Timestamp

Name

Inquiry Group(s)

6/7/2012 11:08:19

Next year's DOE expectations are that teacher teams continue to participate and engage in inquiry to analyze Based on what you've seen student work to adjust teaching and what you've learned What did you notice about the new Did you notice any trends and/or practice and instructional planning. from inquiry, what areas do Please add any other expectations across grade levels in terms of similarities regarding student work and What areas do you need to enhance in you believe your grade comments/suggestions/feed the Common Core Standards? teacher interactions? your own professional practice? should work on? back. It was very informative and It was difficult to attain a level 4 on the task good to see what other grades regardless of what grade and class (i.e., Aligning the task as closely as possible are doing. We found a lot of There was a lot of rigor and high expectations TAG or ESL). There was a lot of growth and to classroom teaching and utilize the Adjusting the rubric and paper similarities regardless of the across all grade levels. progress within the same level. rubrics as models in the classroom. used to complete the task. grade level we observed. mathematical thinking most level 4 were said to be from the tag class, even the post tasks before task most children were not on grade level ( 1 or 2) becoming more familiar with the ccls extremely hard to earn a level 4 expectations are set very high need a lot of sources,read aloud, independent reading, video, writing about reading children in grade 2 and 4 tasks were non fiction ( one opinion , one a book ) both had a hard time with introductions, conclusions, voice after second task a lot more 3's , still very few 4's practicing the tasks throughout the year not just the 6-8 weeks understanding why!!!! math is very abstract and we have to be able to teach the children to understand the problem teaching multi stepped problems I was in the room 1st period .......nobody showed up, next year I think everybody should be assigned 2 classrooms to go to. A major issue that is among the grades is gathering the necessary materials in order to perform the tasks. The DOE should have packages ready for all classroom/students to use. Many teachers were forced to use their own resources to gather the texts and other materials needed in order to complete the performance task.

6/7/2012 11:17:24

stamina is higher

word problem- highlighting key adjust the curriculum to meet the ideas and math vocabulary rigorous needs that the doe is asking for using their vocabulary in their build children's independent reading and mathematical thinking and writing stamina explaining

6/7/2012 11:17:32

The Common Core Standards are continuous throughout the grades. Each grade's common core standards are built upon the former grade and acts as a stepping stone for the next grade. It becomes more rigorious as the grade level increases.

In our own professional practice, we need to have more time to communicate Based on what we have seen and meet to exchange ideas. We feel and learned from our inquiry that it is important that teachers are given this year, we feel that our an opportunity to discuss and exam grade should work on student work across the grade as well as teaching students how to write The similarity that we have noticed is that have an opportunity to meet teachers introductions and conclusions. with instruction from the teacher, most of from the grade below and above to see if Also, we should have more the children moved and were able to meet their students are on the correct path to mentor texts. In addition, for more of the expectation that are set based achieve the next level of standards. Also, preparation for the 3rd grade, on Common Core Standards. Teacher having professional articles regarding second grade teachers should modeling and charts were a common theme pedagogues will benefit all teachers also touch upon opinion in raising student levels. throughout the grades. writing. mathematical thinking most level 4 were said to be from the tag class, even the post tasks before task most children were not on grade level ( 1 or 2) becoming more familiar with the ccls understanding why!!!! math is very abstract and we have to be able to teach the children to understand the problem teaching multi stepped problems

