Forward Focus
Danielson: Domain 1
| Domain 1: Planning and Preparation | Outcome-Driven Instructional Leadership Team Practices |
| 1a. Demonstrating Knowledge of content and pedagogy | Providing time for teachers to understand research base of lesson design |
| 1b. Demonstrating Knowledge of students | Providing regular collaboration opportunities around automated assessment data and student work with colleagues who share cohort of students and with instructional leaders who are accountable for outcomes |
| 1c Setting Instructional Outcomes | Providing alignment documents and pacing guides aligned to other instructional resources, developed in collaboration. |
| 1d Demonstrating knowledge of resources | Providing time for macro planning to ensure successful launch, meaningful integration, and continuous improvement of teacher knowledge, skill and practice. |
| 1e Designing Coherent Instruction | Providing time for macro-planning to ensure successful curriculum development, meaningful integration of resources, and continuous improvement of teacher knowledge, skill and practice. |
| 1f Designing Student Assessments | Providing time to collaborate around larger projects and assessments to benchmark progress. |
Marzano Design Questions
Domain 1:
Classroom: Differentiation and Coverage
What are we as instructional leaders doing to create the conditions for success for learning?
| People | As a team, have you determined the underlying skills and concepts and the smaller chunks? |
| Processes | Have you designed the appropriate active learning strategy to match the learning task? |
| Places | Have you created spaces for active learning, self-pacing, additional help? |
| Products | Do you have products that support this work? |
| Time | As a team, are we providing enough time to go deep and differentiate appropriately? |
Danielson: Domain 2
| Domain 2: Classroom Environment | |
| 2a. Creating and Environment of Respect and Rapport | |
| 2b Establishing a Culture for Learning | |
| 2c Managing Classroom Procedures | |
| 2d Managing Student Behaviour | |
| 2e Organising Physical Space |
Empathy Zones – opportunities for students to work in different spaces depending on their emotional state
“I understand”
“I think I understand”
“I don’t understand”
“I feel great and social”
“I feel ok but not great”
“I want to be left alone”
Planning: Operationalising Teams for Learning
What are we as instructional leaders doing to create the conditions for success for learning?
| People | As a team, how are you determining what students should know and be able to do and helping each other to create it? |
| Processes | As a team, have you determined a good way to help students capture data and establish a good routine for using it? |
| Places | As a team, are you celebrating success? |
| Products | As a team, do you have a common resource that can support this work? |
| Time | As a team, are you allocating the necessary time to the looking at student work samples as one of the keys to monitoring progress? |
Danielson Domain 3
| Domain 3: Instruction | |
| 3a Communicating with Students | |
| 3b Using questioning and discussion techniques | |
| 3c Engaging students in Learning | |
| 3d Using Assessment in Instruction | |
| 3e Demonstrating Flexibility and Responsiveness |
Danielson Domain 4
| Domain 4: Professional Responsibility | |
| 4a Reflecting on Teaching | |
| 4b Maintaining Accurate Records | |
| 4c Communicating with families | |
| 4d Participating in the Professional Community | |
| 4e Growing and Developing Professionally | |
| 4f Showing Professionalism |
Professional Learning Team (PLT) meeting and cycle:
1. What is the student ready to learn, and what is the evidence for this in terms of what the student can do, say, make or write?
2. What are the possible evidence-based intervention and the associated scaffolding processes for each?
3. What is the preferred intervention, and how will it be resourced and implemented?
4. What is the expected impact on learning, and how will this be evaluated?
5. What was the outcome, and how can this be interpreted?
http://arstateimprovementgrant.com/
Common Sense Practice #1 (Leadership)
7 C’s of success:
formal and informal processes that facilitate:
Communication
Caring
Collaboration
Commitment
Consultation
Celebration
Consistency
among school staff and district staff
Committees – reflect the research-based components of effective schools and schooling
Recommended:
The School Leadership Team (all committee co-chairs are members)
The Curriculum and Instruction Committee
The School Climate/ School Discipline Committee
The Professional Development/ Teacher Mentoring and Support Committee
The Family and Community Outreach Committee
The Student Assistance/ Multi-tiered/ Early Intervention Committee (made up of the best academic/ behavioural assessment/ intervention specialists in or available to the school)
All professionals regardless of their department or administrative assignment, are organised in cross-collaborative teams that focus on the following outcomes:
Common Sense #2 (Instruction)
Differentiated Instruction will not work when there are too many different skill groups in a classroom, or when teachers do not know the functional skills levels of their students.
Organisational suggestion for setting up classes – not too much of a range in abilities (skills based learning clusters)??? Possible?
