A Board Walk

At Chets Creek we put up "standard-based" bulletin boards each month. No more "fluff" - instead its work based on a standard. Each board consists of a title, the standards, the task, four pieces of student work and commentary. These boards have become a cornerstone of our work. The boards are meant to be a window into the instruction in the classroom. They are used as artifacts of the learning for our students, parents, community and other teachers. Today as part of our professional development in Science, we took a "board walk." We looked at three bulletin boards that were done around our Science topic of what animals need for survival. This is collaboration at its best. Not only did teachers have a chance to see lesson plans in writing that included lots of video links, but they had a chance to see the boards that connected the standards, described the lesson, showed artifacts such as posters and Science journal entries and lab sheets of the student work and also had commentary on each child's work explaining how the child understood the lesson. Each of these boards also had lots of photographs documenting the process. Not only is this an interesting and fun way to learn, but it provides lively conversation!

RtI and Interventions

We have been doing a school wide book study for the past three Early Release days on Richard Allington's What Really Matters in Response to Intervention. We are broken into about 12 small groups of 6-8 teachers. The groups are vertical with hopes of having many different views within each group. Each group has a facilitator. Nina Thomas, one of the facilitators established a wiki where each group could post some of their thoughts. Yesterday after our last book talk, the groups met together to share with each other 3-5 of the things that they thought should be considerations for next year. I am so proud of the thinking that has been going on in our building - the professional conversation in the hallways. I'm glad to be at a school where a Principal is not threatened by such a process but opens the doors for free thinking and creative solutions. While many schools are attending in-services to try to figure out how to get their faculties to "buy-in" to RtI, our school "bought in" a long time ago. We have had our own "intervention team" since the school was established, long before it was mandated. Although the paperwork is different now, the intent - of making a difference for our struggling readers - has always been the same. The law has made it all more complex and difficult to grasp but at the heart is the hope that we can provide the best possible reading program in our Workshop model to reach the most students and then provide specific intensive interventions for any that we miss. We are in solution mode at the Creek! As facilitators shared today there was a lot of thinking "outside of the box" such as

• trying to get a late bus to run to our community of most at-risk students so that we can tutor them after school
• taking all of the Science and Social Studies books in the building and reallocating them so that every grade level has books for EVERY reader on their level on the content topics that are covered on their grade level
• a request for Math/Science teachers to learn non-fiction reading strategies while the Reading teachers requested the Science topics so that they can incorporate that content into their informational writing
• a resource in addition to Music, Art and PE that would include Readers Theatre and Drama that could reinforce fluency

The list goes on and on with creative ideas and solutions. Next Wednesday the Admin Leadership Team will take that list that has been added to the wiki and go through every single suggestion. Many of the suggestions don't cost a dime! They just mean reallocating people or resources. Many of the ideas really ARE possible.

I guess this is what I love most about Chets Creek. We ARE going to make a difference. Thank you Richard Allington for pushing our thinking and for giving us, in a short and sweet summary, the best research has to offer us right now. We plan to use that knowledge to teach more and more children to read - just watch!

Vertical PD: Co-teaching

Today was another in our series of vertical professional development days - vertical because the content cuts across grade levels. This day was billed as a day to see co-teaching at its best, including watching co-teachers deliver a mini-lesson, watching them each take a small group during the work session while monitoring the students that were working independently, and then finally watching two teachers conduct a closing meeting.

First we watched Christy Constande and Vicky Cole in their inclusion 3rd grade classroom. They presented a very deep and difficult lesson on the "seen" and "unseen" or rather how to make inferences. This is such a difficult concept. Christy and Vicky used the text, Book Fair Day, to demonstrate the megnacognition of the skill and then had the children practice with a different piece of the same book as their active involvement before they had the children practice independently at their seats with "just right" books in their book bags. In the work session Christy then took a small group that she knew would be challenged with the skill to offer guided practice with the picture book, When the Relative Came. At the same time Vicky took a small strategy group that she selected based on their data. After the children worked for about 40 minutes the teachers came back together and had two children demonstrate their thinking.

