ELA Teacher Leadership Network

1. ELA Teacher Leadership Network October 26, 2011

2. Welcome!While You Are Waiting: Enjoy breakfast Pick up your 2010-11 binder (if you were not with the network last year). New participants, sign up so we can get you added to Blackboard. Write your name (first and last)on a green slip of paper, fold in half & place in the basket up front. We will have door prizes at the end of the day. YOU MUST BE PRESENT TO WIN!!

3. Norms • Be present and be engaged in the work. • Observe cell phone and computer etiquette. • Consider everyone as equal partners. • Seek first to understand, then to be understood. • Use time efficiently. • Provide quality over quantity. • Maintain high expectations. • Keep an open mind. • Create an environment for learning.

4. CONNECTIONS “The task of a leader is to get people from where they are to where they have never been.”Henry Kessinger

5. Targets • I can articulate the goals and purpose of the content leadership networks. • I can evaluate my teaching task and revise it using established criteria. • I can deepen my understanding of CHETL through productive discussion and reflection on professional text. • I can explain how instructional activities can be used formatively. • I can design and sequence mini lessons congruent to my TASK, that reflect CHETL. • I can be a critical consumer of texts and resources. • I can set personal goals and make an action plan to advance the vision of 21st century learning.

6. Our Leadership Network Guiding Thought for 2011-2012 • “You don’t lead by pointing and telling people some place to go. You lead by going to that place and making a case.” Ken Kesey • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyzvcEVA-Is

8. “Taking time to reflect is one of the surest ways to consolidate learning and continue to grow.”Jeff Cobb Vision • What do I believe about how students learn? How has this influenced my instructional goals? Strengths • How am I utilizing my strengths to achieve my goals? Challenges • What actions have I taken to overcome obstacles to achieving my goals? Instructional Strategies • What is working for me? How do I know? • What will I do the same? Differently? KCAS, Balanced Assessment, CHETL & Leadership • To which pillar(s) do my goals connect?

9. Template Task 2Argumentation Review & Refinement

10. Template Task 2: Argumentation • Shells are built off the Common Core • Students engaged more rapidly when invited to argue • Using them assists teachers in developing high-quality student assignments that develop reading and writing skills • In context of core classes: science, history, elective offering • L2 and L3 offer difficulty ranges LDC: First Instructional Ladder

11. CCR Writing Standard #1 • Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts, using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence. • Noticeable change at 6th grade • From opinion to argument • Use evidence from text to support argument • Progression of argumentation through the grades LDC: First Instructional Ladder

12. Anatomy of a Task • TASK 2: Argumentation • Essential Question • Text • Type of writing (essay, report, speech, blog, etc.) • Supported by evidence • L2: Be sure to acknowledge competing views • L3: Give examples from past/current events or issues to illustrate and clarify your position LDC: First Instructional Ladder

13. Sample Task 2: Background Info • Students will understand that electromagnetic waves, including radio waves, microwaves, infrared radiation, visible light, ultraviolet radiation, x-rays and gamma rays result when a charged object is accelerated. • This information gives students a context as they begin thinking about the upcoming task. LDC: First Instructional Ladder

14. Sample Task: Essential Question • Do cell phones have the potential to impact our health in a negative way? • The essential question focuses students on the argument LDC: First Instructional Ladder

15. Sample Task: The Task • After reading the articles from Scientific American and Time as well as viewing the chart from Prevention, write a report that addresses the question and support your position with evidence from the texts. Be sure to acknowledge competing views and give examples from past or current events or issues to illustrate and clarify your position. • Both L2 and L3 included LDC: First Instructional Ladder

16. What Makes a Good Task? • Choose Your Template Task • Choose Your Topic • Choose Text Students Will Read • Choose Text Students Will Write • Combine To Create Your Teaching Task LDC: First Instructional Ladder

17. Task Diagnosis Task 19: Can social climbers really move into a new social class? After reading The Great Gatsby, Vanity Fair, and Limbo: Blue-Collar Roots, White-Collar Dreams, write an essay that explains how a character succeeded or failed in efforts to move to a higher social class. What conclusions or implications can you draw? Cite at least two sources, pointing out key elements from each source. English III LDC: Teaching Task Design

18. Task Diagnosis After researching your textbook chapters on human anatomy, write an article for students your age that compares two major body systems and argues which one is the most exciting. Be sure to support your position with evidence from the texts. Grade 8 Life Sciences LDC: Teaching Task Design

19. Task Diagnosis • Task doesn’t follow the template • Task isn’t worth that much instructional time • The topic is too narrow • Question is not rigorous/relevant • The question asks for personal reflection instead of engagement with academic content • Makes weak use of the material students are to read; doesn’t demand a close reading • Text isn’t adequate to support an argument • Text is too simplistic LDC: First Instructional Ladder

20. Task Diagnosis After researching Romeo and Juliet and Westside Story, write a report that defines “star-crossed lovers.” Support your discussion with evidence from your research. If you had friends who were in love and whose families disapproved, what advice would you give them? Grade 9 English LDC: Teaching Task Design

21. Task Diagnosis Where have all the flowers gone? After reading selected anti-war poems and song lyrics, write an essay that addresses the question and support your position with evidence from the texts. Grade 9 Government and Civics LDC: Teaching Task Design

22. CONNECTIONS I can evaluate my teaching task and revise it using established criteria.

23. Break Time When you return from break, please sit at a table designated for your Book Study choice.

24. New Book

25. Questions for Book Study Groups 1.What did I use from my book? 2.      How did I use it? 3.      What impact did it have on student learning? 4.      What is the connection to CHETL, Assessment Literacy, Leadership, or KCAS? 5.      What would I do differently next time? 6.      What ideas, from table-mates, can I take back and try?

