RISD 41s Road Map To Success

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RISD 41s Road Map To Success

• Our Plan To Help All Students Achieve At High
  Levels Based on Research and Best Practices

Office of Instruction School Improvement
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Presentation Intentions

• Communicates RISDs plan to meet the challenge of
  ensuring that All Students Achieve At High
  Levels
• Is intended to educate and provide background
  knowledge and information regarding District
  initiatives
• Is interactive and includes links to online
  research and rationale for the Districts
  Academic Excellence Framework (AEF) initiative.
  The user can select to learn more about specific
  components.
• Questions, comments and/or suggestions can be
  directed to the Office of Instruction and School
  Improvement or email to jay.marino_at_risd41.org
• Visit our web site for further information at
  http//curriculum.risd41.org

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What Does Research Say?(Learn More Using Online
Hyperlinks Below)
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Lessons Learned From Schools Using Quality
Initiatives

• View The Research Library Online!

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Case Studies- Schools Using Quality Processes and
Tools

• Other schools have done it, so can we!
• Baldrige Award Winners in Education
• Community Consolidated School District 15
  (Palatine, IL)
• Pearl River School District (Pearl River, NY)
• Chugach School District (Anchorage, AK)
• Lincoln Award Winners in Education
• Koalaty Kid Schools- success stories
• Brazosport School District- example of closing
  the achievement gap and all students achieving at
  high levels (see next few slides)

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Brazosport ISD Starting Points (Math)
White
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All Students
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Math Test Scores- Brazosport ISD
100
90
White 79
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9293
9192
9394
9495
9596
9697
9798
9899
9900
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Lessons Learned from Schools Using Quality

• Validate the mission and goals every year
• PDSA becomes the only model for continuous
  improvement
• Report results often to staff
• If you dont have comparative data, they dont
  exist
• If you cant map a process, chances are that you
  arent doing it in a systemic, systematic way

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What The Successes Have in Common

• A total systems framework
• Aligned processes
• Data-driven decisions
• Strong leadership
• A customer focus

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Common Successes Continued

• Continuous improvement planning process
• Driven to classroom level
• High teacher involvement
• A belief system We can teach all students.
• A focus on quality as the prime driver of change

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The Common Thread

• All these schools are committed to quality
  initiatives (Baldrige, Koalaty Kid, Total Quality
  Management, etc.) and utilize Plan, Do, Study,
  Act as the only model for data driven decision
  making

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We will continue to deploy
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Lessons Learned From The 90-90-90 Research

• View The Research Library Online!

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What is a 90-90-90 School?

• 90 or More Free and Reduced Lunch
• 90 or More Minority Enrollment
• 90 or More of the Students Meet or
• Exceed Proficiency on Independent
• State Tests

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The Latest Evidence

• . Linguistic and Ethnic Minorities
• Benefit Substantially From Frequent
• Writing Assessment
• Assessment Improvements are
• Cross-Disciplinary
• Writing Results Appear Even in High
• Mobility Populations
• Persistent Improvement Over Time

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Common Elements of 90/90/90 Schools

• Focus on Achievement Measurement
• - Honesty, Not Excuses
• Multiple Opportunities for Student
• Success
• Weekly Assessment
• Writing As Lever
• External Scoring

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1.) Focus on Achievement

• Charts, graphs and pictures of success are posted
  and displayed in offices, hallways, classrooms,
  local stores
• High academic performance is rewarded with high
  praise.
• Students not meeting standards receive
  interventions until standards are met
• Schools focus on the critical few- only 2 or 3
  SIP goals

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2.) A Focused Curriculum

• Curriculum focuses on a few areas math,
  language arts and reading and these areas are
  covered in all content areas
• Test scores go up in all areas, not just the
  areas focused on
• Identifying and aligning focused common academic
  standards at each grade level results in high
  achievement