Eighteen teachers attended this professional development day. Well actually, 30 teachers signed up with an interest in the topic, but we were only able to accommodate the first 18. The others will be signed up for a second day on this same topic. The 18 came together to view and debrief the lessons and also to share lunch together.

Next it was off to see Melissa Ross and Ashley Russell's second grade Math Workshop. Once again the two teachers delivered a masterful lesson together that included both a Calendar Math and Math Investigations lesson. Their opening included modeling a problem with both teachers participating equally. During the work session of the Workshop the students worked with partners. As the students settled down to work with their partner, Ashley took a group that she knew would struggle with the hands on activity while Melissa took a challenge group. All of the students completed the first problem in their small group, with a partner, or on their own and then the second problem was differentiated - a more difficult problem for the challenge group. After the teachers got their groups started, they left the group to continue working alone as they each did "drive by" conferences with other partners that might be struggling. As they worked with their small groups and with partners, the teachers looked for and chose specific children to explain their thinking in the closing meeting to help all of the children understand several different strategies for completing the first problem.

I'm not a Math teacher, but anyone would understand how exceptional this lesson was!  What an outstanding day!

Vertical PD - Skills Block

Today we provided vertical demonstration lessons for those teachers that were interested. Before the holidays, teachers were invited to sign up for a day of professional development if they were interested in looking at the Skills Block in several different grade levels. About fifteen teachers took advantage of the opportunity. We gathered together to first watch Maria Mallon and Cheryl Dillard's Kindergarten Skills Block.  Watch it here.Then it was off to Randi Timmons' Second Grade class

and finally we spent time with Jenny Nash's Fourth Graders.

Each Skills Block included grade appropriate activities for phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, capitalization and punctuation, syntax, and spelling. Each demo lesson was debriefed with facilitator and Standards Coach Suzanne Shall, listing "warm" comments - things we noticed and really liked and "cool" comments - questions we still had. Some of the conversation time was spent looking at the standards for each grade level and how the time changes for skills throughout the grades. While Kindergarten and First Grade have about 30 minutes daily to work in Skills Block in their two and a half hour Literacy Block, second through fifth grade are lucky to carve out ten minutes daily for a Skills Block and find that they must instead embed many of the skills in their Readers' and Writers' mini-lessons.

What the lessons had in common were that they were fast-paced, engaging, and fun. They were totally devoid of typical pencil and paper busy work. Instead the activities included songs and poems, games, and interactive activities. Each class had impeccable rituals and routines that made the transitions, the use of individual white boards, bags of words, or group work fast and easy - without the loss of instructional time. These are master teachers who provided so many ideas for those of us that watched. What an incredible gift!

Vertical Professional Development

One of our challenges in professional development at the Creek has always been to move our seasoned teachers forward while at the same time offer foundational work to our newcomers. Accomplishing this type of differentiation at an individual school with limited professional development time has been challenging and sometimes frustrating. We don't want our seasoned teachers to start on lesson one at the beginning of every year, repeating the same content year after year, but at the same time we don't want to leave our beginning teachers behind. We have also always wanted teachers to take more personal responsibility for their own professional development. We want the time that they spend learning to be be useful and applicable. I am sure you have been to hundreds of training sessions that were "required" where you left and felt like you had wasted your time. We have been committed to trying hard NOT to have teachers say that, but how do you meet the many and complex needs of such a large faculty?

This year we decided to try something new and different. We are offering whole days of instruction around a single topic. The topic is chosen based on what teachers identified as their number one need earlier in the year. The day is open to anyone that feels like s/he wants to learn more about that particular subject. The day includes the topic with information from K-5 so that teachers leave with both deep and wide knowledge of the subject. There is some reading/ research about the topic, multiple demos and debriefs with an emphasis on vertical conversation.

