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SLO Update
SLO's are due to Marsha on or before October 27, 2016.
I will send you an email with examples and the revised template. If you need any support, please let me know.
Grading and Reporting Padlet
Re-do's
At our next Grade Level Meetings, we will be talking about the Manual and how the process of "Redo's" are working in your class.
Click on the pdf file for a printable "Re-do" paper that students can fill out. It also allows them to self-reflect on their own work.
Unpacking the Objective
Dreambox PD
New to Dreambox? Need a Refresher course?
Click here for PD for Dreambox
Username:
your email address
Password: pass4Dreambox! (Don’t forget the exclamation point!)
Using Learning Progressions to Close the Gap
Teachers: How can you take your ideas and the learner centered environment to the next level? The attachment reviews how to develop and use learning progressions to provide descriptive feedback, determine small groups, and scaffold instruction.
Key Criteria for Developing Learning Progressions
The NAEP 2009 Science Framework describes learning progressions as “a sequence of successively more complex ways of reasoning about a set of ideas; not developmentally inevitable but dependent on instruction and interacting with students’ prior knowledge and new knowledge construction.”
While there is quite some disagreement in the field about the use of learning progressions (Shavelson, 2009; Corcoran, et al., 2009), there is growing agreement that learning progressions can help teachers articulate how learning progresses in a particular domain. It can provide “a big picture of what is to be learned, support effective instructional planning, and act as a touchstone for formative assessment” (Heritage, 2008, p. 2). By helping teachers articulate a pathway of learning, learning progressions provide a framework from which to organize formative assessment strategies. More importantly, they help guide both teachers and students to more quickly and effectively consider next steps in learning.
For formative assessment purposes, learning progressions should:
Provide a description of learning in each category that will support instructional planning.
Provide sufficient detail to map formative assessment opportunities that will elicit evidence at key points along the progression.
Support teachers to quickly identify where students are along the learning progression, in other words, to help define what the gap in learning is in relation to the learning goal.
Support students to take next steps in learning.
Heritage (2008) describes two types of learning progressions: top down and bottom up. Top down progressions have been developed by research teams in a variety of disciplines, and are best known in science. These progressions often review long-term learning processes, by developing, for example a K-12 progression. Their goal is to frame the key building blocks within a domain, and to address critical considerations related to how students learn specific concepts and skills. They generally begin with the big ideas in a domain and how these big ideas connect together.
Bottom-up progressions are those developed by teachers, teacher teams, or organizations of teachers. These progressions come from more of an action research approach. Teachers work to establish how learning progresses in a particular topic area or domain through their existing knowledge and observations of classroom practice. These learning progressions must be “constantly checked, updated and enriched” (Masters and Forster, 1996, p. 13). One well-documented bottom-up strategy for developing learning progressions is for teachers to collaboratively de-construct an academic content standard to determine key knowledge and skills required for students to attain proficiency on that standard.
If teachers have already developed formative assessment planning documents, and have worked to establish the big idea, learning goals, and success criteria for a unit, then developing a learning progression is relatively straightforward.
To complete a learning progression template for a specific unit (a bottom-up approach), consider the following steps:
1. Start with level 3.
Describe what you see proficient students doing when they demonstrate the knowledge and skills expected for this set of unit goals.
2. Go to level 2.
Describe what you would expect to see as knowledge and understanding emerging or developing in this area. Describe what you see happening when students have simpler, more basic knowledge and understandings in this area.
3. Go to level 4.
Describe what you would expect to see when students have gone beyond what you expect in this unit. What are those more advanced concepts and skills that will be stepping stones for students’ future understanding in this area?
Skip back down to level 1
Dip in for PD
Our 1st "Dip in for PD" will be on Wednesday, October 26, 2016 in the conference room.
Topic: OneDrive/ OneNote
Stop by anytime from 9:25-3:25 to receive some PD on the OneDrive/OneNote. Jill Snell, from the Office of Organizational Department, will be here as well to answer any questions that I may not be able to answer.