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3.) Frequent Assessments

• When a student does poorly on an assessment, they
  are given multiple opportunities to succeed.
• Student learning is the goal, not student grading
• Weekly student assessment of progress is made by
  the teacher and the student is encouraged to show
  improvement the following week.
• Student ownership of their learning, goal
  setting, student data collection have a positive
  impact on achievement

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4.) Strong Emphasis on Writing

• Most common characteristic of high performing
  schools is an ongoing writing performance
  assessment program
• Research shows creative writing is strong than
  informative or narrative writing
• There is a single rubric for all writing
  assignments in all content areas

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5.) External Scoring of Student Work

• External scoring allows schools to develop a
  common assessment practice.
• By exchanging student work for assessment
  purposes, teachers identify common expectations
  which leads to consistency among teachers

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90/90/90 Strategies Are Transferable

• Have district-wide influence
• Have multidisciplinary impact
• Effective with ESL population
• Effective in high mobility schools

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Its The Practice!

• There is no 90/90/90 program
• These practices are neither
• secret nor proprietary
• Clear focus, enough time, and
• regular feedback are the keys!

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Lessons Learned From Effective Schools Research

• View The Research Library Online!

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Effective Schools Research

• All students can achieve at high levels has to be
  constantly emphasized.
• Substantive improvements in student achievement
  take time to happen
• consistency is key with a single long-range plan
  to guide the school.
• Student achievement focus is only on one or two
  areas yearly
• the whole school must be involved and committed
  to the improvement goal.
• Meeting school-wide achievement goals demands
  structure and specific teaching and learning
  items at each grade level and monitoring them
  over time.

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Effective Schools Research

• Identifying at-risk students and developing
  special strategies to assist them.
• Staff development is key to helping teachers
  change their teaching methods relating
  instruction and staff development.
• Respecting - coaching - investing in teaching
  staff.
• Teaching students to write well is connected to
  reading, but also employs special support
  programs like write-to-write and use of
  portfolios.

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Effective Schools Research

• Student achievement in reading has been the focus
  of attention structured reading programs and
  small group instruction for students in special
  need are hallmarks.
• School-wide focus on taking high-stake tests,
  practicing and preparing - all help focus
  importance on doing well on the test.
• Constant evaluation of school achievement data.
• Aligning what is taught in the classroom with
  what is tested.

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Characteristics of High Performing Schools
(online hyperlinks)

• Clear and Shared Focus
• High Standards and Expectations
• Effective School Leadership
• High Levels of Collaboration and Communication
• Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment Aligned
  with Standards
• Frequent Monitoring of Teaching and Learning
• Focused Professional Development
• Supportive Learning Environment
• High Levels of Community and Parent Involvement

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More Effective Schools Research(Online
Hyperlinks)

• Parental Involvement
• Teacher Expectations
• Recognizing Cultural Differences
• Relevant Learning
• Research-Based Instructional Practices
• Personal Responsibility
• Safe, Orderly Learning Environments
• Focus on Academic Learning
• Teacher Encouragement
• Frequent Monitoring of Progress

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Lessons Learned From Closing the Achievement Gap
Research

• View The Research Library Online!

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Closing the Achievement Gap

• Have uniform standards.
• Schools often set shockingly low standards and
  expectations for their students. Clear and public
  standards for what children should learn at
  benchmark grade levels are critical
• Make the curriculum challenging.
• Uniform standards mean nothing without a rigorous
  curriculum.
• Maintenance of a school climate conducive to
  academic productivity.
• by orienting students' attitudes and behavior to
  excellence and giving them a sense of efficacy
  and power.
• Provision of increased instructional time in
  reading, mathematics, and other basic skills.

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Closing the Achievement Gap

• Student Support-
• Provision of supplemental individualized
  education supports, including tutoring by
  professionals or trained adult volunteers and
  peers after-school, weekend, and summer
  programs and intensive in-school aid for
  retained students.
• Application of in-depth, appropriate, and ongoing
  assessments of the performance and progress of
  each student
• --including grades, test scores, classroom
  behavior, extracurricular activities, and
  conduct--to determine class and program placement
  and the types of individual supports should be
  given.
• Provide good teachers.
• Poor and minority students are more likely to be
  taught by under qualified teachers (no matter how
  qualification is measured). Further, research
  shows that good teaching is "the thing that
  unquestionably matters most" to student learning.

