The Sparkly Notebook

Instructional Coaching & Leadership

Prepare yourself for that tough conference with these 4 tips

A tough conference can be scary.

It’s true for all of us. 

There is always a fear of those parents…you know the ones….the parents who can make the entire experience super miserable. Yes, you have emailed home. Of course, you have frequently updated grades. Naturally, you have added extra interventions for their student, and duh! You have printed out lots of reports to show those parents why their student isn’t doing so well.

And yet, those two parents can make you feel awful about yourself…make you feel small…like you did something wrong.

First of all…here me out now!

You are NOT SMALL! You MATTER! And you ARE DOING YOUR BEST! The fact that you are here reading this blog about conferences is evidence enough that you are a lifelong learner…someone who desires to grow in his/her craft and get better at it year after year.

YOU ARE DOING GREAT!

Now, beyond that, I think we all fear that tough conference; unfortunately, there isn’t much we can do to avoid it. But what we CAN do is prepare ourselves in a way that helps us handle and survive a tough conference so that it ends with both you, the parents, and the student feeling good about the next step.

*Let me be clear that if you are ever feeling disrespected or threatened by a parent, you have a right to walk away from the conference and seek out your administration. You do not deserve to be treated in a way that makes you feel unsafe.

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Here are four tips to help you handle a tough conference

#1 – Know your boundaries 

As you speak to these parents, you are going to have a conversation about what more can be done to help their student move forward. You need to set clear boundaries about what you are willing and unwilling to do. Are you willing to spend more time working with the student after school? Could you sign a tracking sheet every day? Are you willing to come in early to help their student study for tests?

There is no right answer to any of these questions. You could be willing to try a checklist sheet that you have to sign after each class period. OR you may already be incorporating a lot of intervention into the student’s schedule and the next step may be a sit-down parent meeting with the counselor to seek out alternative options. Either way, it is important you know these boundaries ahead of time.

Just to be clear, though, the parent should be implementing more at home. After all, this child’s education is a team effort, not something that falls solely on your shoulders. So be sure to make a plan with the parent that incorporates extra effort on the student’s and parent’s part as well.

#2 – Create a positive atmosphere from the get-go

At the end of the day, the parents want what is best for their student and so do you! Let that be known right away! You could start the conference with phrases such as

  • “I am glad we are all here because we all want Ronnie to be successful in 8th grade English and I have some ideas on how to help him during this tough time.”
  • “We all want what is best for Ronnie and I am excited to work together to come up with a plan of attack so that he can succeed.”

Although these types of statements can be a bit cheesy in nature, they may help the parent to relax as soon as the meeting begins. From there, you can work together to come up with a plan that best suits all involved.

#3 – Listen intently and stay calm

If parents sit down and release their frustrations on you, listen intently. Often, parents just want to be heard, and you can show them right away that you are willing to listen. Should they say something that is off or accusing in nature, stay calm. Eventually, you will provide the reports that support and defend the student’s current standing in your classroom; however, it is possible the parents may be upset about something outside your classroom altogether and it is actually in your best interest to hear ALL of their frustrations before you move forward so that you can address their concerns head-on.

#4 – Agree…when you can

More than likely, parents are going to say some things that are possibly a bit off, and yet, some things that are perfectly accurate. Agree when you can! Parents want to be heard and feel validated in their frustrations. By agreeing with them (when it is validated), you will help deescalate them into a calmer state.

For example, if a parent says something like: “Lori has been working so hard, working on homework for over five hours each night.”

You can say something like: “I agree! Lori works very hard.” You may know that you don’t hand out much homework and find it completely unlikely that Lori spends five hours working on homework each night, but you can keep that to yourself at the moment and simply comment on what you agree with. Once the parent has calmed down, then you can dive into the reasons why Lori is struggling and create a plan to overcome that situation.

A tough conference is…well…tough!

But if you go into it with a plan, you have a better possibility of ending it peacefully rather than that sick-to-your-stomach feeling that we have all experienced.

One last note…because it is worth repeating: If there is any point in a conference when you feel disrespected, you do have the full right to walk away and seek out administration.

But unfortunately, there will always be tough conferences. Hopefully, these tips will help you prepare for them in a way that makes you feel confident and ready.

Distance Learning: Vertically Planning with the Curriculum Recovery Guide

Reflecting on the 2019-2020 school year is going to look much different than years in the past. It is going to require a different mindset and process than what we have previously done. Instead of analyzing assessment data from the end of the year standardized test and planning schedules, we are trying to wrap up Distance Learning and giving grades the best we can with what we have.

As we move into next year, we have got to do our best to be proactive in preventing potential learning gaps caused by Covid19 and Distance Learning. There are many schools who were able to carry on lessons virtually and carry on their school year with new content, but school systems like mine, who are Title I and unable to provide devices and hotspots, probably were unable to cover any new material and continue on with standard coverage and teaching. With not being able to cover new content while completing distance learning, our teachers still had standards they were not able to teach or review for mastery with the students.

If we fail to create a plan to cover any missed standards from this past school year, we are doing the students a disservice. Missing standards, especially in subjects where the content builds off the previous year’s content, can lead to significant learning gaps in students. In order to prevent these learning gaps, vertical planning is imperative. We have to establish a clear line of communication with the teachers in the grade levels before and after to make sure we are all on the same page in what needs to be taught.

In our school system, we decided to dedicate the last two weeks of school to professional learning and curriculum planning for next year. While vertical planning is difficult during this time since we cannot all come together, it is not impossible. We are using a Curriculum Recovery Guide to reflect on our previous year’s pacing guide and assessments to determine standard coverage and mastery levels to share with the next grade level.

The Curriculum Recovery Guide process will walk teachers through using their pacing guides to reflect on standard coverage and any assessment data from the year to determine standard mastery levels. It will give the teachers a spreadsheet they can share with the next grade level teachers so they can start planning to embed any missed or minimally mastered standards into their pacing guides for next year.

