension. Questions don't teach understanding; teachers do. The responses to questions we ask should guide our interactions with students and help us determine how to respond, either with prompts, cues, explanations, or modeling. Remember, we have to do something with the responses we get to the great questions we ask; it's not enough to simply ask students questions.

We are particularly fond of the five-step questioning process that Walsh and Sattes (2005) describe as Questioning and Understanding to Improve Learning and Thinking, or QUILT:

Stage 1: Prepare the Question

• Identify instructional purpose
• Determine content focus
• Select cognitive level
• Consider wording and syntax

Stage 2: Present the Question

• Indicate response format
• Ask the question
• Select respondent

Stage 3: Prompt Student Responses

• Pause after asking question
• Assist nonrespondents
• Pause following student response

Stage 4: Process Student Responses

• Provide appropriate feedback
• Expand and use correct responses
• Elicit student reactions and questions

Stage 5: Reflect on Questioning Practice

• Analyze questions
• Map respondent selection
• Evaluate student response patterns
• Examine teacher and student reactions (p. vi)

Notice how the questions should be prepared in advance. That's not to say that a perfect question won't arise from an interaction between the teacher and the student, but having questions ready ensures that the teacher is prepared. It also ensures that we know why we're asking a specific question and how we expect learners to respond. Further, as noted in Stage 1, the questions should reflect the instructional purpose and content focus of the lesson. This helps us keep on track and prevents us from taking interesting excursions, or tangents, that do not relate to the topic at hand.

As noted in Stage 2, when the question is presented, learners need to be given a response system. Do they talk with a partner? Or do they write or raise their hands? In addition, Stage 2 serves as a reminder to notify the students who will be expected to respond. As we have learned from the research on Teacher Expectations and Student Achievement (Los Angeles County Office of Education, 2009), students need equal response opportunities if they are going to be accountable for the information and receive attention from the teacher. There are a number of ways to ensure that students experience an equal opportunity to respond, ranging from randomly calling on students using Popsicle sticks or the attendance roster to inclusive response opportunities such as dry-erase boards and audience-response systems (also known as clickers, with each student using a device to answer the question).

Prompting is also an important part of a questioning system. As noted in Stage 3, the teacher has to pause for the student to answer. TESA, in the category of latency, suggests that the teacher wait at least five seconds after asking a question to see if the student will respond before prompting or moving to another student. The TESA research also suggests that the teacher should wait two to three additional seconds after the student has finished speaking to provide an opportunity for the student to elaborate on the response. In addition, as part of Stage 3, the teacher assists nonrespondents, a skill that is covered in the following chapters.

In Stage 4, the teacher processes the student response. This stage involves feedback, prompting, and cueing. Again, the following chapters include guidance for exactly this aspect of the questioning system: what to do when students respond, whether or not the response is correct or appropriate.

Finally, in Stage 5, the teacher reflects on questioning practices. This stage includes analyzing the questions to determine if they were effective in checking for understanding and guiding instruction. It also involves an analysis of student response patterns and reactions.

Taken together, this system of questioning provides the teacher with an approach to checking for understanding with the goal of addressing student needs through guided instruction. When we're at our best, we guide students by saying and doing the just-right thing to get students to engage in cognitive work. This guidance requires that we link instruction with student responses to the questions we ask.

Summing Up

The core assumption in guided instruction is that student responses provide the teacher with insight into what the learner knows and does not know at that moment in time. A knowledgeable teacher—one who possesses both content knowledge and a deep understanding of how a novice learner approaches a new concept—rapidly hypothesizes the learner's current state and responds with prompts, cues, or direct explanation and modeling when needed. The ability to expose student understanding or partial understanding requires anticipating misconceptions and posing robust questions. These robust questions are purposeful and are designed to elicit information about previously taught concepts and to encourage linking previous knowledge to new. In some cases, further elaboration or clarification questions are needed to unearth student knowledge. Robust questions can also be used to give the teacher insight as to how a student solves an academic problem, and inventive questions invite students to speculate.

It is useful for students to learn about questions in order to locate information in their heads and in their materials. The Question-Answer Relationship instructional routine is especially relevant for showing students how they know the things they know. Right There and Think and Search questions are explicit, and the answers can be found within the text. On the other hand, Author and You and On Your Own questions require the learner to synthesize knowledge found both within and outside of the text. Just as these techniques can be taught to students, so can other techniques be used by teachers to improve questioning. These techniques include planning questions in advance, providing wait time, and using follow-up probes to encourage further response. Most important, student responses should be analyzed in order to plan both immediate and subsequent instruction. It is this diagnostic intent that lifts questioning from merely keeping a tally of correct and incorrect answers to more sophisticated guided instruction. Merely asking questions doesn't equal guided instruction. But when the questions are robust and purposeful, and are used to hypothesize student knowledge, the prompting and cueing that follow scaffold student learning.

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Information/Reminders

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• Snow days and make up of time... 
• Due to having 5 snow/cold days we do have some instructional time that needs to be made back up.  We are just in the initial conversation stage but we will most likely be adding minutes to the end of our school day for the remainder of the school year.  When I know more I will share with staff!  
• iReady online changes:  
• As shared on Friday... to increase and work to ensure students are getting 30 minutes of reading and 30 minutes of math for their online instruction in iReady we are going to see how incentivizing the completion of full lessons goes.  Students who complete 5 total full lessons (which includes passing of quizzes so passing 5 different lesson quizzes - 2 math, 2 reading, and addition of 1 or the other) between Friday, February 15 and March 6 will have the ability to miss one iTime day after March 6 to play dodgeball in the gym or relax in a game/hot chocolate room atmosphere.  Please encourage and remind students to get their lessons completed.  The focus is on the completion of lessons not on minutes completed.  
• 2019-2020 Budgets
• Just an FYI... forms for next years budgets will be in the blog next week for you to work on with the goal of getting forms back to the main office by March 4 for next years budget.   
• Your 2018-2019 budget money needs to be spent by March 15 if you have items that still need to be purchased.  


This week:  


• Monday, February 18 - Racine Public Health presentation on Tobacco Use/Vaping in the library during extended advisory.  
• 15 students will be attending the presentation in the library.    Ryan will be sending an email to staff with the names of the 15 students who should come up to the library right after you take attendance.  
• Monday, February 18 - 7th grade students should have their course request sheets turned in to either their science teacher, library, or main office.  Please remind them to get them turned in!  
• Monday, February 18 - Staff Meeting has been moved to a later date as we just had inservice and shared items that needed to be shared.  
• Monday, February 18 - MTSS District Committee Meeting from 3:45 - 5:15 in our Karcher library.  
• Monday-Thursday this week is extended advisory - note the links for the lessons for the week!  
• Friday, February 22 - We have a different bell schedule for Friday... click HERE for the schedule.  The high school DRIVEN students will be coming over to work with our students focusing on anti-bullying and compassion.  

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Pictures from the week

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Chocolate City Snowshoe Shuffle was this weekend at the BASD School Forest.  Dan Bocock set up the event with the intention of it running every year!  

Liz Deger coming in strong!