Leading Effective Professional Learning Communities with eCart

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Leading Effective Professional Learning
Communities with eCart

• Presented to Cluster I and II APs and Guests
• 11/19/2008

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Is this possible?Two students in the
same subject with classes right next door to each
other could have completely different grading
structures with different expectationsclearly a
child's grade could be determined by who they
had, not what they learned. - Mark
Greenfelder
Why do we allow this to happen?
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"A simple question to ask is, How has the world
of a child changed in the last 150 years? and the
answer is, It's hard to imagine any way in which
it hasn't changed! But if you look at school
today versus 100 years ago, it is more similar
than dissimilar. Peter Senge, senior lecturer
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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Professional Learning Communities coupled with
Formative Assessment is a key strategy to
increasing academic achievement for all students.
eCart really works!

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Rocky Run Middle School
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Formative Assessment

• Formative assessment is the process used by
  teachers and students during instruction that
  provides feedback to adjust teaching and learning
  for the purpose of improving student learning.

Council of Chief State School Officers, October
2006
Notes Process rather than a particular
test. It is not the nature of the test itself
that makes it formative or summativeit is the
use to which those results will be put.
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• You can enhance or destroy students desire to
  succeed in school more quickly and permanently
  through your use of assessment than with any
  other tools you have at your disposal.

-Rick Stiggins Assessment Trainers Institute
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• Research consistently shows that use of regular,
  high-quality Formative Assessments increases
  student achievement.

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Why Formative AssessmentsWhat does the Research
Say?

• Major reviews of the research on the effects of
  classroom assessment indicate that it might be
  one of the most powerful weapons in a teachers
  arsenal.
• Robert Marzano
• Formative Assessment does improve learning. The
  gains in achievement appear to be quite
  considerableamongst the largest ever reported
  for educational interventions.
• Paul Black and Dylan William

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• The Power of Formative Assessment
• The research reported here shows conclusively
  that formative assessment does improve learning.
  The gains in achievement appear to be quite
  considerable, amongst the largest ever reported
  for educational interventions. As an illustration
  of just how big these gains are, an effect size
  of 0.7, if it could be achieved on a nationwide
  scale, would be equivalent to raising the
  mathematics attainment score of an average
  country like England, New Zealand, or the United
  States into the top five after the Pacific rim
  countries of Singapore, Korea, Japan, and Hong
  Kong.

Assessment and Classroom Learning Black and
William
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Why Assess?

• Assessments are not just to provide a grade
• Purpose of assessment is to
• Determine if learner got it Gather evidence
  which demonstrates learning outcomes were
  achieved
• Help teachers determine extent of student
  understanding
• Guide next steps of instruction
• Provide appropriate scaffolding/differentiated
  instruction for students throughout the learning
  experience and
• Provide meaningful feedback to stakeholders
  (students, parents, other teachers,
  administrators).

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Why Formative Assessments?

• Efficiency
• Fairness
• Effective Monitoring
• Informed practice

• Assessment literacy
• Raised expectations
• Team capacity
• Collective Response

Modified from R. DuFour keynote address at PLC
Institutes
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Common Assessments

• Any assessment given minimally every 2-4 weeks by
  2 or more instructors with the intention of
  collaboratively examining the results for
• shared learning,
• instructional planning for individual students,
  and/or
• curriculum, instruction, and/or assessment
  modifications.

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On-going AssessmentA Diagnostic Continuum
ASPIRE Assessment System
ASPIRE Pre-test Graphing Inventory KWL Checklist O
bservation Self-evaluation Questioning
ASPIRE Exit Card Peer evaluation Portfolio
Check 3-minute pause Quiz Observation Journal
Entry Talkaround Self-evaluation Questioning
Interactive Notes
ASPIRE Unit Test Performance Task Product/Exhibit
Demonstration Portfolio Review
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• Asking students to continue working on an
  assessment and redoing that problem until they
  correctly answer the question is associated with
  a 20 gainhaving students explain their answer
  also provides an increase of a 20 gain in
  student achievement.
• Why then are we not doing these things
  consistentlyAs a leader charged with sound
  instruction for all students and ensuring the
  best learning environment possibleagain why not

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Student Project Demo
Teacher Grading Demo
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• Making Best Practices, Common Practices
• create a variety of common assessments, to be
  used throughout the lesson, which are aligned
  with the learning goal (unpacked standards)

• Key Questions to ask about assessment
• Does the assessment reflect the Benchmark
  Indicators from the eCART curriculum (POS)?
• Do the items measure students' ability to perform
  the Indicator?
• Does the assessment provide sufficient
  information to make decisions about whether
  students
• have reached a given level of proficiency?
• Does the assessment reflect the instructional
  program, the teaching resources and the
• instructional methods?
• Does the assessment reflect the information
  presented in the classroom?

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• Teachers who truly understand what they want
  their students to accomplish will almost surely
  be more instructionally successful than teachers
  whose understanding of hoped-for student
  accomplishments are murky.
• W. James Popham

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Writing Good Questions

• If you dont think your teachers can do it
  effectively then every test they have ever given
  is invalid.

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Have Student Explain their THINKING!
Short Written Response Provides a Snapshot of
Student Thinking to Target Intervention
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Empowers students to reflect on and refine their
own understandings.
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The real power of a PLC is using the data from
eCart to

• A practice of being humble enough to admit
  that someone else might be better at something
  and being wise enough to learn from them.

International Benchmarking Clearinghouse
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Performance Based on Standards Whole Class
Instruction
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Test Band Performance Group
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Creating Apples Apples. . . Teacher
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Total Pass Rate 92.59 Total Mean Scaled Score
505.58 Goal for FY 2008 99.00 FCPS Mean
Scaled Score 491.2 FCPS Passing Rate 91.77
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Improving Student Achievement as a Team
Total Pass Rate 99.76 Total Mean Scaled
Score 546.69 Goal for FY 2009 99.88 FCPS
Pass Rate 91.9 FCPS Mean Scaled Score TBA
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In Search of the Magic Bullet

• It doesnt existand never will

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Results Now Mike Schmoker, ASCD, 2006
There is no magic bullet but there is a formula
for success!
Teaching Critical Thinking
Research-based Instructional Strategies
Re-teach Reassess
Aligned Curriculum
Common Assessments
Shared Results