My Top 5 Crazy Things this Week(end)!

I just love those Top 10 lists that go around!  I can’t stay up late enough, ever, to watch the late night guy who does them.  But I have seen them on lots of blogs lately.  So, here is my Top 5 for the week(end) !

5.  In classic formation, this first long weekend of the year resulted in sickness!  First my younger son, then I, ended up with the stomach bug that has been going around.  It is characterized by cramping and it wasn’t any fun!

4.  Since doing anything fun was out, I worked on a new product.  It has really been bugging me that I can’t assess kids understanding the way that I used too, by simply observing.  I am now thinking like an RTIer!  How can I see who really needs help?  The packet that I created is called Nonfiction Formative Assessments for Text Features.  Since I am investing so much time in teaching them, I want to be able to understand the students’ knowledge gain and correct any misconceptions.  I created two-one for the Common Core Standards and one for FCAT 2.0-and you can find them on TPT. I’m covering my bases! 

3.  I think my great idea for Words their Way is going to work!  I borrowed the Flip Video recorder from school and tried out recording a sort!  It came out rather nice!  So, here’s what I want to do.  Instead of trying to meet with every group, every week, I thought I would record the sorts and let them watch them in small groups.  The other benefit to this is that kids who struggle with the sort can watch it multiple times.  What happened the first day is that I had kids not even knowing what the patterns meant!  This way, I can be in more places at once.  I also figured some things out trying out this first one.  I need to be sure I know what I am going to say!  Some of the bloopers are funny!  And, if I do them at home, I have to be sure the dogs and kids are quiet!!!

2.  Some interesting changes in our grade level are coming.  That’s all I can say about that right now!

1. The Cut-a-Thon occurred!  On Friday, we spent our Social Studies time cutting and cutting!  This is the prep work for our Florida Government Project!  

We had some bloopers, which is good, because then I can share some recovery ideas from these bloopers!  Check out the trash!

What I had them do is put them in baggies to keep them safe.  The rule was that they needed to keep the baggie flat so it could hang from the wall.  This year I put clothes pins under the board with their number attached under it. I will use this for a variety of things.  The first thing we used it for was to hang their flags. 

Now they are holding their cutout shapes for the project. 

So, that’s my Top 5!  What does your Top 5 for this week look like?!

Great Data Day!

Here it is, the Friday night before school starts, and what am I doing-writing!   I can’t help myself!  I feel totally motivated because something amazing happened today!  At my school we are beginning to dive into data!  Real data-data we can use and how to use it!  We are new to this, and it will take a little while, but it will have real impact.  So let me tell you about today!

Our presenter was the Director of Middle Schools, Mrs. Saunders.  During the summer, when she was hired, I read over her credentials and was very impressed.  Today, I am even more impressed!  She gave us an incredible presentation about what is really going on within the state and how our district will, finally, begin to remedy itself of the neglect that has gone on in our curriculum knowledge.  For many, this might have been overload.  A month ago, this would be overload for me! Today, it was CONFIRMATION! 

Our first activity was……put kids into the correct level of FCAT success!  Wait, I think that sounds familiar.  Next, determine what it takes for the students to gain points/levels that will cause even more success!  Exciting!  Use your new knowledge to determine remediation-BINGO!  I was secretly dancing in my seat!  Even more fun-I got to use my handy-dandy chart I made this summer!  And so did my whole team!  We were data recording like crazy!  And in a way that made sense and was usable!  We can target kids and KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH ALL THOSE CRAZY NUMBERS!  The greatest part-new knowledge coming-we know what it takes to raise the lowest quartile students-the ones and twos-to get them to make a years worth of growth!  AWESOME!!!!  Can I say, it felt really good to be there mentally, and I really think I need to thank Jody O’Meara’s book RTI with Differentiated Instruction for that!  She really got me thinking and diving into what needed to be done!  A successful day for sure!  

Our district may be in a tough spot right now, but, for the first time I can see how putting a person who is strong in data, strong in character, and strong in her convictions can make a true difference.  I still know it will hurt a little, or a lot, but I think I’m ready!  I’m glad I have five great team members to go with me on this journey!  Thanks Lisa, Emily, Teri, and Keli for going with me! 

P.S.  Today I made a Math Data Chart to record the FCAT scores on.  You can find that here.

Charting Progress

            As I continue to investigate what it means to assess conceptual standards, I feel like I also need to understand where and what I’m starting with.  I really need to look at my students from the perspective of the end in mind.  Where do I want them and how can I get them there.  With my newly found knowledge, I developed a chart to get me started.  With the chart, I will record what data I have, right from the beginning.  I will want to know both their level and their scale score.  The level is important, because this is what a parent understands.  However, by looking at the chart from yesterday, the scale score is more important to the teacher.  This scale score will help me determine how much they need to grow.  I will take their score and subtract it from the next level of scores given by the state. That will help me know what number of points they need to have to jump to the next level.  (Ex.   A student with a level 3, having 200 points, will need to gain at least 10 points to become a level 4!)  I will also record their vocabulary, reading application, literature analysis, and informational reading scores from third grade. 

