Resolutions for the New Year

Staff,

I hope this blog finds you refreshed and rejuvenated for the rest of the 2014-2015 school year. Before winter break, the first graders worked on their new year's resolutions. Here's a couple of them.

The following link is a list of the most popular new year's resolutions for 2015: New Year's Resolutions. Each one of the resolution ideas also has a link to a support page with resources. As you can see, some of these resolutions match the first graders: getting fit and helping others. Personally I'm focusing on the former with the help of a fitbit giving me frequent feedback on my progress toward 10,000 steps a day.

With a new year also comes a time of reflection. During the month of January, it is our opportunity to reflect on the SLO goals we've set using new student learning data collected from MAP and individual reading assessments.

On Monday, January 5th classroom teachers will have time at their Day 6 Collaboration to focus planning for whole group/small group instruction in Reader's Workshop or new learning utilizing resources like the Jan Richardson's guided reading videos now inventoried in the media center. Please choose the focus that is the most pending for your team. The January 5th protocol is ready for each grade level team, in their Day 6 google doc folder.

At our Tuesday staff meeting, you'll have time to dig into and reflect on your recent Writer's Workshop professional development, and plan next steps in writing instruction.

 

Writing Staff Development and Blended Learning

Staff,

A reminder of the Writers Workshop trainings this week with Steve Dunn. Kindergarten is on Monday, first grade Tuesday and second grade Wednesday. On Thursday third grade is in the morning and fourth grade in the afternoon. Fifth grade will be meeting with Steve Dunn on Friday in the am. All professional development will take place at River Crest in room 201.

On Tuesday at our staff meeting, please choose from the list of digital resources available for use during Readers Workshop. You  may also spend time at more than one station if you choose.

Scootpad spelling:  Heather Mathews and Brian Burbach
Digital literacy stations during Readers Workshop:  Nicki Lagerstrom and Amanda Susmer
Scootpad for reading:  Jennifer Schwalbach
Scootpad for reading, math and spelling:  Greta Lewis
Electronic books available for check out through the media center:  Kelli Hedlund
Digital resources for reading:  Dolf

Kelli will be sharing how students can check out electronic books to be read on devices. A couple of the resources I will be sharing can be accessed before hand at the following links. Rewordify is a website that allows you to simplify difficult text. The "reworded" text is highlighted with different options to choose an easier to understand version. NEWSELA: Kids Tab this gives daily news/informational text for children at five different lexile levels for each article. Each article has a short quiz option.

Thanks to all of the staff willing to sharing their new learnings around digital resources.

Late Start Professional Development

North Hudson Teaching Staff:

This Thursday our late start staff development will be building based. We will begin at 8:05am in the media center. K-2 bring the running records on a few of your students and 3-5 the formative comprehension interviews you've completed. Also bring any other recent formative assessments and resources you've been using for planning guided reading instruction:  F+P Continuum, MAP Continuum, Jan Richardson resource, etc.

To frame our work on this day, we will begin by viewing Jan Richardson videos modeling guided reading. K-2 teachers will view a primary guided reading lesson and 3-5 will view a different guided reading lesson than the one they watched last week at the district staff development. While watching think about all the things that reinforce what we're already doing in guided reading and also some new take aways.

After processing these videos, grade level teams will have time to dig into formative assessments, identify the focus of guided reading groups and plan for instruction. Here is the link to the protocol that will be used during this collaboration late start protocol

Learning Support Services will be sending out an email to specialists and special educators regarding their work on this day. Some special educators like speech therapists and SLD teachers will be asked to join a grade level team of a student who is on their caseload to assist with digging into recent formative assessments and planning for the next steps in instruction.

Blended Learning

Staff,

This Tuesday at our staff meeting, I'll briefly review the student survey requirement for Year 2 probationary and continuing teachers. However, most of the meeting will be set aside for teachers to share and reflect on the blended learning opportunities implemented during Readers Workshop this year, and the impact they've had to engage and personalize learning for students.  I"m hoping this is a time we can learn from each other about what has worked well and what hasn't. I've meant to give you opportunities like this earlier in the year at staff meetings, but there just hadn't been time.

Some reminders about district staff development this week. There is all day ELA and Integrated Units of Inquiry for grades 5th (Tuesday), 3rd (Wednesday) and 4th (Thursday) at River Crest in room 201. On Friday North Hudson Elementary has an All School Meeting at 3:50pm. There still is time to turn in Celebration Reports for students to be honored on Friday. We're 15 away from our next benchmark:  120 students recognized.

