Community Resources for Learning Meeting Update

On March 6, 2012 the Community Resources for Learning Committee met in the NCHS Career Center. The purpose of the meeting was to assess our progress on evidence collection and begin discussion on writing a rough draft for the narrative. The following people attended the meeting and participated in the collaborative effort toward the Community Resources Committee tasks: Rachel Alpert, Jean Bakes, Katie Bakes, John Barone, Linda Brooks, Lisa Floryshak-Windman, Emily Hernberg, Amanda Langlais, Lori Lewandoski, Arri Weeks, Sandy Warkentin & Lenore Schnieder. After discussing the evidence collection, committee members met in small groups to delegate tasks relating to specific indicators. Evidence was organized, cover sheets were completed and new to-do lists were created for each indicator. Each group will start to draft a paragraph that will be added to the Community Resources Narrative. The purpose of the next meeting will be to continue to work on the narrative paragraphs.

Email to committee co-chairs following March faculty meeting

Hello all, 

Thanks for all your hard work over the past few weeks! In anticipation of CAPT week, we would like to get all the evidence boxes down to the copy center to make sure that there are copies of evidence for each standard identified on the cover sheet. Michelle can coordinate that effort if you bring the boxes to the copy center. The link to the digital evidence submissions is on the evidence page at http://nchsneasc13.info.

We added "what to look for" for each indicator to the standards pages on the http://nchsneasc13.info website as well. You have this in hard copy - it was given to you during the January 20th faculty meeting as part of your packet. 

We also added the work flow timeline to the http://nchsneasc13.info website homepage. 

While completing evidence cover sheets, Many folks asked how to find their curricular standards. This issue was raised at the last department meeting, and we are formulating a plan to aggregate that information and make it more accessible. 

Finally, if you are looking for exemplars, there are sample narratives on the NEAS&C website.

Have a wonderful weekend, and thank you again!

nchsneasc13

Student and Community Involvement Subcommittee Update

After APs, when sufficient evidence is collected, and the drafts are nearing their initial submission stage, it will be important to expand your committee to include parents and students. Many districts do this from the get go, at the beginning of the self-study process. Our NCHS Student and Community Involvement Subcommittee is organizing groups of 14 parents and students - 2 of each for each standard committee - who will function as sounding boards as we progress through our self-study. We anticipate that we will be ready to integrate these additional members into our standards committees after the AP exams. While it may not be critical to include these community liaisons in your face-to-face meetings, it will be important to include them in standards committee correspondence, and to give them an opportunity to review the drafts.

Post by Christina Russo

While writing my PEGS mid-year reflection, it occurred to me how perfectly aligned the My Personal Wellness project was with the NCHS Core Values, Beliefs and Expectations, RTDC (responsive teaching for the differentiated classroom), and Partnership for 21^st Century Skills. This collaborative 9^th grade, health/ICT project gives students the opportunity to self-reflect on the 6 dimensions of wellness (physical, emotional, intellectual, spiritual, social and environmental), choose from a variety of resources for their own learning,  evaluate, analyze, and synthesize information to make healthy choices, set goals for a healthy and balanced life, communicate effectively, and become inpendent learners.

Reflection Rubric Revision Process

English Department Meeting
February 1, 2012:
Revision of Reflection Rubric

Process for piloting the reflection rubric:

At the January department meeting, members of the English department were charged with piloting the reflection rubric developed in a NEASC group. Teachers paired with another member of the department in order to debrief their findings before we met in February. We had approximately one month to design, implement and gather student feedback about the clarity and purpose of the reflection task and rubric. Approximately 600 students from thirty sections of classes ranging from freshmen to seniors participated in the pilot.

Reporting from teachers:

Hannah and Jim:

Hannah’s classes did a mid-year reflection on writing goals. She asked if the goal was achievable, did you reflect successfully on your own learning.

Insights from data:

Student reflections were not specific, and therefore students need to learn to reflect.

Students were confused on the meaning of the last two boxes on the rubric in which they were asked to reflect on the reflection.

Jim’s students were asked to reflect on the midyear exam as well. They were asked to reflect on the mid-year exam and articulate their strengths and weaknesses. He asked how they progressed from their last reflection.

Insights from data:

Students echoed the first reflection.

Kat and Aaron:

Kat’s junior classes reflected on the research process having completed the research paper.

Insights from data:

Do reflections sooner, frequently during the research process so students can modify their goals along the way.

The paradigm of ‘with minimal guidance” or “independently…” was hard to grade.

Aaron:

Seniors used the course reflection journals to evaluate their progress in the class.

Insights from data:

Students could evaluate progress because it was a regular part of the class.

