Thursday, December 7, 2017

Chapters 6 and 7 - Tracking Learning, Parent Relationships

Give us your thoughts on the discussion questions below.  Afterwards, add two comments that add additional insight to the responses of a colleague.

Chapter 6 - Tracking Learning
  1. Review the Marzano chart on page 103. Identify which strategies you use frequently in class and which ones you should use more often.
  2. Which of the six processes discussed in this chapter are being used most effectively in our building. What changes could help us to be more effective?
Chapter 7 - Parent Relationships
  1. Why is it important to work closely with parents?
  2. What is a strategy you would like to try this year to build stronger relationships with parents?

42 comments:

  1. As with anything for me, I tend to focus on my weaknesses instead of my strengths. I was looking over the Marzano chart and focusing on what I could do better and more intentionally. However, there are a couple of strategies that I use frequently that are beneficial. 1. Cooperative learning. I use cooperative learning in my classroom daily. I tell the students "Three before me". This means that they ask 3 of their peers before they ask me. I instruct students not to give the answer, but instead help the other student understand the question.
    I also reinforce effort and provide recognition for students who are on task and making gains. I recognize all of my students who make even the smallest of gain after an assessment. Any improvement shows growth. So I celebrate with them. The class gives "10 finger wooos" (Which is just like clapping but more fun for third graders). I also give trips to my treasure chest.
    While I do help students recognize similarities and differences, I do not do this practice often enough. Making comparisons is something I will intentionally focus more on.

    When it comes to our building, I honestly had a difficult time choosing just one that I felt we are strong in. I see so many strengths in our building.
    The first strength we have is high quality teaching. From preschool to fourth grade, our teachers strive to do better, be better, change in order to assist students to be the best version of themselves.
    I also think we do an amazing job with interventions. Our intervention team works so hard with our students and teachers to insure the kiddos are making the gains they should.
    I think we could do better at Process 6: Embedding the processes into the schedule so that professional time is devoted to it. WHile I think we are headed in the right direction, I know that we could be more intentional with graphing students and showing where they are and where we want them to be (and everything in between).
    Chapter 7
    I have always known that building a relationship with families is the most important aspect to a students success. Having a team relationship helps reinforce students with what we teach them at school. relationships get parents involved and excited to assist their child in educational growth.
    I would love to see each grade level have a webpage to communicate with parents. While not all of the families have internet access at home, the majority have access of some sort. I love our "family nights" and think that we should have more of them as well.

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    1. Tina,
      I agree with you that we have an amazing intervention team, my concern with interventions is not the people we have, it is as always lack of time and numbers. I have a few more kids that I would like to see get services but I realize there has to be a criteria for which students can go due to numbers of students needing assistance. And with special education it is state mandates that keep many students from getting help there. I worry about that students who fall in the cracks.

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    2. I love your "3 before me" idea and I might even have to implement it more in computer lab at times. I notice at times I will have a student ask me how to do a task on the computer and before I answer a second student will volunteer to demonstrate/help the student needing it. Occasionally when this happens I will allow that student volunteer (with assistance from me if needed) to show the other student how to do that task because it creates that opportunity for cooperative learning. Also it benefits the helper because teaching it helps you to better learn and remember that skill.

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    3. Cooperative learning can be a lot of fun and the students can learn a lot by participating in it.

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    4. I like the idea of classrooms having webpages. It would be a great way to share what is going on in the classrooms for all to see.

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    5. In kindergarten one year we had a blogspot. We really enjoyed it. We could probably have Frank or Matt give an in-service on how to use our school webpages that can be accessed through the school website.

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    6. I have used weebly to communicate with my students and parents and it was highly effective. I saw student interaction as well as parent interaction taking place. I would love to see something like that take place again.

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    7. I think a web page, is a great way to keep parents informed of activities going on in the classroom. Having a classroom websites is a great way of having another form of communication with our parents. We all know a few kids who never make it home with paperwork. Having a website could eliminate some frustration for those parents who seems to never get anything their child is supposed to bring home. It also offers another great resource for parents to find good educational resources for their child outside of school.

