Curr culum Leadersh p

CurrculumLeadersh p Fall ‘11 ADMN 6140 Class #8

Objectives • Discuss exam experience • Assess the usefulness of task analysis in lesson planning/classroom instructional alignment • Discuss assessment best practices • Discuss and assess the principal’s role in TIA

Housekeeping • Time to start Googling those 50 Key People and Ideas • Questions/Concerns about CA project?

For Next Week • Standing on the Shoulders of Giants • Time to start Googling those 50 Key People and Ideas

Let’s talk about the Exam

http://kathyschrock.net/googleblooms/

Align Instructional Practices: Task Analysis

Task Analysis • Determine the learning goal • Ensure understanding of the goal • Identify the learning steps (prerequisite knowledge and behaviors) • Establish a logical order for the instruction

1. 2. 3. 4, 5. 6 Task Analysis Activity: Science The student will be able to create a classification system for all the shoes in his house 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12.

1. 2. 3. 4, 5. 6 Task Analysis Activity: Social Studies The student will be able to discuss the causes of the current economic recession. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12.

1. 2. 3. 4, 5. 6 Task Analysis Activity: Math The student will be able to successfully solve the following equation 2X + 3 = 11 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12.

Determine the learning goal Ensure understanding of the goal Identify the learning steps (prerequisite knowledge and behaviors) Establish a logical order for the instruction Why do a task analysis?

Align Assessment Step IV Developing Aligned Assessments

Guskey on AssessmentEductional LeadershipFebruary 2003 | Volume 60 | Number 5 Using Data to Improve Student Achievement The assessments best suited to guide improvements in student learning are the quizzes, tests, writing assignments, and other assessments that teachers administer on a regular basis in their classrooms To use assessments to improve instruction and student learning, teachers need to change their approach to assessments in three important ways:

Guskey on AssessmentEductional LeadershipFebruary 2003 | Volume 60 | Number 5 Using Data to Improve Student Achievement • Make Assessments Useful: For Students Classroom assessments that serve as meaningful sources of information don't surprise students. These concepts, skills, and criteria align with the teacher's instructional activities and, ideally, with state or district standards. Critics sometimes contend that this approach means "teaching to the test.“ … Instead of "teaching to the test," teachers are more accurately "testing what they teach."

Guskey on AssessmentEductional Leadership February 2003 | Volume 60 | Number 5 Using Data to Improve Student Achievement • Make Assessments Useful: For Teachers The best classroom assessments also serve as meaningful sources of information for teachers, helping them identify what they taught well and what they need to work on. Teachers need only make a simple tally of how many students missed each assessment item or failed to meet a specific criterion Once teachers have made specific tallies, they can pay special attention to the trouble spots—those items or criteria missed by large numbers of students in the class. If teachers find no obvious problems with the item or criterion, then they must turn their attention to their teaching. Can effective teaching take place in the absence of learning? Certainly not.

Guskey on AssessmentEductional Leadership February 2003 | Volume 60 | Number 5 Using Data to Improve Student Achievement • Follow Assessments with Corrective Instruction If assessments provide information for both students and teachers, then they cannot mark the end of learning. Instead, assessments must be followed by high-quality, corrective instruction designed to remedy whatever learning errors the assessment identified (see Guskey, 1997). High-quality, corrective instruction is not the same as reteaching. Instead, the teacher must use approaches that accommodate differences in students' learning styles and intelligences (Sternberg, 1994) [S]tructured professional development opportunities can help teachers share strategies and collaborate on teaching techniques (Guskey, 1998, 2000b).

Guskey on AssessmentEductional Leadership February 2003 | Volume 60 | Number 5 Using Data to Improve Student Achievement • Give Second Chances to Demonstrate Success To become an integral part of the instructional process, assessments cannot be a one-shot, do-or-die experience for students. [S]tudents should have a second chance to demonstrate their new level of competence and understanding. Some teachers express concern that giving students a second chance might be unfair and that "life isn't like that.” Only in schools do student face the prospect of one-shot, do-or-die assessments, with no chance to demonstrate what they learned from previous mistakes.

Aligned Classroom Assessments • Am I using a variety of assessments? • Am I assessing exactly what I told the students they should be able to know and do? • Do my assessments give me data on how well my students are learning AND on how I am teaching? • Am I assessing at all levels of the cognitive domain and at the same level as my objectives? How does a leader best facilitate/assure the process?

