Integrating Common Core Professional Development in an Era of TPEP, PLCs and Assessment

1. Integrating Common Core Professional Development in an Era of TPEP, PLCs and Assessment

2. Selah School District Shane Backlund, Superintendent Troy Tornow, Executive Director of Teaching and Learning Kay Smith, District Literacy Facilitator Penny McGrath, District Math Facilitator

3. “The most promising strategy for sustained, substantive school improvement is building the capacity of school personnel to function as a professional learning community.” --Milbrey McLaughlin

5. Collaboration for Student Learning • CSL time is Selah’s version of Professional Learning Communities • We follow the DuFour – Eaker model as laid out in Learning By Doing. • We have worked at getting everyone in the district on board with our Core Purpose of “Ensuring High Levels of Learning for All Students in Selah”

6. Foundational Documents • Selah School District Learning Foundations • Loose/Tight Framework • CSL Flowchart • CSL Continuum Rubric

7. Common Core State Standards • We have embedded our CCSS implementation into our CSL team work • Our district Math and Literacy Facilitators have led CSL teams through the process of implementing and embedding CCSS into our system • They will present the Road Map for that process

8. The Danielson Framework • SSD has adopted the Charlotte Danielson Framework for Teaching as our instructional framework • Challenge has been to make the connections for teachers between the CSL work we do, the implementation of CCSS, and working with the Danielson Framework as the centerpiece of the new evaluation system.

9. “In order to create the conditions for improved teaching, one must first define it. Without such a definition of good practice, educators are, in effect, wandering in a swamp.” Charlotte Danielson The CSL process is designed to help define what is working for teachers, so it reinforces this idea. It is also designed to identify what students should learn (as does CCSS), how that learning will be assessed, and what we will do when students need extra help learning as well as what we do when they already know it. Defining Effective Practice

10. What We Know About Learning The most significant finding from the research is deceptively simple…. that learning is done by the learner. The Danielson Group This concept applies to CSL, CCSS, and the Danielson Framework.

11. What We Know About Learning If learning is done by the learner, then our students learn not because of what wedo; they learn because of what they do. The same principle applies to teacher learning, that it happens when teachers engagein meaningful ways. This is one of the fundamental beliefs of Professional Learning Communities and one of the important reasons we implemented CSL. We use this concept to reinforce the idea of professional learning communities and as a way for teachers to meaningfully engage in their work.

12. An important thought from Charlotte Danielson “Of all the approaches available to educators to promote teacher learning, the most powerful is that of professional conversation.” Charlotte Danielson, Talk About Teaching!, 2009, Corwin Press This thought pulls together our CSL initiative, the Danielson Framework, and how we have to navigate the transition to CCSS.

13. How do we put it all together? Continue to stick to our three big ideas and our CSL foundations. Continued commitment to our CCSS implementation plan. • Eventually we will need Penny and Kay to transition to working in classrooms with teachers and take over monitoring adherence to priority standards at the building level. Reinforce CSL foundations and CCSS work as we help teachers grow using the Danielson Framework. Encourage use of the Cognitive Rigor Matrix to plan assessments and activities that encourage intellectual engagement and accurately identify students that have met standard.

14. 4 Questions for CSL What is it we expect them to learn? How will we know when they have learned it? How will we respond when they don’t learn? How will we respond when they already know it?

15. Collaboration for Success with the Common Core, p. 10 What do we really want students to know and be able to do? Identify and unwrap essential Common Core State Standards to get clarity and reveal learning targets. Engage in ongoing knowledge-driven decision making. How do we respond when they aren’t learning or if they already know it? Meaningful Collaboration With the CCSS How will we know students are learning (before it’s too late)? • Design and deliver effective instruction and assessment with consideration of: • Rigor and relevance • The four Cs–critical thinking, communication, collaboration, creativity • Scaffolded student learning What effective practices will lead to student learning of essential skills and concepts, including 21st century skills? Identify the end in mind, and develop and implement aligned common summative and formative assessments.