At this point in the meeting, the discussion opened up to all members. Teachers began to focus on themes regarding student reflection. Here are some of the insights from that discussion.

· We need to teach students how to reflect. Reflections over time will increase student investment

· How do we teach them to reflect? Set goals at the beginning of the year or quarter. Knowing you will need to reflect, knowing that you will look at skills closely on a regular basis to understand how you have grown will help students increase capacity to reflect

· Reflection helps students be accountable for their learning. Students whether they are upper classmen or in honors does not guarantee that they know how to reflect

· Students need to take into account teacher and peer feedback when reflecting

· Important to reflect after formative assessment

· Concern about the current scale used on the NEASC rubrics because so many boxes fall below goal; need to understand the reasoning behind this

Proposals for the revision of the reflection rubric, based on student feedback and teacher observation:

1. Provide a brief context for the rubric by distinguishing between the two types of reflection it will assess.

2. Reorder dimensions of performance to mirror the logical sequence of reflection

• Gathering and evaluation of materials
• Drawing conclusions from those materials
• Setting goals based on those conclusions

3. A subcommittee of English department members will move forward and apply synthesized student and teacher feedback to the rubric before bringing it to the faculty.

Post-Meeting Discussion

The reflection rubric plays the role of supporting skill-specific expectations in subject areas; in and of itself, the rubric is a cross-disciplinary measure for the reflective habits of mind that serve as a schoolwide 21^st century learning expectation.

Within a discipline, "Advanced" performance on reflection will tell the students and the teacher when it is time to develop more challenging expectations. Students may then seem to go backward in their reflection practice, when in reality they may be making the adjustment to a new set of expectations. The rubric should be designed with the a sense of increasingly challenging expectations in mind.

• In short, the purpose of the reflection rubric is to help students develop the skills/habits of mind to successfully deal with increasingly challenging expectations in their courses.
  

NCHS Faculty Meeting January 19, 2012

Post in progress

Changes to the nchsneasc13.info website

Example of personalization

If anyone is looking for evidence of student work that integrates reading, writing, speaking and multimedia; if anyone is looking for evidence of personalization; if any is looking for outstanding application of technology to curriculum, have I got a website for you.

Check it out, but beware: there is a bit of salty language here and there.

www.plogbost.tumblr.com

Mike

Evidence collection & more

We spent some time today planning for evidence collection.

We placed evidence boxes in four department offices. Each box is labeled with its respective standard. We will add more as we collect more boxes.

We also revised the evidence submission cover sheet, merging elements from the CAS-provided template and the form used by the science department during its recent Tri-State visit.

We set up a YouTube channel, and cloned our blog, giving all certified faculty editing rights.

We also created 60 posters of our Core Values/Beliefs and Learning Expectations - one for each classroom. We will distribute them to the department chairs at next Tuesday's meeting.

Finally, we are working on developing a digital companion form to the hard-copy evidence submission cover sheet. There is still some debate as to how this will be used, but we feel there is sufficient justification to warrant creating the form.

Question of the Week: December 19, 2011

What does personalization mean in your classroom?

Post-faculty meeting NEAS&C activity

After the faculty meeting today, Mike explained that we are officially moving into the self-study phase of our review process. To this end, he introduced our NEAS&C activity for the afternoon.

We distributed the standards booklets, and introduced the 4 Themes 4 ED (see image on left). This was one of the activities from the Connecticut Association of Schools' (CAS) NEAS&C workshop we attended last week. 

Grouped according to standards committees, the faculty identified which theme(s) were association with which standards indicators. Then we passed around the mic to share out which indicators addressed the theme of personalization (there is an audio record of that).


We introduced the NCHSNEASC13 blog as a vehicle for continuing the conversation between meetings. We have a limited number of face-to-face meetings left this year, but we hope to use the blog to share anecdotes about our teaching and learning experiences with students to help our colleagues better understand what we do in our daily practice that addresses the NEAS&C standards. Mike posted an example in the last blog entry.


We aslo discussed plans to start collecting evidence after the winter break. It is important to start this process soon so that we have a full year's evidence when the visiting committee arrives.


Next up: January 19th faculty meeting with our NEAS&C Director,  Janet Allison.
After that: The community survey
Handout: NEAS&C First Newsletter
Resource: NEAS&C website



4 Themes 4 ED by mluhtala is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at nchsneasc13.info.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://nchslibrary.info.

