Maintaining Rigor and Engagement When Responding to Students’ Needs

Session 3, August 2014 NTI

Learning Targets for this Session

• I can determine the types of decisions teachers can make to monitor and adapt the modules to meet the needs of students (SOP 3.2).

• I can analyze typical scaffolds and accommodations for their alignment to the rigor expected from the Common Core (SOP 3.2).

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“…a thinking teacher’s curriculum.”

• We agree!• Discuss at your tables in triads.

If you are coaches and principals: when you see this curriculum being implemented most effectively, what are the decisions teachers are making in relation to its implementation?

If you are teachers: what decisions have you become confident in making about the implementation of this curriculum? How did you develop that confidence?

• Select someone from each table to report out.

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Lessons from the Field

• Modules can (and should) be taught with fidelity to the Common Core and the shifts, and be flexed to meet students’ needs. “Planned not canned.”

• Decisions must be made in the context of a clear understanding of what comes next (teachers have to understand the whole scope of a module before they can effectively teach lesson 1…you learned this in the last session).

• Teachers often need guidance (at least for a while) to make decisions that maintain the curriculum’s rigor and alignment to the Targets/Standards and Shifts.

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Stages of Implementation, p. 22

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Interventions Along a Continuum

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Teacher provides these “just in time” as the need arises. No prep needed.

Teacher thinks about these ahead of the lesson, but they don’t require a lot of planning/prep and are often reusable across many lessons.

Teacher thinks about these ahead of the lesson. They are intensive to plan and lesson specific.

Effective and Efficient Interventions

• Effective = keeps the learners in the “productive struggle” zone.

• Efficient = as little teacher prep time as needed to maintain effectiveness.

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Discuss as Teams

• Are teachers in our school monitoring and adapting the curriculum along this continuum to meet students’ needs?

• If so, in what ways are they intervening? Just right? Too little? Too much?

• If not, why not?

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Spontaneous Intervention

“In the end, good teaching lies in a willingness to attend and care for what happens in our students, ourselves, and the space between us. Good teaching is a certain kind of stance, I think. It is a stance of receptivity, of attunement, of listening.” (Daloz, 1986).

Teacher Response

• Can encourage clarity and critical thinking…or not.

• Research finds that most teacher speech follows a pattern (IRE):

Initiating Event – teacher asks a question. Response – student responds Evaluation Act – teacher evaluates

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For Example

T: What did Scout believe happened to Mayella Ewell? (Initiation act).

S: That she was actually hurt by her father. (Response act).

T: Good, that’s right. (Evaluation act)

Then teacher moves on to next initiation act…

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Challenges in This

• Only students engaging in response are participating.

• “Right answers” are valued.• Learning skims the surface.

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A Better Way

• Teacher response can actually be an “intervention,” bringing more students into the learning.

• Read “The Critical Role of Teacher Response,” p. 71-72.

“C” – This “connects” my thinking about the teacher’s role in supporting students while maintaining rigor.

“E” – this “extends” my thinking about the teacher’s role in supporting students while maintaining rigor.

“CH” – this “challenges” my thinking about the teacher’s role in supporting students while maintaining rigor

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Discuss with Partner

• Each share 1 connection, 1 extension, and one challenge.

• About 1 minute for each conversation.• If you have time, return to your Continuum of

Interventions on p. 56 – which of the “spontaneous” interventions did you just discuss?

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Interventions in Action

• Locate your Continuum of Interventions on p. 56.

• As we watch this video of classroom teachers monitoring and adapting the modules to meet their students’ needs, highlight specific interventions that you see them using on your Continuum of Interventions.

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Discuss

• In what ways are the interventions teachers in our school are using similar and different from those shown in the video?

• What do we need to do to encourage the practices on the Continuum of Interventions – those that maintain alignment to the rigor of the Common Core while supporting all students?

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Tier the Task, Not the Text

• This is a high-prep, but high leverage intervention strategy.

• Teachers do this when they proactively add scaffolding to the students’ tasks – word banks, sentence stems, more explicit directions, etc.

• More on this tomorrow, but if this is a very new idea to you, you should read the relevant Tiering Case Study in your notebook, pages 81 and 84.

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Final Synthesis

• Locate your Synthesis For Team graphic organizer, in your notebooks on p. 30.

• Synthesize your thinking about this session in whichever column is most relevant to you.

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