KCS Curriculum and Instruction
Teaching and Learning News in KCS: March 2016
You are WONDERful.
Yeah, I know, it's a little cheesy, doing the whole "wonder" thing there. But it's true. I've spent the last few months in this job interacting with you, joining collaborative meetings, and visiting classrooms, and it's a good way to describe you. You work hard. You love kids. You design engaging learning experiences for students sometimes out of thin air. You work wonders every day. And you do it despite the pressure, lack of recognition, and the daily obstacles presented to you. It's truly a wonder.
And I'm thinking we should all focus on that word a little more. We are Wonders. Our students are, or will be, Wonders. I know there are old stories and personal opinions about what a Wonder is, but I think we can make it whatever we want it to be. I would love to see us tap into that word a little more intentionally and use it to help foster a more curious and thoughtful learning community.
What do you do in your classroom to create a sense of wonder? To encourage students to wonder about your content? To make them feel wonderful about themselves? One recent example from last week is when Steve Fulton's 8th grade ELA current event article of the week about the Flint water crisis grew into something bigger than he intended. Within a week, his students were sharing a Google Hangout with a class of students in Flint, peppering them with great questions and sharing their genuine concern. Check out this article in the Independent Tribune describing how Mr. Fulton adjusted his week based on his students' curiosity to create an authentic application of English Language arts skills.
KCS Curriculum Week - Summer 2016
This is a fantastic opportunity for professional development, collaborative work, and a chance to be on the "front lines" of curriculum work. We need participants from all grade levels and many subjects:
K-4 Participants Needed: ELA/Math(Writing); Sci/SS(Revision)
KIS Participants Needed: Sci/SS(Writing); ELA/Math (Revision)
KMS Participants Needed: ELA/Math/Sci/SS (Revision); Possibly CTE/Electives
ALB Participants Needed: Various courses needed for writing and revision.
Everyone will receive excellent training on Stage 2: Assessment, especially how to write performance tasks, and then the rest of the week will be facilitated work time to either revise current curriculum documents, or begin writing new ones. Please fill out the interest form if there is any possibility you would be interested in this opportunity.
5 Instructional Strategies to Try Now!
2. Discovery Education's SOS Strategies: Even if you already knew about these engaging strategies from DE, I bet you didn't know that they are now organized by skill! These simple instructional strategies incorporate digital media in meaningful, effective, and practical ways. They are very easy to use and provide great structure for student thinking, class discussion, or assessment. May I suggest AEIOU or Silence is Golden. Each strategy link has a video showing you an example as well as a PDF version of the instructions. Click here now and pick one to preview. (You'll have to log into DE and it will take you to the correct page.)
3. Glow and Grow: I actually saw this most recently being used in PLC meetings at Fred L. Wilson. Each teacher begins the planning meeting by sharing a Glow (something they are proud of or excited about) and a Grow (something they want to improve or change). I think this would be a great strategy to use to give students feedback or help students give feedback to each other. Or how about you use it to have students give YOU feedback after a lesson?
4. Solution Stations: Ryan Graham at KMS used this recently to get students up and moving while they worked on math review. Answers are posted around the room and students must solve problems and find the right answer to solve a puzzle. A little extra prep work pays off here, as students are up, moving, happy, engaged, and thinking.
5. Student Survey Playbook from Panorama: Wouldn't it be nice if your student survey results linked directly to strategy suggestions for improving areas of growth based on student responses? Well, that is now available to you. Panorama now has a database of teacher moves that are directly linked to the areas on the student survey. Check out this short video for an overview of this new feature.
KCS Classroom Connections: Teacher/School Spotlight
Looking at Student Work
One thing I'm seeing more of at schools, but would love to see more of, is conversations around student work. Jackson Park's grade level teams are collaborating this month to analyze various samples of students writing from the Reading 3D assessment. They are working to improve scoring consistency and identifying next steps for instruction based on students' current products. Fifth and sixth grade planning groups at Kannapolis Intermediate School have frequently created and discussed common assessments throughout the school year in all subjects. KMS has recently had student-led conferences, where students led the conversation with family members around their work. The Math I team at A.L.Brown has recently developed a common task for students and will discuss the work to identify student strengths and weaknesses. Any time teachers can use student work to discuss student thinking is time well spent.
Don't forget that conversations around student work can be complemented by conversations around your Discovery Education benchmark data. The interactive item analysis report can prompt some great conversation, especially if you use this Benchmark Analysis Guide from Dr. Kelly Burgess.
Student Choice and Comfort
Leigh Yelton, a first grade teacher at Forest Park, and her assistant Melissa Burks have “ditched the desks” for a new flexible classroom. The room enables students to move around freely with no assigned seating allowing for student choice and continual classroom collaboration. Crate seats, exercise balls, wobbly stools, cushioned benches, pillows and other assorted seating options are enjoyed by the class. Click here to view a few pictures!
Living Museum at Forest Park
Enthusiasm and Engagement
Being Inclusive
A Perfect Pair
One-on-One Connections
Led by Katie Dight from the Cabarrus Health Alliance, teachers at A.L. Brown and Kannapolis Middle School are participating in a book study on Building a Trauma Sensitive Approach. Check out this article in EdNC detailing Katie's work with KCS and CCS in helping build more compassionate, trauma-sensitive schools to support our students. We are committed to ensuring that students who have been exposed to trauma and other adverse experiences have the support they need to succeed in our schools. We recognize that this work must extend beyond the classroom and collaborative partners such as the Cabarrus Health Alliance are essential for meeting students' needs with programs such as STARS. The book is available free in PDF format at The Heart of Learning: Compassion, Resiliency, and Academic Success.
Below are some other ways our district cares for individual students and gets them more one-on-one support:
Addressing Academics AND Behavior
We know it takes more than just a solid curriculum and good instructional strategies to make a classroom effective. Teachers also need support with managing and improving student behavior. One more piece of KCS's curriculum and instruction support plan is Positive Behavior Intervention and Support (PBIS). All schools will have teams participating in Positive Behavior Intervention and Support training in April as our first phase of a KCS district-wide PBIS implementation. While many school have existing PBIS practices in place, this will provide additional support and training opportunities to strengthen our framework and ensure that we have effective behavior supports in place to promote student success. This will also allow us to strengthen our MTSS multi-tiered approach as it combines RtI and PBIS into a single, comprehensive framework. You can find more information and resources related to PBIS at http://behaviorsupport.ncdpi.wikispaces.net/home
KCS Curriculum and Professional Development Coordinator
Email: cara.wolford@kcs.k12.nc.us
Website: http://www.kcs.k12.nc.us/departments/curriculum_and_instruction/curriculum_resources
Location: 100 Denver Street, Kannapolis, NC, United States
Phone: 704-938-1131
Twitter: @carawolford