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  2. Chapter 6:
    After going over the Marzano chart I know I use reinforcing effort/providing recognition, cooperative learning and setting objectives/providing feedback the most in my class. Especially during typing lessons even the slightest increase in a student’s WPM or accuracy is recognized in some way. Without that it would be easy for students to get frustrated or discouraged. We also talk about setting goals and striving to reach those and if they are struggling we go over things that will help with overcoming that obstacle. I don’t use identifying similarities and differences as much as I should. Also I don’t use homework as not all students have internet at home which is required for basically anything I teach or would want to assign. I also want to incorporate more of summarizing and a good way to do so is with writing/typing prompts once we begin Google Docs next semester.

    Honestly in my opinion and I’m sure that it is a little biased however, I believe our staff excels at all these processes. We definitely have high quality instruction because as a staff we are all constantly working and striving to improve our methods and finding better ways to aid our students. If I had to pick one that we needed to work on a little school wide it would be gridding individual student performance more. Now as you all know, the data sheets that I put together quarterly shows the performance of each grade level on the star assessments (which is information we need) but it is not specific to individual students. I know some of our teachers have each of their students make graphs of their star results and I think that is a great idea. It shows the student their progress and helps them to set a goal for the next assessment.


    Chapter 7:
    It is important to work with parents so that students have a positive support system outside of school and not just while they are at school. Parents play a vital role as there is only so much teachers can do when students spend, according to the book, 70% of their time outside of school. Parents and school faculty need to be on the same page in order to better help students. It definitely helps to show a united front and it also helps to reinforce what they learn at school.

    The family nights that our school has had usually do really well at getting parents involved and interested in visiting our school. I know the one title hosted last year had a good turn out. It was nice seeing the families having fun with their kids while playing educational reading themed games. Also this setting gives them an opportunity to get to know the staff better and in a less formal setting.

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    1. I love the way you recognize the students for their typing. Having them practice keyboarding is so important at this age and something all of them will use throughout their lives.

      I also agree with you that we don't spend much time gridding individual student's performance, we do more looking at the classes as a whole. I think when we get to that point where we are able to do that more it will be very beneficial to the students.

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    2. I love that the kids are setting goals in your class and striving to achieve those goals. The support they are getting from you to reach these goals is totally awesome!!

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    3. I think that doing data individually is super important so the student knows how they are doing and the teacher can keep better track of them as well.

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  3. Chapter 6:
    From the list of Marzano's chart the things that I do frequently in my classroom are cooperative learning, reinforcing effort and providing recognition, identifying similarities and differences, and summarizing and note taking. I feel like the ones I use the most of those is cooperative learning and reinforcing effort and providing recognition. I especially love using cooperative learning in math. I love to let them use manipulatives and watch them problem solve as groups. I also find it pretty easy to compliment my students on work that they put a lot of effort into. Some things I need to work on using more in my classroom are advanced organizers and finding time to provide more timely feedback on work than I get done, because I know that is a very important part of their learning.

    I feel like Process 3: High-Quality Instruction-Teaching, Process 4: Measuring the Learning- Formative Assessments, Process 6: Embedding These Processes into the Schedule So That Professional Time is Devoted to It are all things that we are doing well as a school. We have devoted a lot of time to making meaningful assessments and we have been given that time to do so with early out Fridays and occasionally having subs so that we can meet together with our team. I think we also have a wonderful staff that is very devoted to giving the best high-quality instruction to our students that they possibly can.
    The process that I would like to see improvement on is Process 5: Interventions. I think that we could stand to work on more timely interventions and seeing more students for interventions that have the need. I know a lot of that is due to state guidelines for SPED and limits on how many students our Title teachers can see. But for example I have a student testing consistently in the second grade level on his STAR Reading but is unable to be seen for Title 1 Reading.

