Physical Space Makes a Difference

Empowered Collaborative Learners
One of the things we believe in for our students is the need to be collaborative learners.  Problem solving and creativity rarely happen as solely an individual pursuit. We are social creatures who depend on others for so many things including our learning.  Our vision for learning requires a different kind of space to support the interactive, messy, sometimes chaotic, always changing, and noisy process that is learning. So, how do we support this type of student learning?

Team-Based Professional Development
Professional development, is certainly part of changing the learning environment.  Learning for adults mirrors the type of learning we want for students. We are team based with 3 hours of collaborative PD time in each week. K-12 teams and grade level/content area teams meet weekly. This supports our professional learning community (PLC) model where teachers own the learning and decide the direction they need to take to work towards our district vision.

Setting team goals, viewing and giving feedback on instruction and discussing articles and student work require a collaborative space. As our PD model has become more entrenched, teacher teams naturally started gravitating to rooms where there were tables instead of desks. They went where there were comfortable chairs on wheels and spaces that were more open.  They started asking for different types of furniture in their own rooms. Now, all our team meetings happen in rooms with no student desks (and we still have plenty of rooms that have student desks yet - finances are still a reality).

The Difference Furniture Can Make
The furniture in a learning space says a lot about what you believe learning should look like. If desks are all placed in rows, it says, "No talking. Be Quiet. Listen" Likewise, when furniture is arranged in groups, it communicates something about cooperative learning. What does it say when there are a variety of types of furniture that are easily movable for students? We believe it says, "You have a choice. What type of setting is best for what you need to learn and accomplish?"

When it's a chore to move furniture, it rarely gets moved. If it does get moved, it is usually through a planned lesson on the teacher part where he/she allows the furniture to be moved. It's a chore and rarely spontaneous.

As we encourage students to take more ownership in their learning, to become empowered learners, it seem contradictory to say, "Now do it quietly in these nice rows of desks." Instead, flexibility in space and furniture has become key. Sometimes we need to sit and listen; sometimes we need to sit and work alone; many times we need to talk with others to do our best work. Our space design tried to take into account flexibility. We planned a variety of learning spaces with a variety of furniture to support student choice, comfort and need. The picture below is the furniture design for a collaboration space in our building.

Here's the actual picture of the collaboration space. Campfire seating (circular) lends itself to conversation. You should have heard these students (left) when they walked in the collaboration room as they prepared for the technology class. They were so excited to enter the room and they raced to the middle area seating where they just started talking about their projects. No one wanted to be left out. Some pulled up chairs to join. Besides this campfire seating there is a high top table with 8 seats, three white board tables that can be grouped to seat 6, there are two soft seating groupings in the room, bean bags and easily movable stools.

Thinking About Unique Learning Spaces
When you envision a place for your teachers to collaborate and learn, how does the furniture support that?  This space pictured to the right was too small to be a classroom, and is just off the collaboration space pictured above. This became a perfect place for adult learning resources. You might not notice the technology access in the space. An interactive whiteboard, Apple TV, mobile devices, and Swivl recording devices are all housed here. Yes, there's a treadmill in the PLC Room for teachers to use while they watch video, read, learn or just have down time (desk for it is being designed by our high school shop class). The furniture can be easily moved from the sofa look to a campfire look.

The lobby space has had a variety of furniture in it over the past 7 years I've been here. It has always been a congregation place for students. Various pieces of furniture have come and gone in the space. As students gave input on the types of furniture they preferred, one high top table seating 8-10 students (instead of shorter, smaller tables) is the main seating area in our lobby. Along with a long sofa piece and a smaller grouping of soft chairs, the lobby is a hub for student learning throughout the day.

When thinking about the types of learning experiences students need to be regularly engaging with as 21st century learners, collaborative problem solvers is surely part of the mix. With just a couple of furniture changes made in these existing spaces, we are already starting to see our students gravitating toward these spaces. It supports the feel of our building that learning happens everywhere.

My Learning on Dyslexia

The state of Iowa added a definition of dyslexia into code last spring, and it's bringing attention to the learning disability in public schools.  Really I'd liken it to an awareness similar to that of recognizing how many cars of a particular type are on the road once I bought one. Now that there is a definition in code for it, I'm surprised by how many resources there are (and aren't, in most cases) for dyslexia.

My journey started a couple of months ago when I attended a Decoding Dyslexia Iowa evening event. I was an educator-listener attending with my friend who has a dyslexic child; I was support for her. I was also prepared to be in defender of public schools. While there were moments that I felt those hairs on the back of my neck stand up, most of the evening was spent sharing information and seeing schools as partners (yay!). It was helping parents understand that schools had no training in specific strategies to use with dyslexic students and that information and training was a key part in helping the child.