Steps to Completing the Curriculum Recovery Guide:

  1. Creating the Spreadsheet:
    Create a spreadsheet for documenting standard mastery tailored to your school needs. You will want to include a place for the standards, pacing guide coverage, assessment standard mastery levels, and any other information you’d like to include.If you’re interested in this process already put together into a spreadsheet with the presentation guide included, you can find mine HERE)
  2. Reflect on Pacing Guide & Lesson Plans:
    Determine the standard coverage level by reviewing the pacing guide and lesson plans for the year. If the content was fully covered prior to Distance Learning beginning, then I would mark it as “Fully Covered,” but if it was not covered in full prior to that date, then I would mark it as “Partially Covered.”

    http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aN9HW4Id8pM

  3. Assessment Data Analysis:
    Complete the Assessment Item Analysis process to determine the Standard Mastery Level for each standard. During this step, you will use all summative assessments from the school year. Make sure each assessment is labeled by standard, and break down each standard to determine the percentage correct based on the students’ assessment data. This part of the process can seem tedious if it hasn’t already been completed, but the information you get from it is valuable.If you have already completed an Item Analysis or if you tested on an online platform that gives you a standard breakdown, you will want to analyze this data and determine the percentage correct for each question based on the data.

    http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6NfNo594Dk

    After determining the percentage correct per standard, you can then move forward with the Standard Mastery Analysis. You will use the percentages to place your “X” in the box that aligns to the Standard Mastery Level. You will want to determine what percentage each level looks like for your school. For example at our school, we use 80% and above as mastered, 50-79% as partially mastered, and 49% and below as minimally mastered. These numbers can change according to your school or system’s mastery levels.

  4. Additional Commentary:
    Leave any additional comments for the next grade level teacher here. Think about any extra information that could be beneficial to the teacher. Maybe you want to let the teacher know that you covered a standard in the beginning of the year but didn’t have a chance to review it any before in-school learning started, or maybe you taught a portion of a standard but still had other elements of that standard to cover prior to the end of the year. These kinds of comments will help the teacher better know the level to review or teach the standards next year.
  5. Share the File:
    At this point, you will share the file with your administrative team and/or the next grade level teachers. Your school should have a set protocol on the sharing expectations.

I Got My Sheet from the Grade Below — What Now?

Once you have your spreadsheet and data from the grade below, you will want to start embedding missed and low mastery level standards into your curriculum for next year. Look at your pacing guide, and find where these standards can fit into your content.

I would be especially mindful of any power standards for your content. Think about the prerequisite standards that students need to know and understand prior to being able to learn your content standards – set these as your priority standards to embed into next year’s pacing guide.

As the Leader

It is so important that you are ready to be supportive of your teachers during this process. This process can be both intimidating and seem like a hoop if not done with the proper amount of support.

You will want to:

  1. Create a safe space for this process. Teachers need to know that the spreadsheets and information they turn in are non-evaluative and will only help the next grade level teachers be able to best reach their students. There cannot be any shame or guilt for teachers having to admit that standards were not covered or mastered. You want to create this judgment-free culture in your school prior to starting this process so the teachers can feel safe in being honest in all their data analysis and standard reflection
  2. Practice this process yourself. As your teachers complete this process, there will be questions and possibly some confusion. I highly recommend that you as the guide for this process practice it yourself so you can be well-versed in the steps when teachers contact you for help. This way, you can relate to the teachers and can easily guide them
  3. Value this process. As with any professional learning, the teachers will not value the process and time unless you do as the leader. When introducing the Distance Learning Recovery Guide, make sure you have stressed the value in this process and the high impact it can have on students achievement for next year. Bring up the potential learning gaps caused by Covid-19 and stress how this process can help combat these gaps by providing teachers will what standards need covering
  4. Set clear expectations. As you communicate your expectations to the teachers, make sure you have a solid plan for what data they will use, for the steps you want them to complete, the spreadsheet they will use, and who they will share it with. By front-loading all of this information and being clear in it from the beginning, it will help eliminate some of the intimidation and confusion during the process.

Compassion Over Compliance

Lastly, our governor in Georgia sent out an email not too long ago reminding teachers to practice compassion during this time. Students have endured new experiences, and some may not have been very good. His email served as a reminder for teachers to practice compassion as they graded assignments and looked at what each student has completed during Distance Learning. These words truly spoke to me, but I also thought about our teachers and our leaders.

During this time, please remember to practice the same compassion with our teachers and leaders in education. We are all traveling on uncharted territories and trying to make the best of it. Most decisions being made are for the benefit of the students, and we are never going to always agree with every decision being made. Remember this compassion.

Please try to stay positive during these trying times, and if your school is implementing this process and has any questions during any part, please feel free to email me. I would love to be able to help in any way I can. [email protected]

Distance Learning: Where Do We Go From Here?

What a crazy year the 2019-2020 school year has turned out to be. Little did we know back in August that this year would turn into a year of teaching from home with schools closed all over the nation and world. If someone had told me that in January, I would have probably laughed at the crazy idea of it and went on with my day. Yet, here we are.

When this pandemic first started, I felt an intense level of guilt as I thought about my students, teachers, and other staff members. I felt like no matter how much effort I was giving, I just wasn’t giving or doing enough. The students needed more contact from me, the teachers needed more support from me, the community needed more of me. It was a hard beginning.

However, as educators, we ROCK at rising to the occasion, and that is what I have watched teachers all over the world do. We have done our part in giving the best education we could give given our circumstances. We worked endlessly to create digital lessons, put together packets, and find ways to gather grades for this year. We pulled together when everything around us felt like it was falling apart, and we gave our students what they needed to be as successful as possible this year.

As the year comes to a close, we are all left with the feeling of “What now?” When this all began, we had no idea it would lead to the rest of the physical school year being dismissed and our perfectly placed pacing guides being completely disrupted.

