Sipley School Weekly Howl
Week of Monday, December 5, 2016
Our Monday meeting will center on getting to know the personalities of others more. Authors of the book, Working Together, suggest that it is valuable for individuals in the work place to "become more aware of why people you work and deal with on a daily basis seem to react, function and behave the way they do. As that happens you will be more readliy able to accept realities as they are rather than wishing they would be different."
WOOP
Wish – Formative assessment for purposeful instruction
Outcome – Teachers will know where their students are at in relation to the end goal and their next steps in planning
Obstacles - Resources, time, not knowing the end goals, follow through, embedding formative assessments, how do we do it?, planning for it, confidence, feelings about the curriculum, scaffold and pre planning, trust ourselves to adapt curriculum.
Plan - If we feel that we do not have time, then we will create time for embedding purposeful formative assessments linked to summative assessments. If we feel that we do not have confidence, then we will seek out the necessary resources to build confidence.
Formative Assessment for Purposeful Instruction
Our Wish, Formative assessment for purposeful instruction, will not be going away until we have gain comfort of using formative assessment. There was some concern voiced that this school improvement goal will change without proper follow-through and this is a valid concern and I want to address it. Our school leadership team has a different look and feel. The leadership team is leading others and taking on a greater role. We worked very hard in the Spring to determine an area of our school that could benefit from change. We determined it was formative instruction that we needed to focus on as we had few students meeting district benchmarks based upon our own assessments. This Fall we were introduced to WOOP, which is a formal way of determining a problem and planning for improvement, is really the work we did in the Spring through a different model (The Six Whys). The work we did in the Spring has not changed with the introduction of the WOOP, because our work in the Spring was quite sound. Our Wish will not go away. It can't go away. And here is why it can't go away.
The research is clear that formative assessment positively impacts student learning. With that, there are so many underlying components associated with using formative assessment. There is the unit design where backwards mapping from a summative and/or high stakes examination comes into play, which assesses prioritized grade level standards and gives teachers the information needed to plan and adjust their instruction (day by day and minute by minute). There is the teacher's belief that students can and will reach those standards (teacher efficacy - Do I believe my students are capable?). There is a response to intervention that supports student achievement (what will I do in my classroom if my students do not meet proficiency?). Formative assessment gets down to the student level (do students know where they stand in relation to the targets/expectations of learning - self-reported grades?).
As you can see there is quite a lot tied to our Wish! It is extensive, important, and complex work. This Wish lives at the classroom level and we will work with teachers and staff to build competency and comfort in all of this through ongoing professional development. Because it rests at the classroom level and is the work teachers do, the focus will not change and the work associated with this Wish will not go away. Why? It is embedded in all our work and always will be. So much so, that it is something we evaluate through our teacher evaluation instrument. It is linked directly to 1e - Designing coherent instruction, 3c - Engaging students in learning, and 3d - Using assessment in instruction. It is indirectly tied to the other anchor standards that enhance this Wish.
Please allow us to prove that this Wish will guide our work until we see it through. We need everyone on board to embrace the work ahead. Our individual and collective work will result in individual student growth and student progress toward college and career readiness. Our school goal is that we will have at least 50% of our students meeting proficiency measured on our district assessments and reported on our student report cards.
Monday Meeting
All staff took a personality quiz to learn more about their own personality. Mr. Wolcott shared an advanced profile with us that allows us to dive deeper into our personality. Each staff member will share two strengths or characteristics and two weaknesses or implications associated with their personality that they want others to know more about. They will also share a commitment and an ask. I provided staff with an example through our agenda. I will go first on Monday in sharing this.
Each staff member will share their information. This should take about 1 to 1 and a half minutes per person to share. We will have to stick to this time allotment over our next two Monday meetings and not go off on tangents. If we stick to the time, all staff will have the opportunity to share more about their personality, allowing others in the room to better understand why each person on staff reacts, functions, and behaves in the way they do along with their commitment and ask. This will help our entire team as we better understand others and gain more comfort with those we work with.
I heard from a few people that this exercise has already opened their eyes to aspects of their personality that they are now more aware of, which I think is one of the valuable aspects to this exercise.
If you want to dive even deeper into characteristics and implications associated with each personality type, take a look at the book, Working Together. You can stop by my office and borrow it. It will be on my round table. It is quite interesting! Think of it as your advanced profile on steroids.
A Glimpse at the Week Ahead
Monday - School Leadership Team meeting - 11:20 - 12:15
Monday - ALL STAFF Monday meeting - 3:10 - 4:00
Tuesday - I will be out in the afternoon - Leadership Team Meeting
Friday - I will be out all day for curriculum writing
Friday - STP Parent Night Out