Responsive Instruction:
2. Team of 6 to 3 day intensive training.
3. Summer work includes 10 taking online course.
4. Administrative team training – June 28, 29
b. Includes developing personal professional development plan
c. Includes building level plans
b. August 30 – Administrators – 5:00 – 8:00
c. August 31 – Elementary – 9:00 – 3:00
English Language Arts:
2. Developed an instructional framework for grades k – 8.
3. Identified core and anchor books for grades k – 8.
4. Began to conduct a literacy audit in grades 7 –8 and 9 – 12 (To be completed over the summer.)
5. Improved the scoring process for the district writing assessment.
6. Created a literacy intervention team to meet regularly with Ann Hassett.
7. Summer work – June 26 and 27 to develop a K – 12 literacy curriculum.
Math:
2. Review of transition between Everyday Math and Connected Math.
b. Commitment by 6th grade teachers to tweak curriculum to ease transition.
c. Commitment by MS staff to incorporate more guided teaching.
d. Commitment by MS staff to fully implement program at grades 7 and 8.
e. Summer work – Curriculum tweaking for grade 6.
f. Summer training in CMP for 7 and 8.
g. Inclusion of continued CMP professional development in Teaching and Learning Grants at the middle school level.
b. Made results cumulative rather than one shot.
c. Added problem solving activities in missing areas to complete LAS for grades k – 6.
5. Reviewed the middle school math specialist position and refocused it to provide stronger support for fully implementing CMP.
Interventions:
2. Aligned all interventions K – 12 under this reframed position.
3. Developed consistent job descriptions for all specialists and interventionists.
4. Team of administrators received training in RTI.
5. Began to research appropriate behavioral interventions.
6. Began to research scientifically based math interventions.
7. Restructured summer tutorial to become more aligned with district’s definition of interventions and to allow for the collection of more power data as well as more powerful teaching to accelerate more students.
8. Developed procedures to ensure consistency in Title 1A services, programs, and instruction K – 12.
9. Summer work: Develop systematic, consistent, articulated identification procedures for students needing interventions.
Bullying:
2. Partially implemented the Great Body Shop in grades K – 6.
3. Continued implementation of programs such as 1st Six Weeks and Responsive Classroom.
4. Summer work to include providing training to supervisory staff such as playground/lunch room supervisors and bus drivers.
High School Reform (Partial list):
2. Piloted the Freshman Academy.
3. Made plans to expand the Freshman Academy in 2006 – 07.
4. Central office staff and Bob Strong began process of developing a 5 year plan and defining the various roles of different district-level departments in the high school reform process.
Other:
2. Established instructional expectations for alternative programs, both middle school and high school.
3. Team of administrators to train in mapping curriculum in August.
4. Implemented series of Teacher Institutes to provide professional development opportunities presented by district personnel.
5. Improved communication re: federal titles and grants and developed procedures for administrative input during the planning process.
6. Created a Parent Involvement Coordinator position for the 2006 – 07 school year to offer proactive communication between school and home across the district.
Differentiation is a set of strategies.
DI is an entire teaching philosophy grounded in knowing students and responding to their needs.
Differentiation is group work.
Differentiation employs thoughtful, purposeful flexible grouping. Sometimes students work alone, sometimes in pairs, sometimes as a whole class, and sometimes in small groups-depending upon demonstrated student need.
“I already differentiate.”
While many of us may use a strategy associated with differentiation or may differentiate reactively, few have fully, proactively differentiated classrooms-these classrooms develop and grow over time in response to student need.
Differentiated lessons have to be creative, “cute,” and fun.
While engaging students is an important part of differentiation, it is more important that the lesson be grounded rich curriculum.
Differentiation is just the next educational fad.
Because differentiation is a philosophy of meeting a broad range of students’ needs, only when students cease being different will the need for differentiation disappear.
Providing choice = differentiation.
Different activities have to be held together by clear learning goals.
Differentiation isn’t fair.
Fair does not always mean “the same.” In order for students to reach the same goals, they may need to take different paths to get there.
Differentiation means “dumbing down” the curriculum for less advanced learners.
Differentiation means providing appropriate scaffolding to help all learners reach common learning goals.
Differentiation only works when kids are well-behaved.
Creating a responsive classroom can be a great way to improve student behavior, as students’ needs are being met.
Preparing a differentiated lesson takes a huge amount of time.
Creating any high-quality lesson takes time. As we get our heads wrapped around the process, we become more efficient and develop storehouses of differentiated lessons to adapt.