Weekly Content 5+ With A Fist Pump!!

            This week I had a number of things I had planned to talk about and something else has yet, again, sidetracked me.  But sometimes, you’ve gotta share!   Today I was home with my youngest who wasn’t feeling well.  I tend to overuse Facebook on days like this, and that’s where I saw this:

I'm working on Science daily 5. I am asking for input on the rotation. Do you allow each group in to each station daily? Please help!

That totally got my interest.  I had to find out more! I had to get my oldest going and get him to school!  That’s a half-hour away and that means think time-and think I did! 

            Before I left the house, I was able to discover what the Science Weekly 5 was.  I went to The Science Penguin and took a quick glance:

http://www.thesciencepenguin.com/p/what-is-science-weekly-five.html

From that quick glance, I then found this link to her freebie that explains more.

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Science-Weekly-Five-Start-Up-Kit-229542

And, from there, my brain started ticking away.  I know enough about the Daily 5 to be able to make some serious reading/content area connections.  The Daily 5, in case you haven’t heard of it, is a reading system that allows you to hit all areas of reading work every day.  I have done a modified version in the past and just haven’t gotten there since I have taught 4^th grade.  I find that I am really teaching and they are busy enough with the literature we are doing, that I just can't get to it.  It is an awesome program, so if you want to learn more, I highly suggest getting the book and reading it through. 

As I was driving, I began to make some serious decisions.  What did I want it to look like?   Who would be doing what?  What would I be doing?  How could I make this content area worthy and hit everything I need to hit?  How will I know what the kids are doing and cover content?  How would I give a test?  And, then, BAM-just like that-I also realized how this would help when I’d be working with my RTI groups!  Oh, how great this day is!  Success!!  Without further ado, here it is.

1. There would be 6 rotations instead of 5.  The 6^th rotation is the +.  It is only for the kids that are not participating in RTI.  They are doing the extra assignment while I am working with the small group kids.  They can work on any of the Weekly 5+ during this time.

            2.  The areas would be Social Studies comprehension, Partner Reading/Listen to Reading Science Text with comprehension, Teacher Time, Team Work Time (this will be project based), Vocabulary, and + Time.  

      3.  Yes, it covers both areas.  Let me restate that -YES! (with a fist pump) That means I’ll get through more curriculum at a faster paces than I currently am.

            4.  YES! (Fist pump) I can still do projects and experiments because now it will be interwoven with the rest of the items and I will meet with kids in small groups to help guide their understanding when we do this!

     5.  YES!  (Fist pump) I can give tests.  This will be the teacher rotation for the week all on one day!  So, technically, they are still working on a rotation, just all at once.  And when they finish, they are able to go right back to work on one of the things that they have for the week-steady flow of work! 

     6.  YES!  (Double fist pump) I’m covering READING SKILLS this way! 

            7.  YES!!  (Triple fist pump)  I get multiple grades for each subject, each week now!  Oh, I could just sing at this point!  Hallelujah! 

Oh, dear Fourth Grade Friend, you have no idea how you blessed me today while I drove my child to school.  So what did I do when I got home????

            I wrote it up!  Here’s a quick peek at what I’ve got going!   This is the poster that I will print out and laminate for my room. It will be the overall guide for the kids for the week.

These are the plans for week one.  That’s right-next week!  I'm totally excited!  Look at that-Science AND Social Studies!  That means grades folks, and you know that’s what we are always looking for!!! 

Each week, I'll just take this off the poster and add the next plan of action!  How great is that! 

For those of you from Florida, the reading comprehension is the sheets from Florida Then and Now.  I got so excited about this, I charted out the comprehension for the rest of the year-yes, I did!  That’s how you spend a day with a sick kid who’s watching TV all day! (Oh, I did 2 loads of dishes, graded 4 sets of papers, did 4 loads of laundry-no folding till after this, and made 2 batches of Pillsbury biscuits, 2 batches of corn bread, and 1 loaf of beer bread for my youngest school’s luncheon tomorrow.  Please don’t ask me how-I’m still trying to figure out how I was that efficient today!)

There are more thoughts that I have.  I know there will be some work throughs.  I haven’t even read through The Science Penguins suggestions yet.  I know they will help.  I’m just, plain, fist pumping excited about this!  I’m hoping you might like this too!  It is a totally different way to think about the content areas!  Thanks again Fourth Grade Friend!!!