While I believe strongly in partnerships between home and school, I left that meeting thinking that it shouldn't be on parents to educate me or my teachers. As an instructional leader, I should take on the responsibility of understanding it more and deciding how I can best help my team to address the learning needs of students who may be dyslexic. So that's what really started my journey. I didn't want to be the school leader that told some parent, "Because your child learns in different ways, we can't help him/her."

While this post is far from a complete, all-you-need-to-know description of dyslexia, I hope that sharing my learning may help someone else in their journey. There are students we know are there, but aren't reaching well enough. Understanding dyslexia may help some of those students.

To start, these two videos have been helpful for me to understand what dyslexia is and why I should care. This short video explains the brain research behind dyslexia. It doesn't get overly complicated, even though it talks about the neurology behind the disability. Another much longer video (50 minutes), is a documentary that does a nice job of putting faces, families and feelings to the learning struggles. It also talks about what it is and what we can do to make a difference.

I also appreciate simple FAQ's for starting to understand a topic. The International Dyslexia Association offers this set of questions and answers to help. The response to my burning question about how do I help students with dyslexia comes in a simple and extremely complex answer, "multi-sensory approach to teaching." That's my next step in this journey to understand dyslexia.

More to come...

K-12 Writing Resource

Teaching writing is never a quick and easy process. One idea that may help teachers and students can be found in collaborative conversations around student work using a common tool. Achievethecore.org has a series of writing samples annotated with the language of the standards. Teachers and students at various grade levels can read the student work samples and see the notes left by experts in the field highlighting examples and non-examples of the standards in action. Teachers and students alike can discuss what makes some pieces of writing better than another. Collaboration amongst teachers around these tools could really help transfer the learning from discussions into instructional changes that could be made to help students avoid common pitfalls. It could also help infuse the language of the standards into writing instruction with samples of work to support the conversation as models.

http://achievethecore.org/page/507/in-common-effective-writing-for-all-students

Start CCSS Now with These Ideas

How many changes in literacy instruction have happened over the years? Whole Language, Guided Reading, Daily Five and CRISS strategies along with many more have circulated through our professional development catalogs. What is the Common Core saying about it now. Is it guided reading and instructional level, or is it grade level text, whole group? My time at the CCSSO materials work group this week in Chicago left me with a lot of great ideas about where to start in the work of implementing the Common Core literacy standards. It starts, like with all things, with great teaching. How can I help teachers implement these strategies?

Text Dependent Questions
I'm not proud of this, but it's true; I got through high school without reading a book all the way through. I'm convinced now it was because of the lack of text dependent questions. If we really want students to grapple with more complex levels of texts, we have to ask them to interact with the text in ways that actually makes them read it! Sounds simple, I know. Look at the examples and non examples from the Council of Great City Schools below. Makes a world of difference. Join the Edmodo online community sponsored by the Council under Basil alignment study to learn more about writing text dependent questions yourself.

Guided Reading with Accountable Independent Reading (GRAIR)
Our teachers are learning how to address grade level standards with students who are above and below grade level. Our approach up until now for differentiation was accomplished by guided reading were students used "instructional level" texts to learn reading skills. The Common Core talks of complex texts for all students, so how we do help our weaker readers with these grade level skills? Authors David and Meredith Liben would suggest to use, "Both And..."  Their white paper outlines components of a literacy program, but my favorite part of the work is the appendix where a teacher can see an outline of things to do in the classroom to implement both a guided reading approach and a whole group grade level standards approach to instruction. Don't miss this part!

Be intentional about what is intended for independent reading and what is intended for grade level instruction. Independent level text has a place in a child's reading experience to help them build fluency. Scaffolds for grade level, complex texts must exist to provide all children with an opportunity to learn the core standards. Close reading is one great example of how to provide student multiple opportunities to interact with the same text to get at deeper levels of understanding. This is what we've missed in our guided reading literacy instruction in the past. Weaker readers were taught were lower levels texts, and therefore, were rarely/never exposed to more demanding types of interactions with the text. The gap just widens for them.

Fluency Practice
Remember that to build fluency, students should be able to read the text independently. Teacher guidance in helping student pick books they are interested in and that will be a good fit for their reading level is sometimes a challenge. There are tools out there to help navigate text complexity. CCSSO has a site to help.  For secondary classrooms especially, there is a lack of fluency materials for practice and progress monitoring. Check out the fluency packets for students in grades 4-12 on achievethecore.org.


Materials for the Common Core
No one resource or one publisher will be able to address all of the standards and instructional changes the Common Core demands, at least according to all the speakers at this week's CCSSO Instructional Materials work group meeting. Instructional changes can be made to help prepare students as we sort through the materials questions. I hope some of the above strategies/pedagogical shifts help. To skip the issue of quality instructional materials wouldn't be a fair representation of the conference, however.  So, I thought I'd link just two free online resources for curriculum that came up over and over again:

EngageNY: http://www.engageny.org/english-language-arts
Core Knowledge: http://www.coreknowledge.org/ckla

It's also worth mentioning that SCASS is putting together text sets which are a series of books on the same topic to help students to make meaning from multiple texts, not just comprehend the texts as individual books. This helps get at more non-fiction (50% goal for elementary in the Core) but building knowledge from a series a non-fiction texts. Their work is still to come, but I'm anxious to have it released later this year.

