2014-15 AsmtEval9563-2Spring2014-2015 Professional Development Unit

1. 2014-15AsmtEval9563-2Spring2014-2015Professional Development Unit By: Kelly Angelina School/Dept.: Greenwood Academy Middle School Literacy

2. What new instructional strategies did I implement in my classroom/practice during the course of the PDU? • Essays in Google Docs • Writers’ Circle Peer Feedback Session • Breaking down multi-step reading prompts • Identifying central idea & theme • 6-traits writing rubrics • Writing Process

3. How did I apply the PDU strategies in my classroom? (examples) How did I collaborate with my team about implementing the PDU strategies? • There was a large amount of collaboration with my team around the ELGs to focus on, pre-and post-assessments, rubrics, and scoring. As a team we backwards planned. • First, we selected 2 ELGs that were consistent across all grade levels. • From there, we dissected the ELG CCSS to determine what students needed to be able to do to exhibit mastery of the standard. • Once these skills were established, we created an intensive rubric on the 1-4 proficiency scale. • Once the rubric was generated, we formed pre- and post-assessment questions that differed slightly depending on the grade level and teacher’s content.

4. What three strategies did I implement from the study section of the PDU? What strategy worked best? Why? • Using 6-traits style rubrics for all written assignments allowed students to provide feedback to one another with a comprehensive understanding of expectations. • Literacy teachers across the middle school conducted similarly organized writers’ circles.

5. What did I learn to do differently as a result of the PDU and strategy implementation in my classroom? • Daily exit tickets aligned to CLO/ELG • Purposeful teaching • Connecting teaching and assessments to CCSS • Embedding Academic Language Students providing feedback to one another using a rubric

6. Why is this PDU action research process important to my students learning and to my growth as a professional? • Collaborative decision making helps to weed out less effective strategies • Opportunities to share personal successes and struggles • Ability to have multiple teachers’ eyes scoring an assessment (from different grade levels and interventions) • Students receive instruction approved and planned for by a teacher team • Students are not just receiving box curriculum instruction, but rather enhanced and supplemented lessons

7. PDU Data AnalysisReflecting on the data you have collected, how did this experience impact instruction, progress monitoring, student performance, and your own practice? • Influence instruction and have teachers ask themselves if the task they were assigning was useful to students, rigorous enough for students, and also if it was at their student’s level of proficiency.  • Show where student’s were at in proficiency and pin-point the exact challenges that they were having in completing the task and the strengths they each showed.  • Structure progress monitoring so that students know their own strengths and weaknesses when it comes to the literacy task at hand. 

8. How will I apply my new learning in the future to further my practice? What are my next steps? • Continue to use data throughout the school year to drive instruction. • Focus on the content standards and new curriculum in order to get students to proficiency. • Continue to collaborate with Teammates and Literacy teachers. • Use rubrics to assess students and collaborate scoring with multiple grade levels.

9. PDU Artifact #1 • Reading SLO

10. PDU Artifact #2 • Writing SLO

11. PDU Artifact #3 • Collaborative Planning

12. Exit Ticket • How can we support your professional growth in future PDUs? Continue to streamline work around PDUs, SLOs, Collaborative Blocks, Monday Staff Meetings • 2 things that you took away from the PDU this year Creating rubrics and assessments as a MS team is best practice & Using same 6-traits writing rubric for all essays makes proficiency clearer for students • 1 piece of constructive criticism The questions on the PDU PowerPoint are still very repetitive. Create an exit ticket question next year asking us to come up with 1 new slide recommendation.