Action Research Deployment Teams

1. Action Research Deployment Teams May - 2007

2. Agenda • Pulling it all together! • Best Practices/Improvement Theories • Team planning for continuous improvement • Workshop evaluation & planning for next year

5. (Your Department’s Mission Statement Here) (Your Department’sSMART Goals Here)

8. Random Acts of Improvement School Direction Goals and Measures School Direction Goals and Measures Aligned Acts of Improvement

9. Pre Planning: Identification of Need 1.Develop/Review Student Learning Expectations 2. Examine alignment of learning expectations with assessments 3. Review assessment data 4. Identify areas of need based on assessment Plan: 1. Describe the current process for addressing the identified area of need (flow chart) 2. Review data to determine baseline performance in the specific area identified (Run Chart/Pareto Diagram) 3. Identify potential root causes contributing to the identified area of need (Cause & Effect Diagram, 5 Why’s, Relations Diagram) 4. Study research-based best practice/improvement theory addressing areas of need Action Research Overview for Professional Learning Communities DO 1.Plan for implementation of improvement theory (Force Field Analysis, Action Plan) 2. Implement research-based best practices improvement theory based on root causes according to the Action Plan 3. Monitor the implementation of research-based best practice/improvement theory to insure integrity and fidelity4. Assess student learning Act: 1.Standardize the implementation of research-based best practice (improvement theory) that improved student learning (revise the flow chart to reflect changes made to the system) 2. If improvement theory was unsuccessful continue the PDSA cycle (try another improvement theory based on the next identified root causes) Study: 1. Examine student assessment results (compare to baseline) 2. Assess the impact of research-based best practice/improvement theory on student achievement

10. Top 3 Successes Top 3 Struggles Thinking about PDSA this past year… what’s in your “top 3”? What changes will be made to next year’s PDSA efforts?

11. Research Based Best Practices SEB

12. An Overview of CRCSD Social / Emotional/ Behavioral Components March, 2007

13. Basic Human Needsfrom William Glasser’s Control Theory • Survival • Love and belonging • Power • Freedom • Fun

14. Start with a Purpose in Mind • Glenn: Raising Self-Reliant Children in a Self-Indulgent World • “People with an internal locus of control have the following perceptions of themselves: ‘What happens to me is largely a result of the decisions I make and the effort I put forth. I believe I can usually find a way to work out problems or improve relationships, often by talking to people. I believe that a correlation exists between what I do and what happens to me, between the effort I put forth and the rewards I reap from life. And when I can’t influence what happens, I can still decide how I will let circumstances affect me’.”

15. Rothstein: Class and Schools • “Those personal qualities that we hold dear - resilience and courage in the face of stress, a sense of craft in our work, a commitment to justice and caring in our social relationships, a dedication to advancing the public good in our communal life - are exceedingly difficult to assess.”

16. “It used to be thought that the brain was hard-wired and that it didn’t change….(but) positive environments can actually produce physical changes in the developing brain”. • Frederick Goodwin- (Kotulak 1996, p. 46)

17. During the early years, children’s brains are undergoing a massive reorganization: • Building millions of new connections • Unused connections are pruned away “Which synapses are kept and which ones are pruned depends largely on whether they are reinforced by experience.” “Building the Reading Brain, PreK-3” Pat Wolfe and Pamela Nevills, 2004

18. Neuroplasticity….the ability of the human brain to sculpt itself based on its experiences. • Teachers provide these experiences through structured social, academic, interactive work and play.

19. Today….consensus tells us that anywhere from 40-70% of our brain’s wiring is provided by environmental impact depending on what trait or behavior is being considered….“Teaching With the Brain in Mind”,Eric Jensen, 1998

20. Social / Emotional / Behavioral (SEB) Learning links academic achievement with skills necessary for succeeding in school and in life through….. • Enhancing social, emotional, and academic skills (capacities) • Teaching skills and providing for application in supportive, caring learning environments • Providing opportunities and practice CASEL (Collaborative for Social and Emotional Learning) website

22. STEP 1 • Assess the current status: Do we have a system? • Are all the components present in all classrooms/learning environments? • Are the components fully deployed? • How would we know?

