CTE/CCR

CTE: Supporting high quality instruction

As we continue to review and refine our curriculum frameworks to meet OSPI’s CTE Program Approval process, we have many opportunities to embed our district’s six focus indicators from the CEL 5D Instructional Frameworks to provide high-quality, culturally responsive Tier 1 instruction. When addressing Performance Assessments and Leadership Alignment in the CTE curriculum frameworks, CEL 5D indicators SE5 (Student Talk) and CEC2 (Learning Routines) are great instructional frameworks that support high-quality teaching, especially if we address these components through performance tasks. Because CTE programs often include performance tasks framed by 21st Century Skills, incorporating student talk strategies and learning routines is a natural fit. To support the development of high-quality performance tasks, EPIC and Oregon’s Department of Education created the rubric below to evaluate performance tasks with the quality of cognitive demand. The work is based on David T. Conley’s Key Cognitive Strategies and Norman Webb’s Depth of Knowledge.

Assessment

While planning for quality questions is most importantly about deepening understanding and creating conditions for scholars to develop new learning, planning for questions can also directly align to collecting formative data. PLC’s can strengthen their work by finding time to collectively identify 1-2 questions in their daily lessons that they will all use to determine who would benefit from quick small group support and/or if the whole group needs to be retaught. These questions help to inform real-time adjustments. They are also useful to revisit as a PLC team when discussing Dufour’s questions 3 and 4. Note that these questions are meant to provide quick feedback that allows for minor changes and support during teaching and learning. When designing these questions, make sure to consider:

1. Are the scholars expected to have already mastered the skill being assessed by this question?

2. What can I do if scholars are showing they do or don’t understand this?

3. Are the questions quick and easy to embed during student work time?

4. How can I efficiently track this data?

Early Learning

“When children are talking, they are developing their identity, learning the give and take of conversation, articulating their thinking and providing formative assessment information to their teachers.”

- Sharon Ritchie

In our early learning classrooms, an emphasis on oral language development has been identified as one of the key instructional strategies to ensure success of children (Mason & Galloway, 2012). It is critical for young scholars to develop their voice and know that their thoughts, feelings and ideas are valued and heard by their classmates and teachers.

Quick idea reminders for creating opportunities for scholars to share out:

• Elbow partners during circle time

• Think, Pair, Share with a partner

• Questions during small group time

• White boards – write and reveal

• Question of the day/Wonderings at snack or meal time

• Names in a jar/Popsicle sticks – Randomly pick out scholars to share

• Talk Token – select an item that is held by the scholar that is sharing

• Using questioning as a transitional strategy – i.e. Have scholars share their thoughts or answer as they are transitioning

• Turn and Talk

• Post questions and prompts throughout the classroom environment to spark high quality questioning during different parts of the daily schedule

Additional resource on high quality questions: https:// www.naeyc.org/resources/pubs/tyc/apr2018/conversations-with-children

BEST - Road to Proficiency

All teachers are welcome to dig deeper into CEL5D and earn clock hours at our upcoming Professional Development opportunities.

We will learn about the stages of language development and high yield strategies for supporting all multilingual scholars, particularly our newcomers and refugee scholars.

Road to Proficiency Curriculum & Pedagogy

Diving into the CP dimension of CEL5D with a lens on SEL and Equity

Standards Based Instruction

5 Questions PLCS Should Ask to Promote Equity (excerpt) by Douglas Fisher, Nancy Frey, & John Almarode

“How might the work of professional learning communities (PLCs) focus on the changes necessary to ensure that all students are engaged, inspired, and successful? Despite current efforts, some groups of students are not making expected progress to meet grade-level standards and achieve at the highest levels. PLCs present a rich opportunity to improve instruction, as there is evidence that teacher teams, collaborating together, impact the learning outcomes of students (e.g. Reeves, 2010). But PLCs may not be fulfilling the promise of equity, especially for students who continue to face opportunity gaps and those who have historically been marginalized. How can we light the path to equity by refocusing PLCs so that they are more than a series of meetings and result in real change for the students who need it most?”

Full article Link

Meeting the Needs of Scholars with Disabilities

Many of the strategies in The Voice this month are also fantastic strategies for scholars with disabilities. The use of stations, attending to the types of questions used during instruction to increase critical thinking, and response methods like Think, Pair, Share provide teachers with opportunities to scaffold instruction when needed and also provide high levels of engagement in lessons. One of the High Leverage Practices in Special Education is Explicit Instruction. All of our supplemental resources used in FWPS are based on Explicit Instruction. The four essential delivery skills in explicit instruction are outlined below.

Requiring frequent responses is in alignment with increasing student talk (SE5) and provide high levels of active engagement, another High Leverage Practice in Special Education. Whether you are teaching a large or small group, you must elicit frequent responses by requiring scholars say, write, and/or do things. If instruction is truly interactive and scholars are constantly responding, then attention, on-task behavior, and learning increase, and behavioral challenges decrease. The cycle of instruction should include teacher input/information, a question, a scholar response, teacher monitoring, then affirmative or corrective feedback as shown in the figure to the right. There are a number of ways to have scholars respond, with oral responses being the most common. There are a number of practices for eliciting oral responses that

Cycle of Instruction

provide high levels of engagement, as well as, allow for monitoring and immediate feedback. These include, choral responses, partner responses, team responses and carefully designed individual responses. A second response method is written responses. In order to ensure monitoring of responses and high levels of engagement when using written responses, many teachers use response cards and response slates, these allow for frequent responses, monitoring and immediate feedback. The third most common response method in lessons is action responses. These include touching and pointing, acting out or responding with gestures or facial expressions and hand signals. Action responses provide a means to deliver lessons at a brisk pace while also monitoring and providing immediate feedback. A quick reference list of active participation methods can be found on our Student Support Services Teams site.

In the video below, Dr. Anita Archer delivers an 8th grade vocabulary lesson. Dr. Archer is reviewing vocabulary terms taught in the previous lesson: circle, diameter, radius, degree, and chord. Scholars are responding to review questions by writing answers on slates and displaying their answers. As you watch the video, note the use of response slates, as well as, how Dr. Archer has scholars explain their answers to their partners and asks questions to ensure understanding. Dr. Archer also engages in frequent monitoring of written and partner responses by circulating around the room.

When using different response methods, you must explicitly teach them to your scholars. In the video below, Dr. Archer explicitly teaches a number of response routines to a group of 7th grade scholars.