90 90 90 Schools

90 90 90 Schools are schools with 90% Free and Reduced Lunch, 90% Minority, 90% on grade level. The research on these schools (and yes, they do exist) indicates they have these things in common:

1. A Focus on Academic Achievement
2. Clear Curriculum Choices
3. Frequent Assessment of Student Progress and Multiple Opportunities for Improvement
4. Emphasis on Writing
5. External Scoring
6. Non-proprietary Instructional Practices (using more that just one program to teach the curriculum)

What are your thoughts on this in relationship to what we do at school?

Something to think and talk about

Take a brief look at this article - I think you can get the gist of the article quickly - (http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3994/is_200501/ai_n9483894).

Respond to the following with your thougths: If we use educational practices that do not have a research base, are we engaging in educational malpractice? Explain your response. What implications does the idea of educational malpractice have for our classrooms and student learning?

I ask this not to indict anyone, but because federal legislation is moving us in that direction.

January 21, 2009

Please take a look at the previous post for how you will structure your learning today. We are glad to have the staff from East Bend joining us on our blog. Remember, the entire day is devoted to learning about the concept of PLC's and how we can implement them in our schools. There is no "one right way"; it will be a unique create based on our learning. Feel free to take time for lunch at that time. Remember, let your conversations be reflected in your blog responses so you can share your thoughts with others outside your teams. I will be walking around some, but will spend most of my day reading your posts. Let me know if you have questions.

I thought I had all books in, but am missing some. Let me check my Amazon order. I will fix it.

Have a great days and share your learning, Jas

Now that we have our books...

In your groups, take a look at your texts and decide how you want to structure your learning. You might want to break up the chapters over 10 weeks. I would like for us to plan to finish our study by the end of March. Be aware, this does not mean we will be experts at that point.

Once we finish with our texts we will share some ideas and maybe even share our text with other groups. Our goal will be to develop a personal plan for how you will use PLC's to increase student learning in your classrooms and grade levels/groups.

Our first activity will center around common formative assessments. In your groups, you will develop a common formative assessment around one objective from one goal in the Standard Course of Study. You will, as groups, decide on the goal to be assessed, create the assessment, administer the assessment, analyze the assessment data, then decide how to use the data to inform your instruction. Remember, this is not about grading, it's about improving instruction to meet student learning needs. We may repeat this process several times to improve our understanding of and ability to create common formative assessment. This is becoming one of the expectation for all teachers everywhere (see data regarding NCLB, IDEA, and RTI).

We will spend an extended period of time in this process via the blog on the protected workday on Wednesday, January 21. Teachers from East Bend School will be participating on our blog on that day. Be ready to share, discuss, disagree, and learn.

Common Assessments

One of the tenants of the PLC process involves the use of common formative assessments among grade levels and/or content areas. If you as grade levels or content areas have implemented common assessments, talk a little about the steps used to implement them.

What do you see as the benefits of common formative assessments on student learning?

How could common formative assessment improve your classroom instruction?

(Common formative assessments can be defined as assessments created collaboratively by a team of teachers responsible for the same grade level or course in order to improve student learning. They are developed and administered multiple times throughout the school year. Results are used to modify instruction in order to improve student learning. The value of the assessment is not in the grading of the assessments, but the feedback it offers about student learning. The assessments can also provide teachers with feedback regarding the effectiveness of their instruction.)

Some Good Thoughts From the Last Post

Let's get a little more focused and think about the question.  Are there some things we need to eliminate in our practice of teaching in order to help students achieve at higher levels?  

Again the goal is not meant to be inflamitory, but cause us to reflect on what we do.  Are we in a place of continually "recycling" lessons from year to year, or are we "refining" them to better meet student needs?

Is there pointless stuff in our day that needs to meet with the ax?

Video and Thoughts

There will be a video playing on channel 68 tomorrow every hour from 8:00 until 3:00. Watch the video. Talk with your Learning Teams and respond to the blog with your thoughts. Frame your responses with this question, "What would YES look like if each one of us made the decision that no student failed?" In that I mean, did not fail a test/quiz/assignment, a class, make an F on a report card...

(Keep in mind, this is not an indictment of our practices. Just a question. Focus on things we can do at school - not what should happen at home. How would our school have to change? What would instruction look like? - just a few ideas to prompt discussion.)