English Language Arts instruction in the age of the Common Core is complex work. I have more questions than I do answers, but hope some of these notes have helped. Understanding the complexity of ELA is the work my district is embarking up now; more work to come.

Open Educational Resources (OER)

If it's free, can it be any good?

Bill Schmidt from Michigan State talks about the majority of teachers go to textbooks as their first resource a majority of the time. Then they go to supplemental resources. As we continue to move away from mass textbook adoptions in my district, questions arise about quality of open source materials.  Teachers feel overwhelmed in creating everything on their own. How do we know what we find online is of quality though?

Open Educational Resources (OER) are readily available and many states are individually tackling the issue of quality.  The CCSSO hopes that this work start to come together and states share the load, but in the meantime, there are a variety of places teachers can go to get a sense for quality open educational resources. In listen to these states talk about their work at today's conference, each would give caution to considering a few things before blindly accepting their evaluations and resources.

First step before evaluating any tool? "You have to first understand the Common Core," said one state of Washington representative. "None of this works if you don't understand what you are evaluating or looking for," notes Sandra Alberti (@salberti) from Student Achievement Partners. The work is not around the score, it's around knowing the tool you are using (what criteria is uses to determine quality), knowing the terms and focus of the tool (different groups may look at the same resource differently), and then trusting the scores given (inter-rater reliability that comes through common training). Here are some sights that have evaluated different open educational resources. Don't reinvent the wheel, but be a savvy consumer.

Two sites for tools to use to evaluate any OER

http://www.achieve.org/oer-rubrics
http://www.oercommons.org/


Sites that have searchable resources based on evaluation (note: criteria used in evaluation may differ)
http://ioer.ilsharedlearning.org/ (Illinois)
http://digitallearning.k12.wa.us/oer/library (Washington)
http://myoer.org/index.php (South Dakota)


I wrote this post from my learning at the CCSSO Instructional Materials work group held in Chicago on March 12, 2014. I represent the state of Iowa on this work group and hope to provide one district's perspective to common issues teachers face when implementing the Iowa Core.

Resources for Implementing the Common Core

I was asked to represent my state on a subcommittee of the CCSSO, Textbook Work Group for the Common Core. Immediately my response was, "Are you sure you want ME?" I am in a district that hasn't purchased a textbook for grades 6-12 in over 5 years as we continue to implement the 1:1 technology initiative that is starting to spread around our state. The DE assured me that was very much the reason they wanted me to attend - to share the perspective from an integrated technology approach.

So off to Chicago. Within 60 minutes of the start of the meeting, I had my first major aha! that caused me to write. It will seem simple, I know. Others have already done this too, I know. I'm behind sometimes, I know. Here it is: Materials adoptions - and all the resources, rubrics and meetings that go with them - should be just one small outcome of professional development, not the end itself. All the tools we talked about and processes that states were using really comes back to the idea that teachers have an opportunity to understand the Common Core standards and what they mean. Purchasing materials is just this one little result of a much bigger purpose. Instead of thinking about how I could get a team of teachers to give up their time to help me decide which materials to purchase, we should all embark on a better understanding of the Common Core and learn which tools we have and need to support the implementation as part of professional development.

With this new found lens for my learning, I have sought to capture some of the resources and my ideas for their use. If nothing else, I can come back to this post myself as I prepare to help teachers with curriculum, instruction and assessment.


From the people at Student Achievement Partners comes an amazing website of tools (Achievethecore.org) to help teachers and administrators consider ways to improve practice. One such tool stood out to me as my district continues to learn about Authentic Intellectual Work (AIW) in collaborative teams (PLC's). Instructional Practice Guides could be used by an individual teacher for reflection (daily lesson) and planning (year-long guide). But I can also see them as a tool for conversation in collaborative teams using and AIW approach and protocols. Having teachers "score" the instructional practices of a peer could be really beneficial for the implementation of the Common Core. It would take a collaborative culture in your building to use these tools in this way, but I really think teachers could see this as more meaningful than the broader AIW standards.

• Instructional Practices Guides - High School Example for a lesson reflection (daily) http://achievethecore.org/content/upload/InstructionalPracticeGuide_MATH_HS_D_09192013.pdf
• Instructional Practice Guide - K-2 Year long example http://achievethecore.org/content/upload/instructional_practice_guide_y_ela_k-2.pdf

The EQuIP rubric (from Achieve) was created by a few states coming together to work on a tool to reflect on lesson and unit design. I like tools for teachers that allow them to reflect upon smaller chunks of their craft at a time. Thinking about overhauling a course or a year is just too much. Starting small is often the best way to get big change to happen. This rubric is something I plan on sharing with teachers who are ready to consider that next step in improving their instruction - lesson design.