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Whats RISD 41s Plan?

• Given the research and best practices, what is
  our plan to help all students achieve at high
  levels?
• Our Plan-
• Implementation of RISDs Academic Excellence
  Framework (AEF)
• Persistent use of continuous improvement
  processes and tools
• Focus on the strategic plan, core values and
  guiding behavior

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The Academic Excellence Framework (AEF) in RISD41

• Learn More Online!

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Academic Excellence Framework
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AEF Strategy Effective Instructional Strategies
Used By Classroom Teachers

• Learn More Online!

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Effective Instructional Strategies

• 5 day professional development series for all
  teachers over the next several years
• Based on research and best practices
• Apply principles of brain-compatible learning and
  multiple intelligences to increase student
  performance and engagement.
• Use unit and lesson planning strategies to
  increase student achievement and motivation.
• Learn and use assessments for learning that
  improve student achievement and motivation.
• Expand and deepen student comprehension by using
  the six facets of understanding.
• Using Understanding By Design text

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What is Understanding by Design?

• A curriculum model which affects---
• Teacher planning
• Teacher delivery
• Student learning
• Student assessment

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Backward Design Process

• Stage 1 Identify Desired Results
• Stage 2 Determine Acceptable Evidence
• Stage 3 Plan Learning Experiences and
  Instruction

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Stage 1 Identify Desired Results

• Enduring Understanding
• Essential Questions
• Knowledge and Skills

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Understanding

• "the capacity to apply
• facts, concepts and
• skills in new situations
• in appropriate ways"
• Howard Gardner

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Focus
Worth being?familiar with
Important to?know and do
"Enduring"?understanding
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Key Questions

• What is worth understanding?
• What is understanding? How will we know that
  students really understand?
• How might we better anticipate and address
  predictable student misunderstandings?

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Enduring Understanding Filters

• Fills state standards
• Represents a "big idea" having enduring value
  beyond the classroom
• Resides at the heart of the discipline
• Requires student uncoverage
• Engaging for students

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"Unpack" Content Standards

• What "big ideas" are embedded within the
  standards?

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Stage 2 Determine Acceptable Evidence

• Performance tasks
• Quizzes, tests, prompts
• Unprompted evidence
• Self-assessment

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Assessment Types
Worth being?familiar with

• Traditional quizzes and tests Paper/pencil
  Selected response Constructed response

Important to?know and do
"Enduring"?understanding
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Stage 3 Plan Learning Experiences and
Instruction

• Sequence of learning experiences and instruction

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Increasing Student Achievementand Motivation

• Apply principles of brain compatible learning
• Teach to students multiple intelligences
• Use assessments FOR learning
• Deepen students understanding and comprehension

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Professional Development Design

• Day 1 How do brains learn best?
• Day 2 How are we intelligent?
• Day 3 Whats understanding? How do we design
  for understanding?
• Day 4 How can we assess FOR learning?
• Day 5 Sharing Our Successes

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Essential Understandings
Teaching and learning must be brain
compatible. Learners have multiple
intelligences. Planning for learning makes the
difference. Assessments must motivate FOR
learning.
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Outcomes

• Enhance a favorite and previously taught unit
• Create a new unit
• Collaborate with colleagues designing a similar
  unit
• Assess student achievement and motivation for
  learning
• Share planning and teaching strategies with
  colleagues

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Understanding by Design

• Backward Design
• Uncoverage
• What is understanding?
• Thinking Like an Assessor

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We must devise learning environments that go with
the grain of the brain. John Abbott Educational
Leadership, Nov., 1999
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Summary ofAcademic Excellence Framework
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AEF Strategy Identification Of Power Standards

• View RISD Draft of Power Standards Online!

