The Instructional Edge
Initiatives Supported by the Waverly-Shell Rock TLC Program
Amazing Writing
One benefit of the program is that writing spirals and builds upon itself each year. In grades 3 and 4, students publish the same genres of writing. The units covered are personal narratives, fiction, expository non-fiction, functional writing, opinion writing, and poetry. While the writing unit genres are identical between third and fourth grades, the skills build upon each other to give students developmental opportunities in which to improve and progress. The units last from two to six weeks dependent on the types and numbers of genre-specific traits students are trying to enhance. Recently, in Mrs. Pierce's fourth-grade classroom, students were doing author's chair of their expository non-fiction pieces. Students had created researchable topics, learned research skills, and used text features to create an informative writing piece about a country. Students were very excited to share with each other.
In a recent meeting of teachers, they further sang the praises of the writing being published in their classrooms. The teachers' thoughts are seen below:
- The writing is so genuine; when you read it, you can just hear the students' voices.
- Students are having such great conversations about their writing, which the curriculum builds and develops from the beginning.
- We emphasize the creative process of writing rather than the technical aspect.
- Students love to see how writing improves from draft to draft.
- In each piece of writing, you may see a different student strength that you haven't seen before.
- We, as teachers, are meeting students where they are in their writing development.
- The writing naturally differentiates your students, and you can develop them as individual writers.
Our teachers have done such a wonderful job presenting this new writing curriculum to our students. Their excitement has radiated to our young authors and spread throughout our district! A favorite comment heard by our visitors when a student was asked why they liked writing was, "I feel like a real author!" This is such a testament to our curriculum and teachers!
Types of Text Features
Map & Map Key
Climate Graph/Trend
Learning About DBQ's and LBQ's
Debate
Discuss
Develop
Mentoring
Why
Michelle Tyler - Special Education Lied Campus
Samantha Corsbie - Special Education MS
I
Jordon Smock - Special Education Lied Campus
Teach
Debi Wadding - Special Education HS
Nicole Eick - 2nd Grade SE
High School Social Studies
This year, the state of Iowa released a draft copy of proposed Social Studies Standards. The high school social studies department took some time to look at what these new standards were and how they might impact instruction at the high school. The group created a list of power standards that could be woven into all of the courses at the high school. This was the beginning of a larger discussion as the state modifies and officially adopts the social studies standards.
New Social Studies Standards
Looking for Common Skills
Discussing Opportunities
Refining Our Practice
Once again we have chosen a few teacher’s reflections from the class many WSR teachers are taking this year. Instructional coaches are currently in the process of approving a Refining Our Practice 2 class for next school year.
Here is a quick reminder about this class: The instructional coaches offered a class for WSR teachers to earn two relicensure credits or graduate credits. Teachers learn how to effectively incorporate instructional practices that align the process and product to district learning goals. Teachers are able to choose from a variety of realistic instructional challenges that teachers face and attempt to solve them. Each challenge has a connection between the district learning goals and the practice. We would like to share three challenges that teachers from our district have completed.
Katie Coughlin is a first grade teacher at Southeast Elementary School. For one of her challenges for the class Katie choose the challenge of science personalized PD. The elementary PD has been highly focused on literacy this year, and through this challenge she wanted to spend some time focusing on science in her classroom. Katie had the goal of using trade books in her science instruction and making use of her classes 1:1 iPads for a digital project. This project involved using the trade books and other resources to develop the students’ understanding of the science concept. Then the students would use Scratch Jr. to record their learning and share this learning with one of the kindergarten classes at Southeast.
In her reflection for the class, Katie wrote, “My students loved science time! It helped to have very detailed plans and stick to them. I was also reaffirmed how quickly students catch on to technology. I would show something on the app and most students could do it right away. In fact, some students could explore the app and find solutions themselves. It has challenged me to incorporate more technology into my lessons.”
Barb Davis is a counselor, and Wende Dawson teaches P.E. They are both at the high school. The high school has participated in personalized PD this school year. A group of teachers--including Barb Davis, Rick Ruebel, Casey Chaplin, Wende Dawson, and Rick Caldwell--has been working together on grit.
