All teachers were provided with the Café Menu book and were asked to look at the Ready Reference forms to assist them in identifying purposeful strategies.
How do you know the collaborative days have made a difference for a particular student or group of students?
Qualitative Evidence: desk side conversations with students – asking students about the book they are reading and listening to students read (teacher/student conferences: using some of the following prompts).
An increase in students reading has been noticed. More students are selecting level appropriate books and reading them during Period 5.
What did you accomplish today that will impact instruction and learning towards our school goal?
Grade 5:
Discussion of literacy strategies that were implemented in the classroom (resources from Irene Heffel: Turn and Talk/Retell, Reflect, Relate/Pause and Summarize).
Discussed essential outcomes in LA.
Met with EAs and looked over IPPs.
Grade 6:
Talked about how to implement new literacy strategies to improve student learning.
Created some literacy lessons and rubrics (retell/reflect/relate) using the literacy strategies.
Discussed what each teacher is doing in Period 5 reading time (Allignton’s 6 Elements of Reading)
Grade 7:
Discussed and agreed on L.A. essential outcomes that will be assessed/reported.
Worked on creating a grade level project for LA.
Grade 8:
CTF team meeting
Created project planning guide
Grade level math planning
Common assessment (math)
Band:
Music Ed conference – tips and ideas to implement into band/jazz class.
French Immersion:
Worked on lesson development for reading activity that will be implemented with OES.
Divided tasks for FI reading buddies, worked on lessons through Google Drive.
Prioritizing essential ELA outcomes.
What did you learn from your discussions today?
Grade 5:
After discussing literacy we found that we have a lot of material that is easy to apply as classroom strategies but we just need to find the time to practice these consistently.
Grade 6:
We still have a long way to go.
Still amazed how much time it takes to complete lessons.
Learned information (as observed by EAs) about students and other strategies that they suggested may help them.
Grade 7:
The grade level discussed reporting methods and found that we were all in agreement over common essential outcomes.
We have admin support.
Grade 8:
Sharing ideas, frustrations, possible solutions to classroom activities.
Improved procedures for math classes.
It is not hard to incorporate Allington’s 6 – just need to explicitly create the habits!
Band:
New strategies to implement to improve on quality of learning.
French Immersion:
Blending LA outcomes with Science outcomes
Grade level information sharing was very enlightening.
The useful part of the reading outcome objective analysis was linking it to report card assessments.
What would your practice and the experience of students look like as a result of your instructional improvement work?
Grade 5:
Should see an improvement of at least a grade level in fluency and comprehension.
Improvement of ORF, comprehension and an “love of reading.”
Grade 6:
Improved literacy/learning that would impact all subject areas
Grade 7:
Clearer feedback
Improvement in reading comprehension and fluency.
Increase a “love of reading”
More progress from all of my students in their reading comprehension by monitoring their accelerated reader reports.
Students will remain focussed and on task.
Grade 8:
Clearer focus of driving questions and purpose for academies
More direct reflection of CTF outcomes with students
Allington – turn and talk after completing reading log.
Band:
More interaction with student/teacher learning in jazz.
Trying out music assessment websites (theory tests, note names).
French Immersion:
More student engagement
Students participating and working with text and understanding with what they are doing and beginning to feel like they are making progress with their reading.
Embed more cultural activities to the FLA and allow for collaboration amongst students and staff.
What changes will you make, if any, to improve student learning?
Grade 5:
Ensure that reluctant readers are taking AR quiz with a supportive EA, teacher mentor).
Implement some of the strategies.
Use period 5 more effectively and check AR scores more often.
Grade 6:
Incorporate useful reading strategies.
Work on common assessments.
Grade 7:
Incorporate more writing in my lessons to improve learning.
Small pieces of teaching (guided practice, practice, revisit).
Continue to work on projects to improve student learning on our next collaboration date.
Have more discussions with my academy groups about the “big questions” and CTF discussions.
Follow up on my A.R. quizzes and make sure students are taking the quizzes and reading the proper level of books.
Continue to add more of Irene Heffel’s strategies (ie. 5 Finger Facts).
Grade 8:
More frequent, reflective discussions (take advantage of teachable moments to draw attention to focus and learning).
More of Allington’s 6 elements of reading.
Maintain clear instruction and appropriate student work time with math assessment.
Band:
Strive for a more “jazzy sound” – prepare for Jazz Fest.
French Immersion:
Embed and discuss Allington’s 6 elements of reading.
