Ground Control Instruction
Dos Rios Elementary * December 1, 2017
Becoming a Trauma Informed School
Learning can be a real struggle for children who have experienced a trauma. But once trauma is identified as the root of the behavior, educators can adapt their approach to help students cope when they are at school.
These steps create a blueprint for trauma informed school implementation and success. While creating a trauma informed school requires patience, with each small implementation you will see how each step complements another and you will experience significant benefits in the overall school climate. You may even see that parts of a step or even an entire step may already be in place in your classroom or school. If that is the case, celebrate and move on to the next step!
Detroit-based clinical director of The National Institute for Trauma and Loss in Children, a program of the Starr Global Learning Network, Dr. Caelan Kuban Soma, offers these steps to help school professionals put in place trauma informed strategies to help students. You can also check out our web page with all our Trauma Informed School resources.
1. Provide school-wide childhood trauma awareness and understanding of how trauma impacts children’s learning and behavior
Contrary to what many school professionals think, you do not have to be a school social worker, counselor or psychologist to provide trauma informed care and practice. Any person, regardless of their own background and role in the school setting, can help students thrive academically, behaviorally, socially and emotionally when they understand how stress and trauma influence students.
2. View trauma as an experience rather than an incident or a diagnostic category
Trauma reactions depend upon how a person experiences what happened or what is happening. Every person will have a unique response to life based upon their experiences, coping skills, characteristics of resilience and protective factors. The perception of what has happened or what is happening is more important than the actual event. Adults often assume certain events are more traumatic than other experiences. Adults may also assume that some events are just normal things every kid needs to learn how to “get through”. For example, many adults think that teasing from peers is a normal “rite of passage” instead of bullying. Remember, we cannot assume we know what is traumatizing or not traumatizing to a student. Instead, we need to be curious and ask how that particular event is affecting them.
3. Believe the link between private logic and behavior
There is a distinct link between a student’s private logic and their behavior. Private logic is escribed as the way a person views themselves, others and the world around them. Based on that logic they act accordingly. Think of private logic as an invisible backpack. In the backpack, a student carries around beliefs about themselves, beliefs about the adults that take care of them, beliefs about other people they interact with in their lives and beliefs about the world. This logic is a result of their experiences – both good and bad over the course of development and life. If their lives are fueled by fear, abandonment and anger, their private logic will be consistent with those experiences. They will view themselves as scared and powerless, others will not be trusted and the world to them is viewed as a scary place. If their lives are filled with comfort, connection and love, their logic will be consistent with those experiences.
4. Establish the experience of physical and emotional safety
While feeling unsafe may be accompanied by violence, it does not have to be. The experience of safety includes these characteristics:
- Hopeful
- Empowered
- Choice
- Security
- Structure
- Consistency
Research demonstrates that academic achievement improves in schools where students feel physically and emotionally safe. Safety is experienced when school cultures support reasonable rules that are explained clearly and enforced consistently. A healthy learning community that is physically, emotionally and intellectually safe is the foundation for a comprehensive high-quality education.
5. Foster connections
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) conducted a national study of 36,000 7th to 12th grade students. School connectedness is indicated as the strongest factor for both boys and girls in preventing substance abuse, violence and absenteeism. School connectedness was the second-most important factor (after family) in helping students avoid suicide, emotional problems and eating disorders. Students who feel connected to their school are also more likely to have better academic achievement, including higher grades and test scores, have better school attendance, and stay in school longer.
6. Prioritize social and emotional skills
Not being given the opportunity and guidance to enhance social and emotional learning leaves a child with only a fraction of what is needed to grow and prosper. This includes the opportunity for socialization, especially for children who live in poverty or have experienced stressed relationships with parents and caregivers. Difficulty regulating emotions can lead to a host of problems in the school setting. Deficits in the capacity to regulate emotion are cause for serious concern, because the ability to modulate behavior, attention and emotions are the foundation for children’s adaptive functioning in three key domains: self-development, academic achievement and interpersonal relationships.
7. Promote play
A survey of nearly 2,000 educators indicated 78 percent feel students who spend regular time in unstructured outdoor play have better concentration and problem-solving capabilities and are more creative than students who do not. Many studies confirm that access to nature in schools has a positive impact on student focus and learning by improving attentiveness, test scores and performance.
8. Collaborate with families and community
The highest performing schools serving at risk children distinguish themselves by finding innovative ways to connect with parents and community partners (National Association of State Coordination of Comprehensive Education, 2006). Changes in family demographics, demands of professional workplaces and growing diversity are just a few of the reasons why schools need strong community and family partnerships. Reaching beyond school walls to provide all the support students need is essential.
9. Support staff
Distress reactions are normal. They are common for many helping professionals, including educators. Vulnerability to distress indicators increases when professionals work with children and when they have their own trauma histories. Distress is a natural consequence of caring for, listening to and helping those who experience chronic stress and trauma. So, if school professionals are committed to their work with children, they must be educated about distress indicators and if they are experiencing them, support must be prioritized.