    Chapter 7:
    It is important to work closely with parents because it has been proven that when parents are involved with their children's learning then the child will be much more successful. When parents are involved research has shown that students have higher grades, test scores and graduation rates. They have better attendance and lower rates of suspension, less likely to have drug and alcohol use and fewer instances of violent behavior.

    I really liked the idea of giving awards to parents from their students on a Saturday. I think that would mean a lot to the parent coming from the child and also from the teacher because the teacher took the time to help their student do that for them.

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    1. It is definitely noticeable when I enter your classroom from time to time that you are great at incorporating cooperative learning. I can always tell that your students are having fun learning while also learning to work together.

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    2. Holly you are so right that when we team up with our parents the students are so much more successful in school. It takes time to do this, but it is so rewarding and fun!!

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    3. Common RTI time (we used to call it GOLD time) could be a great solution for getting more help for those kiddos who are not eligible for Title or SPED help. Plus the old GOLD time allowed for enrichment for those not needing interventions.

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    4. An assembly is such a fun idea!! I think parents would love that! I can see how it would help the relationships grow quickly just because they see their child's teacher taking time out of their busy schedules to do something special for them.

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  4. Chapter 6:
    I use homework and practice, summarizing and note taking, reinforcing effort and providing recognition, and cooperative learning in my classroom. I need to use generating and testing hypothesis more often in my lessons. Testing and generating hypothesis has a huge impact on student achievement according to Marzano's chart on page 103.
    I feel like Process 2 ( Establishing a Relationship Between Content and Time) and Process 4: ( Measuring the Learning- Formative Assessments) are being used the most and are currently highly effective in our building. I think Process 1: (Gridding Individual Student Performance) is an process that we could make some changes to as a building. I love that by completing the steps listed on Page 99 we can have more dialogue on the kids we work with.

    Chapter 7:
    It is very important to work with our kiddos parents because they are the primary external support system for the children in our building. The beliefs and attitudes of the parents in our community can have a significant impact on the actions and thinking of the kids in our district. To be truly successful in school in the U.S. today you need a strong parental/ external support system in place. This is because school today requires so much time, money, support with projects, and other funding to be adequately effective. Parents do represent the community in which our students live.

    I love the idea of having an assembly for the parents and dividing the parents among all the staff members. I think these are two excellent ways to amp our parent involvement at PHES!!

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    1. I agree with the gridding individual student performance. The year long RtI training we attended together made it very clear how important that piece was!

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    2. I agree that Process 1 might be something worth tackling. If we adapted it to our school needs, it could be something that would be beneficial as a traveling document for teachers to use as students move from grade to grade and building to building.

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  5. Chapter 6:
    I use homework, reinforcing effort and providing recognition, setting objectives and providing feedback, and questions, cues, and advanced organizers regularly in my classroom. We send home nightly homework to help the students practice daily with their families. We also do a lot of providing feedback and asking questions while reading with the students. One area that I do is working on summarizing, but I know this is a week area and we need to continue to work on it to help the students to become better at this.

    I feel like one of the process that we are doing well with is process 6. Our teams have time to meet regularly and discuss things that we need to work on and things that are going well. Ideas can be bounced off each other during these meetings and everyone is able to say how they feel. One process that we need to work on is process 1. I don't necessarily love the way they show it in the book, but we could create our own and work on this area. I like to keep track of my students growth over time and see how they are doing and if they aren't moving, I know that I need to do something different to help them progress. I frequently did this in the classroom with my reading levels as well as with math skills. I still do this with all of my students I see now to see how they are progressing through the levels to make it to where they need to be.

    Chapter 7:
    It is important to work with parents to keep them in the know with how their child is doing. Have good relationships with parents can make for a great year, even with a hard student or a low student. Having the parents willing to support you and be involved is vital. Parents are also teachers for the students, so we need to know what they are seeing at home as well.