Align Leadership Step V The Role of the Principal

Step I: Are You Convinced? • Leading and managing Curriculum, Instruction, and Learning, and Assessment: Whose job? • Looking at the Oct 15 Survey: What is the Instructional Leadership status quo? • Why is the status quo so bleak?

My Principal is not involved with lesson planning, classroom assessments, and grading procedures at all. She has never attended our planning sessions but she is a phenomenal delegator (if that’s a word). She makes the literacy and math facilitators attend all of our planning sessions. During those planning sessions we mostly talk about district mandates, and hardly ever look at student work and discuss things that we are actually going to teach. The principal does not check our lesson plans either and never questions our assessments/grading procedures. My principal asks to review lesson plans for 1 week once a year & gives us little feedback. He also requests a copy of our lesson plans from when he does an observation or walk through and he sometimes gives us feedback in regard to our activities or differentiation within the lesson plans. He does not look at classroom assessments or grading procedures, but he does require our grade level to create common assessments for end of units. 1.) Principal has never requested copies of lesson plans- does not require them to be turned in, does not ask to see them during walk-thrus or formal observations or during summative conferences. 2.) Principal has never seen a copy of any of my tests or asked to see one. 3.) Principal does not ask about how teachers determine student grades unless their are specific issues (usually parent complaint). Overall grading policy set by county, although we have some wiggle room because the individual teacher has the choice of what category (tests, classwork, or quiz) to assign a particular activity to. This is the case with all administrators- neither APs, Academic Coach, or Principal are involved in planning, assessment, or grading procedures. I have had 2 different principals during my 9 years of teaching and neither of them were involved at all in my lesson planning or classroom assessments. The only involvement they had in my grading procedures were to tell me that I had to follow the county policy on weight of my tests, quizzes, and homework. When I was observed I turned in lesson plans, but I was never given any feedback about how my plans were written and how I could improve on it. Some assistant principals that I was assigned to required that I turn in lesson plans to them on a weekly basis, but I never received any feedback on any of them. My principal asks for one week worth of lessons in the beginning of the year. As long as you have your whole teams lessons in one notebook before first progress reports you doing fine. I'm sure she looks at them and gives feedback to those who need it but I haven't seen anything on my end. It is now my fourth year and I think she has actually looked at one or two of my lesson plans and I can't recall any feedback. As for classroom assessments she isn't involved in them at all. Same can be said for the grading procedures.

Step II: Personal Choices • Doing what’s right vs. tradition vs. convenience: Why is it so hard? • Can you resist the system-in-place = GOB/GOG? • Take Some Risks: CO approval not required!

Step III: Patience with a long Memory • Impossible to implement this process as an AP/Intern. • Almost impossible as an AP • Developing the Critical Mass to move forward • Confront the Brutal Facts, but do not place blame • Dangers of teacher-elected/led teams • Characteristics of high performing team members • When do you move forward?

Step IV: Make it About the Research • No room for: “I believe,” “I feel,” “I think” • From administrators or teachers • Base it on the research and best practices • TIA as a book study • Effective Schools Research Link • Invite questioning, but keep it to R/BP • Find benchmark schools (Anson County, etc) • Visit before you begin • Ask the hard questions

Step V: Using the System-in-Placeto Change the System-in-Place • Staff Meetings: Not just for information • SIP/SIT: Include TIA as an SIP Goal • Teacher Evaluation: Teacher Leadership is Standard #1 – USE IT • IGP:Strongly suggest that teachers include TIA goal on IGP • PLCs/Department Meetings: Horizontal and vertical alignment within grades and departments • Use the Common Core to crack the door

Step VI: Play the Long Game • This is a 2-3 year process • Rejuvenate at conferences consistent with TIA • Celebrate small successes • Fund it yourself the first year – then approach the CO for help • Induct new teachers each year into the process • Develop a plan for involving schools above and below in the process • Use semi-autonomous team concept • Teams can work without your control, but reporting to you and leadership team is required at regular intervals

For Next Week • Standing on the Shoulders of Giants • Time to start Googling those 50 Key People and Ideas

Curr culum Leadersh p