Learn More About Power Standards and Other
Schools That Use Them Online!
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How can we meet the complex learning needs of
students in a standards based environment?

• In brief, how can we achieve standards without
  becoming standardized?

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What Are Power Standards?

• Deployed in language arts and math PreK-12
• Prioritized standards that are derived from a
  systematic and balanced approach to
  distinguishing which standards are absolutely
  essential and which ones are simply nice to
  know
• A subset of the complete list of standards for
  each grade or subject area and represent the
  safety net curriculum.

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Power Standards Are

• The standards that each teacher needs to make
  sure that every student learns prior to leaving
  the current grade.
• A brief, straightforward, easy to read document
  to guide standards based instruction

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2 Guiding Questions

• 1.) What essential understandings and skills do
  students need
• 2.) Which standards can be clustered or
  incorporated into others

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Why Power Standards?

• Most teachers lack a 400 day school year and
  students with photographic memories and there are
  too many standards
• Power Standards narrow the focus of academic
  requirements
• In striving to cover all standards, we end up
  superficially covering the standards like a wet
  blanket
• The less is more theory

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Why Power Standards?

• Power standards do not relieve teachers of the
  responsibility for teaching all standards and
  indicators, but does identify which standards are
  critical for student success and which ones can
  be given less emphasis
• In the absence of Power Standards, teachers will
  select their own

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Power Standards Identification criteria

• Endurance
• Leverage
• Readiness for the next level of learning
• What knowledge and skills must I impart to my
  students this year so that they will enter next
  years class with confidence and a readiness for
  success?

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ENDURANCE

• Will the knowledge and skills to which this
  standard relates be used by students for several
  years after they use that standard at this grade
  level?

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LEVERAGE

• Will the knowledge and skills to which this
  standard help students in other academic areas?

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READINESS

• Do teachers in the next higher grade regard this
  standard as a necessary entry point for a student
  to enter that grade with success and confidence?

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With Power Standards
Random Acts of Instruction
Without Power Standards
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Examples of Power Standards Documents
View RISD Draft of Power Standards Online!
Learn More About Power Standards and Other
Schools That Use Them Online!
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Unwrapped Power Standards

• Unwrapping standards is just good teaching
• Helps make connections to other areas of study
• Utilize higher order thinking skills (blooms
  taxonomy)
• Incorporates Enduring Understandings
• Engages students by setting a purpose and uses
  Essential Questions
• Assessment using multiple intelligences and
  Learning Styles

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Summary ofAcademic Excellence Framework
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AEF Strategy Curriculum Mapping
Learn More Online!
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Curriculum Map

• Delineates math and language arts content by
  grade level and course
• Provides Scope Sequence of instructional
  objectives to be taught (based on Power Learning
  Standards)
• Provides district-wide alignment of instruction
  across grade levels and course
• Addresses mobility of students with the intent to
  standardize instructional timelines and close
  gaps in instruction that students are subjected
  to as they move from school to school
• Developed with input from stakeholder groups
  (teachers, administrators)
• Ensure vertical alignment between grade levels

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What is Curriculum Mapping?

• Procedure for collecting a database of the
  operational curriculum in a school or district.
• Provides the basis for authentic examination of
  that database.
• Sharing of data about what really happens.

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Why Map?

• If we have no working knowledge of what students
  studied in previous years, how can we build on
  their learning?
• If we have no insight into the curriculum in
  later grades, how can we prepare learners for
  future classes?
• Dr. Heidi Hayes Jacobs

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Mapping is a Communication Tool

• Between teachers in a building
• Between teachers in feeding and receiving schools
• For parents
• For students

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What is recorded on the map?

• Content - What is it that you are teaching?
• Skills - List the skills with verbs
• Assessment - Observable evidence and listed with
  nouns
• Is it a project, multiple choice test,
  performance test?

