KARCHER STAFF BLOG
2019-2020 Karcher Calendar
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/KarcherMiddleSchool/
BASD Staff Blog: https://basdstaffnews.blogspot.com/
2019-2020 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 our math teachers who exercised a lot of patience this past week as iReady was experiencing issues creating a tough testing environment for our students. Thank you to Patti Tenhagen, Jeri Nettesheim, Scott Staude, Briana Harris, Stacy Stoughton, Matt Nelson, Mike Jones, Wendy Zeman, and Melissa Rothering for your continued efforts this past week with testing and for adjusting when needed in order to continue with either lessons or iReady depending on the day. Due to ongoing issues our math staff may need extra time this week to allow our students adequate time for their fall math diagnostic. Again, great job being so flexible and patient throughout this past week!
- Please welcome Johnny Aguirre who will be joining our Karcher and BHS teams as our ESL aide. Johnny will be starting on Wednesday this week. Please introduce yourself and welcome Johnny to our team! It can be hard to start after routines have been established and Johnny is lucky to be joining such a helpful team!
- Thank you to Mike Jones and Melissa Rothering for assisting this past Friday as well when we were short teacher subs. We truly appreciate your willingness to help and for your flexibility! Thank you!!!
Article this week: It is great to be in so many classrooms this week and to reflect with staff on our BASD Big Three. Below is a great reminder of the components of GRR as we work to infuse Essential Skills into our classrooms through the use of this instructional strategy!
Book: Better Learning Through Structured Teaching: A Framework for the Gradual Release of Responsibility, 2nd Edition
Chapter 1. Learning, or Not Learning, in School
The Gradual Release of Responsibility Instructional Framework
The gradual release of responsibility instructional framework purposefully shifts the cognitive load from teacher-as-model, to joint responsibility of teacher and learner, to independent practice and application by the learner (Pearson & Gallagher, 1983). It stipulates that the teacher moves from assuming "all the responsibility for performing a task … to a situation in which the students assume all of the responsibility" (Duke & Pearson, 2002, p. 211). This gradual release may occur over a day, a week, a month, or a year. Graves and Fitzgerald (2003) note that "effective instruction often follows a progression in which teachers gradually do less of the work and students gradually assume increased responsibility for their learning. It is through this process of gradually assuming more and more responsibility for their learning that students become competent, independent learners" (p. 98).
The gradual release of responsibility framework, originally developed for reading instruction, reflects the intersection of several theories, including
- Piaget's (1952) work on cognitive structures and schemata
- Vygotsky's (1962, 1978) work on zones of proximal development
- Bandura's (1965) work on attention, retention, reproduction, and motivation
- Wood, Bruner, and Ross's (1976) work on scaffolded instruction
Taken together, these theories suggest that learning occurs through interactions with others; when these interactions are intentional, specific learning occurs.
Unfortunately, most current efforts to implement the gradual release of responsibility framework limit these interactions to adult and child exchanges: I do it; we do it together; you do it. But this three-phase model omits a truly vital component: students learning through collaboration with their peers—the you do it together phase. Although the effectiveness of peer learning has been demonstrated with English language learners (Zhang & Dougherty Stahl, 2011), students with disabilities (Grenier, Dyson, & Yeaton, 2005), and learners identified as gifted (Patrick, Bangel, & Jeon, 2005), it has typically been examined as a singular practice, isolated from the overall instructional design of the lesson. A more complete implementation model for the gradual release of responsibility recognizes the recursive nature of learning and has teachers cycle purposefully through purpose setting and guided instruction, collaborative learning, and independent experiences. In Figure 1.1, we map out these phases of learning, indicating the share of responsibility that students and teachers have in each.
