Your Values are Clear

Dear Wilson Staff-
What a great way to start a week-- spending the morning at Wilson Middle School! Walkthroughs are a critical process in my role. First, they allow me to see the real work of teaching and learning in classrooms, sometimes my chair can seem far far away from what matters most. Second, walkthroughs are a way to help me identify patterns and trends of both successes and areas of improvement across the district. Finally, since I only conduct these annually I can observe the progress/ improvements the school has made from the previous year.  And it is this last piece that I want to celebrate with you. I know Mrs. K will be providing specific feedback on what we saw so I am just going to share some general observations.

As I walked through your school it was clearly evident that this is a school that puts students at the center of everything. How did you communicate this to me? Consider the following.

• Use of authentic/ relevant work- Students at Wilson aren't doing busy work they are engaged in reading, writing, and thinking about things that have relevance in their lives. For example, after a unit of student in 8th grade social studies students wrote about why or why not a school should be named after Thomas Jefferson. In Language Arts students were using a poem about a family struggling to stay together as an entry point into their new unit.  It's not hard to capture kids attention or motivate them when they can connect to the content. 
• Literacy Rich Environments- Students have ample opportunities throughout the day to read and write about their learning. Students are  learning important content, while they are also learning to write like a scientist or historian. 
• Use of Feedback- Someone once said feedback is the breakfast of champions and if that is the case given the amount of rich feedback I saw, your students are definitely in the winners circle. Individual feedback can be seen in classroom displays and in one on one discussions teachers conduct with students during independent work.

Wilson students are in good hands. The value you place on their role in the instructional process is very clear. I appreciated the opportunity to observe all of your good work. Thanks for all you do.

The New Year is a time when many of us naturally take a look back at the previous year. Reflecting on our relationships, health, finances and professional life commonly results in the creation of resolutions with the intent to better ourselves during the next 12 months. A clear focus, solid action plan, and the ability to adjust that plan are essential for the success of a New Year’s resolution.

Just like resolutions, the specificity and intentionality of the work educators do will largely predict the outcome. Through the learning cycle, Wilson teachers are engaged in a cycle of planning instruction, assessing students and responding to that assessment data. All of these steps are essential for us to reach our goal of improving student achievement.

I recently visited two eighth grade science classrooms in which this was artfully implemented. Students were engaged (ALL students in both classes) in completing an assessment that involved reading, formulating an opinion and writing a conclusion with cited evidence. Students were given the following prompt:

• Mrs. Schmidt believes that keeping endangered tigers in a zoo is helpful.
• Mrs. Richards believes that keeping endangered tigers in a zoo is harmful.
• Use evidence to support both claims. (several articles were provided)
• Write a paragraph supporting which teacher’s claim you agree with the most.

Phase 2 of the Learning Cycle (Assessment/ Student Work/ Feedback) as printed on the Wilson Look Fors states, “Students will respond to teacher’s comments, edit the product, justify their responses,and self assess using rubrics.” All aspects of this Look For were observed in both of these science classrooms that day. Students were engaged in writing, editing and justifying their thinking with cited evidence.

When I asked a student why they were doing this assignment, he told me that it is important to know that the decisions we make can have an effect on an entire ecosystem. Now that is big picture thinking! The perfect alignment of the I Can statement with the activity (I can evaluate the impact that human interactions have on an ecosystem.) undoubtedly communicated a clear rationale for the activity.

Another example of Phase 2 evidence came from asking a student the following question. “How do you know if you are writing a good paragraph?” He responded by referencing the rubric that was among the assignment documents and explaining how to use the rubric to judge his work. Again, another example of evidence pointing to intentional planning.

Mrs. Richards took this process one step further. The Wilson Look Fors has the following description of teacher behaviors that will demonstrate implementation of Phase 3 (Response to Data). Teachers will use a variety of the following in order to respond to non-proficient students: guided groups, reteaching in groups, use assessment data for grouping, refer to backward plan, implementing Tier 1 interventions. During my visit to Mrs. Richards’ classroom, I observed her conferring with a student, one-on-one as he completed his assessment.  It was clear that because of her formative assessment data, she was aware of this student’s need for additional support and determined how she would support him.

In the words of Ellen DeGenerous: “You shouldn’t be allowed to make any New Year’s resolutions until you finish your old ones.” All the teachers at Wilson Middle School are engaged in the learning cycle: there is no need for a New Years’ resolution. We continue to focus on our current resolution...to improve student learning through the continuous cycle of planning, assessing and responding through purposeful guided grouping based on the formative assessment data.

Content team meetings are perfect for continuing this work. We must not only look at the data, but be intentional about our guided groups. James-Ward, Fisher, Frey and Lapp wrote in their book Using Data to Focus Instructional Improvement, “No student should have to wait until the first reporting period is over before being noticed as a struggling student.” How long is it before you know that a student is struggling and what are you doing about it?

There is great work happening at Wilson! Reflect, celebrate the successes and adjust as necessary to reach all students so we can reach our goal.