10. Collect and share outcome data
Creating trauma informed schools is a process and outcome data helps show changes in that process. For example, if you do not have baseline data, you will not be able to see how things are changing over time as you implement new trauma informed practices.
Making Math Matter
Mathematics Teaching Practices
Facilitate Meaningful Mathematical Discourse
These teaching practices are aligned with the Common Core Standards for Mathematical Practice. The Eight Mathematics Teaching Practices provide a research-informed framework for strengthening the teaching and learning of mathematics. This week we will discuss:
Mathematical discourse among students is central to meaningful learning of mathematics. Teachers carefully prepare and purposefully facilitate discourse, such as whole-class discussions that build on student thinking and guide the learning of the class in a productive disciplinary direction.
Five practices for effectively using student responses in whole-class discussions are:
- Anticipating student responses prior to the lesson
- Monitoring students’ work on and engagement with the tasks
- Selecting particular students to present their mathematical work
- Sequencing students’ responses in a specific order for discussion
- Connecting different students’ responses and connecting the responses to key mathematical ideas
Reading Rockets - Contributed by Ryann Miller
4 Ways to Build Reading Fluency
1. Model Good Oral Reading
Instruction in oral reading helps to develop fluency in several ways. First, when you read to your students orally, in a natural manner, you model fluent reading. Particularly when you draw attention to how you’re reading, you help students see that meaning in reading is carried not only in the words, but also in the way the words are expressed. For example, you might contrast a fluent rendition of a passage with a more disfluent, labored, and word-by-word reading of it, then ask the students which reading they preferred and why. Without a doubt, the students will pick the more fluent reading. This becomes an important lesson in how they should read orally when given the opportunity.
Instruction that focuses too heavily on word-perfect decoding sends a message that good reading is nothing more than accurate word recognition. As a result, students tend to shoot for accuracy at the expense of everything else, including meaning. When asked to describe a good reader, struggling readers in our clinic often say that it is someone who reads all the words without making mistakes. Encouraging students to read accurately without paying attention to phrasing, expression, pacing, and, above all, comprehension may result in students reading like automatons: accurately, but without the sense of expression and understanding that is inherent in quality reading. Students who read for accuracy only, often find themselves in the low reading groups, where they must listen to other students who read in a similar, disfluent fashion. Before these students can move up, they need to develop an internal understanding of what expressive, meaningful reading is all about. Modeling oral reading in a fluent manner is one way to make that happen.
2. Provide Oral Support for Readers
3. Offer Plenty of Practice Opportunities
4. Encourage Fluency Through Phrasing
Why should students track their learning progress?
The following excerpt is from “Leaders of Their Own Learning: Transforming Schools Through Student-Engaged Assessment,” by Ron Berger, Leah Rugen, and Libby Woodfin. This excerpt is from the chapter entitled “Using Data With Students.”
Using data with students encompasses classroom practices that build students’ capacity to access, analyze, and use data effectively to reflect, set goals, and document growth. Using data with students encompasses the following activities:
- Students use their classwork as a source for data, analyzing strengths, weaknesses, and patterns to improve their work.
- Students regularly analyze evidence of their own progress. They track their progress on assessments and assignments, analyze their errors for patterns, and describe what they see in the data about their current level of performance.
- Students use data to set goals and reflect on their progress over time and incorporate data analysis into student-led conferences.
Teachers and school leaders everywhere collect and analyze data to make informed decisions about instruction that will support all students in meeting state and Common Core standards. However, in many schools, the power of data to improve student achievement is not fully leveraged because students are left out of the process. The most powerful determinants of student growth are the mindsets and learning strategies that students themselves bring to their work—how much they care about working hard and learning, how convinced they are that hard work leads to growth, and how capably they have built strategies to focus, organize, remember, and navigate challenges.
When students themselves identify, analyze, and use data from their learning, they become active agents in their own growth. They set personal goals informed by data they understand, and they own those goals. The framework of student-engaged assessment provides a range of opportunities to involve students in using data to improve their learning. Using data with students has the potential to build reflective and confident learners with key dispositions of college and career readiness.
Why This Practice Matters
Using data with students means much more than sharing test results with students a few times a year. The practice is most effective as an ongoing part of a classroom culture in which students are always collecting and analyzing information in order to improve. Data drivenhas become a ubiquitous phrase in schools today. Typically it refers to using the results of standardized tests—yearly state assessments and interim district assessments—to inform the focus and pacing of classroom instruction. If we limit our use of data to this purpose, however, we are missing the great potential of gathering data related to a wider range of evidence of learning (e.g., individual patterns in writing and math assignments, homework habits, reading stamina). Data of this kind can be collected and analyzed with students and by students and can be used to help them set and achieve goals for improved learning. The following purposes for using data with students point to the power of the practice to engage and support all students.