Figure 1.1. A Structure for Instruction That Works
We are not suggesting that every lesson must always start with focused instruction (goal setting and modeling) before progressing to guided instruction, then to collaborative learning, and finally to independent tasks (Grant, Lapp, Fisher, Johnson, & Frey, 2012). Teachers often reorder the phases—for example, begin a lesson with an independent task, such as bellwork or a quick-write, or engage students in collaborative peer inquiry prior to providing teacher modeling. As we stress throughout this book, what is important and necessary for deep learning is that students experience all four phases of learning when encountering new content. We will explore these phases in greater detail in subsequent chapters, but let's proceed now with an overview of each.
Focused Instruction
Focused instruction is an important part of the overall lesson design. This phase includes establishing a clear lesson purpose. We use the word purpose rather than goal, objective, or learning target because it's essential to ensure that students grasp the relevance of the lesson. The statement of a lesson's purpose can address goals related to content, language, and social aspects. Consider, for example, the teacher who clearly communicates the purpose of a lesson as follows:
Our content goal today is to multiply and estimate products of fractions and mixed numerals because these are used in cooking, construction, and medicine. Our language goal for today is to use precise mathematical terminology while discussing problems and answers with one another. Our social goal today is to improve our turn-taking skills by making sure that each member of the group has a chance to participate in the discussion.
As Dick, Carey, and Carey (2001) remind us, an "instructional goal is (1) a clear, general statement of learner outcomes, (2) related to an identified problem and needs assessment, and (3) achievable through instruction" (p. 25). These are important considerations when establishing lesson purpose. As we will discuss further in Chapter 2, it's not enough to simply state the lesson purpose. We must ensure that students have opportunities to engage with the purpose in a meaningful way and obtain feedback about their performance.
In addition to establishing purpose, the focused instruction phase of learning provides students with information about the ways in which a skilled reader, writer, or thinker processes the information under discussion. Typically, this is done through direct explanations, modeling, or think-alouds in which the teacher demonstrates the kind of thinking required to solve a problem, understand a set of directions, or interact with a text. For example, after reading aloud a passage about spiders to 3rd graders, a teacher might say:
Now I have even more questions. I just read that spiders don't have mouth parts, so I'm wondering how they eat. I can't really visualize that, and I will definitely have to look for more information to answer that question. I didn't know that spiders are found all over the world—that was interesting to find out. To me, the most interesting spider mentioned in this text is the one that lives underwater in silken domes. Now, that is something I need to know more about.
Focused instruction is typically done with the whole class and usually lasts 15 minutes or less—long enough to clearly establish purpose and ensure that students have a model from which to work. Note that focused instruction does not have to come at the beginning of the lesson, nor is there any reason to limit focused instruction to once per lesson. The gradual release of responsibility instructional framework is recursive, and a teacher might reassume responsibility several times during a lesson to reestablish its purpose and provide additional examples of expert thinking.
Guided Instruction
The guided instruction phase of a lesson is almost always conducted with small, purposeful groups that have been composed based on formative assessment data. There are a number of instructional routines that can be used during guided instruction, and we will explore these further in Chapter 3. The key to effective guided instruction is planning. These are not random groups of students meeting with the teacher; the groups consist of students who share a common instructional need that the teacher can address.
Guided instruction is an ideal time to differentiate. As Tomlinson and Imbeau (2010) have noted, teachers can differentiate content, process, and product. Small-group instruction allows teachers to vary the instructional materials they use, the level of prompting or questioning they employ, and the products they expect. For example, Marcus Moore,* a 7th grade science teacher, identified a group of five students who did not perform well on a subset of pre-assessment questions related to asteroid impacts. He met with this group of students and shared with them a short book from the school library called Comets, Asteroids, and Meteorites (Gallant, 2000). He asked each student to read specific pages related to asteroids and then to participate in a discussion with him and the others in the group about the potential effect that these bodies might have on Earth. During this 20-minute lesson, Mr. Moore validated and extended his students' understanding that, throughout history, life on Earth has been disrupted by major catastrophic events, including asteroids. At one point in the group's discussion, he provided this prompt:
Consider what you know about the Earth's surface. Talk about that—is it all flat? (Students all respond no.) What do you think are the things that made the surface of the Earth look like it does? Remember, the Earth has a history ….
