FOCUSED STUDY VISIT East Vincent Elementary Host School Collaborating with French Creek

1. FOCUSED STUDY VISIT East Vincent Elementary Host School Collaborating with French Creek MAY 30, 2012

2. Welcome Remarks • Connections • Dr. Cheryl M. Bell

3. Focused Study Visit Schedule • 7:50- 8:00 Welcome – Cheryl Bell • 8:00- 8:05 Connections - Cheryl Bell • 8:05- 8:10Agenda - Cheryl Bell • 8:10- 8:20 Focused Study Visit Remarks –Slides 4-7 - Cheryl Bell • 8:20- 8:55 East Vincent Goals and Focus Areas - Slides 8-10 • Focus Areas for the Day • Brain-based Research – Slide 11 - Karlen Senseny • Data Collection Instrument – Slide s 12-15- Mark Eisenhuth • Intervention Activity Examples • 9:00- 11: 00 Walk-Throughs and Hall Talk • 11:15- 11:45 Accounts of Practice Tuning Protocol – Slides 16 • Erin VanGuilderand Linda Nitsche • 11:45-12:30 Lunch • 12:30- 2:30 Debriefing Session – Slides 17-21 • Erin VanGuilder and Linda Nitsche

4. Key Assumptions of Participation Participants will: • Work together so each participant feels valued, motivated, and accountable to contribute to collective outcomes. • Observe in a reflective, analytical but non-judgmental manner. • Learn from the critical perspectives, description and impact of practice. • Contribute to an account of practice as the recorded and usable outcome of the shared inquiry.

5. Goals for the Day • Make practitioner knowledge or practice visible and transferable. • Enable practitioners to connect with, adapt and share what they know. • Facilitate disciplined, collaborative inquiry. • Identify leadership practices and other school conditions that support the development of the focus area. • Provide an authentic account of the practice that is directly helpful to the host environment. • Inform next steps for the host school.

6. Focused Study Visit is NOT… • About a classroom • A checklist • A once a year event • An evaluation • A Focused Study Visit is collaborative, school-based inquiry that involves practitioners in the investigation of a particular practice and the conditions of learning and leadership practices that best support its implementation and maintenance in a classroom.

7. The success of a Focused Study Visit is tied to the commitment level of participating schools to learning from, with, and on behalf of each other.

8. EVES Goals and Focus Areas • Goal: To maintain and raise the level of rigor of the core instruction in all grade levels, we will build on the work of differentiating instruction through the use of effective formative assessment practices and strategic professional development.

9. EVES Goals and Focus Areas • Use continuous improvement efforts to articulate practices, and procedures for achieving high standards of student performance. • Restructure the professional development model at EVES to strengthen the alignment of adult learning communities • Create study groups designed by professional interests • Focus teacher professional development to improve instruction

10. Focus Area for the day… • Brain Research (Cultivating an Optimal Learning Environment for Students) Professional Learning Community • Use of formative assessment or the teacher’s “read” of students’ engagement to address students’ emotional, social, and physical needs to support instruction • Whole-child approach • Total Participation Techniques • Bonding and building a sense of community

11. Focus Area for the day… • Brain Research (Cultivating an Optimal Learning Environment for Students) Professional Learning Community • Review of articles and research • Brain pruning • Various strategies including movement activities, energizers, calming activities, and cueing to enhance student focus and engagement and, ultimately, learning • Bonding and building a sense of community • Student self-assessment and regulation • Video – John Medina

12. Focus Area for the day… • What practice will we see? • What kind of evidence will we gather in classrooms to tell us about the practice area? • In classroom management and organizations? • In student learning? • What will we hear when we listen to children? • What will we hear when we listen to teachers? • What questions will we ask of students? Teachers?

14. Intervention Activity Examples • Sensory—Wall/chair push-ups, handwriting warm-ups, heavy work (erasing boards, washing desks, isometrics—push palms together, hug self tightly, pushing furniture, lifting and carrying, slow jogging/running in place • Movement—whole class “dance” opportunities, jumping jacks, exercise routines, clapping games, Simon Says, Passing objects in the classroom (overhead, under chair, etc.), movement from rugs to seats • Brain Engagement Strategy—activities that involve crossing the mid-line (Lazy Eight, Seated March), activities related to academic area (Ex: Rock, Paper, Scissors, Math), activities that involve discussion/collaboration, chants

15. Other Data Collection • In what professional development related to the focus area have teachers participated? • What documentation from the school do we need to review? • What data collection instruments will we use to record our observations? • What does “hall talk” look like? (Participants create thought provoking “wonderings” intended to stimulate thinking that will move the staff to the next level of practice.) • What skill(s) must data collectors possess to gather data appropriately?

16. Review Sample Account of Practice

17. Debrief… • Description Stage: Make a list of the data you collected. (Factual, low-inference, description of what was observed…) • Analysis Stage: What conditions of learning (clear standards, fair assessments, curriculum framework, instruction, materials and resources, and interventions) and/or leadership practices support what you saw today? • Predictive Stage: If you were a student in this school and you did everything you were expected to do, what would you know and be able to do? • What questions can we pose for the host school that can extend its learning?

18. Next Steps for the East Vincent Leadership Team? • How can the school’s leadership team shape its leadership practice through the interactions of leaders and followers and aspects of the situation or context? • What role can boundary practices (organizational routines and structures) such as regular meeting and boundary objects (any tool used to coordinate teachers’ and administrators’ perspectives or actions) such as such a protocol play in mediating (serve as go-betweens) leadership practice and influencing instruction?

19. What key learning points are transferable to leaders at French Creek Elementary School?

20. Participant Reflection • What worked well and what should we do differently next time? • What lessons have you learned? • How will you put what learned into practice? • How would you characterize our learning as a community? • Who will write the account of practice?

21. Thank you for participating in this Focused Study Visit!