Knowing the Zone of Proximal Development level of all students
* Use PAT-R, PAT-M, Running Records, etc.
* Data management system to pass on information from teacher to teacher essential.
Refer to: http://arstateimprovementgrant.com/
Common Sense Practice #3 (Assessment):
Every year level (or course) needs developmentally-appropriate curricular maps, that identify the knowledge, content and skills needed by students, along with the criteria for student mastery: and for every teacher to have the skills, materials, and opportunity needed to effectively differentiate and teach, assess, and monitor students’ learning and mastery.
Yes!! I feel that the most success we have had this year in terms of Professional Development has been developing a clear understanding of the skills and understandings needed by students in terms of reading comprehension. Analysing the PAT-R descriptive continuum helped to understand what students needed to be taught. Using this assessment tool helped teachers to identify the Zone of Proximal Development of each student from Year 2-7. From here clear goals were established for student learning, and instructional opportunities were planned to scaffold students’ learning.
Question: How closely are the PAT-R tests aligned with the Australian Curriculum?
This process need to be done in relation to the Australian Curriculum year level expectations.
Common Sense Practice #4 (Services and Support):
Share Resources
SWOT Analysis
Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats
Interdependent Audits:
Completing and sharing these audits allows everyone to know the resources available (and not available) and how they can be utilised.
Resources must be used to support needs of students. Communicating what resources are available, and sharing these across the school are important.
What will I do to establish and communicate learning goals, track student progress, and celebrate success?
1. Providing clear learning goals and scales to measure those goals
2. Tracking student progress
3. Celebrating student success
Initially it will be important to establish where students are on the learning continuum. I will do this by referring to previously gathered information (standardised test results from last year and report grades), students self assessments and goals for the term/ year, and parental survey/ feedback. This information will mainly focus on reading, spelling, writing, and mathematical knowledge, skills and understanding. Opportunities to also monitor Health and PE, music and language skills will be important to acknowledge strengths of students in these areas.
Recording this information in one central location (Mark it), will be important. A copy in the back of my day to day program book has also been well utilised and easily accessible, so I would like to continue this.
Involving students in the process of identifying their strengths and needs will be important throughout the year. I will endeavour to do this through the use of rubrics, and the SOLO framework (Structured Observable Learning Outcomes – Pre-structural, Uni-structural, Multi-structural, Relational and Extended Abstract).
Resources to help with creating rubrics are:
EALD -Language and Literacy Levels – particularly for writing ( but also useful for reading) and oral language development
Australian curriculum- Maths, English, Science, History, Geography
Reading Comprehension Strategies Level Guides – Here, Hidden, Head, Heart
Words Their Way continuum – spelling, word knowledge
Using the rubrics to provide relevant, useful feedback to students will be important. Allowing time to process feedback and act on this will also be important. Encouraging students and parents to actively engage in this process should see further benefits for student learning. An easy to access, easy to manage system needs to be set up. The use of Evernote could be one tool that could support this process. Up until now I have used an Assessment Portfolio, which has been a record of feedback, and assessment of work. This will still be relevant and useful, as I want to continue to use this easily accessible tool as a way of students visibly showing their thinking. Past students have used these as mini-whiteboards, with various blank proformas at the ready.
Class Dojo might also be a way of keeping parents informed. I will need to investigate how much this can be customised, and if this could be used to give feedback.
Bento has been useful in the past, a data base program, although I haven’t been able to sync data between all devices.
Involving students in setting specific goals, keeping these in mind (and easily accessible) and self monitoring will be a priority. Using graphing systems and regularly checking in with students throughout the day will be managed with the help of proformas available in student Assessment portfolios.
Celebrating student successes?
Encouraging students to share their learning achievements with parents will be done throughout the year by:
* highlights regularly celebrated and featured on our class blog,
* setting up opportunities to share/ show Assessment Portfolio or online work with parents (regular homework will foster this regular review and feedback from parents)
* Class Dojo will also be explored as an option to share successes
* Evernote – this didn’t work last year when I tried to use it at school, but hopefully the computing issues have been fixed, so I will try again. This will allow both teachers to add notes, photos, videos to a folder for each student which could then easily be shared with parents.
* students’ successes will also be regularly shared as acknowledgements and achievements
* last year by having student goals posted in the classroom, I could help students to monitor and assess their achievement. I would like to continue this, but also get students to keep a copy which is easy to refer to (Assessment Portfolio).
What will I do to establish and maintain classroom rules and procedures?
