SMART 2006 Team Reports
|
Team Members: Marie Hayes, Kathy Isgar, Jen Kagan, Chris Homer | |||
|
Team Name (e.g. Delaware Elementary): Onondaga Nation School |
For each team member, Place an X in the boxes that apply. |
Academic Year |
Summer Institute |
|
8 |
4 | ||
|
Team Location and Focus (e.g. DelawareESL literacy) Onondaga Nation School Literacy and GESA. During this weeklong course we have focused on GESA for teachers and GESA for parents as well as data analysis. Jen Kagan is writing an article for publication based on the staff development that she facilitated during the 2006 year. Her focus is on the dynamics of inquiry groups. She is working with Marie Hayes, who was a member of the inquiry group and also a summer SMART team member and they are going to write about their particular perspectives. Jen has been researching staff development and inquiry group dynamics and has discovered many pertinent articles on the topic. Marie Hayes is working with Jen Kagan on an article based on her perspectives as a new member of the inquiry group. She attended the GESA Awareness training and the two day training on GESA for Parents. She received a GESA for Parents certification, which would allow her to be a facilitator to train parents on the elements of GESA. Marie felt that her GESA experiences were something that she would like to share with her administrator at the Onondaga Nation School to discuss the possibility of implementing the program in the future. She has also signed up for the GESA Facilitator Workshop that will be held in October of 2006. Kathy Isgar participated in SMART 2006 and is working with the ONS team to develop new ways of approaching staff development in the upcoming school year. Through an overview of GESA and GESA for Parents, along with data analysis, she will work with Jen, Marie, and Chris to develop this program. Kathy has offered to work with the ONS team in the future. Chris Homer attended training sessions on the program objectives of the GESA approaches to improving educational excellence during the SMART institute. She will be attending the fall workshop that will further her credentials by obtaining facilitator status from the annual GESA Facilitator Workshop. Once certified as a facilitator, she will be working with Marie to help implement information to the community, parents, and Onondaga Nation School staff and Lafayette Central School District administration. | |||
|
Data analyzed on teacher learning and results (e.g. Faculty surveys, teachers reflective journals) There were seven teachers involved in the inquiry group this year. We worked on reading three books: A Mind at a Time and The Myth of Laziness both by Mel Levine, and The Fluent Reader by Tim Rasinski. Teachers also implemented some of the practices in the books that we read and came back to the group to give feedback on how the implementation worked. Roz George, a member of the inquiry group, plans on implementing ideas next year from the book The Fluent Reader. She has identified two students in the classroom that would benefit from phrases and short sentences for repeated reading practices. We found this book extremely practical and chock full of great ideas for practice. The entire inquiry group agreed that we want to help teachers and students understand fluency. During the summer course that Jen Kagan teaches, she will ask her graduate students to implement a fluency activity called Readers Theater. This will continue during the year. We have discussed the possibility of presenting this to the teachers during a faculty meeting, early in the year. Poets Misha and Jack also came into the fifth and sixth grade classrooms to do writing. Last year, it was clear that Roz and Steve were a little reluctant to give time up from ELA to have the students do writers workshop. However, it was such a success last year and this year that we plan on continuing this program. Some parents called the school about the creative writing program and said that the kids were excited to write. The principal received some of these calls and thanked the teachers and writers who facilitated writers workshop. Steve Gryzlo, the sixth grade teacher was excited about how really reluctant writers were now writing, and that this motivation and energy was also directed to reading more. We received compliments and good feedback from the teachers who would like the writers to continue their work for years to come. I think that next year we will try to do teacher reflective journals, so that teachers can have an avenue to reflect on their practice, and share it with the whole inquiry group. | |||
|