            Again, however, what will this mean for the huge jump from skill based to conceptual standards based understanding.   It goes back, yet again, to O’Meara’s book.  First, I need to know whom I need to remediate.  Yes, because that’s all these scores tell me.  The district and school based goals are to remediate these kids, but they label it with the term RTI.  I now understand that is the wrong term for these students.  These students did not understand the skills presented in 3^rd grade and need to be caught up on these skills.  It does not come from data I’ve gotten, but that from the previous year.  Once I get them going in remediation, then I can collect data from the work we are doing THIS YEAR for my RTI.  Will many of these kids end up with RTI needs, most definitely.  Will they need to go back to basics, possibly. Can they surprise me with understanding a skill but just didn’t get it on a test-MOST DEFINITELY!   That always needs to be part of the consideration when looking at test scores and class work. 

            So, with that being said, I have one more thought to share tomorrow, with a link to where I am going and what I am going to do with it.  I think it is the basic idea of what and how I’m going to assess these conceptual standards.  For any old timers out there like me, you will find it rather familiar! 

Until Then,

Julie

Oh, and here’s the charts: 

4^th grade chart

5^th grade chart

Off Balance

            Yes, that’s what I’d call it, off balance.  While I was enjoying the last drive-in in Florida last night, this little visual “came” to me.  You see, I have a hard time turning off a train of thought if that train of thought impacts me greatly.  And, this does. I won’t go into the possible impacts on my VAM score, or the push for higher test scores that my district is heading toward (not that we weren’t before, but it is amazing what a change in leadership will do).  It happens because I am type A-there, I admit it!  Just like my dad, I’m driven to do my best and look at what I do as not being complete till it meets my standards of “the best” in my eyes.  That’s what is so amazing about it.  I don’t need to be everyone else’s “the best”, I just have to be my “the best”!  So, enough about this, and back to the topic-off balance!

           

      While I was thinking about the topic of conceptual concepts, I was also thinking about how, and why, we are given so many areas of conceptual concepts.  How, as you can see, there would be so many for such an age where the kids aren’t ready for it.  That seems to be the primary concern that I have, as well as so many others, I’m sure.  In 4^th grade, kids are transitioning from skill understanding to this higher-level thinking and understanding at a conceptual level.  Not every kid is ready for it, so, state wide, 4^th grade always seems to dip in reading test scores.  Yet, in Florida, that is the reporting grade they tend to use as a bench mark over and over.  There’s always the big hype over the promotion of 3^rd graders, but when the rest of the scores come out, 4^th grade tends to be a focus-with 8^th and 10^th.  It helps, in some ways, for me at least now, to know why!  Why the dip occurs.  But this is also only the first glaring reason.  

            In my investigation as to why, I also discovered this!

This shows the expected growth in reading scores from 3^rd to 4^th and then from 4^th to 5^th!  Another clear reason why there is such a dip from 3^rd to 4^th!  Not only do they hit them with conceptual challenges, but then they up the expected growth by A LOT!  I won’t go on, I could, but I won’t!

            Now, back to the conceptual concepts.  In O’Meara’s book, RTI with Differentiated Instruction is, finally, the definition of something that puzzled me this year.  The magical “80%” expectation.  I kept wondering, “Where in the world did they get this number?!”  Somewhere, the powers that be, determined that if students could score 80% or higher, they are considered successful.  Then you target your kids that aren’t doing that.  We must be paying attention to that number-80% or better!  That doesn’t mean that we need to put these kids into a remediation group and skill and drill them!  This means it’s time for DIFFERENTIATION!   Oh, how I love that term and how Jodi pointed me in this direction.   Instead of hitting these kids with things that don’t work, at the same level as everyone else, we start looking at how to meet their needs in smaller group settings, through things we are doing, in a different way!  We tract their data, we check to really see what’s going on and what growth is happening, and, when it happens, we RELEASE THEM!   Not every kid needs to be an RTI kid.  Sometimes, when conceptual concepts aren’t hitting them, we need to differentiate and help them see and grow.  Because, let’s face it guys, concepts aren’t something that just come to everyone!  They need this time to be caught so they can be released! 

            How does this tie all together?  It is still that question that lingers. In all of this stuff, how do we REALLY know a concept has been successfully met?  How, besides being able to score it through a multiple-choice answer, do we know they do it?  I don’t know if I can even answer that, besides being able to say, “I just do.”  I know when their writing reflects the skill and it is correct.  I know when supports are present.  I know I’ve scored it using the Marzano Rubric for Learning.  I also know I adjust my expectations from time to time.  So maybe that’s what is really eating at me.  How do I stabilize my expectations of a concept?  Just like Jodi points out in her book.  If you have any ideas, feel free to leave me a comment!  

Here is a link to the Off Balance Graphic.  I'm putting it in TPT simply because I don't know how to link documents to the blog yet!  Also, it will have the full scale score chart I made for both math and reading expectations!