Mr. Ebeling's Updates
Learning...It's Personal
September 12, 2014
Great Start because of Great People
Dear Sailor Staff,
An educational leadership writer that I follow named @ToddWhitaker states, "It's the people not the programs that change the outcome on student learning!" We no doubt have the right people in our building. We will continue to build our capacity even though at times it feels as though we are drinking from a fire hose (remember not to Google that). Remember that you are the ones making the difference in the lives of kids each day. It's not Math Expressions, Story Town, Words Their Way, or iPads that will make the difference. It's you. It's me. It's all of us-TOGETHER!
Continue doing what you do! It's been a terrific start to the year!
With Gratitude,
Tony
Bay Harbor- An ALICE School
Assessment Day
I want to give a special thanks to ALL special area teachers who are leading the engaging stations on Monday. We couldn't do this without you! #allhandsondeck
Running Record Assessments
- Understand the students Spring score and analyze strengths and weaknesses
- Give assessment to find INSTRUCTIONAL level
- Analyze strengths and weaknesses and use this for instructional purposes
- If a student has hit the "Summer Slump" when you have assessed, be sure still find their instructional level and note their weaknesses.
- Don't start them at the lower level...start them at where they left off (or higher if they achieved that). Understand that they had those skills at one time and with support on some weaknesses, they will gain momentum as they begin to do more practice.
- Their independent activities will need to be a lower level
- At this time, please keep track of your RR scores. I will update you regarding one localized spot that I will track the data.
- Students who have slipped back, should receive another RR early on or by mid October.
- REMINDER: RR are for instructional purposes. It will also be used as a way to measure growth, but it is first and foremost a tool to instruct.
- THANK YOU for your work on this and for your care to learn more about your students!
Press Gazette Article
PLC Begins Tuesday
- What do we want students to know and be able to do? (Curriculum)
- How will we know if they know it? (Assessment)
- What will we do if they don't? (Instruction/Intervention)
- What will we do if they do? (Enrichment) - Rick DuFour
We need your PLC work to jive with our School Improvement Efforts surrounding the areas of Literacy and Closing the Gap. Your SLO goals and personal goals should align to this work too. NEW this year, our interventionists will be setting up a rotating schedule to meet with you during PLC time to review on-going data and plan. This will be a positive addition!
Please be sure to use the PLC Folder you each have in your Google Drive. Review your Norms from last year and update IF NEEDED. One person should lead the PLC and somebody should take notes on the agenda template in your folder. Most of you already know the goals by which you want to reach, but if not, be sure to review data and come up with a SMART goal for your SLO. Remember to base it on historical data if possible. Make it attainable but not easy. It's A LOT about what you do to get there, not just if you got there or not.
Educator Effectiveness- Year 2, but really year 1, but now it's for real
Like last year, I will do my best to lay out EE timelines and expectations. We will also continue to work together through the process and not overthink it or stress about it. Here are some key things to know now:
Everyone is using the new Professional Practice Goal from this year which combines the completion of the SLO Process and the PPG - Professional Practices Goal. In the past, the Professional Practices Goal was done as part of a separate Self Assessment of Professional Practices form in MLP-OASYS. There are three main parts to the Professional Practice Goal Form. #1 involves the SLO process, #2 is the Self-Assessment using the six EP Standards (The majority of districts are beginning by having educators reflect at the standard level, not the indicator level), #3 is the actual Professional Practice Goal to be completed. It's a long form, but is it combining two forms required in the past. Here is an example: Professional Practice Goal
So...In a nutshell:
SLO / Self-Assessment / PPG all on one form now
See example - CLICK HERE
DUE OCTOBER 15th
SLO is self-scored all three years. Evaluator / supervisor uses information from self-scoring from all three years to give a holistic SLO score in summative year. This is the score that is reported to the state.
Evaluator / supervisor does not formally approve the SLO goal, but it is appropriate to have collaborative conversations with teachers about their SLOs.
SLO is a student learning objective and should be focused on an overall outcome (i.e. running records, PALS, MAP, Smarter Balanced, etc.). This needs to be written in a SMART format.
PPG is a personal professional growth goal. This should not be necessarily be focused on a student learning outcome / objective but should instead be personally focused. The PPG should support the SLO. This should be a SMART goal, but can be a bit tougher to write SMART goals for PPGs.
SLO - Summarized Powerpoint from CESA 6 - CLICK HERE
TIMELINE
Educator Timeline (for teachers / educational specialists) - CLICK HERE
Words Their Way Info
We will be working through the Words Their Way series this year. Grade 2 will help us through some of the growing pains since they have already put this into action last year. Thanks to Alison, $500 worth of sorts are at the print center getting copied and will be ready for you to use as you feel comfortable and as you learn to use them.
September 18th @ 7:40 we will work through the scoring and talking about the scores of the beginning of the year assessment. Please be sure to give it before that time. You can use the meeting time to score it or review your scores with help from others. REMEMBER- we will work TOGETHER to do this.
Writing Workshop
Story Town= Slow Down
SRT
The SRT team is: Principal (Tony), School Psych (Renee Vogel), School Counselor (Jen Woulfe), S/L teachers (Sue, Tanya), Social Worker (Maureen), Lit. Specialist (Alison), Sped (Renee, Jessica), Nurse (as needed), SRO (as necessary)