November 10, 2014 Teacher eLC Time!
Improving our Practice with Data Analysis!
Welcome back! eLC time for the Weeks of November 10, 2014 and November 17, 2014
This is what I wrote in a recent Virtual Connection, but it is important here as well!
“It’s not teaching that causes learning. It’s the attempts by the learner to perform that causes learning, dependent upon the quality of the feedback and opportunities to use it.” - Grant Wiggins
We focus deeply on how strong your feedback is to your students – that’s critical, and we know it directly impacts student learning and success. But how meaningful is your feedback to your eLC team?
We have watched this video, “Wisdom of Wolves,” before! It hits the mark for what an eLC should be – what we can strive for as a team. It’s less than four minutes – please watch! (HINT: RIGHT CLICK on links to open them in a new window!)
How strong is your pack?
The strength of your pack, your eLC, is critical to your team’s success and for student learning. Our goal is to help focus our teachers on long term victory, not just short term successes. Just as wolves use multiple forms of communication, we must as well, and your eLC will help you to bond as a team. eLCs will allow your pack, just like wolves, to constantly adjust your strategy in order to achieve student success based on data. Why do all this? So we can leave our mark with our students.
Your meaningful contributions will lead to learning by your team and will provide direction that can be acted upon! Your voice is important!
Let's Reflect!
Using the November 10, 2014 tab, reflect (Reflection #1 Week of November 10th) on this question: How strong is your eLC pack? What do you do to improve the strength of your pack?
Spiraling back
As we talked about for the last few weeks, just because we look at data means little; "The fact that teachers collaborate will do nothing to improve a school. The purpose of collaboration can only be accomplished if the professionals engaged in collaboration are focused on the right things."
DuFour, R., DuFour, R., Eaker, R., & Many, T. (2006). Building the Collaborative Culture of a Professional Learning Community. In Learning by Doing: A Handbook for Professional Learning Communities at Work (p. 91). Bloomington, Ind.: Solution Tree.
By focusing on the "right things," we can impact student learning!
Let's do a final reflection on the student survey perception data!
Here are our Quality Coordinator Melissa Davis's reflections on the student survey perception data:
Highlights from Student Survey Results 2013-2014
What are your thoughts about the groupings? This is Reflection #2 Week of November 10th.
Your Reflection #8 for the Week of October 20th was this question: Based on the common ideas and thoughts of your team, what could be/should be your team's first action step pertaining to this data to improve student learning?
As you read your team's responses, I hope you saw common ideas. So, where should your team go from here? In other words, how could your team implement your first action step to improve student learning based on the student perception data? This is Reflection #3 Week of November 10th.
Moving forward with Pass rate data
1. What do we want our students to learn?
2. How will we know if each student has learned it?
3. What do we do when some students don't learn it?
4. How can we extend and enrich the learning for students who have demonstrated proficiency?
DuFour, R., DuFour, R., Eaker, R., & Many, T. (2006). Building the Collaborative Culture of a Professional Learning Community. In Learning by Doing: A Handbook for Professional Learning Communities at Work (p. 91). Bloomington, Ind.: Solution Tree.
What is student performance data or student learning data?
Student learning data is any kind of information that shows us how students have performed on assessments/assignments.
We are going to focus on broad data first and then, we will get more specific.
The Big Picture First
Take some time to review this data for your course, your department's courses, and all NCVPS courses.
Using the November 10, 2014 tab, reflect (Reflection #4 Week of November 10th) on this question: What do you take away from this 30,000 foot view?
Reflection #5 Week of November 10th: What is the value of looking at overall data such as this?
Getting More Specific
This is Pass Rate data by course: Oct 2 Pass Rate rpt Fall 2014 EC, CR, Block and YL Progress Report Due Sept. 30, 2014 by Course
Spend some time looking at the data for your course. You know your course and you know the content that students learned during this time.
Keep this information in mind as we get even more specific. This is Pass Rate data for this same time period broken down further by section: Oct 2 Pass Rate rpt Fall 2014 EC, CR, Block and YL Progress Report Due Sept. 30, 2014 by Section
Focus on your section and the other sections in your course.
Using the November 10, 2014 tab on your team's Google doc, reflect on these questions:
Reflection #6 Week of November 10th: What does this data tell you?
Reflection #7 Week of November 10th: What does this data NOT tell you?
Reflection #8 Week of November 10th: What are the celebrations about the data?
Reflection #9 Week of November 10th: What opportunities for improvement does the data allow us?
Credit Recovery and OCS teachers ONLY!
Focus on this information you see on your own students as you move forward.
Using the November 10, 2014 tab on your team's Google doc, reflect on these questions:
Reflection #6 Week of November 10th: What does this data tell you?
Reflection #7 Week of November 10th: What does this data NOT tell you?
Reflection #8 Week of November 10th: What are the celebrations about the data?
Reflection #9 Week of November 10th: What opportunities for improvement does the data allow us?
Final thoughts for these two weeks....
1. What do we want our students to learn?
2. How will we know if each student has learned it?
3. What do we do when some students don't learn it?
4. How can we extend and enrich the learning for students who have demonstrated proficiency?If our Pass Rates (or Mastery Chart progress for CR or student progression for OCS) are not where they need to be for the learning that needs to happen, what then? This is where we begin to reframe our approach as we look at student performance on a daily basis and apply the DuFour Four Critical Questions.
Please watch this brief video again from Rebecca DuFour where she describes the processes of collaborative eLC thinking (PLC for the f2f world) when looking at student data. Listen this time for the WHY of all this!
(We are using a SafeShare link here because you are adult learners, not student learners.)
Rebecca DuFour talking about the Four Critical Questions
Reflection #10 Week of November 10th: What sentence from her brief talk stands out to you? How should this thought change/improve/extend the work we do daily with student learning data?
Reflection #11 Week of November 10th: How can your team take the DuFours' Four Critical Questions and apply them to the daily student performance you see everyday with your students?
Reflection #12 Week of November 10th: If you team could make one instructional improvement right now to improve students learning, what would it be?