Mike McAteer's Pick a Poetry Project Project

While I hate the “no wrong answer” bias that students bring into poetry class, I also know that I have no single right answer about what poetry is. Some students are drawn to traditional poetry, some are drawn to children’s poetry, some are inspired by performance poetry, some want to read epic poems, others just like to be subversive. Taking all these factors into account, and knowing that any study of poetry has to involve some combination of reading, writing and speaking, I’ve developed my Pick a Poetry Project project. In this unit, students have to find their own resources, organize their time, and have an outcome in mind. While they may not all end up on task every moment of the day when we’re working on this project, it has resulted in some very provocative work.

NEAS&C Seminar CAS 12/5 & 12/6

Just spent two days in a NEAS&C Steering Committee seminar at Connecticut Association of Schools in Cheshire. It was daunting. Most attendees' visit is scheduled for 2014, and at this point, we have a lot to do.
My notes look more like a giant ToDo list. Mike and Bryan took notes also. One thing I would like to focus on next is merging our notes and putting together a timeline starting backwards. I think it will reduce some of the anxiety I currently feel about time.
NCHS sent a team of 5: Anthony Bloss, Kris Goldhawk, Bryan Luizzi, Mike McAteer, and Michelle Luhtala

Message to faculty about rubric development

Hello Colleagues,

Thank you all for the hard work you put into rubric writing last week. While we received a lot of positive feedback, we also know that this process is not at all easy. As we follow Thursday’s faculty meeting with rubric revision time, it’s important that we maintain perspective on the current task.

When we unanimously passed our statement on Core Values, Beliefs and Learning Expectations, we stated that we want our students to be “active participants in their learning,” by which we mean that we want them to choose resources, set goals, self-monitor, self-assess and reflect. In order to achieve this goal, we need to provide concrete information about our expectations, and that’s where the rubrics come in.

The Process

Now, the process is messy, and where we are right now is near the end of the first stage of a three-stage process:

1. Stage one: We draft rubrics.
2. Stage two: We use them in pilot form to communicate with students about the work we’re asking them to do, and then ask the students to assess their work using the rubric, while we do the same. From this, we identify the challenges and advantages of using the rubrics to communicate with students and assess student work, and we make recommendations for changes.
3. Stage three: We revise the rubrics based on the data collected from the pilot experiment.

A Pressing Concern: Assessment

If there was one overarching concern expressed on our PD Day, it was, “But I can’t see how I’ll use this rubric to assess my students.” If you were one of the ones saying this, you’re probably right.

But this raises misconception number one: that our NEASC rubrics are for assessment. What we are working on are analytical rubrics, not assessment rubrics. While they will be used for assessment, their primary function is to clearly communicate expectations. If we think of them as communication of our learning expectations so that students can be “active participants,” the writing may be a bit easier.

In addition, you may not ever use the problem-solving rubric, for example. But if we can all speak the same language and communicate the same expectations when students are solving problems in our disciplines, you can imagine the effective habits of mind students will develop as they go through all our subjects in ninth grade, in tenth grade…you can see where we’re going. The clearer we are about what we want our students to do, the more quickly they will internalize our school’s standards for their performance.

If you’ve read this far, thank you. If we can understand the stages of the process, our work can be much easier on Thursday.

See you then.

Your Friends on the Steering Committee

Professional Development Day - Rubrics

Click on picture
to see slideshow

We spent election day 2011 developing rubrics for our 21st century learning expectations. We used the NCHSNEASC13 website rubric page to access the instructions and rubric template, then brainstormed to develop indicators for each expectation. This is slide show of our day's activity.


 
 

Leadership meeting

The NEAS&C Steering Committee met with the Standards Committee co-chairs to assign expectations to standards committees and determine which departments would pilot which expectations rubrics.

We also reviewed the agenda for the Nov. 8 Professional Development day, and articipants gave feedback on the NCHSNEASC13 website's new rubric page.

It was recommended that we remove the points, values and total columns and rows from the NCHS rubric template to minimize confusion.

NEAS&C activities for November 8th PD Day

The faculty sent in several more rubrics this week, so we reassessed our meeting needs and called a quick twenty minute after school meeting with steering committee and committee co-chairs on Monday, November 7th from 2:15-2:35. At the meeting we will review the following day's activities.

As PD leaders, Cathy and Chris offered to develop a Checklist for the PD day, which was quite helpful.

Steering Committee meeting canceled

A freak October snowstorm set us back some. Since two school days were canceled, our scheduled November 1st steering committee meeting was also canceled. Our original plan to review and filter NCHS rubrics with the steering committee was deferred to the PD Day on November 8th. Mike emailed the steering committee about the new plan.