23. STEP 2 • What do the data tell us are the most in need of improvement? • Satisfaction and enthusiasm survey • SWIS aggregate data • Building surveys • Staff observation • Report card SEB ratings • Other

24. STEP 3 • Select an improvement theory • What component would we as a staff want to get fully deployed, with fidelity and integrity, in order to get better results?

25. STEP 4 • Implement the improvement theory • Training through summer workshops, modules, collegial leadership and coaching, supports • Keep implementation data

26. STEP 5 • Check the results • After time for the strategy to work, what do we see in results? • What do new data tell us?

27. STEP 6 • Institutionalize the strategy • Expect its use in every learning setting • Help new staff implement the strategy and understand the rationale for it

28. STEP 7 • Determine appropriate interventions for students who demonstrate the need for more intense supports

29. Procedures • Building-wide expectations • Direct teaching of procedures • Student input regarding procedures • Menu of choices • SWIS system and office referrals

30. Agenda

31. Class Meetings / Community Circle • Structured opportunity for all students to be included • Goal setting • Teaching procedures • Problem solving • Conducting class business meetings • Reflection

32. Common Language / Social Skills Instruction • 5 Report card guidelines • Teach through: target talk, posters, literature, community circle, multiple attributes, assemblies, Tribes® strategies and energizers, modeling • Social Skills: Skills for Growing, Boys Town, Lifeling Guidelines / Lifeskills, Character Counts, Tribes® agreements, Skillstreaming, Second Step

33. Problem Solving / Conflict Resolution • Direct teaching of skills • Community circle / class meetings • Re-teaching • Teacher intervention • Administrative intervention

34. Data Driven Decisions • Class data centers • Student data folders • Student input • Office referrals • Suspensions

35. Quality Tools • Continuous PDSA in relationships, climate • Action Research Team work

36. Differentiation Strategies • Core instruction • IDM process • Grouping strategies • Adjustments for individual needs • Interventions

38. Where did those 8 components come from? …and numerous other research-based sources...

39. …all based on the following…

40. CASEL (The Collaborative for Social and Emotional Learning) website:www.casel.org • University of Illinois at Chicago • Has compiled hundreds of research studies in this area • Reviewed 80 SEB programs • Makes recommendations for schools based on findings from research • TRIBES® was one of the SEB programs chosen as a CASEL Select program based on its components

41. Some of their findings include: • Multi-year initiatives had more enduring benefits • School climate should be central focus • Should be infused into regular academic curriculum • Stand alone programs not as effective • Students should be engaged actively and experientially in learning process

42. TRIBES® is a group process that develops a positive environment to help promote human growth and learning. It is all about building community through 3 stages of group development, using a set of agreements. • This process is based on 30 years of human development and resiliency research.

43. Common language has been adopted by elementary schools and has been aligned with the report form.

44. From Class and Schools, by John Rothstein, p.96 • In a 1994 study by Johnson and Immerwahr: “over 2/3 of Americans said that teaching values was a role of public schools more important than teaching academic subjects” • In a recent survey, the highest ranked school purpose was “preparing responsible citizens” • An Illinois focus group study concluded “preparing good citizens, not academic achievement, was the most important goal of public schools

45. Research Based Best Practices Math

46. BIG IDEAS IN MATHEMATICS

47. Use Writing in Math • “Students who have opportunities, encouragement, and support for… writing in math reap dual benefits: They communicate to learn mathematics and they learn to communicate mathematically. • NCTM Principles and Standards 2000

48. What the Research says… When asked to explain their problem-solving processes or to discuss how the math they learned might be used in the real world, students deepen their understanding of concepts and clarify their thinking(Goldsby & Cozza, 2002; Sjoberg, Slavit, and Coon, 2004)

49. But how can we collect data on student writing? • Data folders could include student writing samples over time • Rubrics for scoring student writing give a numeric value to student writing

50. Meaningful Distributed Practice • What the research says… • Distributing study time over several sessions generally leads to better memory of the information than conducting a single study session. • (Ebbinghaus, 1885; Keppel, 1981; Bloom and Schuell, 1981; Donovan & Radosevich, 1999)