A single guided instructional event won't translate into all students developing the content knowledge or skills they are lacking, but a series of guided instructional events will. Over time and with cues, prompts, and questions, teachers can guide students to increasingly complex thinking. Guided instruction is, in part, about establishing high expectations and providing the support so that students can reach those expectations.
Collaborative Learning
As we have noted, the collaborative learning phase of instruction is too often neglected. If used at all, it tends to be a special event rather than an established instructional routine. When done right, collaborative learning is a way for students to consolidate their thinking and understanding. Negotiating with peers, discussing ideas and information, and engaging in inquiry with others gives students the opportunity to use what they have learned during focused and guided instruction.
Collaborative learning is not the time to introduce new information to students. This phase of instruction is a time for students to apply what they already know in novel situations or engage in a spiral review of previous knowledge.
It is important, too, that you allow collaborative learning to be a little experimental, a little messy. In order for students to consolidate their thinking and interact meaningfully with the content and one another, they need to encounter tasks that will reveal their partial understandings and misconceptions as well as confirm what they already know. In other words, wrestling with a problem is a necessary condition of collaborative learning. If you are pretty certain your students will be able to complete a collaborative learning task accurately the first time through, that task would probably be better suited to the independent learning phase.
Collaborative learning is also a perfect opportunity for students to engage in accountable talk and argumentation. Accountable talk is a framework for teaching students about discourse in order to enrich these interactions. First developed by Lauren Resnick (2000) and a team of researchers at the Institute for Learning at the University of Pittsburgh, accountable talk describes the agreements students and their teacher commit to as they engage in partner conversations. These include staying on topic, using information that is accurate and appropriate for the topic, and thinking deeply about what the partner has to say. Students are taught to be accountable for the content and to one another, and they learn techniques for keeping the conversation moving forward, toward a richer understanding of the topic at hand. The Institute for Learning (n.d.) describes five indicators of accountable talk:
- Press for clarification and explanation (e.g., "Could you describe what you mean?").
- Require justification of proposals and challenges (e.g., "Where did you find that information?").
- Recognize and challenge misconception (e.g., "I don't agree, because _______________.").
- Demand evidence for claims and arguments (e.g., "Can you give me an example?").
- Interpret and use one another's statements (e.g., "I think David's saying _______________, in which case, maybe we should _______________.").
These are important skills for students to master and, on a larger scale, valuable tools for all citizens in a participatory democracy (Michaels, O'Connor, & Resnick, 2008). They are also key to meeting Common Core State Standards in speaking and listening, the first of which asks students to "prepare for and participate effectively in a range of conversations and collaborations with diverse partners, building on others' ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively" (National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, Council of Chief State School Officers [NGA/CCSSO], 2010a, p. 22).
We have seen teachers integrate collaborative learning opportunities into their instruction in a variety of ways. For example, a 10th grade social studies teacher selected a number of readings that would allow his students to compare and contrast the Glorious Revolution of England, the American Revolution, and the French Revolution. The students did so through reciprocal teaching (Palinscar & Brown, 1984), an arrangement in which groups of students read a piece of text in common; discuss the text using predicting, questioning, summarizing, and clarifying; and take notes on their discussion. At the end of the discussion, each student in the class summarizes the reading individually—a step that ensures the individual accountability that is key to successful collaborative learning.
The way in which one of these groups of students talked about their reading demonstrates how peers can support one another in the consolidation of information:
Jamal: I still don't get it. Those folks in England had a revolution because the king wanted the army to be Catholic, and he got his own friends in government. But I need help to clarify what they mean by the "Dispensing Power." It sounds all Harry Potter.
Antone: I feel you. But dispensing power—that's just the name for getting rid of rules you don't want.