If your school is anything like mine, then Distance Learning did not look like the picture perfect learning experience. The standards to be covered according to the pacing guides abruptly stopped when school ended for us on March 17. In a Title I district without the means to provide devices and internet hot spots, our students were expected to “learn” via paper packets, and we all know that is not feasible. While Zoom conferences, Google Meet-Ups, fun digital tasks, and innovative technology tools are fun and a phenomenal tool to use during Distance Learning, they all require devices, internet, and other resources that our students do not have available.

Where do we go from here?

Firstly, we cut ourselves a break from stressing the way this year turned out. We acknowledge that it’s a year unlike any other we have experienced so far in our careers, and we move forward knowing we did the best we could with such short notice.

Once we have realized the compassion we should have for ourselves during this time, we can then look at next year differently. This year caught us off-guard. We had to figure Distance Learning and teaching virtually very quick, so our lack of expertise and knowledge was understandable. However, if we don’t prepare for another situation like that in the future, then it is on us. As educators, we adapt to new standards, expectations, and, in this case, a whole new way of teaching. Moving forward, we have to better ourselves and be prepared for times like this in the future.

Here are some specific steps for preparing for next year:

  1. Complete a Curriculum Analysis to see what standards were taught fully and mastered by students versus those that were not. This can be completed by looking at the pacing guide and assessment data from throughout the year.
  2. Using the Curriculum Analysis, vertically plan for next year. Communicate any standards that were fully, partially, and minimally mastered to the teachers of the next grade level. Reach out to the grade level below to ask for this same information.
  3. Update your pacing guide to reflect any standards from the grade below that were not fully taught or mastered. Embed these standards wherever is possible in your pacing guide. By doing this, you are being proactive in preventing potential learning gaps caused by standards not being covered or mastered.
  4. Begin designing mini-lessons and lesson plans with the standards from the previous embedded in them. Think of ways you can incorporate these standards without jeopardizing the coverage of the current grade level standards. While these standards being added will affect the coverage of the current grade level standards, planning ahead and coming up with ideas early on will eliminate some of that stress later.
  5. Brainstorm some ways you can be better prepared for something like this next year. How can you design lessons that could be used in class, in a blended learning environment, or in a virtual setting? What can you do now to be better equipped to handle something like this happening again next year?

Lastly, as you reflect on this year and plan for next year, remember to have compassion.

Compassion Over Compliance

1. Compassion for yourself – The teacher guilt is so real right now as we all feel like we are not doing enough. You are doing the best you can – have some compassion for you and all that you’re doing.

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2. Compassion for your students – The students are not adapted to online or distance learning yet, and we don’t know what their homes look like and if they all have the support needed. Have compassion for them. Some have the support at home to complete tasks, but some don’t. Meet them where they are. ⁣⁣

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3. Compassion for teachers and support staff – We are all new to this, and we won’t always make the perfect decisions. It’s imperative that we have patience and compassion for one another. There are some teachers who may need more assistance or who may not fully understand the best way to complete Distance Learning. Help them and be the guide!⁣⁣

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4. Compassion for our administration and school leaders – This is new, and there are so many HUGE decisions having to be made at the admin level. There is absolutely no way to make everyone happy, but the priority is almost always the students and their safety. Be compassionate as our school leaders work to make very big decisions that have major impacts on all of us and our students. Trust their intentions!⁣⁣

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We are all in this together! Let’s continue to support one another and show love. I appreciate all the positivity I’ve seen in education here lately and hope you are all doing well!⁣⁣

Happy Planning!

How to Create and Use a Literacy Data Wall

Data walls are meant to be interactive – not just decoration. Teachers need to be involved in the process in order to fully claim ownership for the results and the strategies being implemented. Having set days to change the data are imperative as well as having data discussions planned. In my experience working with a data wall, I have learned the best thing you can do is make sure it’s  a school-wide initiative. Tracking data and growth is an all-hands-on-deck process. I share a few tips for incorporating a data wall in this blog post. If you are interested, you can check out my Data Wall Product on TpT here. Feel free to message me with any questions! I have experienced the value of data walls and would love to help in any way I can.

The Why

A data wall is a great way to get conversations going in your school about literacy, student growth, and new strategies that are working. In my experience, they have created a sense of buy-in for literacy from all teachers and led to an all-hands-on-deck approach to literacy in the school building by engaging all teachers (including all contents and connections teachers) in tracking student data, participating in discussions, and learning new strategies they can easily implement in their own classes. It helped eliminate the intimidation of literacy for teachers who are not English Language Arts certified. It also made the sense of urgency for literacy in our school something that all teachers recognized and were ready to make a difference.

The data wall helped us, as a school, to come up with a shared vision for literacy along with an action plan to get there. We created a Literacy Block, and most teachers felt passionate about what they were teaching during this time. They understood the value in what they were doing, and because of ample professional learning opportunities, they were confident in the literacy strategies they were using.

The Set-Up

When setting up your data wall, remember that it must be very confidential and placed somewhere in the school where students and parents never go or where you are able to easily cover the data if parents/students are in the room. You want it in a location where teachers can meet to discuss data and plan; this allows that data to be at their fingertips when needed.

There are many different ways you can design and use your school’s data wall. The administration at the first school I incorporated a data wall wanted all students in the school being tracked. With that in mind, I combined two bulletin boards together making one long one and did my grade levels (6-7-8) on the left with reading level bands on the top. I decided to make each grade level a different color, so they could easily be told apart. The administration at my new school want to track students reading below grade level on the data wall, so it is tracked on one regular-sized bulletin board.

Another vital thing to think about when setting up your data wall is if you want to track students by groups. For example, we want to track our RtI students, SPED, IEP, and Gifted students. We purchased Avery Round 1/4″ Diameter Labels, Assorted Colors from the Dollar Tree (may also be found at Staples and online) to color-code the data cards. These worked well because they were small enough to place in the corner of the card and helped us track the different groups of students.

Lastly, set it up in a way that will best work for your school based on size and number of students. My two recommendations are below. You could label the grades done the side and the proficiency level across the top, or vice versa. Both of these options work well, so you can decide based on the number of students you will have up there and whichever is more fitting to your needs.