• EQuIP rubric to evaluate and reflect on lessons and units - http://www.achieve.org/EQuIP

Sometimes the best place to start is to see an example. It's hard to know how to change if you haven't seen it yet. I appreciate open source sites as a way to share and collaborate the work we are proud of. It doesn't always mean we will think it is our best in a year or two from now, but I think that's a true testament to learning. I plan on giving this link to teachers now to start conversations about similarities and differences between what they are finding here and what they are doing in their rooms. And they get to see it all unlike Teachers Pay Teachers. :-)

• Common Core aligned lessons submitted to open source educational website http://www.oercommons.org/realizing-the-promise-of-the-common-core-together

I appreciate calendars and proactive ways to communicate with various stakeholders. This calendar was created by the Council of Great City Schools and has a monthly list of questions to consider as you implement the Common Core. It's just another tool to help me think about and anticipate the questions that others may be asking.

• Calendar of Common Core questions to consider for the various roles in your building http://www.cgcs.org/cms/lib/DC00001581/Centricity/Domain/4/Calendar%20of%20Questions.pdf

Finally, the CCSSO launched an iTunes University page that includes courses designed to help states and districts implement the Common Core.

• Access it here. (You may need to open up iTunes first)

Student Achievement Partners (SAP) has developed several iTunes U courses intended to assist educator. http://www.achievethecore.org/page/432/itunes-u-courses-created-by-teachers-for-teachers 

There are more resources here than you can look through in one sitting and this certainly isn't the only set of resources available. I hope that this can be a reference page for the work of implementing the Common Core (or Iowa Core for my friends within my state).  I'll share updates as the CCSSO work group shares/creates them.

Portable Data Charts for Collaborative Teams

Why the Data Cards?
We are moving to an RtI framework in our district and part of that move requires better data use in our collaborative teams. Our collaborative teams of teachers (PLC's) have really started to use data in their results focused conversations, but often the data is too complicated to access or is housed in too many places. Sometimes, it's just having it on different screens on the computer that makes it difficult to really "see" how students are doing.

In an attempt to make the data more visible, accessible and concrete, the elementary instructional strategist (Janelle Thompson @janellejt) and I have come up with our portable data charts. We've used RtI colors (green, yellow and red) and incorporated them with our formative assessment tool, Skills Iowa, color coding (blue for exceeds standards).

In talking with other districts, there are some great ideas out there about how to make data more visible. We heard about designating a space for a data room, but we don't have space for that. We also heard about sticky notes that were moved across the wall, student pictures put in different categories, and other ideas that we took into account as we created our portable data charts. I'd like to tell you it's super complicated and we went all out cost wise to make the data charts, but alas, they are nothing more than pieces of construction paper laminated into one long chart. We move the student data cards around on the chart based on the instructional supports students need. We adhere them to the chart using "reposition glue" which makes paper into a sticky note. We decided against velcro because it was too expensive and it kept coming off. I'm sure good old masking tape could work too :-).

How to Create the Data Cards
To make the cards, we use an Excel spreadsheet merged into a Word project template. First, you need to get all your data into one place. Set up column headings in Excel that start with the student ID. This is helpful for data look up formulas you'll want to run to get all the data into one sheet (like VLOOKUP).

Once your data is housed on the same spreadsheet, open a Word document project gallery.  We selected labels and printed our data out onto blank business cards. The mail merge feature allowed us to bring our data onto the cards with a click of the button. We print last year's data on the card and teachers will write new scores on the card throughout the year as we complete district-wide assessments.

We used each student's photo from LifeTouch to make each student's data card more personal. For those students who were new to our district, we printed a picture to add to the card. I can't stress enough the importance of the pictures. It makes data mean so much more!

Using the Charts in PLC's
We use these charts in our PLC conversations (collaborative team time focused on student learning). Because we don't have a dedicated meeting space where the data can stay up, we fold up these charts after each meeting and clip them together with binder clips.  It's the binder clips I use on the command hooks in my office to hang the charts while we discuss student progress. The instructional strategists we have in our district are a huge help in using the charts and understanding the data. We are still working on their use consistently across grade levels. If you approach data in a similar way or are just starting to implement RtI like we are, be prepared for some questions like:

• When do we move kids from one color to the next?
• Whose job is it to deliver the interventions?
• What about those kids that are just on the line of being proficient? 
• How do we address students who may be proficient overall, but are missing a few key standards or skills?

Here's another article on the use of the data charts. More to come as learn more and as the secondary staff start to use them too. See page 5 of the ISFIS newsletter to read another explanation of the data charts.