Successful Learning in Fayette County Schools

Literacy Session 3

Late Start Day- January 29, 2014

Our next Literacy sessions will continue the focus on literacy across the curriculum by allowing teachers to look at how SKILLS drive learning. Teachers will be given time to explore common formative assessments and how working together is working smart. With a concentration on across the curriculum literacy driven by “cornerstone” skills teachers can facilitate genuine learning across all areas. Our goal is to have teachers aware of the power of using strong skill driven interdisciplinary lessons measured with common assessments. The session today will introduce them to this work.

(In the Edwards schools, OHHS, CMS, & VHS teachers will be able to tie this work to their “FRAMING FOR YOUR SUCCESS” Matrices.)

We can begin to design common assessments from our cross curricular literacy work to have a greater impact on learning.

LARGE GROUP- 15 minutes

Teachers are to have brought with them to this session a copy of their interdisciplinary lesson, artifacts of student work, and a reflection written by them on how well things went.

The facilitator will begin the meeting by having teachers share out their interdisciplinary lessons by content and grade levels to the whole group. The teachers can work with the teacher they collaborated with as they share what they were trying to accomplish and how well things as they implemented the lesson. Post- it notes should be on the tables for teachers to use to jot down their “take-aways” as their peers present. Key points shared can be placed on chart paper or the board as teachers share. The large group will be asked for their comments and reflections after teachers share out. Teacher “take-aways” can be posted on the “parking lot” as the whole group breaks to go to their small group teams.

As this segment ends the facilitator will inform the large group that after the break they will next break up into their small groups (varies by school= group by PLC, team, content, dept., etc.) just as we did before. Each teacher will need to take their interdisciplinary lesson to their small group meetings, as it will be the basis of today’s work. It would be good if teachers who jointly designed an interdisciplinary lesson were together.

BREAK- 5 minutes

SMALL GROUP – 60 minutes

The PLC/team/group leader needs to share that this segment is 60 minutes long. Share the sequence below to allow the teachers to collaboratively work together through the steps.

In this segment teachers will identify skill sets in their lesson, review the CSOs used in the design of their lesson, and they will “rough out” a common assessment.

Sequence for tasks for this session:

CSO– Individually focus for a moment on the CSO that drives your lesson.
Ø Talk collaboratively with your partner and the group on “what that CSO means to you” in your content area and what you are “really wanting the learners to get” from the lesson.
Ø How are the CSOs used in your cross curricular lesson similar or complementary?
Ø What do you have in common with your CSOs in both content areas?

SKILLS– Distribute a set of “Cornerstone Skills” that drive learning in classrooms. If your school has its own list you may use that, or you can use the attached “generic” cornerstone skill list (linked below) for this work.
Ø Take time to go over the 8 Cornerstone Skills and allow teachers to reflect upon and explain the importance and true meaning of each and share how each is taught in their content area. Are elements of these skills present in the interdisciplinary lesson that they created? If not, which “cornerstone skill” can be incorporated into their interdisciplinary lesson? Allow the teachers to collaboratively discuss the skills embedded into their lessons and their rational for that skill driving learning. Does the skill in your interdisciplinary lesson improve learning across the content areas addressed by your interdisciplinary lesson?
Ø As you go through this process think of how the skills driving your lesson tie to the CSO in each of your content areas. Collaboratively discuss and share the importance of that skill in your lesson in your content areas.

ASSESSMENT DESIGN– Using the Cornerstone Skills identified from your interdisciplinary lesson think of how that commonality of skill sets can be used to design an assessment to measure successful mastery across the content areas covered by that lesson. Allow teachers (who jointly designed their interdisciplinary lesson) to collaboratively focus on the skill embedded in that lesson to come with an evaluation that can be used in both content areas to measure success.

ROUGH DRAFT– Today the teachers who created each interdisciplinary unit need to create a “rough draft” on how they will measure successful mastery of their lesson.
- What format of testing will be used?
- What do the learners need to be able to do to indicate to the teacher that they have mastered the skills that have been identified that are crucial to their lesson?
- Be able to explain how a jointly designed test can be used to show mastery across the curriculum.
Collaboratively create a “rough draft” of a common formative assessment based upon your interdisciplinary lesson that can be used by a set of teachers to measure success.
This will be one of your “tickets out the door” at the end of the day.

Teachers will go back to the large group after their break.

BREAK – 5 minutes

LARGE GROUP- 15 minutes

The facilitator will bring the group back together and allow them to share out what they have accomplished today.

Teachers will be asked to explain to the large group the skills that they have identified in their interdisciplinary lesson. They will discuss what those skills “look like” in different content areas.
The facilitator will guide the teachers to explain how focusing on these skill sets will allow them to know that the learners have mastered the lesson.
Teachers will share the rationale, ideas, and specifics from their rough drafts on the common assessments that the teachers designed in their sessions today. The testing format used, sample question types and other general observations can be noted on chart paper by the facilitator.
Allow time for questions and collaborative conversations about the process of common assessments.

ASSIGNMENT FOR NEXT TIME

Identify the SKILLS that drive your interdisciplinary lesson that students must master to be successful. Highlight or list these skills on your interdisciplinary unit.
Use your rough draft created today to develop collaboratively a polished short common formative assessment that you could implement in your class to gauge the success of your interdisciplinary lesson.
If possible implement this common formative assessment in your class and bring back artifacts of student work to our next session. However, if you have moved beyond this lesson in your class, simply write a short reflection on your view of common assessments and interdisciplinary lessons and turn that in at our next session.

TICKET OUT THE DOOR

TO TURN IN TODAY:

A COPY of your interdisciplinary lesson
HIGHLIGHT (or list in bold) on that lesson the Cornerstone SKILL that drives your lesson
A ROUGH DRAFT of the common formative assessment that you could use to test for mastery on your interdisciplinary lesson.

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R E S O U R C E S

Common Assessment Powerpoint from WVDE April1-2TeacherAheadoftheCurve-3

Literacy Across the Curriculum PDF Literacy Across the Curriculum2

Cornerstone Skills cornerstoneskills- GENERIC

Successful Learning in Fayette County Schools

Creating a Culture of Success

Smarter Balanced Website

Resources

PBL Guide

21st Century Support Visuals

Classroom Management

Session 3 Sign In sheet template

Session 3 Update

SESSION 3- LATE START DAY- January 29, 2014

Literacy Across the Curriculum Presentation

Sign in sheet- LITERACY SESSION 2