Data analyzed on student learning and results: (e.g. annual literacy assessments/NYS report card disaggregated data for 4th grade ELA, analysis of rubric scores on students writing samples each quarter for students in vs. not in the program): The information on the NYS School Report Card is not comprehensive or accurate because of the number of students represented. The Onondaga Nation School is a school that is a K-8 building with about one hundred students total enrolled in the school. Since there are so few students taking the standardized exams (for example, the average class size in English grade 8 was 8 in 2004-2005) we feel that one outlier on either end of the spectrum would skew the test data. Basically, the Comprehensive Information Report doesn't reflect the reality of student work. Several other reports exist to discern test data and come up with ways of improving test scores in the LaFayette CSD. There is an Instructional Improvement Plan ELA, K-6 and a Local Assistance Plan or a L.A.P. report. The goal of the Instructional Improvement Plan is to have 75% of 4th graders in the LaFayette School District achieve a level 3 or 4 on the New York State ELA exam. By June 2007, the goal is 90%. In this document there are strategies and activities, people who are involved in the training, and expected outcomes of the strategy /activity. More specific is the Local Assistance Plan or L.A.P. report that unpacks the ELA 4 exam and determines students weaknesses and strengths. From this data we can conclude that students are lacking the writing skills to compose a cohesive essay. Some of the findings of the L.A.P. were:
We haven't completed the L.A.P. for this year, or done any comparative post testing, but we are going to be collecting writing samples from the kids to determine if their writing improves over time. Jack and Misha have reproduced the kids work in an anthology called Bad Llama, so that they are published. Last year, Elissa (a writer who worked with Gerry at ONS, not a member of our summer group) had a student who came in second place in the Syrhaikus (Syracuse Haikus) writing competition. He was a fourth grader and received a gift certificate and a journal from Syracuse New Times Newspapers and had the opportunity to do a reading at the Carousel Mall. Last year, another student who was labeled as learning disabled astounded some teachers with the content and how much he wrote. A very reluctant writer who wrote very little when asked to, all of a sudden was writing five or six pages a day. Elissa showed his resource teacher his work, and the resource teacher became interested as to how and why he was writing so much. It was truly amazing. This kid couldn't spell very well, but wrote a great story with a good plot and the resource teacher came to the classroom where he was working to see what was going on. Another student, who was read to and had a scribe, was happy to have his teaching assistant read to the class his work. This student was so proud of his work, and considers himself a reader and writer with the adaptations that were put in place for him. A student who normally shuts down during writing time wrote for us, which was an amazing feat! This kid had a reputation for doing very minimal work, and if you pushed him, he would shut down. One of the teachers was even thinking of not letting him participate in the writers workshop because the teacher feared he would shut down. The writers and I thought that we should give him a try to see how he would do with new people in a different environment. Well, I remember holding my breath as Gerry walked up to this kid, and I was hoping that he wouldn't shut down. I watched the interaction and said to myself Hallelujah! This kid actually was writing and it was because the space was such a comfortable and inviting safe haven. Kids have come up to me (Jen) and as soon as I walk into their classroom on Thursday mornings they are excited to see me and ask when the writers are going to be coming in. I feel that this experience has changed and transformed all involved in the process. From the writers to the teachers, to me I think we have all learned a great deal about the power of an apprenticeship model. These kids weren't learning from teachers who wrote, they were learning from writers that taught. The kids also thought it was so cool that they could get out of English Language Arts class just to write! What they didn't really realize was that THIS WAS English Language Arts class in the truest form. I think it helped that the writers were young, hip and cool too but I have to think it was the people AND the process that made this work. I also teach a summer course with graduate students LIT 509, and we assess where the kids are in terms of their reading and writing skills. I will implement the idea of having the kids do writing pieces during the STAR (Summer Thinkers and Readers) program and also balance the course objectives with less of an emphasis on assessment and more emphasis on intervention. | |||
|
Action Plan for 2006-2007 (list objectives, activities, people responsible, month by month for the academic year. E.g. September Peng will recruit teachers for ESL study group to focus on analyzing various models of ESL instruction, October-teacher team members recruit/select students to participate in the College Experience and pair with Candidate writing partners pre-assess students writing samples) September Jen will start to get participants in inquiry group. She will develop inquiry group meeting structure and objectives. The focus will be on fluency. There will be the book by Tim Rasinski A Fluent Reader that we will continue to work with. The GESA team will initiate contact with administration about incorporating GESA within the district. Jen, Jack, and another poet yet to be determined, will