extremely hard to earn a level 4 expectations are set very high

after second task a lot more 3's , still very few 4's

practicing the tasks throughout the year not just the 6-8 weeks

6/7/2012 11:20:53

6/7/2012 11:24:08

6/7/2012 11:26:14

6/7/2012 11:31:40

6/7/2012 11:32:30

word problem- highlighting key children in grade 2 and 4 tasks were non adjust the curriculum to meet the ideas and math vocabulary I was in the room 1st period need a lot of sources,read aloud, independent fiction ( one opinion , one a book ) rigorous needs that the doe is asking for .......nobody showed up, next reading, video, writing about reading using their vocabulary in their year I think everybody should both had a hard time with introductions, build children's independent reading and mathematical thinking and be assigned 2 classrooms to stamina is higher conclusions, voice writing stamina explaining go to. I definitely hope to be more streamlined in my teaching - to be able to model Teacher interactions efficiently the different areas that the More methodical in our teaching students need to accomplish. We We definitely need to continue Needed to expand in teaching different focused on math - so another area that I in building the students' strategies to accommodate all criteria hope to be able to improve on is the understanding in using Definitely enjoyed seeing what teacher collaboration helped ability in verbally expressing our RELEVANT details within their the other grades are doing for Focus on non-fiction texts mathematical thought processes to show writing and also being able to their performance tasks and Looking for relevant details and main ideas Students the readers how we came to the explain WHY they utilized how it connects to the other Short preparation time for tasks Had difficulty with focus and stamina conclusion. I hope to be able to use these relevant details within grades. Would like to maybe Rigorous texts for performance tasks Required a lot of modeling and repetition more transitional words, mathematical their writing. Definitely need have a sit down to find out Rigorous criteria in grading in completing tasks vocabulary, mathematical explanations to help them synthesize the what each grade is required to Math tasks also require a lot of reading/ELA Difficulty in providing relevant details within the modeling of the math lesson materials and analyze/plan do so that we can streamline expectations (clarity/coherence) itself. their writing afterwards. our focus in our teaching. Areas that we need to enhance in own Both groups focused on writing non-fiction Trends we noticed regarding student work professional practice are to find texts or We believe we should work on informational texts. It involved learning nonand teacher interactions were working in topics that are more interesting that the finding appropriate texts/topics fiction features such as heading, subtopics, small groups, students using checklists, children can relate to, have an to motivate the students to conclusions, labels, diagrams, captions, glossary, vocabulary key charts, KWL charts, appropriate time line of when to do the learn and having more teacher table of contents, and index. diagrams, mentor texts, and anchor charts. pre and post assessments, and work on materials for children to The new expectations were much more rigorous, Teacher did a lot of read-a-louds and increasing non-fiction knowledge with comprehend non-fiction detailed, and competitive. modeling of interactive writings. more appropriate resources. features. In each grade, we were so excited to see that in the final assessments, Level 4s were NOT limited to TAG classes. Many classes The workshops were great produced level 4s, and there was a Re-aligning units to be as today. Presenters shone in a significant decrease in Levels 1 and 2. We rigorous as performance tasks way that I did not expect. I CCSS builds upon previous years. Each grade is thought this showed that with targeted think teachers gained a lot of progressively more rigorous. instruction, there are 4s in every class. Encouraging independence - confidence through this Another trend we noticed was that teacher teacher takes a step back and process. :) Standards seem much clearer. What students action across the grades (assessment, provides more resources and are expected to do in each grade is very clearly rubrics, detailed charts, checklists, goals, choices for students We saw a lot of trends across articulated. etc.) was consistent. We thought this was grades in terms of student evidence that this type of teaching was very Re-focusing lesson plans on growth, and it was really nice Greater emphasis on student independence. effective. Organization of materials for the skills students need to to be able to acknowledge our The pre-assessment was very powerful in performance tasks; setting appropriate learn from a unit, rather than colleagues' work with their Skill over content. planning targeted instruction. timeframes the content students today. Locate more appropriate mentoring texts; doing more modeling and shared writing Our grade 2 students and students in the in non-fiction; probably need to start nonThe presentations that we The standards are much more rigorous with the grades that we observed need to work on fiction informational writing intruction Stronger conclusions and observed were very Common Core than what they used to be. writing stronger conclusions. earlier in the school year. audience awareness. informative. Common Core standards are very rigorous. The Student work definitely showed growth in expectations of students are increasing so that ALL subjects and across ALL grades. All students will need to use a number of different teachers used content area work to skills to meet a level 4 criteria. For example, in enhance performance tasks. Both groups order to achieve a level 4 in the fifth grade math showed that students need practice performance task not only do students need to throughout the school year in organizations, get the answer correct, but explain, rationalize, transitioning ideas, elaborating ideas and connect, explain. not just copying the facts from the text. I think i need to figure out which common core standards will be addressed in each unit that is being taught. Also, i need to make sure that these standards are addressed and practiced throughout the school year, and provide constant practice so that students can build on their work and hopefully succeed. I think our grade needs to work on understanding and connecting mathematical problems to their prior knowledge. Provide and explain mathematical vocabulary.

6/7/2012 11:35:18

6/7/2012 11:35:46

Across the grade level we noticed that we all focused on nonfiction writing. There was more rigor within the tasks and the standards are requiring students to analyze all the information and put it into a non fiction writing piece.