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Essential Questions

• Tools for clearly and precisely communicating the
  pivotal points of the curriculum
• Help prevent the potpourri problem which plagues
  many curriculums
• Gives the teacher a backbone, reference points,
  and background for what the student is to learn
  within various activities
• Act as mental velcro
• Structure the unit around 2 to 5 essential
  questions
• Align to appropriate power standards

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Assessments are the Major Products and
Performances

• Demonstration of the learning
• Must be nouns
• Tangible products or observable performances
• Clarify the difference between
• drill and practice
• rehearsal
• authentic performance

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AEF Strategy Exit Outcomes/Performance
Descriptors
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Exit Outcomes / Performance Targets

• Establish measurable objectives and targets for
  learning by grade level and course
• Outcomes based on Power Standards and sequenced
  according to the Curriculum Map Scope Sequence
• Developed with input from stakeholder groups
  (teachers, administrators, parents, students)

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Exit Outcomes / Performance Targets

• Communicate academic performance standards
  expectations in student and parent friendly
  format.
• Student accountability and ownership through
  monitoring and keeping track of progress (student
  data folders, portfolios, student led
  conferences)
• Realign report cards to reflect level of
  achievement as measured by the Exit Outcomes /
  Performance Targets

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Example of Exit Outcomes
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Summary ofAcademic Excellence Framework
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AEF Strategy In- Process Measures and Assessments
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In Process Measure / Assessment

• Deployment of in-process measurement based on
  Power Standards / Exit Outcomes / Curriculum Map
• Local district assessment created by teachers and
  administrators
• Student assessment based on Power Standards and
  Exit Outcomes/Performance Targets
• Data intended to inform classroom instruction and
  identify students in need of academic support
• Automate assessment scoring process and implement
  electronic data analysis for immediate results
  and classroom implementation

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In Process Measure / Assessment

• Results disaggregated by student sub-group
  population, teacher, school, and district
• Data used to inform School Improvement Plan and
  design of Professional Development
• Student ownership through monitoring of their own
  progress (student data folders, portfolio,
  student led conferences)
• In process measures will allow for early
  detection of students in below standards status
  or academic warning status

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A Word About Assessment

• Without a link to assessment (not one shot state
  tests, but to the daily practice of classroom
  assessment, along with feedback, coaching)
  standards are little more than colorful wall
  charts
• Because high stakes testing is aligned to
  standards, standards have become the critical
  focus for achieving results

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Assessments

• Meaningful assessments need to be tied to the
  Power Standards
• These assessments provide the evidence of student
  attainment of power standards
• Students should be given multiple opportunities
  to demonstrate proficiency (in a variety of ways
  multiple intelligence/learning styles)
• Resulting data should be systematically
  collected, examined, reported and used to improve
  instruction.

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Summary ofAcademic Excellence Framework
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AEF Strategy Student Support System
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Student Support System

• Even with the implementation of the AEF, some
  students may not demonstrate proficiency. What
  then?
• The student support component of the AEF is
  intended to identify struggling students early
  and provide support that is prescriptive to
  his/her specific need.
• Utilize student achievement data from the
  in-process measurement system to identify
  students in need of intervention.
• Intervention options standardized by district as
  developed with stakeholder input (teachers,
  administrators)
• Support services will incorporate academic,
  social and behavioral interventions

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Student Support System

• Interventions may include Individualized Learning
  Plan (ILP), SAP team, before/after school
  assistance, intersession support, summer
  programs, 504 plans, Special Education
• Students above grade level will be identified for
  enrichment
• Enrichment opportunities may include
  differentiated instruction in classroom, gifted
  program, intersession sessions, College for Kids
  and other supplemental programming as needed

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Summary of AEF

• The Academic Excellence Framework design is based
  on research and best practices in education.
• It includes key components
• Effective Instructional Strategies (EIS)
• Power Standards
• Performance Descriptors/Exit Outcomes
• Curriculum Mapping
• In Process Academic Achievement Measurement
  System
• Student Support System
• It is incorporated into the RISD strategic plan
  and contains actions and measures to gauge
  progress

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AEFPresentation SummaryOur Plan? to help
every student achieve at high levels!We all
play a part!