4. Establishing classroom routines
5. Organising the physical layout of the classroom for learning
Some of the main routines I will want to establish quickly are:
* getting students to effectively work with each other – build from pairs, triads, to bigger groupings gradually
* sharing responsibilities – setting up a regular system to rotate roles and responsibilities (fortnightly)
* ways to walk around the school as a class in an orderly way
* setting up in the morning – reference point (list of jobs)
* packing up at the end of the day – reference point (list of jobs)
* Monday morning procedure – Team Meeting
* English – Word Work, Literacy Block, Guided Reading,
* Maths – Mental Routine, Problematised Situation/ Strategy Lesson, Reflection
* Science – working in triads with a set role
* Daily Fitness- students responsible for setting up, explaining game/ activity with support of the teacher, and packing up
* Workbook expectations
* What to do if you finish early. What to do if you don’t know what to do. What to do if the task is too easy or too hard.
* Visible Thinking strategies – mini-whiteboards, fingers (ABCD), thumbs up, down, middle to show level of understanding, five finger rating system – relate to on-task time, or personalised goal (recorded regularly on a self monitoring chart), physically moving to different points in the classroom to show opinion/ thoughts, Think-Pair-Share, Think Board,
* regular reflection on thinking/ learning / achievements – through talking, blogging, journal, reading log, sticky notes
* meta language developed/ used to communicate clearly
* goal setting – modelled- SMARTAR ( specific, measurable, achievable, realistic , time oriented, agreed, reviewed)
* use hexagons to relate to SOLO taxonomy
Physical layout of the room?
I need to make space for:
– whole class instruction with access to the whiteboard, and electronic whiteboard
– small group instruction,
– small group work in different parts of the class
– paired/ independent practice (tables organised in pairs or groups of 4, with clear expectations on noise level and table talk – focused/ on-task only) – signs to remind students of working noise level? – silent, whispers, table talk, whole class, small group – one at a time
– access to class resources (textas, paper, calculators, scrap paper, maths equipment)
– access to and routine for borrowing from class and school library
– drink bottles and fruit snack
– book boxes for Daily 5 – Read to someone, Listen to someone, Read to self, Word Work, Writing
– computer trolleys
– display space for student work
– display space to use as a reference point for learning – Word Wall, Wonder Wall, CAFE ( Comprehension, Accuracy, Fluency, Expand Vocabulary)
– visible thinking – poster sectioned off and numbered to represent each student to hold sticky notes, exit passes, etc.
– reference materials A3 laminated sheets, personal word wall (Sheena Cameron idea), POOCH, personal thermometer (individuals or everyone?) SOLO reference points
What will I do to establish and communicate learning goals, track student progress, and celebrate success?
1. Providing clear learning goals and scales to measure those goals
2. Tracking student progress
3. Celebrating student success
Initially it will be important to establish where students are on the learning continuum. I will do this by referring to previously gathered information (standardised test results from last year and report grades), students self assessments and goals for the term/ year, and parental survey/ feedback. This information will mainly focus on reading, spelling, writing, and mathematical knowledge, skills and understanding. Opportunities to also monitor Health and PE, music and language skills will be important to acknowledge strengths of students in these areas.
Recording this information in one central location (Mark it), will be important. A copy in the back of my day to day program book has also been well utilised and easily accessible, so I would like to continue this.
Involving students in the process of identifying their strengths and needs will be important throughout the year. I will endeavour to do this through the use of rubrics, and the SOLO framework (Structured Observable Learning Outcomes – Pre-structural, Uni-structural, Multi-structural, Relational and Extended Abstract).
Resources to help with creating rubrics are:
EALD -Language and Literacy Levels – particularly for writing ( but also useful for reading) and oral language development
Australian curriculum- Maths, English, Science, History, Geography
Reading Comprehension Strategies Level Guides – Here, Hidden, Head, Heart
Words Their Way continuum – spelling, word knowledge
Using the rubrics to provide relevant, useful feedback to students will be important. Allowing time to process feedback and act on this will also be important. Encouraging students and parents to actively engage in this process should see further benefits for student learning. An easy to access, easy to manage system needs to be set up. The use of Evernote could be one tool that could support this process. Up until now I have used an Assessment Portfolio, which has been a record of feedback, and assessment of work. This will still be relevant and useful, as I want to continue to use this easily accessible tool as a way of students visibly showing their thinking. Past students have used these as mini-whiteboards, with various blank proformas at the ready.
Class Dojo might also be a way of keeping parents informed. I will need to investigate how much this can be customised, and if this could be used to give feedback.
Bento has been useful in the past, a data base program, although I haven’t been able to sync data between all devices.