The Buy-In

Before you can push out your data wall, I highly recommend you work on getting teachers to buy-in to the why and the need for literacy in the school. In education, we know there are many hoops we must jump through to appease someone, whether it’s the state Department of Education, the local Board of Education, or the school’s administration. However, we do NOT want something as important as literacy to be deemed as a hoop. The future of our students majorly depends on schools being successful in helping them grow and achieve in reading and writing.

There needs to be a sense of urgency in your school for the need of literacy as a focus. I would recommend starting with a brief, but informative, presentation on what lexiles (or whatever reading level you use) are and where students should be. I would include the lexile ranges needed for a variety of careers to help drive home the point in where students need to be when they graduate. I would then dive into your school’s data broken down by grade level. Let the teachers see the overall averages of students reading below grade-level and the bubble students who are barely making it. Put a number to that percentage: “That means this many students out of this many are NOT reading on grade level.” Really emphasize what that means for that student.

Another key component to gaining teacher buy-in for literacy is to provide the teachers with simple strategies they can use in their classes. As mentioned in a previous blog post, non-ELA teachers can be very intimidated by the idea of “teaching” literacy. It is imperative that your school has a few select strategies in place that are easy to implement and provide training on these for teachers who are not confident in using them in their classroom. You want to make sure teachers know the strategies are to use WITH their content and not in addition to it.

However you decide to go about building buy-in in your school, the biggest key factor is creating that sense of urgency. Teachers chose this profession to make a difference in the lives of their students, and when they see the value in what they are doing for their students, they are going to do their best. Make literacy valued by all!

How It’s Used

When implementing the data wall, you want all teachers to have a set group of students they are tracking. It can be based on homeroom, divvied up based on an ELT or FLEX class, or however else you decide to split it up. These teachers will be responsible for tracking the progress of their students for each RI test (or whatever reading level test you use). Divide the cards up for the teachers and have them write down the first score on each other their student’s cards and place them in the level band they belong on the data wall.

I would think talk about the baseline data and create a plan to help the students grow. Plan or share the literacy strategies your school will use across the contents to help. My recommendations are PALS reading strategy, Reciprocal Teaching, and RACE/RAP/CSET for constructed responses. These research-based strategies allow students to dig deeper into the content and help improve their literacy skills.

After your next reading level test, have your teachers meet back in the room with the data wall. Have teachers update their students’ cards and move them to a new proficiency band if necessary. I would recommend highlighting the corner of the card if a student moves up to a higher level. This way you are able to track the students moving bands throughout the year. After students’ scores have been updated, discuss the data. Look for trends and for successes. Discuss what teachers feel is working and what is not, and determine how to make it work. Complete this process for each reading level test given throughout the year. Make sure data discussions are a vital part of the process. Share strategies and successes as much as possible and always pull in the growth shown school and grade-wide through looking at the percentages of students moving up to reading on grade-level.

Remember to celebrate successes throughout this entire process. Watch for the growth being shown across the school and emphasize the difference the teachers are making for their students. This is what it’s all about!

The Data Wall process should one that includes all teachers and support staff because you need to have one common school-wide goal to help students achieve higher reading levels. Through teacher buy-in and support, this process should be eye-opening. My favorite part about the data wall process was watching the teachers become cheerleaders for their students when they came in to update their students’ cards. “Yay! Go Joey! I knew you could do it!” “Oh, Caty, you were so close. We will get it next time!” “Wow, Jana, your score grew so much!”

I hope your data wall process is one that is as eye-opening and welcomed as mine has been. Please feel free to email me with any questions you may have. I’d love to help in any way I can. If you are interested, I have a Data Wall product that has the data cards, discussion questions, and some implementation directions.

HAPPY DATA-TRACKING!

Building a Literacy-Focused School (Literacy/Instructional Coach Advice)

The Misconception Behind having a Literacy-Focused School

Oftentimes the belief within the school is that literacy belongs to English Language Arts (ELA) teachers. They’re the ones teaching reading and writing, so literacy is their baby. However, this belief could not be further from the reality of it. Literacy needs to be EVERYONE’S baby. It needs to be an “all-hands-on-deck” approach where the entire school works together to promote literacy growth in all students. Literacy is the foundation for the success of our students, and we should ALL take part in making sure they’re successful. My previous post tackles the importance of literacy and lexiles and why it’s so important to make sure we, as educators, are helping our students in their literacy for the sake of their future careers and lives.

Creating a culture at your school where literacy strategies, lexile uses, and reading growth is common dialogue is important in sharing the responsibility of literacy. Many non-ELA teachers stress out at the idea of teaching literacy because it can be intimidating and overwhelming to someone who is not confident in teaching reading and writing and believe their shared responsibility in teaching literacy means they become the ELA teacher. In a school where literacy is common talk and built into the culture, non-ELA teachers will know this isn’t the case. Playing a role in teaching literacy does not mean you put your content on the back-burner, which is often what is believed by non-ELA teachers. It simply means teaching your content through the use of literacy strategies when possible. Reading and writing can easily happen in all classes, and this is why it’s important to have this common dialogue.

Building a Literacy-Focused School

Determining how to create a literacy-focused culture can be the hardest part of making it happen. You want there to be buy-in from all teachers and staff so that it’s not a forced task to bring in literacy. I highly recommend starting by creating a sense of urgency with your staff in the need for literacy in your school. I would pull data showing student deficiencies (such as percentages showing students reading below grade level), create a presentation that shows the lexiles needed to be successful in specific careers, and have them reflect on how literacy could improve the students’ scores in their content areas.

Once you have created a sense of urgency with your staff and they see the immediate need for literacy across the school, work with them to create a shared vision for what a literacy-focused school will look like and then proceed in creating an action plan to get there. During the creation of your action plan, I would try to think about how you can get ALL teachers and staff involved and which literacy strategies you want to adopt school-wide. It is better to have a couple set strategies that everyone does right than to have an abundance that are half done. My two go-to strategies are PALS and Reciprocal Teaching. If interested, I have a blog post on these as well.

