In a Standards-Based World Everyone Can Be a Winner!

Summit on Urban Education in OhioThursday, May 5, 2005

Cleveland Municipal School District Donna Snodgrass

Cleveland Teachers Union Maryann Fredrick

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Barbara Byrd-Bennett, CEO, Cleveland Municipal School DistrictJoanne DeMarco, President , Cleveland Teachers Union

Board of EducationDr. Margaret M. Hopkins, ChairGrady P. Burrows, Vice ChairRashidah AbdulhaqqLawrence W. DavisLouise P. DempseyMagda GomezRobert M. Heard, Sr. Willetta A. MilamGladys Santiago

Dr. Michael Schwarz, ex officio memberDr. Jerry Sue Thornton, ex officio member

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Educators all over Ohio are attempting to build unified standards-based curricular systems.

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Cleveland’s unified ELA system includes:

Standards Matrix Standards at a Glance Pacing Guides Instructional Guides – Model Lessons Benchmark and Dipstick Assessments Intervention Materials Standards-based report card

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In a standards-based world:

First, educators Assess to understand a student’s current knowledge of the standards,

Then, they Plan to connect the assessment results to instruction,

Then, they Teach to the standards, beginning where the student is ready to learn.

Assess

Teach Pl

an

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But in order to to assess, plan and teach, to the standards, first educators must . . . .

UNPACK the Standards!

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Unpacking the standards is a process districts employ to “breathe life” into the standards in a way that gives educators, students and parents specific and clear directions about what to assess, plan and teach.

The First Step in Unpacking the Standards…

… is to organize the standards in a way that reveals hidden patterns within and among the standards.

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Reading (5) Writing (3) Research (1)

Communication (1)

Cleveland educators have organized the Ohio standards in a way that reveals how standards-based skills should develop from Pre-K through 12, well as what students should know and do at specific points in time to be on-track for graduation.

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Standards at a Glance

• Provides a condensed view of all the English Language Arts standards and indicators for a particular grade

• Includes all ELA standards: five standards for reading, three standards for writing, one standard for research, and one standard for communication

• Distributed to all teachers at the beginning of the school year

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Pacing Charts

• Lay out the grade level indicators by quarters and provide a research-based framework for determining the appropriate timing of instruction

• Identifies the most critical skills

• Developed in reading and writing for grades Pre-K through 12

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The second next step in unpacking the standards is to unpack the benchmarks and grade level indicators into their implied assessment items and lessons.

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Standards, benchmarks and grade level indicators are theoretical statements in which assessments and lessons are merely implied. There are no explicit assessments or lessons in any standard, any benchmark or any grade level indicator. One hundred experienced teachers might read a standard, benchmark or grade level indicators and each visualize a different assessment or lesson.

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The need for common assessments and lessons:

• If our assessments and lessons are not common, our 100 teachers might all be teaching to the same standards, but all be measuring and working toward different learning targets.

• Each test and lesson is a concrete example of what a child must do to demonstrate mastery of a standard.

• Common assessments and common lessons mean common learning targets.

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Common assessment and common lessons are vital in a district where it is common for children to transfer from school to school. Common assessments and lessons mean:

• Children are less likely to miss content, when they transfer.

• The setting may be different when children transfer, but the work is familiar.

• Upon transfer, teacher can more readily engage children in appropriate class work.

• All of the students’ records move with children to their new District

school through SchoolNet, a managed learning system.

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Assessment

• Historically, assessment has focused on norm-referenced tests, which rank students in order of their performance.

• Even if 100 students do relatively well on a norm-referenced test, they are rank-ordered by their scores.

• Thus, by their very nature, norm-referenced tests create winners and losers.

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In a standards-based assessment environment everyone can be a winner!

On a standards-based test, students are not compared to each other, rather, their performance is compared to the mastery of a specific set of skills or concepts.

If everyone masters the targeted standards at a high enough level, everyone is a winner!

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Cleveland has unpacked the ELA standards into a variety of common assessments. Each of these assessments serve different useful purposes.

• Benchmark Tests

• Dipstick Tests

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Benchmark Tests

• District teachers created a series of benchmark tests that are equated to each other and the Ohio Third Grade Reading Test.

• Three of these District benchmark tests are being administered to third grade students during the 2004/2005 school year.

September test – is NOT a secure test December test – is a secure test

May test – is a secure test

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• In 2005/2006 three versions of third, fourth and fifth grade Benchmark tests will be fully operational.

• Statistically equated versions of the tests at each grade level will be administered in September, December and May. The Benchmark tests are aligned to their grade level counterpart Ohio Achievement Tests.

• Benchmark tests will be vertically scaled across grade levels to allow for the tracking of growth over time.

• Sixth and seventh grade Benchmark tests will become operational in 2006/2007.

We have studied hard.

We have all become good at the data part ofDATA DRIVEN INSTRUCTION.

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Now, we must make the jump from data to ……..