As we move into December, I am again sharing an article from the Anti Defamation League with tips on navigating teaching in December: "The December Dilemma". You'll see under the school assemblies paragraph, steps we've taken with our All School Sing Along over the years to implement some of their recommendations.

Thankful

This morning I was reading the St. Paul Pioneer Press, and it had the "Big Thanks from Little People" edition in the Sunday Life section. There were a couple pieces of writing submitted by Hudson Prairie students. The image below especially got me thinking about the many things I'm thankful for like having healthy grandparents, parents, a wife and children.

I've also been fortunate enough to work with colleagues who each day put the needs of their students first while supporting one another. Wishing you all a Thanksgiving break with the ones you love, and time to reflect on the blessings in your life!

Planning Next Steps with Running Records or the Continuums

Classroom Teachers,

On Monday you'll have flexibility to use your Day 6 time to plan core instruction with your team, differentiate for students who need extension/reteaching or learn together as a grade level. When using the protocol, you can choose one of the three areas to work on. Feel free to use the math protocol instead, if you are ready to pre-plan for an upcoming math unit.

Our staff meeting on Tuesday will be for classroom teachers. K-2 teachers will meet in the media center with a focus on running records. Please bring your materials from the most recent ELA district staff development. We'll review how to infuse running records into your guided reading lessons, and give you time to decide which running record format you feel the most comfortable with. The remainder of the staff meeting time will be spent getting running records copied so you'll be ready to move forward with them. Kelli Hedlund will also be able to help those of you who want to use the running record app to assess your students.

Intermediate teachers will meet in the art classroom. Please be ready to plan using the F+P Continuum, MAP Continuum or the Decartes Reading Vocabulary by RIT. Think about what resource you included in your SLO action plan. You will also be able to use this time for making copies of materials needed either for future whole group or guided reading lessons. Amanda McCarthy or I'll will be available to assist your teams.

Under the PBIS tab, I have included a powerful article published in the Washington Post in regards to students with lagging social/emotional skills. It is a nice companion piece to the information I shared in an earlier blog.

SLO Reviews Begin on Friday

On Friday I will begin reviewing SLOs with individual classroom teachers during Day 6 collaboration time. These meetings will be around 15 minutes long, and Sue will send out a schedule later this week. If you haven't already, remember to submit your SLO to me through mylearningplan at least a day prior to our meeting. Specialists and special educators please set up a 15 minute meeting with me through Sue to review your SLO from November 10-21.

This week we have some items to remember. The Hudson High School Swing Choir will be performing for us at 2:15pm in the gym tomorrow. There will be no second recesses Monday because of this event. Three of our grade levels have professional development this week. On Wednesday Kindergarten has ELA PD in the am and First Grade has ELA PD in the pm at River Crest Elementary:  Room 201. On Thursday second grade has a full day PD regrading ELA and integrated units of study also at River Crest:  Room 201. Here is the link to our 2014-2015 PD Calendar. The building Tier I PBIS team is also meeting on Thursday at 8:05am in the conference room.

At our staff meeting this Tuesday we will have a little time to reflect on conference scheduling and conferences. For the benefit of year two teachers (probationary and continuing) I'll go over the student survey component of our evaluation system that is due mid December. At the end of the meeting, there will be time for a couple business items I need to cover.

Focus For Classroom Visits

Teachers,

After Steve Dunn returned to provide staff development around Writers' Workshop and the nonfiction reading strategies of summarizing and paraphrasing. There were a few high impact strategies I wanted to focus on when giving feedback in quick visits during the upcoming months.

1) The continued use of clear learning targets for mini-lessons that students interact with.

2) Frequent use of pair shares to allow teachers to assess students' thinking and increase engagement. There are three levels of pair share experiences.

• Level One:  one word answer or thumbs up/thumbs down
• Level Two:  a complete sentence answer
• Level Three:  an explain your thinking/defend your answer (think why or how cues)

3) The use of the gradual release process without skipping the guided practice phase. The following link has a nice visual to remember all four steps. Gradual Release of Responsibility This visual uses the language demonstration instead of think aloud and shared practice in place of think together. 

These are all high impact strategies as a staff we've implemented, but we can continue to get better at our utilization of these strategies. Feel free to let me know which of these strategies you'd like the most feedback on. 

This Thursday our Day 6 collaboration will be focused on progress monitoring and making decisions on what students need Tier II reading or math interventions. 

The MAP Continuum

FYI:  On Wednesday, the lock down drill will occur at 10:45am. 

During Day 6 collaboration on Tuesday, we will take a look at your classroom's MAP reading data. I will have the class breakdown reports by goal for each classroom teacher. This report will allow us to look at students' current instructional level through the MAP assessment lens. 