Whichever strategies you decide to go with, I would recommend having professional learning on how to implement them with fidelity. I would be specific in exactly what these strategies should look like in the classroom, practice with the teachers completing the strategies as if they were the students, and then having them practice implementing the strategies themselves. Your non-ELA teachers will appreciate this as they go back to implement the strategies on their own. We came up with a peer coach system where teachers could go observe each other completing PALS or Reciprocal Teaching. The peer coaching system was not to observe to leave feedback for one-another, but to learn from each other.

Tracking Progress of Your Literacy Initiatives

When you make something a focus of your school and have the buy-in of your teachers and staff, it is important that you are tracking progress, celebrating ALL successes (even the small ones), and making sure the teachers and staff are seeing and celebrating them as well. In my position as instructional coach, I decided the best way to help retain the buy-in and for teachers to see the difference they were making in our literacy-focused school was to create a data wall tracking the students’ reading lexiles.

This data wall proved to be powerful in allowing teachers and staff members to see the direct impact they were having on the student’s literacy abilities and reading growth. As teachers came in to update students’ scores, it was like they became cheerleaders for the students. I could hear the teachers cheer on their students who were showing growth and let out a little “I know you can do this” for those who decreased.

After the implementation of the data wall, the teacher buy-in for literacy expanded, and teachers were even more eager to make a difference for the students. The data-tracking process and celebrations are imperative for a literacy-focused culture to continue in a school. As educators, we thrive on seeing our students grow and improve; it’s why we teach. Implementing a data wall or some other sort of progress monitoring plan to watch the positive impact being made is vital.

HAPPY LITERACY CULTURE-BUILDING!!!

Understanding the Value of Lexiles in the Classroom (Literacy)

“How am I going to use this in life?” Has this question frequented your classroom? There are concepts that I teach that I often question the value in (I mean, who really cares what a verbal is?), but one thing I will NEVER question or doubt putting all my effort into teaching and helping students with is reading and literacy. No matter what profession you choose or what life has in store for you, the need to be able to read and write is imperative. Period.

This is where the value in using lexile scores as a platform for discussions in your school can be found. Lexiles should be a common term that appears in faculty meetings, professional development, and in curriculum planning days. It should not be a “BUZZ” word but a part of the common lingo in your school.

What are Lexiles?

A lexile is a measurement tool used to identify where students are in their reading ability and to level books by their difficulty. A Lexile measure can be interpreted as the level of book that a student can read with 75% comprehension. It is a useful tool for teachers, parents, and students to help gauge where students are reading, where they should be, monitor their progress, and decide on a plan to help them move forward.

Students normally receive a lexile score from a reading assessment and the state’s standardized test. We use the Reading Inventory (formerly Scholastic Reading Inventory) to test our students three times a year to get beginning, middle, and end of the year data. Lexiles start at BR (Beginning Reader) and go up to 1700L. These scores break down into where students should be in each grade level. The chart below breaks down the grade level proficiency bands according to Scholastic and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Why are Lexiles so Important?

Everything in life it literacy based, and if our students are not learning to read and write, they are being set up for failure. It has to be an “all-hands-on-deck” process, where teachers work together with parents and the students themselves to make sure they are getting the literacy skills needed to be successful in the future. See the chart below to see how lexiles are important beyond the classroom and further into life and adulthood.

How to Use the Data

Lexiles can be incredibly useful in the classroom in all subject areas. If you use leveled articles through websites such as NewsELA, Smithsonian Tween Tribune, or Readworks, knowing the students lexiles helps in assigning different articles to students that are more on their ability level. It can also help you know what books are good for checkout in the library. Click here to access a tool for choosing the right books based on lexile level.

While I think it is important to level the articles for students to be able to read them confidently, I also think it is important to challenge students with higher-level articles. When students take standardized tests, they are not going to have “leveled” texts, and in life, they are not going to have “leveled” texts. They need to be able to make their way through reading at lexiles higher than their own level. To help with this, I highly recommend the use of PALS Reading Strategy and Reciprocal Teaching. Lexiles are used for the grouping of these strategies. You can check out my blog post HERE for further information on these two strategies.

Lexiles create the perfect platform for student ownership!

By allowing students to track their own data, set goals, and design action plans to meet their goals, you are embedding a life skill in them. The buy-in shown through allowing them to take this ownership will blow you away. They will look forward to the next lexile test and be reading and taking advantage of the opportunities to better their score. Even your non-readers will take more initiative in their reading and desires to achieve more.

The use of data tracking and goal setting helps create a sense of competitiveness in the students with THEMSELVES! I always urge the students to beat their last score. I make it clear that this is not a competition with peers, but with ourselves to better ourselves. I use conferencing with students to help them in their goal setting and action steps. You can check out my blog post on Lexile Conferencing HERE. You can also check out my Conference CHARTS or BROCHURES here, if interested.

***Check out this FREE PRESENTATION on understanding the SAM Platform and knowing which Reading Inventory Reports to pull for different purposes!!!***

HAPPY LEXILE-LEARNING!

How to Plan Curriculum Like a BOSS!!! (Curriculum)

When I first started teaching, I was in the clouds. A lot of people say their first year is the hardest and most stressful, but I was not one of them. However, this was NOT because I was a rockstar teacher from the start. I was just COMPLETELY OBLIVIOUS to everything I should have been stressing. I was teaching, I loved my students, I was having fun, and I was teaching the same “content” the other teachers were. I was quite carefree.

Writing curriculum and truly aligning my lessons to the standards was not something I knew how to do. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to do it; I truly didn’t know how. When I came into teaching, I joined an ELA team of teachers who were on the verge of retirement, were going to do things as they always had, and who gave me their unit guide and said “Go!” I was very appreciative of these two ladies because I gained so much from having them to work with, but I was a lost puppy in the world of curriculum planning and design.

