Maryland Gifted and Talented Conference

I was asked by the supervisor of Gifted Education to present the work I had done with our Renzulli Enrichment teacher at the 2007 Maryland Educators of Gifted Students conference in Howard County, MD. We were essentially going to be presenting the same presentation as what we did for MICCA. So all we needed to do was massage it for the audience at the conference. What was most exciting for me was that Dr. Sally Reis, the wife of Dr. Joseph Renzulli, was going to be the keynote speaker.




We arrived a little late but caught the last 20 minutes of her talk. It was very validating to hear her speak of the way we look to educate our gifted children. Frederick County Public Schools uses the Renzulli Schoolwide Enrichment Model (SEM). Obviously, Dr. Reis was a big promoter of this model. Until now I hadn't seen any research to support this model, although it appeared to me to be very credible without the research. After sharing how schools who have adopted the Schoolwide Enrichment Model out perform schools who do not use the model on standardized testing, it occured to me that we should be using this model for all students. .

Students all have their own interests that are usually not what is presented in class. One of the stark realities of preparing students for the workplace of the 21st century is that most of the jobs that our students will be applying for have not been invented. When does anyone over the age of 30 remember seeing an ad for a software design engineer in the local paper when they were in grade school? It is well documented that as technology and information advance, there will be a greater need for students who are self reliant, independent learners, critical thinkers, and have strong math, science, and language skills. So the challenge as an instructional leader is to find a good balance of instruction that provides these basic skills while fostering the thinking, language, and personal skills needed to compete in an increasingly globay economy.

The SEM is a great way to differentiate instruction for students in a classroom. It usually starts with a general exploration followed by some more direct group or individual training, and summarized with a self-selected project to demonstrate mastery. Let's face it, even jobs such as a cashier or waiting tables requires many skills that students can acquire from a learning model such as this. Students who are motivated to learn, learn better, retain more, and have greater self esteem.

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ELC Month 2a (Inspiration)

For the October Technology Professional Development session, I worked with our Renzulli Enrichment teacher, Mrs. Cole, to present the concept mapping software, Inspiration^®. Inspiration is a program that allows students to create visual webs and graphic organizers that can then be turned into writing. The process of linking ideas to each other helps students to plan, organize, evaluate, comprehend and analyze their ideas, which leads to improved written proficiency. We spent several hours modifying the existing FCPS Inspiration handout to suit our goals and objectives. Mrs. Cole and I first decided we needed real world examples of how Inspiration is used in the classroom.


During one of our school's PLC dates, she and I covered a class of directed level 6th graders. Our lesson was about the use of "power verbs" and their meaning as it related to taking the MSA. The standard lesson was a paper and pencil pre-test and a PowerPoint slide show that reveals the answers one at a time. Neither Mrs. Cole nor I felt the group of students with whom we would be working would be able to sit through that lesson as it was written. So we decided to have the students use Inspiration software to create a vocabulary concept map for each of the power verbs. The students used Inspiration to create a web of all the power verbs and used the searchable symbol library to find pictures or clip are that best represented each of the words.

The students were still off task a lot while we walked them through the task of typing the power words into their Inspiration diagram. However when it came time to insert the pictures, the off task behavior declined dramatically. Students who worked diligently and completed the task we asked to add the definitions of each power verb to the diagram. These definitions were provided for them on a blue book mark which we handed out to all of the students.

In the future, we could modify this lesson a bit more by preparing the diagram with the power verbs already entered. This could reduce the off task behaviors we saw as we led the students through the task of typing each word. The drawback to this is that many students have never used Inspiration and bypassing the basic functions of the software won't give them the opportunity to use such a valuable tool.

When we met as a staff, I wanted to show teachers real examples of how Inspiration can be used without creating a lot of extra work. We downloaded the county's BCR Planing Guide and used Inspiration to make a simple organizer based on this common tool. Unlike many of the sample diagrams which are used to "show off" Inspiration's capabilities and flexibility, we wanted to Keep It Simple. We also showed the staff how to access the sample, and sometimes complex, sample diagrams. This would give them a better understanding of how Inspiration can be used as well as trigger ideas. Finally, we walked the teachers through the creation of a basic diagram. As a follow up, teachers are to use Inspiration in some capacity with students and reflect about how it helped or hurt the effectiveness of the lesson. As a challenge, I asked teachers to export their diagrams as a picture file and include it in the discusion message they post. All of the steps to do that are in the handout I created.

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Hess Alert Meeting

Each year the director of testing and assessment presents information to the schools about how they will not make AYP if they continue on the same level of improvement. This is nothing new. However, this year when the "Hess Alert Meeting" was scheduled, it was handled differently.


Normally, the leadership team will pack into a few cars and head down the road to the Church Street offices for a PowerPoint presentation of our MSA scores. This time, the central office staff, including the superintendent and assistant superintendent, came to our school. Instead of showing us our scores, which we already had, the discussion centered around what it is we are doing to actively meet the needs of our Special Education population, who did not make AYP.

The administration discussed our intervention programs such as Read 180, LARI, and the Math and Reading Intervention teachers. They also detailed our after school "clubs" which are geared toward the students who are "at risk" of not passing MSA. They include the homework club, organization club, girls and boys club, and the technology club.

The intervention classes are what students take instead of an elective if they don't pass the MSA Reading or Math. They get an extra reading class or extra help in math. We have a couple different reading programs which students take. We don't have extra math courses yet but the math intervention teachers pull small groups or co-teach with math teachers to help needy students.