Our first day this year was a Science day. Our first Reading/Writing day was on the topic of "Shared Reading." The group included about 10 teachers representing most of the grade levels who had chosen this topic as one they wanted to further investigate. Susanne Shall, our Instructional Coach facilitated the training. She gave each teacher a reflection sheet (on the right) to take notes during each of the live demos. The sections on the reflection sheet included What Shared Reading is... What Shared Reading is not... Artifacts, Resources, Implementation ideas for my classroom.

Kindergarten, of course, was the natural starting place, and Maria Mallon and Cheryl Dillard did not disappoint. They began by reading a new "sounds chart" together - one that they will do every day for quite a while. Next they demonstrated how they use the sound chart to practice new skills and to review previously taught skills in their Morning Message. This too was another example of how they use shared reading. Then they let us peek into a rereading of a favorite Joy Cowley big book. They have been doing an author emphasis of the many delightful Joy Cowley big books since school started. This was their third day of working with this book, and to reread it for the demo, each of the teachers and two of the students took parts while most of the reading was done chorally by the entire class. After this shared reading, the children were asked to match some of the phrases in the book with sentence strip phrases. Finally as yet another example of shared reading, the teachers brought out a chart with the words to a new color word song for the students to practice singing together. All of these examples were part of their Skills Block. When you leave Maria and Cheryl, the one thing that you absolutely know for sure with so much learning going on, is that they are having fun and so are their students!

Then it was off to first grade with Carrie McLeod. The interesting thing about Carrie's presentation was that the children used a familiar text that was enlarged on the document camera so that all of the children could see the words. While this is a common way for intermediate teachers to find an enlarged text to use for shared reading, it was an a-ha for me. I have become so accustomed to pulling out laminated charts from previous years and using my set of big books, that I had forgotten how easy it is to take any text and enlarge it on the document camera. Duh? I am kicking myself for not thinking of this strategy to use with the many rebus nursery rhymes that are on the web while we were doing nursery rhymes. It is this sort of professional development that can introduce you to new strategies, remind you of some that you have used in the past or help you find new and easy applications of strategies that you already know. We debriefed both lessons, finding the things that were alike in the lessons and the things that were different. All of the teachers who taught the lessons joined us for the debrief.  Watch the lesson.

The Principal provided lunch for this group (isn't that a treat?!!) so we could work through our lunch time, getting to know each other better, trading ideas and gaining new respect for those that teach other grades. We jigsawed a text on shared reading to get the researched best practices and then it was off to fourth grade.

Jenny Nash is one of those teachers that is just a natural so it is always a pleasure to watch her teach... anything! She began by having the children read a poem by a familiar author, Roald Dahl. It was a funny poem with a part for the teacher and a part for the class. It required the children to really understand the poem to use their voices correctly. Jenny often uses poetry in her intermediate classroom because it is shorter than a story, picture book or chapter and poems often have interesting punctuation and phrasing, perfect for oral reading. Jenny then took two familiar texts to enlarge by flashing them on the document camera, one that had punctuation clues to help the reader know how to read it and another with and and or without punctuation that still required the reader to understand the passage to read it correctly. Watch the lesson. These were both great examples of how to use shared reading in the Readers' Workshop to enhance comprehension at a more advanced level.

One of the great things about a day like this is that it is relaxing and yet you feel like you've really learned something when you leave. You feel like you really understand the concept presented and the activities and conversation help you to figure out how to incorporate the topic into your everyday teaching. What a delightful way to ENJOY professional development! Can't wait until the next day.

New Concept for Leadership Team

It's the Friday before the first day that teachers come back and I spent most of the day at school noodling around with our new concept for leadership. I was joined by 20 other teachers who took time from their last day off to come and meet!