It wasn’t until Common Core came out that I truly learned how to dig into my standards and what I needed to be teaching. I learned that I was planning my lessons around activities instead of the standards. I’d see an activity that I thought looked fun, and I’d use it and make the standards fit. After Common Core was established, I went through a training for breaking down the standards and was on a planning committee at our Regional Educational Services Agency (RESA) with lead ELA teachers from other districts. Both of these opportunities really helped me gain a knowledge and a system for digging into my standards and helped me learn the need to have a standards-based curriculum.

This was a GAME-CHANGER for me! During these trainings and planning session, I found myself as a teacher and found what works for me in planning my curriculum. I expanded my lessons and started creating my own “fun” activities that truly aligned to my standards.

How to Plan Curriculum Like a BOSS:

Step 1: Deconstructing Standards

Before you can dig into your standards, you have to know them beyond the surface level. You have to dig deeper into the standards to determine exactly what they are asking and what the prerequisites are that need to be covered. Deconstructing standards can be a bit time-consuming, but the value is beyond measure.

If interested, I have a blog post on deconstructing standards and a template on my TpT store.

Step 2: Create a Curriculum Guide

Use your standards, any breakdown tools for your standards, and your deconstructed standards to create a guide to your standards. When creating your guide, I would set it up with a chart that includes a column for the standard itself, possibly learning targets, important vocabulary to cover, and a column for the number of units you have total. I do not have my learning targets in my current one, but I think it’d make a great addition especially if you’ve deconstructed them. I may see about adding that this upcoming year.

**When thinking about your learning targets, you may want to list out important concepts that would be prerequisites to the standard. If your students are like mine, you will want to plan for mini-lessons to cover these concepts quickly before digging into your grade-level standard.

Side Note: In Georgia we have our own set of standards that are “not” Common Core; however, they are literally common core. We have a Standard Guide that is very useful in breaking down the vocabulary of the standards. If you use Common Core, I’d recommend going to check these out. Here is an example for 8th grade ELA.

Step 3: Unit Assessments/Benchmarks

If you already have your Common Unit Assessments or Benchmarks created as a content team, you will want to use these to determine which standards you will teach per unit. I would create a list of standards covered on each benchmark/unit assessment to have for when you start planning out the design of your units.

If you do not have your Common Unit Assessments or Benchmarks created as a content team, you will want to start there. This falls into the category of backwards design, which I believe to be the best way to plan – You want the end in sight. I would look at my standards and breakdowns to determine the logical order to cover your standards throughout the year. Think of them like a progression and focus on what needs to be taught prior to moving forward. For example, you know you need to teach figurative language before diving into poetry, so make sure that comes first in what is covered.

I have a free unit assessment tool that you can get here to make sure you’re covering your standards in the rigor and the weight of the standards as necessary. It can be used to audit the assessment you already have or as a blueprint for the creation of an assessment. You can access this FREE RESOURCE here.

Step 4: Unit Design

Here comes the fun part!

Start your unit design by narrowing down the concepts for each unit and really looking into what needs to be covered. I am HUGE on color coordinating everything and use highlighters to map my standards to my units at this point. For example, my unit 1 is yellow. I will look through my benchmark or the list I made from my benchmark and highlight concepts to be covered in unit 1 yellow on my curriculum guide. This helps me when I’m planning my lessons to know that all material highlighted in yellow must be covered for our first benchmark and included in my unit design. Remember to include any mini-lessons for prerequisites necessary.

Once you have your standards broken down by unit and have a grasp on exactly what needs to be covered when, you can begin choosing the materials and activities you want to use in each unit. This is where the fun is in thinking of how you plan to teach and assess everything. You will want to include a plan for formative assessments and ways to check for mastery along the way, so keep that in mind as well.

Step 5: Curriculum Guide as Checklist

Now that you have your standards organized by unit, have a unit assessment/benchmark, and have your plan for teaching the standards, you can use your curriculum guide as a checklist. As you cover the different standards, you can either check them off or even write the dates covered in the boxes. Using the guide as a checklist helps you keep track of what’s being covered and when.

***Extra Tips and Resources for the Curriculum Guide Process***

Use a Google Doc or Sheet for the creation of your Curriculum Guide. This way you can share it with your team for collaboration, access it from anywhere, and easily make a copy to use the next year.

Try to always plan with assessments and uses for the data in mind. I have a blog post on this that you can access HERE. You can check out my Editable Unit Assessment Data Analysis Tool HERE.

DIVIDE AND CONQUER! If you have a content team that is strong and works well together, then divide and conquer the parts of this that you can (such as the deconstructing standards and breaking down the standards vocabulary). After you’ve divvied up what you can, come together to collaborate on the rest of it. This will make life SO MUCH EASIER!!! I didn’t have a team to work with in creating mine, so I can tell you from experience to take advantage of having one if you do!

You can see my 7th Grade Editable ELA Curriculum Guide Product HERE.

You can access a blog post on the Value of Learning Targets HERE.

You can access a blog post on how to Deconstruct Standards into Learning Targets HERE.

As always, if you have any questions or concerns about or during this process, please feel free to email me at [email protected] and I will help the best I can!

HAPPY CURRICULUM PLANNING!!!

*My Word for 2018*

First and foremost, I want to wish everyone a HAPPY NEW YEAR! I am so glad that I became a part of this community full of support, love, and sincerity. It’s not very often that you come across a place where everyone is wishing for and supporting everyone else’s success, and it is such an honor to be a part of that culture.

As I move into 2018, I have to stop and reflect on my 2017.

