Using the new Teacher-Based Team Protocol March/April 2013

Why a protocol? Provides structure and a recording tool for teacher teams implementing the 5-step process. Builds communication from teacher teams to the Building Leadership Teams The District Leadership Team viewed many other district protocols and created a protocol that incorporates the best of others’ features.

Roles and Ground Rules It is important to have assigned roles for each meeting to ensure the meeting is purposeful and productive. The ground rules help to remind the group of how they will operate.

Planning These items are determined along with the creation of the common pre/post assessment or on-going common formative assessment. This is likely outside the formal 5-step process meeting but is critical for teachers to go through the 5-step process. As a team, determine what the topic is, the specific standard(s)/skills to be addressed, the learning target (“I can” statement) for students, and what proficient on the assessment looks like.

Step 1 In Step 1 the team reports data against the proficient criteria. Since students with disabilities are as a whole not scoring well, despite accommodations, the district is asking teams to pay close attention to how they are growing. Scoring of the assessment should happen prior to the meeting and this step should take no longer than 5 minutes.

Step 2 In Step 2 the team collaboratively determines what strengths and weaknesses the students showed on the assessment, and why. This is where the assessment informs the team what to do next in Step 3. Item analyses should be used when appropriate, but are not mandatory for all assessments, and are dependent on the type of assessment. This step should take between 5 and 10 minutes.

Step 3 Step 3 is the heart of the Teacher-based Team process. This is where collaboratively as experts the team decides what they want students to know and be able to do and what your instruction is going to look like for students to meet the outcomes. The outcomes, rigor/relevance, and instructional strategies all are agreed to by the team and should be the same. The activities may or may not be different. This step should take between 20 and 30 minutes overall.

Step 3 – Learning Outcomes The learning outcomes are exactly what the team wants students to know and be able to do. Collaboratively the team determines outcomes at a proficient and advanced level. The proficient criteria likely will be the same as the description of the learning target and is the bare minimum skills and content students need to master and should not be less rigorous than the standard. The advanced criteria is what the team sets for as many students as possible to meet. This is the foundation for legitimate differentiated instruction and this discussion should take roughly 5 minutes.

Step 3 – Rigor/Relevance Teams need to decide what level of rigor their instruction needs to reach on Bloom’s Taxonomy for students to achieve the learning outcomes. The rigor of instruction needs to match the level of rigor in the outcomes. They also need to decide the level of relevance, which will serve as a reference for the activities to be discussed later in Step 3. This discussion should take between 3 and 5 minutes.

Bloom’s Taxonomy

Rigor/Relevance Framework Relevance is connecting learning to real-world applications. By determining relevance the team is giving themselves direction for creating activities later in Step 3.

Step 3 – Instructional Strategies This is where the team agrees to the instructional strategy or limited number of instructional strategies they are going to use when instructing. Strategies are what the adults are doing and are broad and replicable across grades. The Marzano strategies are examples of strategies. Different strategies may be used in different small groups or centers and the team determines the number of instructional groups. This discussion should take between 5 and 10 minutes.

Marzano High-Probability Strategies

Step 3 - Activities Determining activities is the second-to-last part of Step 3 to ensure it is the result of intentional discussion about all of the previous items. This is where the team determines the specific actions the students will be doing that align with instructional strategies. The activities may be different for small groups or centers and may vary by classroom. This discussion should take between 5 and 10 minutes.

Step 3 – SMART goals SMART goals set targets for the percent of students expected to meet the proficient and advanced learning outcomes. The goal is for all students to be proficient, and as many as possible advanced. When setting the SMART goals, the team determines the percent of students who will meet the proficient criteria and the percent of students who will meet the advanced criteria. The two numbers need to equal 100. The date when the criteria is met, may not be the same for both sets of criteria. This discussion should take between 2 and 3 minutes and is based on your data in Step 1.

Step 4 Step 4 is a discussion about what the implementation of Step 3 will look like so all members of the team are clear about implementation. The guiding questions are designed to be a helpful place to start the discussion and are not meant as a limiting checklist. This discussion should take between 5 and 7 minutes.

Step 5 Step 5 is where post-assessment data is recorded and is simply a listing of the number of students advanced, proficient, and below proficient. Again, special attention should be paid to students with disabilities. This step happens after instruction and should take no more than 5 minutes.

Communication and Reflection The communication to the BLT and reflection should summarize what the team learned about their strengths, obstacles, and supports needed for both student achievement and how the team functioned. This should be completed and turned in to the BLT after each meeting and should take between 5 and 10 minutes.