    We are trying to communicate with our parents more by sending home things they can do with their child to help them in literacy as well as give them a lot of ideas of things that they can do with their children. Our family fun night is one way that we have a lot of communication with parents and show the parents how we love to have fun with our kids while doing educational activities.

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    1. I was thinking, Evans, you should cook for family fun night. I think that is the most effective way to increase involvement.

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    2. Family fun night is a great way to encourage parents to have that extra connection with the school. I wonder how receptive parents would be to having more frequent events?

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  6. The Instructional Strategies that I use from Marzano's chart most often are Reinforcing effort and providing recognition, questions, cues and advance organizers, and setting objectives and providing feedback. In my small group settings I am able to work through one problem or skill at time with the students. This works well to include lots of questioning and provide feedback as they work through the problems. Math tends to be very systematic and showing students ways to organize their work helps them understand the processes needed to complete each problem. One that I could try to incorporate more would be summarizing. I usually am trying to accomplish so much or several different skills in my small group settings that I run out of time to summarize our lesson in the end.

    I feel that our building has the process of Establishing a Relationship Between Content and Time effectively in place. We have spent extensive PD time working on curriculum mapping for each grade level. I believe that one process we could improve on is Gridding Individual Student Performance. I went through a year of RtI training several years ago and one of the main focuses that was discussed for an effective RtI process was tracking individual student progress. We currently look at data as a class or grade level, it would be very beneficial to look more individually too.

    Building relationships with students was discussed extensively earlier in this book. But just as important as that student relationship we establish, it is also important to have a relationship with the parent too. The connection we build with the parent helps reinforce all the hard work that is done between 8:00-3:00. When parents are aware and have an understanding of what is happening in the classroom then they are more willing or able to work to reinforce the learning at home too. Students need to see that the teacher and parents are the same team.

    Our Title Family Night gets lots of families in our building participating in activities with their children. They seem very excited and enjoy all of the activities that are provided. The Iowa girl in me believes that changing "IF you build it, they will come" to "IF we feed them, they will come" usually works in our favor.

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    1. Yes! Title Family Nights are a wonderful way to get parents into our school. Great time for making parents feel welcomed in our school (and feed them!).

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    2. Yes!! Free food is always a plus. Honestly, for those busy parents who struggle to get dinner on the table some nights this is such a huge benefit for them. It gives them a reason to WANT to come.

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  7. Chapter 6 - Tracking Learning

    The strategies I believe I use most frequently in class are summarizing, reinforcing effort and providing recognition, and generating and testing hypothesis. After any conversation with a student, lesson or conversation, I try and summarize what we have talked about. However, instead of just telling them myself, I ask them what we just talked about and what I am expecting from them out of our conversation (or lesson). This not only helps me to see if they are clear about everything, but I can also use it as an opportunity to reflect on the way I have given instructions and if I need to be clearer about anything we have discussed. Since my students know I am going to ask them about our conversations, it also gives them more of a reason to be good listeners. Some strategies I could use more often are identifying similarities and differences and cooperative learning.

    To be honest, I really feel like our building does an amazing job using these practices effectively. We have an amazing staff that is always striving learn new things and provide our students with the best instruction possible. If I had to pick one thing to improve on I think it would be gridding individual student performance. I think we work hard to understand where are students are at academically, but I think making things more individualized for our students could help them to set and keep track of their academic goals.

    Chapter 7 - Parent Relationships

    Parents are the primary support system for our students and their attitudes and involvement have a tremendous impact on our students both inside and outside of the classroom. It is important to work closely with parents because in order for our students to be successful they will need their parents to be on the same page as their teachers when it comes to helping with homework and projects.

    I love the idea of family nights! This really gets the parents involved and gets the kids excited about getting their parents involved in their school. I have heard of some schools holding “math nights” for the parents. This is a night where students can bring their parents to school and teach them what they are learning inside the classroom. This can be done with any subject, but with the way math instruction has advanced so quickly, sometimes it is hard for parents to help their children with their homework because they do not understand it. These “math nights” help to teach the parents this math which helps build our relationships with them. These nights also serve as a reinforcement of the content for our students. It’s a win-win!

