Take One! Looking Together at Teaching

Harding Take One Group, DPSNovember 23, 2010

Nancy Flanagan, NBCTJanice Pardy, NBCT

Take One! is•Standards-based•Voluntary•Individualized•Challenging•A “deep dive” into your teaching•Very different from traditional PD•More fun and more productive when you

do it with colleagues•A slice of the National Board process—

What will I have to do?• Carefully read a set of standards and

directions—and spend time thinking about how they relate to your practice. Get permission from the parents of students you’ll be videotaping.

• Tape lessons and analyze them. Only one taped lesson will be submitted.

• Write a paper (about 12 double-spaced pages), following guiding questions that are aligned with the standards.

• Participate in on-line discussions and meetings, November through April.

What’s in it for me?•SBCEUs—through Wayne RESA. Or—three grad

credits through George Mason University.•Collaborative work with some great DPS

teachers in a real professional learning community

• Improved teaching•Revelations about what you’re doing well, and

what needs improvement•A year focused on your own growth as a teacher• It’s all about you—a dedicated professional•A low-risk taste of National Board Certification

It All Begins with Standards

Discussion question: What does the word STANDARDS mean to you?

KEY POINT

Take One! asks teachers and other staff members to compare their work with kids to standards for teaching (not student content standards).

The goal is to provide evidence that your work with students is leading to solid learning—that your teaching has had an impact. The standards describe what a good instructor does to increase learning. Your score depends on how well you make the case that you are demonstrating those standards.

NOT the Super Bowl Lesson…

The purpose of Take One! is analyzing your regular daily practice. When you tape your work, select normal daily lessons that highlight your effectiveness in communicating with kids and illustrate your teaching decisions. Tape several lessons. Part of the process is watching yourself teach.

The Five Core Propositions

•#1 Know students well, be committed to their learning

•#2 Know subject and how to teach it

•#3 Effectively manage and monitor student learning

•#4 Systematically analyze and reflect on your practice

•#5 Work effectively with parents, colleagues and community—continue personal learning

Questions about standards•What are “professional

teaching standards?” How are they different from the standards I use to teach my students?

•How do I begin to think about standards-based teaching? How do I get into the habit of reflecting on my practice?

•How will I be scored on standards-based teaching? How is that different from my regular evaluations?

For example:

“Accomplished teachers can assess the progress of individual students as well as the progress of the class as a whole. They employ multiple methods for assessing student growth and understanding, and can clearly explain student performance to students, parents and administrators.”

Questions: The Assessment Standard

•#1) How do you assess individuals? Your entire class?

•#2) Think of a lesson you taught in the past week. What were your learning goals? Can you name three ways of assessing student learning in this lesson? Could you explain what was learned to parents? Administrators? Students? What is your evidence of learning?

Sample Guiding Question:

What method(s) of assessment did you employ to determine the success and/or progress of your students during this unit of study? Discuss method(s) of assessment used for both the math and the science-related learning, and cite how these methods of assessment provided constructive feedback for you.

What method(s) of assessment did you employ to determine the success and/or progress of your students?

After we built the roller coaster and timed the car runs, I asked my students why they thought the metal trucks ran faster than the plastic cars. Then I gave them the quiz that came with the pre-packaged lesson unit. All but two of my 28 students got an 80% or above on the quiz. I let the students take the quiz more than once, until they got a satisfactory score.

Force and motion topics are listed in the Michigan Grade Level Content Expectations, so it is likely that my students will be tested on this knowledge in the statewide assessments (MEAPs). Last year, my class had the highest math score on the MEAPs, compared to the other classes in my district.

What method(s) of assessment did you employ to determine the success and/or progress of your students?

My kindergarten students are wrestling with broader definitions of growth and measurement. To them, “half” of something means cutting it into two pieces. Measuring the caterpillars’ growth with some precision was tricky. In the discussion on the tape, Jacob shows big/bigger/biggest with his hands, and all the students mimic him– a rough concept of comparative measurement. I ask how to know how long a caterpillar is, exactly, for responses that tell me my students understand that things can be measured. Leesa says we can use a ruler. As I walk around the room, watching them measure things, I use probing questions: Which eraser is bigger? Guess how long the book is, before the ruler tells you? Can you measure paste in the jar? Water in a glass? How heavy a puppy is? Which of these pencils is longer? How much?

In order to develop a record of understanding, we use paper caterpillars and fold them in half, and in quarters. Students mark quarter segments and use “one-fourth” in their explanations—the beginning of understanding fractions. Looking at their paper caterpillar work, I can see who can articulate the concepts of “two inches,” halves and quarters, and “bigger.”

Sharing Our Writing• One way to look at each other’s work:

sharing a single question or topic. • A Take One! portfolio entry is one

teacher’s journey toward more effective teaching– so it cannot be examined for things that are “wrong” or need fixing.

• What we can do is read and ask questions about things that aren’t clear or believable—or think together about how to demonstrate standards-based teaching.

What’s different about Take One?

•Take One! rewards teachers for thinking about and analyzing their teaching—not producing one perfect lesson, or teaching to raise test scores.

•It’s a chance to be reflective about our work—a rare thing in our hectic school workplaces.

What’s the Timeline? What’s the Workload?

•Register. Begin reading and thinking, chatting on-line about questions, planning—to understand what is being asked of you. Plan to “read and think” for two months.

•Winter: lots of videotaping, sharing drafts of writing, revising, another meeting.

•April: Portfolio due, wrap-up.

One Quick Checklist…

#1) Read and highlight standards.#2) Skim the portfolio entry directions for the purpose of

the entry—plus any surprises. Use this link to find out which entry you’re responsible for: http://www.nbpts.org/userfiles/File/TakeOne_entries.pdf

#3) Think of 2 or 3 lessons I might use to reach the goal of the entry

#4) Get access to a video camera and practice using it on my family or roommates; DVD or VHS?

#5) Re-read the first standard and list six examples of how well I know my students’ needs. Run these by another Take One! buddy, on Facebook.

#6) Tell my students that I’ll be videotaping them and why.

Staying in Touch

•Facebook First•Next possibility: Ning•Saturday meetings•E-mail•Next face-to-face meeting

•QUESTIONS