LaSheika: That king, James number 2, used a power he had to suspend laws and other rules. Adding that to the things you said already, it made people very angry, and they started the revolution to get rid of him. It's just like the other revolutions we talked about.
Collaborative learning situations help students think through key ideas, are a natural opportunity for inquiry, and promote engagement with the content. As such, they are critical to the successful implementation of the gradual release of responsibility instructional framework.
Independent Learning
The ultimate goal of instruction is that students be able to independently apply information, ideas, content, skills, and strategies in unique situations. We want to create learners who are not dependent on others for information and ideas. As such, students need practice completing independent tasks and learning from those tasks. Overall and across time, the school and instructional events must be "organized to encourage and support a continued, increasingly mature and comprehensive acceptance of responsibilities for one's own learning" (Kesten, 1987, p. 15). The effectiveness of independent learning, however, depends on students' readiness to engage in it; too many students are asked to complete independent tasks without having received the focused or guided instruction they need.
When students are ready to apply skills and knowledge to produce new products, there is a range of independent tasks that might be used. Our experience suggests that the more authentic a task is, the more likely the student is to complete it. For example, a kindergarten teacher might ask a student to read a familiar book to three adults, a 6th grade science teacher might ask a student to predict the outcome of a lab based on the previous three experiments, and a high school art teacher might ask a student to incorporate light and perspective into a new painting. What's essential is that an independent learning task clearly relate to the instruction each student has received and yet also provide the student an opportunity to apply the resulting knowledge in a new way.
Information/Reminders
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- Due to uncontrollable issues with iReady our math teachers may need to be testing this week. Please assist with keeping the noise level down to provide a great testing environment for our students.
- To join in the fun of Homecoming week our student council put together dress up days for this week!
- Monday - House Colors!
- Onyx - White
- Diamond - Grey
- Hive - Yellow or Orange
- Silver - Black or Blue
- Tuesday - Twin Day
- Wednesday - Crazy crocs & socks or socks & slides
- Thursday - Generation day:
- 7th - Elderly
- 8th - Babies (no diapers without leggings)
- Staff - Teens
- Friday - Orange & Black - Demon Pride!!!
- Monday, September 30 - Special Education Aide meeting in the large conference room from 2:40-3:00.
- All special education teachers please also attend!
- Tuesday, October 1 - Special Education Department meeting in the small conference room from 2:40-3:15.
- Wednesday, October 2 - PLC time:
- Essential Skills or Strategy/Skills (GRR) PLC within your content areas in your rooms.
- Please make it a habit to complete the PLC reflection form at the end of every PLC!
- Thursday, October 3 - Custodian Appreciation Day!!!
- Please join me in thanking our awesome custodial team here at Karcher by bringing a treat for our day time and night time staff to enjoy! Please bring it to the main office and we will then put all items in the custodial office area for all of them to enjoy!
- Thursday, October 3 - Home girls basketball game.
- Friday, October 4 - 7th grade school forest field trip.
- This field trip was originally planned for September 28 but was moved due to weather. Lets pray for great weather for this coming Friday!
- Any questions see Barb Berezowitz or Andrea Hancock.
- Friday, October 4th - BHS Homecoming Football Game @ 7:00pm.
- Monday, October 7 - Karcher cross country meet at BHS
- Tuesday, October 8 - BLT Meeting from 2:40 - 3:30
- Tuesday, October 8 - Hive House State Capital Trip
- Wednesday, October 9 - PLC in the library with our focus being continued learning around our Essential Skills grading piece.
- We will practice putting in scores into the "standards based grade book" that you all have assigned that is fake for everyone to have the ability to practice.
- Thursday, October 10 - Silver House State Capital Trip
Looking ahead:
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Pictures from the week
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How I felt tonight when I realized my computer was dead, cords are at school, get to school, forget my phone to share images...
Will post pictures to next weeks blog from this past week!!!