Wende wrote in her reflection about the need among students this group of teachers were observing, “We notice that students seem to become frustrated when faced with something challenging and will often give up on it fairly quickly. Students with grit will look at something difficult as a challenge/learning experience and will not easily give up on the situation.”
For this challenge the students were completing logic puzzles and Barb reflected, “It was interesting to watch what we educators call ‘productive struggle’ and how productive struggle can play a huge role in critical thinking.” Wende noted hearing students talk about grit more often and reflected, “Increase awareness can lead to change in practice which then rewires the brain as they learn and think differently (neuroplasticity). They are learning that having grit is a process that includes perseverance, trial and error, dealing with emotions such as frustration and the importance of a growth mindset.”
When reflecting upon the whole activity Barb wrote, “It allows for collaboration among students, making connections with previous learning, development of social-emotional skills such as empathy and grit, and development of critical thinking skills and metacognition. This practice assists students in realizing that everyone encounters challenges in their learning--but the key to ultimate success is persistence (i.e. grit).”
Sally Kittleson teaches third grade teacher at Southeast Elementary. Sally completed a challenge on digital citizenship. Sally saw a need among her third grade students to begin learning the importance of digital citizenship and being safe online, since her students have 1:1 iPads in her classroom. During this challenge she also discovered that many of her students are also working online at home and have a lot more freedom than she anticipated.
Sally’s goals during these digital citizenship lessons included:
Students will learn what it means to be a digital citizen.
Students will learn how to use the Internet in a safe, secure, and respectful way.
Teacher and student will draft a classroom set of rules called “Our Digital Citizenship Contract.”
Students will learn about maintaining privacy online, when to share private information, and rules for online privacy.
The third graders then were able to share their learning with the second graders in their building. Sally has notice increases in her students awareness and willingness to report concerns while online.
Stacy Meisgeier teaches sixth grade special education at the middle school. Stacy was able to get credit for an AIW task that she brought to a lead teacher scoring meeting. She co-taught a writing task with a fellow sixth grade teacher. Stacy took the task to AIW looking for feedback on how to improve the revising and editing of this writing task for students. Stacy admitted in her reflection that, “The AIW scoring and feedback process can initially be intimidating.” However when reflecting after the process she wrote, “ The feedback I received was outstanding. Personally, I picked up several new instructional strategies focusing on revising and editing. The AIW feedback received has increased student accountability for writing tasks in the learning environment. Students are responsible for their effort in the revising and editing process. Now, the expectation is for students to provide evidence of their learning. For example, students are expected to reflect upon their writing and are expected to provide evidence of their revisions.”
When responding to a question in the course about the advantages to this practice, Stacy wrote, “AIW offers many advantages to teaching and learning practices. It is beneficial to receive feedback from people who are not directly invested in the instructional task. Furthermore, the different viewpoints from a variety of content areas and grade levels also brings a wide array of ideas to the discussion. The suggestions and ideas for feedback allow teachers to go “out of the box” and to try new ideas. In addition, the AIW discussion allows educators to learn from others around the table. The scoring rubrics also provide language and terminology that can be utilized on a daily basis to help build authenticity and value within instructional practices.”
Penny Toay is a member of Team Sigma at the middle school. She teaches language arts to seventh and eighth graders. Penny’s focus throughout this year have been helping her seventh graders develop a passion for reading. With this focus, Penny and her PLC group have come across many valuable resources that may be valuable to others in our district. These are just a few of them and a little information about each.
“5 Reasons why Conferencing Matters, especially in High School” is an article to support the reasoning about conferring with students during their reading time.
Independent Reading Conferences: A Guide to Getting Started and Independent Reading Conferences Made Easy This article and conference guide are more about a conversation with student, but also it will gives some documentation on what a student is doing and how well it is going.
“How to Help Students Develop of Love for Reading” was helpful in that it was written for parents as a guide to help them support their young readers.
TOP 10 WAYS TO GET A MIDDLE SCHOOL STUDENT TO WANT TO READ is a good article to remind teachers of the things that they should be doing to keep their students motivated.
Choosing Not to Read written by Kyleen Beers was an interesting article about the different classifications of the aliterate reader. There are readers who would be considered aliterates that do have an appreciation for reading but do NOT have the time to read.