Career-wise, 2017 was a year of ups and downs for me. It started out with me working at a school where I felt trapped and unappreciated. I was working as an Instructional Coach and loved LOVED LOVED my role and the teachers I worked with. They are seriously what made me get up in the mornings to go to work. As much as I did not see eye-to-eye with the administration and felt under-valued and used, I can still honestly say that I learned a lot from that job. I learned so much in the world of curriculum, leadership, and literacy. I had the opportunity to lead five different professional learning communities including Differentiated Instruction, Formative Instructional Practices, Classroom Management, Literacy in the Non-ELA Classroom, and Data Teams. I had the opportunity to write the layout and scheduling for a school-wide literacy block, oversaw the application of it, and was able to celebrate tremendous growth because of it.  I learned how to work with teachers in a role other than being their equal, and it was more of a challenge to start with than I had ever predicted. These experiences were wonderful and have helped me gain an abundance of knowledge that I would not have been exposed to if it had not been for my role as Instructional Coach.

As the end of the school year approached, it was a very hard decision for me to leave the role of Instructional Coach to go back into the classroom, but I knew I couldn’t handle another year of the way I was feeling. So, I went back to the classroom…

On the positive side of this decision, I was going back to a school where I knew I would be welcomed with open arms, and one where the culture of family is felt upon walking through the front door. However, I would be lying to say I was not disheartened at the idea of stepping down from my coaching position. I felt like I was being demoted, and I let this weigh down on me for the first bit of the summer as I took in everything that I’d gone through the previous year and what was coming the next.

Fast forward a bit, and I am so very happy with my decision! Yes, I still think about the fact that I stepped down from a role that I loved and felt like I was meant for, but I LOVE being in the classroom again, and I am much better teacher now than I ever was because of my experiences as an Instructional Coach.

I get to go work with a group of students who I love and would jump in front of a bus for, I work with a group of teachers (and other staff) who would anything for me, and I work in a school where little things are appreciated, people want to help each other, and the administration supports their teachers. That makes all the difference in the world!

With all of that being said, let’s move into 2018!

As we move forward, I don’t want to ever let myself get back to the way I was feeling at the start of 2017. I want to remain positive, even when things around me do get tough. I don’t want to let anyone else’s actions toward me make me feel inferior or like I’m not good enough because I know that I am.

2018 has much in store for me. I am continuing my role as a 7th grade ELA teacher, I am getting to lead some professional development and coach some teachers on a voluntary basis, and I am going back to school to get my Tier 1 Leadership Certification. All of these things are going to require the best of me.

Several teachers have been setting their #oneword2018 goals, and it’s really made me reflect on what mine would be. I am HUGE on goal-setting (no, not resolution-making) and will still make my list of goals to achieve this year; however, I wanted to think of one word that would help lead me to success with my new goals.

Intentional: done on purpose; deliberate; pertaining to an appearance, phenomenon, or representation in the mind; phenomenal; representational.

I want everything I do this year to be intentional.

→ Am I using my time in a way that is going to get me where I want to be, or am I wasting time and using it as an excuse?

→ Are these thoughts growing me as a person, or are they allowing negativity to seep in?

→ Will these words promote what I am trying to accomplish, or will they drag me down?

→ Will this action represent the person I am striving to be, or will it have the opposite effect?

If we were to ask ourselves what our intent is and then if what we are doing or saying is moving us toward that intent, then I think we’d all have a bit of a reality check. I know I would. It’s not always easy to think like that in the moment, but I am going to work at it as hard as I can. I welcome anyone who would like to be my accountability in this!

I love seeing everyone’s #oneword and goals floating around social media right now, and it is my hope that everyone keeps the same drive and inspiration as we move into 2018.

Thank you all for being a community where I feel welcome, I can be honest, and I know that my success is celebrated by all. It’s such an amazing feeling!

***

On a totally different note, and in case anyone was wondering, my person life in 2017 was AMAZING! I married the man of my dreams in the Bahamas, I moved back to an area and school that I love, I spent some time with family and friends from all over, and I won a trip of a lifetime to Las Vegas to meet the Backstreet Boys, have VIP tickets to their concert, and I was picked to go on stage and serenaded. Yes, it was an amazing year!

HAPPY GOAL SETTING!!!

The New Year Means You Get a FRESH START (Classroom & Professional Development)

Let’s face it… We are all guilty at some point of not enforcing specific classroom procedures, expectations, or following through with consequences like we should when going into a school year. Sometimes it’s not even that we lacked in enforcing, but more so in that what we had in place simply didn’t work with our new group of students.

When we begin a new school year in August, we never really know what our students will be like. We can prepare our classroom procedures and routines, but until we have met our darlings and know the dynamic of our class, we cannot be certain that our routines, procedures, and classroom management plan will run smoothly. And, we all know how hard it is to try and change a procedure or consequence once the school year has started, so we are stuck trying to “survive.”

If you can relate to this, then I HAVE SOME GOOD NEWS!!!

Coming back from the holiday break is a perfect clean slate! You are already going to have to freshen up on any procedures you have in place, so it’s the perfect time to add new procedures.

*Insert celebratory dance moves here*

But… There’s a big but here… Hehe!

You still have to be careful in planning your new procedures and incorporate them the right way.

When planning your new procedures, follow these steps:

  1. Reflect on what is working and what is not working in your classroom.
  2. Think about how you would like your classroom to run. Think what would help move your classroom smoother.
  3. Plan what new strategy/procedure you can incorporate that would help get your class to how you envision it to be
  4. Design a plan for teaching the students your new strategy. Remember that students need time to practice new procedures and strategies. It cannot simply be told to them and then expected. You need to rehearse this until it becomes habit and routine.
  5. Think about what your order of consequences will be for students who do not follow your new procedure.
  6. Remember that consistency is KEY. You need to always expect students to follow procedures. Do not let it slip for some and catch others; students pick up on this more than you will ever know.

When planning your new procedures, use the Classroom Management list shown below. This will help you think about which areas could use a little more structure.