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    1. One day I want to play a "Night School" night. Where we would study stars, the moon, and nocturnal animals. I know it would be so fun!

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    2. A Night School night would be amazing! I love that idea :)

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  8. Chapter 6
    Strategies I use frequently are Identify similarities and differences, reinforcing effort and recognition, cooperative learning, questions and cues, and summarizing. I could use more graphic organizers, generating and testing hypothesis, and stating clearer objectives, rather than general objectives.
    Which of the six processes discussed in this chapter are being used most effectively in our building. Most of the processes are being used quite effectively within our building. I feel that these are all common goals we have been striving for and meeting under our current leadership. By having consistent positive leadership we are able to meet them. The main change that could help us to be more effective is to put our common school-wide RTI time back into place. I really enjoyed that time and felt that everyone was on the same page and working for the best of all students.

    Chapter 7 - Parent Relationships
    It is important to work closely with parents to build mutual respect with them for success of each student. Having parent support is important for us and for their child. When we all work together, have open communication, and work towards common goals a lot can be accomplished.

    I am lucky that I get to meet and talk to parents daily. A strategy I would like to try this year to build stronger relationships with parents is to try to have a 3-4 day/evening orientation program for kiddos entering kindergarten. Get the parents at ease and involved early.

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    1. I never really thought about how awesome that would be to be able to talk to parents each day as they are being dropped off. You can tell the parents love you. Good work

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  9. Robin,
    I think the one thing I miss about pre-K is the involvement of parents. It is so important in the early years to establish relationships with families. Your classroom sets the tone for the years to come. Your positive attitude and love for the little ones helps us all to continue building where you left off.

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  10. 1. With first grade classes we recently read traditional stories and matching fractured tales. We were able to use identifying similarities and differences with the two stories. Fourth graders just finished reading about Helen Keller. Polk County Library brought in some braille books for the students to look at and explore. They enjoyed comparing the traditional books to braille books. Cooperative learning takes place whenever I have a fellow student help another find a book. I know the student feels great and so do I when they step up and say “I will help him find that book” and I hear them talking about the author etc. That being said, maybe I should do this more often to have more students have the opportunity to help others.
    2. Since I am not a classroom teacher I feel I’m more on the outside looking in and I see some really great things. The teams are working together to provide high-quality teaching and to make formative assessments. We have great procedures to address students that need interventions and teachers there to help them.
    For myself process 6 is the one that I have worked on the most this year. This year my motto has been be proactive not reactive. I made out a calendar at the beginning with important dates. Still things spring up and I’m reacting as quickly as I can!
    Chapter 7
    It is best for the child when the school and the parents can work together. Together we can achieve so much more than doing it alone which is a win for our children.
    One of my favorite teachers of my own kids would invite parents all the time to the classroom. They would practice something they were good at such as jumping a rope, singing a song, it could be anything and then perform a talent show there in the classroom. One time everyone memorized a poem and then they recited it front of parents and classmates. Of course not all parents could attend, but those that could were there to support all the students. These little things carried over to the adults and we were willing to do extra things to help out. That second grade class ended up writing a play together, meeting together at each other’s houses to work on it and during their free time.

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    1. I agree with you about being on the outside looking in, but like you said, based on what I observe things are looking good. Every year I say, "this is the year I'll finally get organized and be on top of everything," and every year I get a little closer. Never fully organized and always scrambling to get something done, but never as bad as I have been in the past.

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  11. Ch 6 Q 1 We have made huge strides in setting objectives and providing feedback. I also reinforce effort and provide recognition in my classroom often. This is part of our culture in the building as well. We have lots of goals and we check on them often and discuss what it takes to reach goals. I would like to say we do plenty of the strategy similarities and differences, but since reading comprehension and story problems continue to be a huge struggle, I would say I don’t do enough in this area. Summarizing is another skill that we definitely touch on, but we could cover in more specific, deep lessons.