Empowering Students to Accurately Assess Their Current Level of Proficiency in Order to Set Challenging and Effective Goals
In order to establish and reach aspirational goals, students must first be aware of their starting point. Too often, in the name of protecting children’s self-esteem, we avoid explicit discussions of standards and where students stand in relation to them. Rather than boosting confidence, such “protection” actually prevents students from advancing and blocks their understanding of what it takes to succeed. Providing students with the opportunity to identify their own strengths and weaknesses through data analysis gives them a powerful tool for learning. It moves conversations about progress from abstract, generic goals (e.g., try harder, study more) to student-determined, targeted goals (e.g., increase my reading level by 1.5 years, master 80 percent or more of my learning targets, ensure that 100 percent of my homework is fully completed and submitted) and provides them with skills to track those goals. Of course, making data transparent requires a safe classroom culture, a topic that will be explored further later in this chapter.
Transforming Student Mindsets from a Belief That Intelligence Is Fixed to a Belief in the Power of Their Own Potential to Grow through Effort
In order to meet challenging goals, students must believe that the goals are within their capacity to achieve (Dweck, 2006). Many students who have previously been unsuccessful in school acquire a fixed mindset, rather than a growth mindset (i.e., some kids are good at math, others in art or reading). They see intelligence as something you are born with rather than something that can be developed through hard work. Strategic use of data in the classroom provides an opportunity to overcome this mindset of limitation. It gives students the chance to document
their learning over time and have concrete evidence that they know more and can do more than they could previously. And, it develops the connection between hard work and achievement, replacing the idea that “some kids are smart”with “if I work hard, I’ll get better.”
Making Progress toward Standards and Making Grading Transparent
Too often what it means to achieve or reach a standard stays shrouded in mystery. Students and their families may have no idea why they receive a certain grade or why they continue to struggle with learning a particular content area. Using data with students is one way to shine a light on learning. It helps students see actual evidence of what they know and can do. It also helps shift their thinking from all or nothing—I met my goal or I did not meet my goal—to a more complex understanding focused on growth over time (e.g., I’ve successfully mastered 75 percent of this content since my initial assessment; to reach my goal of 90 percent or more I need to work on . . .).
Making Students More Responsible for Their Own Learning
Data inquiry and analysis is a fitting and rich component to many schools’ professional development cycles. Yet, it is often removed from the classroom and something that happens about rather than with students. Bringing data analysis into the classroom is one more example of transforming what is traditionally reserved for adults into an opportunity for student leadership. Although investigating data takes different forms at different developmental stages, even the youngest students can and should be given opportunities to explore data related to their academic and character growth.
COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT DATA
Many of us have preconceived ideas about data. For that reason, it’s important that we clear up a few misconceptions.
Misconception 1: Using Data Is Only about Basic Skills and Information
Although an appropriate starting point for many teachers may be to record and share data about basic skills and knowledge (e.g., identify the seven continents, 100 Leaders of Their Own Learning distinguish between parts of speech, name the parts of a cell), students can and should use data to uncover and understand many kinds of student achievement. These include critical thinking, clear communication, content knowledge, increased engagement, character, and the production of high-quality work. For example, when students have opportunities to track their own patterns of work and behavior (e.g., when they are focused and engaged, when they get confused, or when they have behavior challenges), they gain the power to improve their own learning strategies.
Misconception 2: Use of Data Is Only about Test Preparation
Higher scores on state, national, and school-created assessments can be one goal of data use, but shouldn’t be the sole focus. Rather, the goal should be to embed data into classroom routines and a wide range of student centered instructional practices to improve student achievement and engagement. Learning to analyze and track data about individual and class performance helps students take responsibility for their learning.
Misconception 3: Data Collection Is Limited to Quantitative Data
Although it is wise to begin student-engaged data practices with things that are easy to count (e.g., mistakes in math assignments, minutes spent on independent reading), there is also a great deal of qualitative data that can help student growth. Rubrics, which are composed of qualitative descriptions of student work, are filled with this kind of data. Many recording forms, such as journals, note catchers, and entrance and exit tickets can be powerful data sources to track the why and how of student thinking. These kinds of forms are opportunities for students to back up their ideas with evidence, an essential skill for meeting Common Core standards.
COMMON CORE CONNECTIONS
- Engaging students with data analysis enhances their ability to make evidence-based claims, a skill that permeates the standards.
- Using data reflectively (e.g., engaging in error or success analyses) helps student meet the Common Core’s more rigorous (and often complex) standards. Noting trends focuses students’ attention on how to improve.
- Understanding data about one’s own progress toward meeting standards is a key to developing the independence and self-direction emphasized by the Common Core. If data tracking about progress remains solely in the possession of the teacher, students are deprived of the opportunity to actively work toward standards. Their partnership in the process increases their engagement and motivation along with the likelihood they will meet with success.