Instructional Practices T hat Support Completion and Postsecondary Success

1. Instructional PracticesThat Support Completion and Postsecondary Success January 18, 2012

2. Updates • Rebecca Wolfe had a baby girl, Naomi Evora, and will be out on maternity leave until April 1. • TDRP 2011 Progress Report is due February 8 • The Progress Report is a two-step process • Complete the Dropout Recovery Program 2011 progress report that is in Survey Monkey • Submit your Payment Report/Student Data upload tothe secure link. • Questions: Contact Julie Wayman,julie.wayman@tea.state.tx.us

3. Agenda • Review the Enriched Preparation phase of the Back on Track three-phase model • Overview of the Common Instructional Framework • Sample Lesson Plan • Additional Resources

4. Question What instructional practices or strategies do you use to support completion and postsecondary success?

5. Back on Track Three Phase Model • Enriched Preparation • Postsecondary Bridging • First Year Support http://backontracktx.org/design

6. College-Ready Curriculum & Instruction • The curriculum emphasizes deep learning over test preparation, focusing on a solid understanding of key concepts and the exploration of major themes within the core disciplines. • The curriculum is aligned and sequenced toward increasingly challenging subject matter, building skills needed for entry into credit-bearing college coursework. • Substantial reading and writing take place daily across the curriculum, scaffolded through collaborative group work, literacy circles, and other strategies that enable learners with diverse skill levels to support and challenge their peers. • All students develop thinking, listening, speaking, and inquiry skills through purposeful questioning and opportunities to talk about their learning. • Staff embed in the curriculum ongoing opportunities to practice college-ready skills and behaviors such as time management and test-taking strategies.

7. What is the Common Instructional Framework? • Develops college and career ready studentswho can read, write, think, problem-solve, and express themselves at high levels. • JFF has codified the strategies that University Park Campus School teachers were already using to ensure college and career success into the Common Instructional Framework: strategies teachers use across the curriculum • Used in early college and Back on Track schools nationwide

8. Common Instructional Framework Six Strategies to Build College Readiness

9. Collaborative Group Work: Key Principles • Establish collaborative group work as a strategy for students to learn and work with others as they are acquiring new knowledge and skills. • Scaffold students into collaborative group work by having them work in pairs then small groups while increasing the complexity of the task. • Establish rules and expectations for groups, listen and observe as groups work, redirect students if necessary and push students to deepen their conversations. • Make each group responsible for creating a product that reflects their learning.

10. Writing to Learn: Key Principles • Use writing to learn to engage students in the subject area. • Begin with low-stakes pieces that are not assessed for grammar, spelling and punctuation but demonstrate good thinking. Gradually scaffold to mid- and high-stakes pieces. • Emphasize the importance of writing as integral to strengthening students’ ability to write, clearly articulate their thoughts, as well as reflect. • Embed writing to learn in lesson plans and in collaborative group work. • Utilize writing to learn as a formative assessment tool

11. Questioning : Key Principles • Keep questioning focused and on topic. • Use wait time and pacing to encourage all students to engage. • Ask questions of varying difficulty from basic remembering to higher levels of critical thinking like evaluating and creating. • Encourage student-to-student questioning as well as student-to-teacher questioning. • Use questioning as a formative assessment to gauge where students are in their understanding of the topic.

12. Classroom Talk: Key Principles • Keep classroom talk focused and on topic. • Establish clear and explicit rules and expectations for classroom talk. • Listen and respond to what you hear as classroom talk is taking place. • Use protocols and instructional strategies that support effective classroom talk. • Emphasize that all voices, opinions and ideas must be respected and have value.

13. Scaffolding: Key Principles • Establish scaffolding as a way to support students with diverse needs and abilities as they learn. • Use protocols and strategies (questioning, writing-to-learn, graphic organizers, etc.) to help students connect their prior knowledge and experience with new content. • Use scaffolding to put ideas and concepts into context and assist students with reading difficult texts. • Teach students how to scaffold learning for themselves by explicitly describing a scaffolding activity as you are using it in the classroom • Embed scaffolding in your lesson plans and use it daily

14. Literacy Groups: Key Principles • Generate a focused group discussion around a text. • Encourage students to read and interact with each other around a text. • Use to enable struggling readers to successfully interact with texts. • Use to enable all readers to engage more deeply with texts. • Offers opportunities for students to read and learn from multiple and varied texts.

15. The strategies should be used within the Common Instructional Framework

16. Discussion • What could be beneficial about using these strategies? • How are they especially useful for “off-track” students? • What has been/might be the most significant challenge when implementing these strategies at your school?

17. Common Instructional Framework for the GED and Associated Lesson Plans • Relevant to both diploma-granting programs and GED-granting programs • Review a lesson plan • Discussion

18. Additional Resources • Backontracktx.org • BackonTrackDesigns.org • Other InstructionalFrameworks/Strategies

19. Thank you! Next Webinar: February 15Topic: Postsecondary planning/counseling Find this webinar,past webinar recordings, and other relevant materials on the Peer Learning Network section of the Back on Track Texas website. (password: TDRPnetwork)

20. Contact Information • Julie Wayman, julie.wayman@tea.state.tx.us • Clare Bertrand, cbertrand@jff.org • Carol Duong, Cduong@jff.org