Looking, and Finding, the Answer to Conceptual Grading

About 3 weeks ago, we had an inservice at our school that answered my question, finally!  Or, at least in my mind, it did!  I’ve been having this ongoing conversation about what conceptual grading looks like and acts like, with many questions still lingering. One of the lingering questions was, “How does this look for each skill?”  I mean, I had examined my practice and figured out what I was doing, but I couldn’t pin it down for EACH SKILL!  Then, bam, the inservice hit!

So, here’s what went down!  Our district is still looking at training intermediate teachers in Common Core.  This particular inservice dealt with how to determine the success of a student based on learning ladders and continuums.  At first, I was skeptical.  I had never heard of either, and I’m out there a lot!  I pin, I read blogs, I follow multiple teachers on Facebook, I’m out there!  We discussed the rigor and the purpose, and that’s when I began to believe.  The purpose behind a ladder or continuum is to:

1.     Establish the clear and concise expectations for a skill.  During our inservice, it was support for the text. 

2.     To provide a clear and concise example of the expectation to the students. 

3.     And, if determined ahead, to provide a starting point for evaluating a student on the skill to be taught over a period of time. 

It was like hitting the mother load!   I started to see the realities of what could be done with a tool like this!  I saw the connection between these tools and Marzano’s Rubric for Learning.  This is what I’ve been searching for!  Can you tell I’m excited!!??

            How would this look in a classroom setting was my next thought-bam, answer provided!  There was a cool video about how to work with them.  The teacher had a small group of students with her and they had provided answers to a question she had asked in class on a post-it.  The kids then shared their answers and worked with one another on the continuum.  They had to agree on the placement with each other before the post-it could go on the continuum.  My thought, “I could TOTALLY do this!”  I completely believe that if you are going to teach a child how to do something, they need to know how to self-evaluate to be successful.  Many children do not go through elementary being able to do this very thing.  They have only been shown what teachers think of their work, and that is how they answer questions-to provide what the teacher wants.  Many of the open-ended questions we ask have multiple answers with none of them being wrong.  We need to be sure we begin to support our students in the skill of self-evaluation!  It is, after all, a life skill. 

            Now, to get to the transition from inservice, to classroom use.  During the inservice, I had already targeted a skill-author’s purpose.  My teaching partner and I had determined through assessments that students really only “got” author’s purpose on the very basic level- to entertain, inform, or persuade.  They did not, and, as the case is, many cannot get it on a conceptual level.  From this need of conceptual understanding, I developed a power point about Roald Dahl.  Here is a page from it.

Through this power point, we targeted Author’s Perception, the deeper part of author’s purpose.  As you research this, you will discover that the two are very separate, but are placed under the title of author’s purpose.  Our goal with the power point was to show them how important an author’s life and understandings are to the text.  Here is another example:

Roald Dahl was Charlie in so many ways, and that’s what this slide represents.  Imagine having the President of Cadbury bring you chocolates to try!  How would that torture you through your entire life!  How did Charlie feel about chocolate?  That’s a pretty good example of the perspective Roald Dahl brings to the text, isn’t it!

The kids were really getting it!  They could see, with their own background knowledge of the text from the movie, that this was important stuff! 

            Next, to bring a deeper thought development to the process, we assigned a thinking map!  Thinking maps are used to help kids use their own thought processes to develop understanding.  By not giving too much information or requirements, you can begin to see the child’s understanding emerge, or not. Each time they read, they can add to their understanding.  The more they share, again, the more understanding, or lack of it, comes forth. To be honest, I have some struggling readers making some deep insight into author’s purpose because of this.  I have some stronger readers with fewer insights.  It is my plan to go back to these and really examine them to determine who needs additional practice and who may, simply, need to learn how to transfer their thinking to question format. 

            After starting this process, I introduced the Author’s Purpose continuum. 

This is in kid friendly language.  I shared what each level looked and sounded like.  Then I let the kids get to work using one of the characters from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.  Then I let them work with their team to decide what level of author’s purpose they were on.  I was amazed to see them bring points out about each entry and how they felt each other did.  It showed up in two ways- in their oral discussion and in their reading journal entries. 

For the entry, I had them put their post-it in their journal, record what their team said, and, then, I responded with what I thought.  Most were right on!  The next step is to do this activity. 

The students will write in their reading journal “how” to get to a higher level on the continuum.  From this experience I discovered that most kids want to write about the “who” of a character.  Who they are, what they do, etc.   Author’s purpose is really more about they “why”-why the author included them, why the author made them behave a certain way, why did the outcome occur. This is where the impact is. 