Involving students in setting specific goals, keeping these in mind (and easily accessible) and self monitoring will be a priority. Using graphing systems and regularly checking in with students throughout the day will be managed with the help of proformas available in student Assessment portfolios.
Celebrating student successes?
Encouraging students to share their learning achievements with parents will be done throughout the year by:
* highlights regularly celebrated and featured on our class blog,
* setting up opportunities to share/ show Assessment Portfolio or online work with parents (regular homework will foster this regular review and feedback from parents)
* Class Dojo will also be explored as an option to share successes
* Evernote – this didn’t work last year when I tried to use it at school, but hopefully the computing issues have been fixed, so I will try again. This will allow both teachers to add notes, photos, videos to a folder for each student which could then easily be shared with parents.
* students’ successes will also be regularly shared as acknowledgements and achievements
* last year by having student goals posted in the classroom, I could help students to monitor and assess their achievement. I would like to continue this, but also get students to keep a copy which is easy to refer to (Assessment Portfolio).
What will I do to establish and maintain classroom rules and procedures?
4. Establishing classroom routines
5. Organising the physical layout of the classroom for learning
Some of the main routines I will want to establish quickly are:
* getting students to effectively work with each other – build from pairs, triads, to bigger groupings gradually
* sharing responsibilities – setting up a regular system to rotate roles and responsibilities (fortnightly)
* ways to walk around the school as a class in an orderly way
* setting up in the morning – reference point (list of jobs)
* packing up at the end of the day – reference point (list of jobs)
* Monday morning procedure – Team Meeting
* English – Word Work, Literacy Block, Guided Reading,
* Maths – Mental Routine, Problematised Situation/ Strategy Lesson, Reflection
* Science – working in triads with a set role
* Daily Fitness- students responsible for setting up, explaining game/ activity with support of the teacher, and packing up
* Workbook expectations
* What to do if you finish early. What to do if you don’t know what to do. What to do if the task is too easy or too hard.
* Visible Thinking strategies – mini-whiteboards, fingers (ABCD), thumbs up, down, middle to show level of understanding, five finger rating system – relate to on-task time, or personalised goal (recorded regularly on a self monitoring chart), physically moving to different points in the classroom to show opinion/ thoughts, Think-Pair-Share, Think Board,
* regular reflection on thinking/ learning / achievements – through talking, blogging, journal, reading log, sticky notes
* meta language developed/ used to communicate clearly
* goal setting – modelled- SMARTAR ( specific, measurable, achievable, realistic , time oriented, agreed, reviewed)
* use hexagons to relate to SOLO taxonomy
Physical layout of the room?
I need to make space for:
– whole class instruction with access to the whiteboard, and electronic whiteboard
– small group instruction,
– small group work in different parts of the class
– paired/ independent practice (tables organised in pairs or groups of 4, with clear expectations on noise level and table talk – focused/ on-task only) – signs to remind students of working noise level? – silent, whispers, table talk, whole class, small group – one at a time
– access to class resources (textas, paper, calculators, scrap paper, maths equipment)
– access to and routine for borrowing from class and school library
– drink bottles and fruit snack
– book boxes for Daily 5 – Read to someone, Listen to someone, Read to self, Word Work, Writing
– computer trolleys
– display space for student work
– display space to use as a reference point for learning – Word Wall, Wonder Wall, CAFE ( Comprehension, Accuracy, Fluency, Expand Vocabulary)
– visible thinking – poster sectioned off and numbered to represent each student to hold sticky notes, exit passes, etc.
– reference materials A3 laminated sheets, personal word wall (Sheena Cameron idea), POOCH, personal thermometer (individuals or everyone?) SOLO reference points
5 conditions that must be met to systematically develop teacher expertise: 1) a well-articulated knowledge base for teaching, 2) focused feedback and practice, 3) opportunities to observe and discuss expertise, 4) clear criteria and a plan for success, and 5) recognition of expertise. These will in turn translate into enhanced student achievement.
A Well Articulated Knowledge Base for Teaching
Domain 1: classroom strategies and behaviours
Domain 2: planning and preparing
Domain 3: reflecting on teaching
Domain 4: collegiality and professionalism
Focused Feedback and Practice
For feedback to be instrumental in developing teacher expertise, it must focus on specific classroom strategies and behaviours during a set interval of time.
Opportunities to Observe and Discuss Expertise
Opportunities to observe and discuss effective teaching are an important part of developing expertise among classroom teachers. If teachers do not have opportunities to observe and interact with other teachers, their method of generating new knowledge about teaching is limited to personal trial and error.
Clear Criteria and a Plan for Success
The ultimate criterion for successful teaching must be student learning.
Recognition of Expertise