…. ACTION

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Examples of Action or:INSTRUCTION DRIVEN BY DATA

• Scoring Camp for Kids (grades 3-7)

• Learning to Answer and Score Open-ended Test Items on the Ohio Graduation Test (Reading, Science, Social Studies and Mathematics)

• Intervention Activities Teachers Can Do When Kids Can’t: (grades 3-7)

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Scoring Camp for Kids helps students learn to write high quality responses to open-ended test items. The materials and activities in the Scoring Camp for Kids manual are based on the premise that providing students with exemplars of what constitutes high quality work facilitates the students’ ability to produce high quality work.

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Intervention Activities Teachers Can Do When Kids Can’t: Answer Multiple-Choice Items on Cleveland Third Grade Reading Benchmark Test….

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…Provides Cleveland teachers with an array of hands-on and concrete intervention ideas for helping students who are having difficulty with multiple-choice items on the Cleveland Third Grade Reading Benchmark Test

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The Cleveland Literacy System URL

http://www.cmsdnet.net/opd/CLS/index.htm

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Dipstick Tests – are short periodic tests that measure skills that are markers of good progress. These markers are identified on the Pacing Charters. For example: in grade three there are common dipstick, based on common lists provided to teachers, for example:

• Sight word tests

• Prefix and suffix tests

• Contractions tests

• Antonym and synonym tests

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An Aligned System: CLS Tools

Assess

Teach P

lan

• Instructional Guides/

• Lesson Plans• -Ongoing

Assessments• -Intervention

Activities

Standards Matrix-Pacing Charts-Literacy Block

Structures -Instructional Guides

State Assessments-District Benchmark

and Dipstick-Classroom Assessments

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90 Minute Literacy Block Template

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90 Minute Literacy Block Components

• Whole group mini-lessons

• Guided Reading

• Independent and partner reading

• Vocabulary development

• Spelling

• Fluency practice

• Writing

• Teacher read aloud

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Teachers are not the only individuals in classrooms who need to understand the standards!

Standards must be unpacked for students too!

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Rewriting standards into student-friendly language is a positive step in ensuring that studentsunderstand what they are to learn!

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Consider a standard that requires that a student “summarize” a story…

… how might the concept “summarize” be put into student-friendly language?

… perhaps as, the “Big Idea of the Story.”

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Once teachers have rewritten standards into student-friendly language, students can turn the standards into “I can statements!”

For example, a student might say “I can summarize or tell the big idea of a story and let me show you my evidence….

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Students should keep evidence of their own work, as it relates to the standards. Some examples are:

• Student portfolios

• Graphs and charts

• Checklists

• Record sheets

• Learning chains

• Quality control sheets

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A Standards-Based World Includes Everyone:

• Teachers• Students• Administrators• Parents• Community Members

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Students need to be actively engaged in their personal progress.

Here are some samples of how students can record and celebrate their personal progress.

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Look What I Accomplished This Week

Student: Week:

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday

I can read: I can read: I can read: I can read: I can read:

I can write: I can write: I can write: I can write: I can write:

+ -I can add and

subtract:I can add and

subtract:I can add and

subtract:I can add and

subtract:I can add and

subtract:

I can tell time: I can tell time: I can tell time: I can tell time: I can tell

time:

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Learning Chains

Learning chains are one way to help students measure and celebrate individual, classroom or building progress. Links in the chain represent skills and concepts that students have mastered. Each link makes an equal contribution to the total length of the chain no matter whether the links represent the work of the most advanced student or the work of a student who is just starting to make progress. The links of an individual child represent the measured progress of that child. Combining the links of all the students in the class (or building) represents the measured progress of the entire class (or building) over a specified period of time.

Step 1: Create colored strips as shown below.

Reserve for taping Reserve for taping

11” long and 1 ½ “ wide

¾” Student’s Name: _________________________ Class: ______________ What I accomplished: ____________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________

¾”

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Step 2: Allow each child to pick the color he or she will use for all of his or her links. Give each child an envelope or bag in which to keep untaped paper links he or she has earned.

Step 3: Each time a child has completed an assigned or agreed upon task he or she is given a strip as shown above. The child immediately writes the appropriate information on his or her strip and puts it in his or her envelope.

Step 4: At an agreed upon time, each child chains together his or her links and measures the length of his or her chain in order to determine his or her measured progress. Students can graph the length of their chains on a time series chart at regular time intervals. The time intervals are graphed on the x-axis, and the length of the chain is graphed on the y-axis. The entire class can link its chains together. Classroom chains can reach around the room more than once. (Measured progress for a building can reach around the block.) This activity is a good opportunity in elementary or middle schools for older students to apply what they have learned about measuring the perimeter of a figure.

Step 5: Each child should be able to tell which link he or she is most proud of and why.

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Percentage100%

- Quality Control Sheets or Student Performance Over Time

90%

80%

70%

60%

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40%

30%

20%

10%

0%

Date

AssessmentNumber

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

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Assessment How I prepared for each assessment.

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