26. Feedback 101 Positive feedback is that which DOES let students know how they can get better. Negative feedback is that which does not let students know how they can get better.

27. Feedback “how-to” • Stick with • How well the task is going • the process the student is using to complete the task • and how well the student is managing his/her own behavior, or self-regulation • Comments about the student (usually delivered as praise) typically do NOT enhance learning and achievement • Feedback is only effective when students understand what quality work looks like; essential criteria

28. Is your feedback this clear? • Specific feedback

29. Or does your feedback look more like this? • Simon Cowls best insults.avi

30. Which feedback will enhance instruction? •  •  • You are so smart! • What happened? • Fix! Your opinion is clearly stated Use specific facts to support your opinion I see that while you were revising you noticed you needed to gather more information.

31. CONNECTIONS I can deepen my understanding of CHETL through productive discussion and reflection on professional text.I can describe qualities of good feedback.

32. Working Lunch • Please sit with your district teams for lunch. • Please discuss/reflect upon your personal action plan with your district team. 11:00 EST districts 11:15 CST districts After lunch, please return to your elementary, middle, and high school tables.

33. And now a testimonial…

34. Designing the instructional ladder

35. TEMPLATE TASKS Target the 3 modes of writing in the Common Core State Standards Teacher/Student-Selected Texts LDC Framework or or Appropriate, grade-level texts that support selected content Argument (opinion at the elementary grades) Informative/ Explanatory Narrative & other Common Core Standards when appropriate* Supported by an Instructional Ladder Skills students need to complete the task Mini-tasks for building each skill

36. Building on Your Task 2 LDC: First Instructional Ladder

37. What Task? • A teaching task built from a template task • Background for students • Information on reading texts • State/local standards for task • Common Core State Standards from template task • Scoring rubric from template task LDC: First Instructional Ladder

38. What Skills? • Lists the skills students need to succeed on the teaching task (backward mapping) • Defines those skills as “the ability to …” • Clusters those skills in an order that makes sense for teaching LDC: First Instructional Ladder

39. What Instruction? • A mini-task to build each skill (prompt for student work, product for students to create, scoring guide) • Instructional strategies for mini-tasks LDC: First Instructional Ladder

40. What Work? Sample student responses to your teaching task (Pieces that you will develop and collect as you teach the task ) LDC: First Instructional Ladder

41. A Sample Ladder in the LDC Guidebook & other samples • LDC tools provide ONE WAY to complete the “What Skills?” and “What Instruction?” sections • It’s a starting point for teachers to use, change, or replace elements to fit their teaching tasks LDC: First Instructional Ladder

42. Keep it Simple! You Can . . . • Use the sample skills • Use most mini-tasks “as is” (modifying mainly to refer to specific resources students will use) • Work mainly on modifying instructional strategies to work smoothly for your teaching task and your students LDC: First Instructional Ladder

43. Today’s Project We will look closely at the LDC tools for planning instruction. • Then, with your crew, you’ll spend a little time planning your instruction, studying and revising each section of the sample instructional ladder to work well with your first teaching task. LDC: First Instructional Ladder

44. You’ll need . . . • your teaching task. • pages 60-63 of Appendix D from the LDC Guide. • a computer or paper version of the module template. • deconstructed standard sets. LDC: First Instructional Ladder

45. Skills are organized in clusters that make sense for teaching your task. Cluster 1: Preparing for the Task Cluster 2: Reading Process Cluster 3: Transition to Writing Cluster 4: Writing Process LDC: First Instructional Ladder

46. A Close Look atSkills Cluster 1 Preparing for the Task

47. To think concretely about the elements of Skills Cluster 1: • Imagine Johnny as a fairly cooperative student in your class and as not weakest or strongest academically but right in the middle of your range of students. • With a partner, discuss the answers to the questions on your handout. Refer to page 60. • Be ready to share at your table. LDC: First Instructional Ladder

48. What Did You Notice? • For the first mini-task, what are you asking Johnny to do? Part of the time he will be listening to you, but what else will he do as an active learner? • What can Johnny find out by doing the first mini-task? • What can he find out from the second mini-task? • How can that learning help him do better work? • What can you find out from Johnny’s work on the mini-tasks? • How can you use what you learn? LDC: First Instructional Ladder

49. The Ladder Supports a Powerful Learning Cycle “In a classroom that uses assessment to support learning, the divide between instruction and assessment blurs. Everything students do—such as conversing in groups, completing seatwork, answering and asking questions, working on projects, handing in homework assignments, even sitting silently and looking confused—is a potential source of information about how much they understand.” Leahy, Lyon, Thompson and Wiliam, “Classroom Assessment: Minute by Minute, Day by Day” (ascd.org) LDC: First Instructional Ladder

50. The Ladder Makes Practice Visible “People tend to be much more specific about what they expect by way of student performance than they are about what in classrooms would lead to the performance they desire…. We think you cannot change learning and performance at scale without creating a strong, visible, transparent common culture of instructional practice.” City, Elmore, Fiarman, and Teitel, Instructional Rounds in Education LDC: First Instructional Ladder