Within the grades we noticed that they are all required to include a beginning and a conclusion in their task. All required to have diagrams/pictures with details and labels. Information needed to be detailed and relevant. All were linked to expectations of the new Common Core Standards. All had a rubric to make sure students grades were the same/ consistent in all classes on the grade. Students all progressed from the initial to the final performance task. Some moved within levels, while some were able to move from one level to the next level. In grades K, 1, & 2, we all noticed that students needed more work around conclusions for their non-fiction writing.

6/7/2012 11:36:16

They are much more rigorous and challenging. Expectations were rigorous and while we learned much about what our children were able to do, many of the expectations were very difficult to achieve. Certain elements such as, table of contents, introductions and conclusions were not age-appropriate. Because much of our population is ELL, expectations were even more difficult to achieve.

Some areas we need to enhance in our own professional practice is to become more aware of the rubrics and expectations for each task. We need to research more materials (books, websites, etc.) to help students become more aware of non-fiction features and with their writing around non-fiction. Really need to take time to teach and make sure that they are understanding the content and purpose. It also has to be something that is taught and revisited throughout the year, not just for performance task purposes. They will take it more seriously and retain it better Their initial task results were very low and so that we're not spending so much time showed substantial improvement after the 6- re-teaching because they have forgotten 8 weeks of instruction. everything.

We noticed as first grade teachers that the final results in grades K & 2 in their performance task final analysis were similar to our own. Students showed progress by moving within the same level rather than moving Some areas I feel our grade into the next level. Also all should work on is to look inthree grades need to work on depth on the rubric and a conclusion in their writing. expectations and to adjust our We noticed that second grade classroom rubrics to reflect students began their task with the expectations of the new writing with pictures as a core curriculum standards. support while Grade K & 1 More modelling with different began their task with pictures. types of non-fiction materials The second grade task can help students improve required the students to be their non- fiction writing skills. able to take notes.

I still think that we should continue working on math since writing is also an integral component of math and they are very weak in this area.

Everyone did such an amazing job and it has helped us realize that we all are having the same or similar challenges in our classrooms across the grades.

6/7/2012 11:36:51

Most teachers used similar methods to teach including teacher rubrics as well as child-friendly rubrics and checklists as references. Also the type of paper we used for them to practice their writing had some kind of guidance to give them a jump start.

We need more time between initial and Introducing non-fiction aspects final performance tasks to help develop early and throughout the year their nonfiction knowledge and writing and familiarizing them with skills. We have to align each task in non-fiction aspects (i.e developmental appropriateness to nonfiction/fiction, photographs, "kindergarten standards." We need to captions, labels, facts) as well Our eyes were opened as to create more references for the children to as writing about the text vs what the children's capabilities understand what their expectations are. their own opinions. were.

6/7/2012 11:37:47

6/7/2012 11:40:30

6/7/2012 11:40:55

In my professional opinion, I believe my grade should focus more on expanding and I noticed that across the grade levels, students understanding the are expected to read and follow directions, and mathematical vocabulary in writing has become paramount in expressing order for our students to their relevant details and solving multi-step explain in depth in their problems. mathematical thinking. Our grade should work on modeling shared non-fiction writing and also teaching the We learned that we need to pace the students how to find details in teaching time for each unit, including the a text as well as the key Everybody used the CC Rubrics to standardized performance task. In addition, we need to concepts of a text. We also the grades non-fiction writing expectations. In the lower grades the concentration were have more anchor charts and modeling need to introduce the terms Everybody used pre and post non-fiction writing on the key concepts, important details and for the students, so that they are aware that are associated with nonto evaluate growth in the children's writing. main ideas. of what is expected of them. fiction. Continue to work on nonTeachers provided helpful tools, i.e. charts, fiction studies, explicitly Expectations for the students on each grade are checklists, graphic organizers, rubrics and teaching and providing clear much miore demanding than before. The other media, to facilitate learning. Goal Matching CCS with grade level rubrics that stress the performance levels of most of the students are setting and reflection as a team also curriculum andaking expectations explicit elements of non-fiction on 2 or 3 but rarely on 4. enhanced teaching and learning. to the students. features.

I believe that teacher teams is a very important tool for us as we continue to engage in inquiry to analyze student work to adjust teaching practice and instructional planning. It is very pertinent for me to enhance on meeting and working with my groups more often. The reason for my assessment is that based According to the observations and data, it on my performance tasks data, it was apperars that student work and teacher evidenced that a plethora of my students interactions do play an integral part of made significant progress. However, I everyday learning and growth over a period want to be able to push ALL of my of time. students to achieve the highest level.