work with students every other Thursday. School web link on inquiry group will be started. October Inquiry group will finish and discuss the first book. All of the members will come up with ways to incorporate practices from the literature into the classroom. The team will attend the three-day GESA Institute on October 19th October 21st. November Members of the inquiry group will implement and reflect on new practices. We will discuss how to incorporate readers theater and what grade levels will participate. GESA facilitators will organize a timeline to begin the program and also contact the outside facilitator. December Members of the inquiry group will finish and discuss second book. Jack will organize a reading of the students creative writing. Overview of GESA will be introduced. January Instructional contact unit in GESA will be discussed with faculty and implemented. February Grouping and organization unit in GESA will be discussed with faculty and implemented. Inquiry group will continue during February through May. March Classroom Management/Discipline unit in GESA will be discussed and implemented. April Enhancing Self Esteem unit in GESA will be discussed and implemented. May Evaluation of Student Performance unit will be discussed and implemented. Poetry and fiction by students will be read in classrooms and anthology will be created. Newsletter will be given to faculty about what inquiry group accomplished during the year. Discuss parent piece of GESA. June Teachers will attend the SMART course and reflect on year with ideas for next year's literature. | |||
|
Please address how your project meets the attached standards that are marked with an *. (Beyerbach and Burrell will meet with each team to discuss how you can do this). Standard 3.1 There are two school professional development plans: The Instructional Improvement Plan and the L.A.P. (Local Assistance Plan) Report. Basically these reports have goals of improving score on the fourth grade ELA exam. The L.A.P. report is an item analysis based on standardized test results. These are living documents consistent with administrative goals. Standard 3.2 - The professional development will be evaluated by portfolios of student work and writing rubrics where teachers and students reflect on written work We will also have student writing journals and implementing faculty reflection journals. Standard 4.2 Because we work with M.F.A. creative writers in a writers workshop model, all teachers were aided in implementing the workshop model in the classroom. Most teachers were planning to implement this workshop model next year with the help of the writers in the classroom. Standard 4.3 - For the inquiry group with the books we were reading, we provided a newsletter to inform and teach other teachers on faculty how to do readers theater and ways of including inquiry projects for the students. Standard 5.1 Professional development was imbedded in classroom time with the writers workshop and after school with the inquiry group. Standard 5.2 In the inquiry group there were a wide variety of teachers, novice and experienced. During workshop time in the classroom, many of the teaching assistants were involved in helping students who were having difficulty with their writing. Standard 5.3 Preservice teachers participate in a summer course at the Onondaga Nation School entitled LIT 509: Evaluation for Reflective Instruction. These students who are getting their Masters degree in literacy, tutor kids at the Onondaga Nation School Standard 5.5 Teachers at the Onondaga Nation School serve as participants in the design of the summer course. We are including one of the M.F.A. writers to co teach the summer course as was suggested by faculty. Also, the focus of the course will be on evaluation, and intervention. Standard 6 During our inquiry group we had meetings after school to discuss implementation of practices that we discussed in our after school meetings. The members of the group led discussions and one member thought of how to disseminate the knowledge in a newsletter for faculty. Standard 7 In the summer course that I teach, scientifically based research on literacy underlies the basic theory and objectives of the course. Books are used by leaders of the field of literacy instruction. Standard 8- The New York State Learning Standards for literacy are addressed in the course LIT 509, and each teacher in the course writes lesson plans with objectives that relate to the standards. Standard 9 Equity issues are addressed in teaching and learning. I was trained as a GESA facilitator and plan on going again to GESA facilitation training. There was evidence that equity issues were addressed in the writers workshop. For example, a student who has a learning disability and doesn't yet read or write was included in the workshop class by having his teaching assistant scribe for him and read his work aloud. This was acceptable to all students and teachers in the classroom, and the student was very proud of his work. The workshop model really lends itself to equity issues in that teachers and teaching assistants provide one to one support, and each child is evaluated according to his/her strengths and weaknesses. | |||