Last year we continued a tradition at Chets Creek that has served us well with a Leadership Team that met once a week. The Team was led by the Principal and made up of the Standards Coach, Technologist, Media Specialist, Guidance Counselor and a handful of lead teachers. In previous years the Leadership Team had really been the engine that soared student achievement ahead. They were the brains - the guiding force - the group that dreamed the impossible dreams and then made them a reality. We debated issues and brainstormed possibilities. Nothing seemed impossible. While we continued that same workable formula last year, with many of the same dynamic people that had so inspired us in previous years, last year the formula just didn't work. Maybe we simply got stuck in a rut. People came to the table as usual, but without that sparkle that had been so characteristic in the past. Maybe we lost focus on our common mission or maybe the vision began to fog. I'm not really sure but the electricity in the room dwindled to a smooth, but lackluster current. We slowly evolved into a management team without the zest, depth and joy that had once characterized our meetings. The diversified leadership at Chets is not characterized by a single charismatic leader but about the synergy of the group and, in my opinion, the group simply lost its deep connection. Give us credit for realizing that we needed to make a change. Don't get me wrong. We had a great year. We are still an "A" school with our 4th graders leading the charge and making substantial gains on our state's test. We are only one of a small a handful of schools within our county that made AYP, but I think we realized that something just wasn't as good as it could be and we've never been satisfied with good when we know we can be great! We have always wanted more and expected more of ourselves than others may have believed was possible.

Jim Collins says that in order to go from good to great that you have to be brutally honest. It is only by admitting and realizing where you are, that you can really make changes. I think as a Leadership group we did that hard work and imagined something different for ourselves. So... this year we have added layers of professional learning/leadership groups that will inform and lead different parts of our work. We will divide and conquer. There is an Administrative Council that includes the Principal, Standards Coach, Technologist, Media Specialist, Literacy Coach, Behavior Specialist, and Guidance Counselor. This group will be our Management Team which will be assisted by our long standing Shared Decision Making Team made up of Team Leaders selected by each grade level but the real work of moving student achievement ahead will be done by three Curriculum Councils - Literacy, Math and Science. Each of the three groups will have a grade level representative. Each group will meet once a month and then the entire Council will meet on the fourth week. This is vertical articulation by subject that has been missing in the past. The hope is that we can use our time wisely in addressing the specific needs and dreams of each curriculum group.

Will this new alignment work? Will it help us reach that last 5% of kids so that we can truly reach 100%? I don't know. We organized at the end of last year and then met for the first time today. These groups include many people who have served on the Leadership Team for years but also many new people who will have to find their confidence and their voice to make a difference but it builds layers of leadership opportunities for many of the teachers who are ready for that responsibility at our very large school.

That's what I love about the beginning of school - new plans, new ideas, new alignments. 

K-1 Collaboration

Today a group of kindergarten and first grade looping teachers met together to work on continuity between kindergarten and first grade. Each of these teachers, four currently in kindergarten and four currently in first grade, loop back and forth between kindergarten and first so they have intimate knowledge of both grade levels. They started the morning talking about our Reading assessment where we monitor all of the big five reading areas.

Next they looked at the Pacing Guides for kindergarten and first grade. This is our guideline for teachers, a look across the curriculum for each week of the school year. They discussed the Guide that we have had in effect for many years and that we rework every year. We look at what works and what doesn't in each year, how to tie our Pacing Guide into the county's newly adopted Houghton Mifflin Reading Program and the county learning schedule in reading and writing. The teachers spent several hours editing a Pacing Guide that works for our kids at Chets Creek!

After lunch two second grade teachers joined the group as we discussed persuasive writing K-2. As I have written before, the state has added persuasive writing to our writing schedule but without a lot of direction. This group of teachers talked about the standards and goals for each grade and reviewed all of the county materials and the resources we have found through our work. They came up with a global idea of what a final product would look like for each grade level and then divided to write a rubric for each grade. They selected children's books for each grade and then outlined lessons that will be written over the summer and added to our wikis.

It was such a productive day - a day of collaboration. I think it makes each of us feel good when we have heard the voices of our colleagues and addressed issues. I feel so fortunate to work with a leadership group that values time for teachers to work together and to spend time with teachers who enjoy the work and believe that when they work together they come up with a better product that works for kids!