    Q2 We have come a long way in the past few years with formative assessments and measuring what our students are learning. My team is always tweaking rubrics and assessments. It can be a frustrating process, but it has shown results. I do kind of wish the steps to creating a rubric she outlines would have been available to us a few years ago, ha!

    Ch 7 Q1 Its important to work closely with parents because if we are all on the same page, the student will be more likely to succeed. I think kids kind of go with what is said at home at home, then try to flip a switch when they get to school. This isn’t effective. If parents and teachers are using the same language and appear to be working together, this is an effective model that can push students to success

    Q2 The strategy with parents that I find a little outlandish is the “home visits”. I just can’t picture most of my parents being comfortable with me in their home. One realistic one that I liked is the “Tools for dealing with p/t conferences or difficult parents”. I have never had any formal training on conferences.

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    1. Not only did I find the home contacts at the beginning of the school year odd, but I also thought the inviting yourself over for coffee and donuts as the counselor or principal kind of strange as well. Inviting parents to school to have coffee and conversation is one thing, but I think asking a parent to open up their home to me and other parents would be the opposite of making them feel comfortable.

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  12. Ch. 6
    1. While I have probably used each strategy in the grid, it is difficult to use them all, every class period since I only see each class for 30 minutes, every other week. However, I'd like to think I use at least one if not two strategies every lesson. I would say the one I use all the time, with every class is reinforcing effort and providing recognition. I think a lot can be said about helping a kid realize their efforts are respected and appreciated.
    2. Based on what I see in classrooms and around the building, process #3 (High-quality instruction) is always taking place in our building. I notice over and over again that learning is happening at a deeper level based on projects I see and conversations kids are having.
    Ch. 7
    1. Parents and the school all want the same thing and that is for children to succeed. It is much easier to meet a goal if all stakeholders are working together toward that common goal. The more investment a school has from parents, especially in the expectations held for their children, the easier it is insure success.
    2. I would really like to implement a Donuts with Dad or Muffins with Mom. I think that would be a great way to invite parents in and make them feel even more at ease when they are in the building and help them feel like they are apart of our school community.

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    1. I like your ideas to bring parents together with teachers with a snack or breakfast. I for one have had wonderful conversations with parents who came to an event like that in other districts. It also puts faces to names for teachers and parents alike.
      I constantly wish I had more time to observe our building in action. Just the tiny glimpses I get are simply amazing. We do have a highly trained and integrated staff.

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  13. 1. As a non-general classroom teacher this question is a bit challenging. I for one have had the opportunity to see many if not all of the strategies in the grid used in one way or another. I see many examples of questions, cues, and organizers in our halls. In my classroom we use many nonlinguistic representations and identifying similarities and differences. It just comes naturally to teaching music.
    2. I see evidence that all six are used in some way in our building. Most evident to me is interventions and process 6 embedding these into professional time. I love seeing how these steps are improving teacher-student relations and our ability to recognize a student with needs to be met and creating a thought out way to meet those needs. I wish I personally had more time in my day in the elementary to take part in our check in/our program. I know personally I would like to better myself on process one. This is especially important to me because I see every student. I like to know how they are performing as an individual so I can see their progress over time.

    1. Working with parents is one of the more difficult tasks we have as teachers but can be one of the most rewarding. By incorporating parents into our work we are extending that connection between the student and their support systems. Mutual respect from the student can be affected by the teacher’s relationship with a parent (or lack of one) so it is important to keep that door open for the sake of that student.
    2. I am trying to better the use of the program remind. I like that it is a secure and quick way to reach parents. It creates an open quick pathway for the parent to also reach me if a question arises. I am looking into ways of utilizing it outside of just my middle school program.