Resources on creativity, critical thinking, and rubric design

A Tweep (Twitter speak for someone you know through Twitter, but have never met face to face: Twitter + peep = Tweep), a retired librarian now living in Florida, Jerry Blumengarten, just Tweeted a link to his Critical Thinking page. This prompted me to ask him about a creativity page, and resources for rubrics. They are all posted on our nchsneasc13 resources page. Twitter = the best PD resource on planet earth ;-)

Steering Committee co-chairs meeting with Principals

In fairness to the recorder, these notes were taken on an iPad during first and second lunch, while standing at the cafeteria ramp :-)

Big Question: How is steering committee going to spend Nov. 8? In Steering Committee, or with standards committees?

Who is writing the first draft of the rubrics? Standards committees? If standards, the steering committee should participate. If not, then steering committee should meet together.

We clearly need a rubric for critical thinking. What indicators should be included? While observing an engineering class, Ari asked if we had an engineering rubric - one that included problem solving. The answer was yes. We should take a look at that.

We agreed to collect all the school rubrics via email. We will need both digital and hard copies (if only a hard copy exists, we will create a digital version). There was some discussion about this - whether to collect them all or just those perceived as relevant to expectations. We decided to collect them all, in case Steering Committee members saw correlation where folks who live with them every day did not.

We will align the rubrics with learning expectations, then assign each one to a department. The department will pilot using the rubric, and report back with recommendations for revision.

The Steering Committee will meet on November 1st, at which point we will sort through the collected rubrics and assign each one an expectation, and then which committee will work on which expectation.

One thing we should address on November 8th is language. Our rubrics should reflect a common language - one that students can understand. The committees will go through their assigned rubric packets and aggregate a list of commonly used terms (word cloud opportunity?). They will also determine which parts of the rubric will cross departments, and which department will pilot which expectation rubric.

When departments meet, at least one person in that meeting will have participated in the committee meeting responsible for that department's expectation allocation, and will be able to explain the rationale for the departments' assigned pilot. Then they will use the collected rubrics and NEAS&C examples to develop new ones.

We had a conversation about indicators and rubric adoption - one I was not able to transcribe - distracted and hungry? Suffice it to say that Mike spoke eloquently on the topic, and that when necessary, I am confident he will be able to reconstruct what he said beautifully :-)

After the pilot, we will look at rubric formats and scales, but we think we should live with them  for a bit before doing that.

Faculty meeting in the library

Faculty meeting in the library (NEAS&C business will not be deterred by space constraints!). After Mike provided a succinct review of the process that led us to craft the Core Beliefs, Values and Expectations, and a "screening" of the nchsneasc13 website, the faculty approved the document without discussion :-)

Shhhhh! Food in the Library!

Habla usted Espanol? 

Ouvrez vos yeux, Mme Swan!

Ms. Brown, Ms. Goldhawk, and Ms. Floryshack Windman

10/3 steering committee co-chairs meeting to organize language to CVB&LE

9/30 steering committee work on CVB&LE word clouds

8/25 faculty work on Core Values, Beliefs, and Learning Expectations
9/15 faculty work on Core Values Beliefs, and Learning Expectations
9/25 student work on Core Values, Beliefs, and Learning Expectation

Steering Committee co-chairs meeting with Principal

Mike and I met with Bryan today to plan for Thursday's faculty meeting.

It is going to be a succinct presentation. We will highlight the foundations of our Core  Beliefs and Values Statement - communication, critical thinking, collaboration, creativity, respect, and empathy. Present the Core Beliefs, Values, and Expectations page of our NCHSNEASC13 website, and vote to proceed with self-study using it as a guide. We will also clarify that this is a living document, it is not written in stone, and that we can update it and revise it throughout the process.

We also discussed rubric templates, pulling together a team to attend a steering committee workshop in December, and self-study survey results.

For more on our process, please read preceding posts.

Selection Committee co-chairs meeting

Mike and I met to decide how to present the first draft of the Core Values, Beliefs and Expectations. We settled on uploading it to the web, and allowing for comments rather than sending a Google Doc. 

Steering Committee meeting

Productive Steering Committee meeting. We used laptops to revise our Core Values, Belief and Expectations in Google Docs, and showed the committee our nchsneasc13 portal.

Steering Committee co-chairs meeting

Mike and I met this morning to discuss our technical options for the hover text in the Core Values, Beliefs and Expectations working document. We don't want to encumber the message with wordy explanations, but we want to emphasize its alignment with our Vision of the Ideal NCHS Graduate (our work from the August 25 professional development day and the homeroom activity with students). Darien effectively uses the hover to elaborate on the details of mission and expectations. We like this model and hope to emulate it in ours. We composed the text for those hovers as comments in the existing Google Doc until we upload the final version to the NCHS NEAS&C '13 website.