The MAP assessment provides its own learning continuum. Through going through this process on Tuesday, it is my hope you'll see how this information aligns with the F + P continuum, allowing you to also use this resource to plan for your next steps in reading instruction. Here's a link to the MAP Website.

Please view my short webcast below for a little front-loading before our Day 6 Collaboration.

Day 6 Collaboration and Conferences

Classroom Teachers:

Tomorrow at your Day 6 Collaboration, you'll have the flexibility to focus on Tier I instruction, Tier II or your own learning. I have placed in the your Google Doc Day 6 folder the following template to guide your work:  Day 6 Protocol. Each Day 6 please make a copy of this protocol and rename it with that day's date within your Day 6 folder. Then focus on the area of need your team feels is the most important on that day.


Also leading into Parent/Teacher Conferences, I wanted you to have some helpful assessment information/resources shared by Ann Mitchell. Please know it is not my expectation you discuss PALS and MAP data at conferences. Especially for those of you just learning about these assessments for the first time this fall. These reports will go home in first trimester report cards.

PALS Parent Letter sample

NWEA MAP Talking Points for conferences

NWEA MAP Parent Letter (results)

How do I share assessment information with parents/guardians?

Hudson student-parent-teacher conferences should be meaningful conversations focused on student strengths, struggles, and next steps in learning. We want students to know themselves as learners, to understand steps they can take to practice areas of struggle, and to share goals with parents to help them focus their efforts.

Be thoughtful about using fall assessment data to communicate student learning with parents. Whether referencing NWEA MAP, F&P, PALS, or other assessments, please consider sharing the following:

§  Specific areas of strength and struggle (rather than a score or level). Highlight with students and for parents steps each can take to support the student making progress in their learning.

§  Explain the value of the assessment as an instructional tool designed to help you (the teacher) plan the best (literacy) instruction for their child.

§  If helpful to parents, provide an overview of the tasks that are assessed, the benchmark scores associated with each task, and the scores obtained by their child.

§  Identify the literacy instruction you have in place, and how you are planning to address their child's strengths and needs as indicated by the assessment.

§  With a focus on literacy and reading, encourage parents or siblings of emergent readers to read with each other, sing songs and rhymes, look through pictures in a book, and so on. Encourage parents of all students to explore books with their children, expand into a variety of genres, and talk about what they read.

If you are looking for additional guidance on how to conduct productive, literacy-rich meetings with parents, view the following webinar that is available on DPI’s Read Wisconsin (www.readwisconsin.net) website here.

The The Continuum of Literacy Learning and Planning for Guided Reading

Staff,

During this week's staff meeting, you'll have time to look at the current guided reading groups you've developed through the lens of the F+P Continuum of Literacy Learning. Please bring your groupings to this meeting.

On Tuesday turn to the guided reading tab/area of your continuum and focus on behaviors and understandings to notice, teach and support (within, beyond and about the text) within the specific instructional levels you'll be using with your reading groups. I'll have a graphic organizer available to assist you with your planning.

I also wanted to remind you of the Planning for Word Work after Guided Reading section found inside the guided reading area. These demonstration ideas can assist you in putting word work in context while allowing students to apply these skills.

Finally each instructional level within the guided reading section lists suggestions for selecting guided reading texts, as well as the characteristics of these texts at each instructional level. I'm looking forward to our time together to dig more deeply into this resource while planning for guided reading.

Using MAP Assessment Data to Personalize Instruction

With the MAP assessment available at every grade level in our building, we now have a common assessment to personalize instruction. For primary teachers who are new to the MAP assessment, here are some of the ways MAP assessments can be utilized.

1.  Inform instruction using the data to focus for individual goals and small group instruction.

2. Monitor growth over time. This year our school district will now be using the same assessment from K-8th grade. This can enable us to look at expected growth and if students are meeting their growth targets.  One of our reading SMART Goal targets this year is that 55% of the students meet their fall-spring growth target.  You may decide to have an SLO goal similar to this SMART Goal target. To learn more about MAP growth targets check out this article. MAP Growth Targets 

3.  Screen students to look at who may need an intervention or extension.

4.  Communicate to families how their child performed in the areas of reading and math against students from across the United States using this nationally normed assessment.

What's new?
MAP Learning Continuum takes place of the old Descartes. The previous link will take you to the MAP log in page. After you log in, you will be taken directly to the continuum. Between the F+ P continuum and the MAP Learning Continuum, you'll have two superb resources for personalizing small group reading instruction.  There will be staff meeting time in October set aside to explore this resource together and learn how it can help our students. 