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  14. What is a strategy you would like to try this year to build stronger relationships with parents? When I have taught lessons in the library, I have used the summarizing/note taking, identifying similarities and differences, reinforcing effort and providing recognition, non-linguistic representations and questions, cues techniques. When reading a story to the students I will often ask the students to summarize what the author is trying to teach or tell the reader. I have also asked students to think of similarities of books they have read previously and compare to the book we are currently reading during the lesson. Teaching them how to make text to text connections, which increases student’s comprehension.
    The techniques I would say I could use more often would be to, generate more testing hypothesis. One of the last classes I took at MSU, covered this exact subject. The course was intended for teachers to learn how to pick an area of their teaching they feel they needed to improve upon, research strategies, implement the strategies, then analyze and self-reflect on the results. This course helped me see how you should never stop learning and growing as a teacher.
    1.Since I am new to the school, and not currently in a regular classroom; I am not sure of which strategies are being used and which ones are not being used in the classrooms. However, I can see we as a building do a wonderful job of setting goals and objectives. We are always striving for excellence and setting high standards for our students, and I love how we encourage our students to meet those goals. However, when I say these things, my mind also goes back to that 5-10% who do not strive to meet those high expectations. Are we as teachers being reflective in our own teaching to see if we can find some new strategies or activities that will help us engage those students who may not otherwise be engaged. Are we generating hypothesis and testing new ideas and strategies to help these struggling students. We have a wonderful group of teachers, who are invested and work hard every day for our kiddos. I just think we all can grow and become stronger and more effective teachers if generate hypothesis, research and learn about ourselves and our teaching styles, so we can be the most effective teachers we can be for our students.
    1. Our students look up to their parents and teachers as role models. If the students can see a united front between parents and teachers, students will feel more comfortable knowing they have a strong support system in their education. Parents who are supported by their student’s teachers feel more incorporated and a part of their child’s learning. During the time my daughters were in elementary, I didn’t have a love for learning. So, when it came to completing assignments or incorporating learning opportunities at home, I felt like it was just another task we had to complete that night, before my girls went to school the next day. Thus, the girls never developed a love for learning. Instead they developed more of a dislike for learning, to them it was just another task to unbearable task to complete. Creating a disconnect, and a dysfunctional support system. I can honestly say I didn’t develop a love for learning, until after my first year at MSU. After I became engaged in learning myself, is when I started to see a change in my home.
    2. I think if we could create one night a month, where teachers, parents and students get together and engage in learning games and /or activities. This can be a great way to build connections with parents as well as help them feel more engaged in the learning process. And serve as an informational night for them, as teachers could give small presentations of techniques or strategies they have used in the classroom. I would also recommend serving a light meal as it would most likely be a school night.

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  15. Ch. 16-1.I use reinforcing effort and providing recognition often with middle school students, as well as cooperative learning. The bigger students have to take quizzes and a final, so I reinforce our lessons and reward as often as I can. Group projects are also necessary to encourage students to learn to work well with others. I think I could do more of setting objectives and providing feedback. Or at least do it more often. I feel like I set my objectives initially, but then should continue to remind students of them as I am constantly visiting with them to provide feedback. I'd also like to encourage more cooperative learning in younger groups. It is vital that students learn to work together early in order to be more compatible to work with as adults.
    2. Just thinking about all of the data that is talked about in emails, faculty meetings and PD meetings, I would say that the elementary covers process 4 best. As far as improvements go, for my part, I feel like we could buffer Process 3 (High-quality instruction) by combining an art project with math and language art lessons. I just finished a collaborative project with the 6th grade Language Arts teacher and I learned a lot! I also feel like the students were encouraged to express what they learned in another class through art.
    Ch 17-1. Obviously we want to build a trusting relationship with parents and to do so, we must keep in contact with them. Using newsletters, emails and phone calls help. Then by having school-wide community events, we can further develop this relationship. I think we need to have more family events. One per month or at least per quarter would be great! We could even have different teachers host these events. Time is always a problem, but if we could find ways to rotate hosts, we could all pitch in and promote community/parent involvement.

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