This was truly an eye-opening experience for me because I had the opportunity to sit and observe a lower grade inquiry team. In the future, I think we should get more opportunities to have visit other grades on Professional Development Days.

It was a terrific opportunity to see what the other grades were doing in correlation to our grade. It helps us understand the cohesiveness of the school's curriculum.

6/7/2012 11:41:18

The CCLS are very challenging and rigorous. Students are asked to do more within each task and then are graded with high expectations (often higher than state performance standards for testing).

It was nice to see how different grades have done their inquiry work. It seems like We need to work on building the lower grades' tasks were both reading and writing skills almost just as demanding as and strategies so that the upper grades. Perhaps students can better meet the there needs to be more We feel that we need to improve our more rigorous demands that alignment school wide in our teaching practices around writing, and the CCLS requires. We need performance tasks. Teachers have gained a better familiarize ourselves better with the to consistently train our understanding of the expectations and CCLS so that we can set higher goals students by doing more on We really appreciated Kaye teaching strategies from this inquiry and better prepare our students. Then demand reading and writing and Renny's help in setting up process. Providing visuals, strong modeling we can plan our lessons better as well as so that they can become more a format for us to present our with anchor charts, and checklists helps create performance tasks and rubrics familiar with and confident in findings so that we're all on students better meet their expectations. that are more appropriate. the process. the same page.

6/7/2012 11:41:37

6/7/2012 11:42:41

6/7/2012 11:48:46

The majority of students performed below grade level expectations on the initial tasks. After six weeks of teacher's actions, most of the same students were able to show some progress on the final tasks. The teachers across all grade levels took the similar actions-- analyzing students' work, designing the rubrics, using different kinds The new expectations are rigorous all across the of graphic organizers, to model and grades. The students are expected to read and teach.The teachers were required to write about non-fiction from Pre-K on based on collaborate and plan as a team so that the the given tasks. whole grade would work on the same page. All students in the grades I observed had much lower grades, both in pre and post The new expectations seem much higher than performance tasks. The materials teachers what is normally expected from state exams. All chose/given in all grades seemed too the grade teachers I observed seemed to need difficult. However, improvement graphs help in either unit timing, and more teacher showed overall improvement, even though development on the resources used. scores were not necessarily high. Emphasis on applying critical thinking skills. When given non-fiction expository/informational Students benefit from direct teaching and text, students are expected to reflect on literature practice of strategies, teacher's models, and produce written narratives to recall relevant scaffolding, and visual support. This led to information in an organized manner with proper a noticeable increase in the number of sequence, introduction/conclusion, and cohesion students meeting standards for the final of ideas. performance task. team work for teachers grade work for students usage of standard or rubric for the grade adjustment of teaching planning due to the rubric and student task

Need to learn how to design more specific rubric across the grade level;

For the students with special needs, they require more time, more teacher support, more exposures to understand the features of non-fiction genres.

I need to make more time to incorporate more written student feedback for my program. I will begin an art survey form next year. n/a Increase the student's ability to generalize skills and learned strategies into the classroom setting. Accomplishing this will require increase in co-planning and collaboration with teachers.

6/7/2012 12:31:53

6/7/2012 13:09:46

Based on the students' task, teachers need to make adjustment on planning. Also, it is the job of the teachers to guide the students to the grade requirement or expectations. Many of the teams discussed the adminstration of a pre and post assessment. They also discussed the need to look at the pre-assessment as a way to determine what teaching points needed to be made. There were checklists and I noticed the increased level of rigor....particularly rubrics incorporated into the teacher actions in the younger grades. as well.

Across all grade levels, include more expository text and non-fiction literature. reading comprehension: picking materials that answer the question planning to be adjusted based on the logical organization of different levels of the students material, including using pace of learning/teaching to be adjusted graphs, webs and charts based on the students' response writing: to the point I need to grow in my ability to teach math. The new standards require 5th grade to work with volume...this is a topic that, previously, was handled in 4th and 6th. So, I need to learn how to teach the topic so that it is hands-on. The children I believe we should continue need to understand the concepts beyond to work on math...particularly the formulas. math writing.

I enjoyed sseeing other people's work. I also applaud being able to have all of us responsible for presenting. It gave us an opportunity to present our professional findings in front of a an adult audience.