One of the things I have always wondered is if we are spreading our talents too thin. The school day interventions are a success because they have shown to help students - even though it wasn't enough for our special education students. But what about the after school programs? The biggest problem is there is no accountability. How do we know if we are helping students? I know that my club is more of an enrichment club. I have created an assessment tool using the Maryland State Student Technology Standards. I will fill one out at the end of each semester to indicate which of the technology stadard we have addressed and how well I believe the student has mastered them. Of course, since we operate as a club, there are no formal assessments. It is all project based and not always "evaluated" in the sense that I evaluate a Tech Ed project for my sixth graders. This is something I need to get a handle on since students will be assessed on the technology standards at some point.

One Idea I have is to use technology to track students who attend the after school club and then see if their is improvement in their grades. I could create a database into which teachers would enter student information. It would give us a record of attendance (which we take by hand) that would be easily sorted and formated for reporting. The way we track student attendance by putting it in a word processing document doesn't allow for data analysis without a lot of work. This is something I'd probably do if my first school as an administrator has after school programs.

I find it somewhat ironic that the major tools used to improve reading and math are software tools. We use Read 180 for reading instruction and Moving with Math for assessment of students' math abilities. Read 180 is a comprehensive reading instruction program which the teachers have the students work on at least 30 minutes per class. The math intervention teacher tests each student using the Moving with Math program to determine where skill gaps exist and plan for intervention. Once again, it is the use of technology and the analysis of data that drives our instruction.


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ELO Month 2 - Exam View Advanced

In October, we followed up with an advanced session of Exam View. In this session, teachers were given very succinct tutorials of how to set up a test on the local network so that they can disaggregate data for their classes.



Since we had gone over the basics in September, this was the perfect time to dive deeper into the capabilities of the software. One of the key features is the ability of ExamView to generate reports of how students do based on Curriculum Objectives and broken down by Gender, Race, MSA Math and Reading, and Special Ed. Using these categories, teachers can track how their students perform over time using formative and summative assessments. The ability to show data of how well students do on each curriculum objective will allow teachers to target their instruction.

In the era of high stakes testing, administrators need to be able to assist teachers in collecting and analyzing data about how students score on formative tests. These tests need to be broken down into separate curriculum objectives and/or indicators. Teachers need to share this data in their PLC to garner input from other teachers of how to address those indicators which are not being mastered by the students. This can lead to flexible grouping when students are periodically regrouped to be with teachers who have certain strengths within the curriculum. In the ideal world, there would be several teachers whose strengths all compliment each other.

NCLB has forced teachers and administrators to do much more data analysis. My strength is in using technology to gather such data, analyze it, and share it. It is one of the main goals I would have when I become a building administrator.


Handouts from Session

• Importing Students into Test Manager
• Setting up a Test on the School Network
• Giving a Test on the school network
• Using the Learning Focus Report for Disaggregation of Data
• Getting Test Results from Tests on the Network
  

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Summer Recap

So the first month of school is in the books so I figure it's about time to recap the summer school experience. After all, why wait until the last minute? :-) First, this year summer school was much smoother than before. We really had only two students who were considered disruptive and only one more students who caused any real trouble after that. So over all, it was quiet. But here is what I learned.



Students who are in trouble with the law and receive positive reinforcement from their peers, often seek additional altercations with law enforcement. I don't think you have to be a PhD in Child Psychology to know that, but it was clearly evident at summer school. One of the two disruptive students was required to attend summer school as a condition of his release from juveniles detention. He sauntered into the Media Center the first day and with a wry smile greeted me since I had known him from previous school business. I may have looked surprised to see him there but I did my best to smile and welcome him to school. I don't know if I was good at hiding my surprise or not. I took a minute to walk over to him to find out how things were going with his life and he gave me the abridged version. He quickly described to me his dealings with police and judges and said how proud he was that he has six cases pending against him. I don't know if he noticed my sadness but having known this boy one-on-one in school before, I thought he had a chance to make it. Granted it wasn't a big chance but I guess I am an optimist. Shouldn't that be a good thing? When he explained he had to come here because of his probation, I told him I was hoping it would be a good summer for him.

Within a week he was obviously bored and not interested in doing the work. The teacher who was in charge of his instruction tried many times to get through to him but his apathy continued to increase. Finally he became somewhat beligerant to the teacher and she had no choice but to write a referral. Of course, she knew that was what he wanted. Even though the boy didn't pass his classes, he had a masters degree in street smarts. At the principals office where I was stationed, we talked to him about what he wants to get out of summer school and how we can help him be successful. So we did our part to play the role we were assigned. We all saw the writing on the wall that the boy would keep pushing until he left us no choice but to remove him from school. It didn't take long before he started using the "F" bomb and making personal attacks on the admininstrator.

So I had the privilege to walk him out of the building - because he lived within walking distance. But he refused to leave the lobby area. The summer school administrator was just down the hall and heard his opposition and pulled him back into the office to see if he could coerce the young man to straighten up - since he wasn't willing to leave school. Some more beligerance and finally we called the police to have him removed. In an almost comical display of attention grabbing showmanship, the boy put out his hands for the officer to "slap the cuffs" on him. The officer tactfully negotiated with the boy to willingly come with him and be dropped off at the closest house with supervision.

My biggest concern is that it is easy to education students who put forth the effort and try their best. But how do we reach the kids who have resinged themselves to showing off for their mates by getting into trouble with the law? How can we meet the NCLB with someone who knows the game well enough to do the things he or she needs to do to get kicked out?

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