16. Selah School District Roadmap Summative Assessment CCSS Learning Progressions Lesson Design Priority Standards Formative Assessment Instructional Shifts Learning Targets

17. Job Embedded PD in Selah What did we do: Year One: 2011-2012 • PreK-5 teachers • 3 days sub release in Math, 3 days sub release in ELA • First 4 components of the Road Map Overview of CCSS Given time to read standards thoroughly, highlighting “gut” critical components Identify Priority Standards using a filtering process Unwrapped Priority Standards to write common student friendly learning targets

18. Job Embedded PD in Selah What did we do: Year Two: 2012-2013 • Grades 6-8 (Math), Grades 6-10 (ELA) • Did Year One work • Grades PreK-5 • Discussion of Instructional Shifts • Formative Assessment • Summative Assessment implications (Smarter Balanced)

19. Job Embedded PD in Selah What we’re doing: Year Three: 2013-2014 • Grades PreK-5 Evidence Implementation of the Standards • (Math) Learning Progressions connecting to Formative Assessment, Unit Planning and Lesson Design, Math Practices/Instructional Shifts in action • (ELA) Connecting Reading, Writing, Speaking/Listening and Language with Formative Assessment within Unit Planning and Lesson Design

20. Job Embedded PD in Selah What we’re doing: Year Three: 2013-2014 continued • Disciplinary Teams (Social Studies/History, Science, Career and Technical Subjects) Grades 6-12 • Year One work • Grades 9-12 Math • Year One work

21. Job Embedded PD in Selah What we plan to do: Year Four and beyond: 2013-2014 • Seek evidence of implementation of Standards through: • Formative assessments—cycle of collective inquiry within CSL teams • Unit Planning • Lesson Design • Similar PD model with focused coaching by team or teacher

22. Guaranteed and Viable Curriculum • Two parts ~ • Guaranteed assures us that specific content is taught in specific courses at specific grade levels regardless of the teacher to whom a student is assigned to • Viable indicates that there is enough instructional time available to actually teach the content identified as important. - Dufour and Marzano

23. What are Priority Standards in Selah School District? • Urgent skills (committed to by the team) • Students must have these skills to be successful mathematicians (or to even survive) • Critical to the learning progression within a domain

24. So Can We Skip the Rest? NO! Remaining standards • broaden mathematical knowledge • connect to the big ideas

25. Why Priority Standards • Equity ~ the need for a guaranteed and viable curriculum for all students • Narrows the focus allowing for greater depth of knowledge • In the absence of Priority Standards, teachers will select their own. - Solution Tree

26. What Do We Do With Priority Standards? Create assessments • common summative and formative assessments (backwards design) Organize and discuss data • that is systematically collected, collaboratively examined, reported and used to improve instruction Discuss and implement instructional practices • that support students learning the priority standards Design interventions and extensions

27. Unwrapping the Standard 6.EE.1: Write and evaluate numerical expressions involving whole-number exponents. LT1: I can write numerical expressions involving whole-number exponents. LT2: I can evaluate numerical expressions involving whole-number exponents.

28. Unwrapping the Standard • 2.OA.2 Fluently add and subtract within 20 using mental strategies. By the end of Grade 2, know from memory all sums of two one-digit numbers.

30. Does the Work Get Messy? YES! See Sample of Grade 3 Math Standard 3.NF.2a

31. 3.NF.2a ~ How Did It End Up? • I can equally partition fractions on the number line between 0 and 1 in which the numerator is 1 and the denominator is _____. (2, 3, 4, 6, or 8) • I can name fractions on the number line that represent combinations of (or "counted" ?) fractional units between 0 and 1.

33. Identifying Standards ~ The Team Process Step 1: • Read standards silently and quietly • Highlight standards you consider have top priority (use the filtering process) • Reference the grade level above and below

34. Identifying Standards ~ The Team Process Step 2: • Discuss Priority Standard choices and concede as a school team (chart the list) Step 3: • Whole group ~ facilitator leads • Filter through each standard with each school team leader stating whether it is a priority standard and the team’s justification (either way).

35. Identifying Standards ~ The Team Process Step 4: • Reach a consensus • Unpack the discussion and justifications (based on the standards, learning progressions and the filtering process) • create a list of district priority standards

36. Filtering the Process Ask yourselves which standards: • have the highest level of importance? • Is this standard the beginning, middle or end of a learning progression? • have the highest utility? • are so important that you will seek evidence of learning and adjust your instruction so that all your students are proficient.

37. Plans for this year Where we are in this plan with various grade levels?

38. Challenges Teachers wanting to “teach to the test.” This is about building capacity with the standards—not how students are assessed. Abundant CCSS aligned resources available from publishers and websites—we filter our resources internally

39. What can we learn from YOU?

40. Contact Information Shane Backlund, Superintendent shanebacklund@selah.k12.wa.us Troy Tornow, Executive Director of Teaching and Learning troytornow@selah.k12.wa.us Kay Smith, District Literacy Facilitator kaysmith@selah.k12.wa.us Penny McGrath, District Math Facilitator pennymcgrath@selah.k12.wa.us