Rit to Resource app is great for families to learn about their child's RIT score and links to free instructional resources aligned to the CCSS at their level.

Finally in the instructional coaching tips tab, I have included a link to a blended learning blog Amanda McCarthy shared. If you are one of the teachers in the building diving into blended learning, you may find this blog useful. 

I have also included one Best Practice Observation from last week, check it out under the Best Practice Tab. 

Readers Workshop Launching Supports

During professional development at our staff meeting on Tuesday, we will be focusing on increasing guided reading for our at and above grade level readers and digging into the continuum to personalize guided reading instruction. Please bring your continuum to the staff meeting, student reading data and any guided reading scheduling you've started. At our late start start on Thursday, you'll learn about the differences between assessing to the independent compared to the instructional level. The late start is located at EP Rock Elementary and Amy Wise and Amanda McCarthy will be leading you through this staff development.

Seeing you are in the midst of launching your Readers Workshop blocks, I wanted to remind you of some resources students can access for authentic literacy activities while you are working with guided reading groups

The Daily Five
Intro to Intermediate Daily Five Video
The Purpose Behind the Daily Five Activities

After looking at these resources, please think back on the work we did with the media resources, and what literacy purposes they align with in regards to the last link above. Here is a link back to our media page Media Resources. Remember the username and password is northhudsonel.

Kids Do Well If They Can

This past summer, Heather Mathews shared a very good article about students who were lacking thinking skills which impacted their emotions and behavior. The article resonated with me when reflecting on some of the most challenging students we've worked to support and teach at North Hudson.  I found the specific list of lagging skills shared in this article helpful when trying identify the cause of the behaviors we've observed. Here is a link to the article Kids Do Well If They Can. This article is an excerpt from the book Lost at School. There is a copy in our professional library if anyone is interested in reading more. Below is a video by the author Ross Greene discussing the two factors at play that can bring challenging behaviors to the surface: lagging skills and an environment demanding those skills.

Classroom teachers, I have shared with you a PBIS All School Celebration Google Doc. All School Celebration Ideas Sometime this week, please brainstorm with your class three ideas for All School Celebrations and add your ideas to the document. Once we have a Student Council elected, Mrs. Strop will work with them to decide on three final choices to celebrate their good behavior earned through acknowledgement tickets. Last year a couple of the PBIS celebrations were roller skating and snow stations.

Remember we have a Building Forum on Tuesday at 8:05am, and I have scheduled our first fire drill for Friday, September 19th at 9:15am.

Starting Our Blended Learning

North Hudson Staff,

Thank you for all the hard work getting our students off to a great start! Staff that can, please help out with transitioning our new Kindergarten students from Door #6 into the building at 8:45am. K-2 Classroom teachers, continue to assist your walkers to the front of the building at the end of the day.

At this week's staff meeting, we will be digging into media center online resources available for literacy stations during Reader's Workshop. Some of the resources could also support Integrated Units of Study. The following link will give you access to our media center webpage where these programs are located. Online Resources for Blended Learning Opportunities. You and your students can access the following programs using this username:  northhudsonel and password:  northhudsonel (book/true/science/freedom flix, brainpop/brainpop jr, pepple go and grolier online).

During the staff meeting please dig into these resources, list the reasons you may use some of the resources and when/where (e.g. literacy choice in Reader's Workshop or for researching during Integrated Units). Here's a link to the google doc we'll use to record your ideas. Online Media Resources Brainstorming Document. Please bring your laptop or ipad to the staff meeting. This will allow you to become more familiar with these programs, and how you may use them in the content areas mentioned above or other areas such as Writer's Workshop.

2nd-5th grade teachers, you should have received a link with your Scootpad account information. To log in use your school email as your username, and your temporary password is changeme. I thought some of you may be interested in looking at how you could potentially use this online literacy/math site.

Inspiring Focus for 2014-2015

North Hudson Elementary Staff. Welcome to my new blog. I'll be using this as a resource for profession learning and a communication tool for business items. Thank you so much for all your preparation getting ready for our students and the positive energy brought to our welcome back staff meeting. I've embedded two links to allow further reflection on  Our Whys and Merging Teacher, District and Student Visions.

With our refocused energy on reading, I thought you might enjoy Weird Al's most recent music video with his own take on why literacy.

During the school year, I will be using the tabs above for general business items, best practices I observe in classrooms, coaching tips and next steps in supporting the whole child through PBIS. Currently the only tab with information is the building update tab showing how to set up the door jar during a lock down drill.  Below is a book shelf of some instructional resources I've found very useful over the years.