*Click HERE for a printable version*

Professional Development resources are available on my TPT store to go with this blog post. When I was coaching, I used this to help teachers dig into scenarios in their own classrooms that could use restructuring. My professional development resource consists of:

  • Question Prompt Slips: Plan your answers for these questions, cut them into slips of paper, tape them under/on the back of chairs, and have the teachers check their chairs and read their questions. These questions are the usual doubtful “what-ifs” that teacher may have toward new procedures
  • Scenario Examples: Teachers read the different scenarios and think of procedures that could have PREVENTED the situation from ever occurring. This is not about how to handle situations (although, these could be used again for that)
  • Procedure Implementation Plan: Teachers plan IN DETAIL their own new procedures (See example below). This helps them think through the different steps of their plan and how to incorporate it
  • Implementation Reflection: Teachers reflect for the first 3 weeks of their new procedure.
  • Group Reflection Questions: Questions for the teachers to answer when back in full group to reflect on what everyone incorporated, learned, and to see what worked

Photo links to TPT Product

I welcome all questions and am more than willing to help with planning for new procedures. Yay for new procedures!!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR (& PROCEDURE PLANNING)!

The Perfect Way to Head into the Holiday Break

I am 100% the teacher on the left, and I think it genuinely helps me enjoy my job more during a time that would be easy to hate it. We all know the stress levels as we approach the holiday break sky rockets as the students get crazy, the to-do list is piling up, and the workload doesn’t feel like it’s lightening up any time soon. Here are a few steps that I would recommend to help make this time of the year less stressful and more enjoyable.

Step 1: Decorate your door!

So I may go a little crazy when it comes to decorating. I love all excuses to decorate and be creative, so the holiday season really sets the stage for that. Anywhere I can add a little piece of holiday, it’s there.

This year I wanted to do something different. I see all of these door ideas on Pinterest that are super duper cute, but I feel like I see them all the time. I wanted my door to be something that you don’t see often as you scroll through pinned Christmas doors. Oh, and I wanted it to include coffee because, well, coffee. And… I should probably mention that I have a team mate who is one of “those” teachers who go all out, so, of course, I have to be sure to one up her. 😉

I looked up coffee holiday doors on Pinterest and found one the kind of inspired me, and I went from there. The students helped me to work out the details and to put it all together, and I am stoked with how it turned out. My holiday door will probably exceed the holidays because I am not ready to take it down.

Step 2: Incorporate Dress Up Days

I am 100% one of “those” teachers (yes, the same one that I referred to earlier about my teammate – ha) who loves to go all out! The more dress up days, the better in my eyes! Not all agree with me so we settled for 4 dress up this days instead of the 12 I was requesting. Ha!

When planning your dress-up days, the key is setting plenty of notice and to think of things that most people can piece together. It’s easy to pick up a t-shirt with a reindeer on it or to add 3 black buttons on a white shirt to be a snowman.

If you set the right themes and really work to build them up with everyone, they should be a huge success!

Oh, and I also like to allow the students at least one dress up day. We set ours up to be mostly for our teachers with one dress up day for students the day before the break. It works out perfectly. The students LOVE seeing the new outfits for their teachers each day and really enjoy getting to rock their own crazy holiday attire.

 

Step 3: Plan Fun Standards-Based Classroom Activities

Believe it or not, the students LOVE getting to participate in holiday festivities; however, if given the right amount of freedom, they can act completely OFF THE WALLS the week before holiday break. I know, I know… it’s hard to imagine our darling students being wild and unruly (said no teacher ever).

For this reason, I like to set up holiday-related activities that are still aligned to the curriculum. It’s easy to maintain the classroom structure if students know what they are doing holds value. When you start busting out the coloring sheets with no purpose aside from to take up time, students know they don’t have to really focus or put forth effort. I am not saying to give them a hard task or a test the day before the break, but you definitely want something that still holds their focus but is creative.

My go-to activity leading into the break is a prepositional phrases practice sheet where students decorate a gingerbread house, Christmas tree, or an elf, and then they write out their decorations and identify the prepositions and prepositional phrases. I have been doing this activity with my classes well before I ever imagined joining the TPT world and love it so much. If you are interested in any of these, you can click on the images below to visit my store to see the product in more detail. If you’re interested in all three, I do have a bundle for them here.

  

Find yourself a traditional activity that you use every year so that you know what works and can enter the holiday season at ease. Not knowing what to do on these crazy days can really come with a lot of anxiety if you don’t have a plan for structure in your classroom.

Step 4: Spend Time Together

We all know that school luncheons and food days consist of the BEST FOOD EVER! Who knew that teachers and school staff were bakers and chefs too?! Geez, we carry so many roles!

Anyway, my advice for these days is to eat-eat-eat, and enjoy it all – especially the time spent with your work family. The breakroom lunches are so good for building and maintaining community in your school. I can honestly say that my absolute favorite part of my school is the culture and the family feel. The moment you walk in the building, you can feel it! It’s the little things that help build that up in your school.

Another way to really build up the community in your school is to have activities throughout the year for your staff to participate in. My friend Sarah and I are working hard to plan a craft day for each holiday or new season this year. For Christmas, we hosted a canvas painting party for our teachers, and it was a HUGE WIN!!! We had 25 teachers sign-up to paint and were overwhelmed with the positivity and love that filled the room as teachers painted and enjoyed each others’ company. I loved everything about that day, even though I was so busy hosting and making rounds seeing everyone that I didn’t even get to paint.

These days have been so wonderful for us as a staff, and the teachers have been so very appreciative!

Step 5: Random Acts of Kindness

 Speaking of building up the culture and morale, who doesn’t love a little gift or sweet note to show up in your box or on your desk? My friend and I have also been trying to drop little notes of appreciation for the teachers. We’ve done thank you cards, cards complimenting something in particular we’ve seen them do, and every now and then we have a little treat for them such as a random K-cup and note in their boxes.

These don’t always have to be something that costs money. We all know how nice it is to feel like something we are doing is noticed and appreciated. Take a moment to write that sweet note or a compliment to a peer and watch the smile it creates.

No matter what steps you take to make this season more enjoyable for you, I hope you can relax and enjoy the little moments with your students, staff, family, and friends. Have a wonderful break and rest up to start 2018 rejuvenated!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!

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