All teachers were provided with the Café Menu book and were asked to look at the Ready Reference forms to assist them in identifying purposeful strategies.
How do you know the collaborative days have made a difference for a particular student or group of students?
Qualitative Evidence: desk side conversations with students – asking students about the book they are reading and listening to students read (teacher/student conferences: using some of the following prompts).
An increase in students reading has been noticed. More students are selecting level appropriate books and reading them during Period 5.
What did you accomplish today that will impact instruction and learning towards our school goal?
Grade 5:
Discussion of literacy strategies that were implemented in the classroom (resources from Irene Heffel: Turn and Talk/Retell, Reflect, Relate/Pause and Summarize).
Discussed essential outcomes in LA.
Met with EAs and looked over IPPs.
Grade 6:
Talked about how to implement new literacy strategies to improve student learning.
Created some literacy lessons and rubrics (retell/reflect/relate) using the literacy strategies.
Discussed what each teacher is doing in Period 5 reading time (Allignton’s 6 Elements of Reading)
Grade 7:
Discussed and agreed on L.A. essential outcomes that will be assessed/reported.
Worked on creating a grade level project for LA.
Grade 8:
CTF team meeting
Created project planning guide
Grade level math planning
Common assessment (math)
Band:
Music Ed conference – tips and ideas to implement into band/jazz class.
French Immersion:
Worked on lesson development for reading activity that will be implemented with OES.
Divided tasks for FI reading buddies, worked on lessons through Google Drive.
Prioritizing essential ELA outcomes.
What did you learn from your discussions today?
Grade 5:
After discussing literacy we found that we have a lot of material that is easy to apply as classroom strategies but we just need to find the time to practice these consistently.
Grade 6:
We still have a long way to go.
Still amazed how much time it takes to complete lessons.
Learned information (as observed by EAs) about students and other strategies that they suggested may help them.
Grade 7:
The grade level discussed reporting methods and found that we were all in agreement over common essential outcomes.
We have admin support.
Grade 8:
Sharing ideas, frustrations, possible solutions to classroom activities.
Improved procedures for math classes.
It is not hard to incorporate Allington’s 6 – just need to explicitly create the habits!
Band:
New strategies to implement to improve on quality of learning.
French Immersion:
Blending LA outcomes with Science outcomes
Grade level information sharing was very enlightening.
The useful part of the reading outcome objective analysis was linking it to report card assessments.
What would your practice and the experience of students look like as a result of your instructional improvement work?
Grade 5:
Should see an improvement of at least a grade level in fluency and comprehension.
Improvement of ORF, comprehension and an “love of reading.”
Grade 6:
Improved literacy/learning that would impact all subject areas
Grade 7:
Clearer feedback
Improvement in reading comprehension and fluency.
Increase a “love of reading”
More progress from all of my students in their reading comprehension by monitoring their accelerated reader reports.
Students will remain focussed and on task.
Grade 8:
Clearer focus of driving questions and purpose for academies
More direct reflection of CTF outcomes with students
Allington – turn and talk after completing reading log.
Band:
More interaction with student/teacher learning in jazz.
Trying out music assessment websites (theory tests, note names).
French Immersion:
More student engagement
Students participating and working with text and understanding with what they are doing and beginning to feel like they are making progress with their reading.
Embed more cultural activities to the FLA and allow for collaboration amongst students and staff.
What changes will you make, if any, to improve student learning?
Grade 5:
Ensure that reluctant readers are taking AR quiz with a supportive EA, teacher mentor).
Implement some of the strategies.
Use period 5 more effectively and check AR scores more often.
Grade 6:
Incorporate useful reading strategies.
Work on common assessments.
Grade 7:
Incorporate more writing in my lessons to improve learning.
Small pieces of teaching (guided practice, practice, revisit).
Continue to work on projects to improve student learning on our next collaboration date.
Have more discussions with my academy groups about the “big questions” and CTF discussions.
Follow up on my A.R. quizzes and make sure students are taking the quizzes and reading the proper level of books.
Continue to add more of Irene Heffel’s strategies (ie. 5 Finger Facts).
Grade 8:
More frequent, reflective discussions (take advantage of teachable moments to draw attention to focus and learning).
More of Allington’s 6 elements of reading.
Maintain clear instruction and appropriate student work time with math assessment.
Band:
Strive for a more “jazzy sound” – prepare for Jazz Fest.
French Immersion:
Embed and discuss Allington’s 6 elements of reading.
Read to each other at multi-grade levels
More read aloud in the classroom.
French reading passages.