I am really excited to see where we go with this study.  I will share more as we go.  If you have any great ideas for author’s purpose, I’d love to hear about them.  Feel free to leave me a comment or a website that you have had success with!

Thinking Through Conceptual Grading

            Wow, it’s been a while.  Not because I’ve been busy, which I have, but because I don’t know where to start or even go with this one-so, I’m just writing to see where it “goes”. 

            All right, I’ve been reflecting more on conceptual development and RTI.  I started to pay attention to what I do while I am grading.  Most of the following will pertain to written response.  First, I noticed that when I am grading a concept, I develop a list of criteria FOR EACH QUESTION!  Yes, each, individual question has it’s own list of correct pieces of information that belong within it.  Maybe that’s why I dread grading this type of question so much.  It takes a lot of work to develop those ideas and to fully be prepared to know what should fit and shouldn’t.  And with concepts, it’s deeper thinking.  Kids can totally surprise you too, providing deep thinking that you may not even have thought about!  That’s when you begin to really wonder if you hit it right.  But, isn’t that the joy of concepts-you can be taken by surprise!  Ok, back on track. 

            Once each question has an answer developed, then I’m ready to grade.  Where did I get the grade?  Do I just give points? Do I base them on a set of criteria from research?  Do I use a national or state standard?  That’s where it becomes difficult.  State standards no longer exist for written response in Florida.   We haven’t transferred totally to Common Core and, frankly, their rubric is poor at best (PARCC).  That led to looking back at the past and combining it with research.

            Let’s start with RESEARCH!  Oh, yes I am!  And, get ready……Marzano!  Oh, I know, his name is the dread of most teachers everywhere!  Can I tell you, that’s a mistake of every inservice given by someone who hasn’t really understood who and what he did-including me. I had to give one of those lovely inservices once, and I thought I knew something.  Then I actually read some of his actual books-not papers someone gave me at that dreaded inservice-but a REAL BOOK!  I must say, I think he jumped in my brain and pulled out information to create THE Marzano Academic Rubric!  Now, the original is found in Classroom Instruction that Works by Marzano, Pickering, and Pollock, and includes the Effort Rubric (5 stars also in my book!)  I will say, I did jazz the original up a little, changing some of the words and using the combination of some of the parts of the Effort Rubric.  This is now a MUST HAVE in my classroom, and I use it for everything!  Since this is a “write it out as I go with no idea of where I was going”, I don’t have a picture.  (I will, however, post it to my Facebook page tomorrow-my shameless plug to push the new, shiny button on the top of the page that says “Like me on Facebook!”)

            Now, let’s look at the old. I must say, the state of Florida did something right a number of years ago.  Back then, students had write to respond answers on their state test that were scored on a 4 or 2 point rubric, depending on the weight of the question.  Here are the two rubrics (Thanks to FCIT for not deleting old material that is still valuable!):

Notice, they are very nonspecific, yet specific! I know that makes no sense. What I mean by that is that they can be applied to any of the conceptual skills that are presented within a written response.  They are, actually, in a format that teachers use within our own thinking!  And, if only I had a picture to compare, they are also very Marzano before Marzano became a thing. These are from the late 90’s, if my memory serves me right!  Once upon a time, long ago, this state did it right. 

           

At this point, I feel like I have an answer to my question, as strange as that feels.  However, it opens twenty more.  Here are a few:

1.  What does this look like for multiple choice?

2.   If kids can write a response, but not pick the same

      response from a list, why is that?

3.  How do you actually transfer an ideas they can write about

     to finding one in the list?

4.  Which is easier?  Which is harder?

5.  What do we do for kids who are being RTI’d because they

     are behind and can’t conceptualize?

6.  How do we close that gap successfully-to the point that it 

     is REAL and not for a test?

Oh, I could go on.  Isn’t that what this crazy thing we call education is all about? To explore these concepts to better student understanding?  I will continue to keep track in my mind things that I notice.  In the mean time, I tried something out that I wouldn’t mind others trying out too!  I created a multiple choice style test for two articles from Time for Kids.  I’m going to offer it for FREE with the hopes that:

1.     It will work for you

2.     I will create more! 

The articles are “They’re Back” and “What’s for Lunch?”  Both of the links to the articles are found in the document.  It is your job to figure out how to get the articles in the kids’ hands-computer, print and share, project, or any other way you can. (I printed them and, once cut down, they can actually fit on one sheet of copy paper!)  If you use it, let me know what you think! 

Have a great week,