Principals Meeting CFN 604 Greg Bowen, Network Leader 8:00am to 11:30am

Agenda  8:00 am-8:30 am Light Refreshments  8:30 am-8:45 amNetwork Leader: Opening Remarks  8:45 am-9:45 amInstructional Focus – Ramping Up For The High Stakes Assessments – Part 1  9:45 am-10:00am Break  10:00am-10:45amInstructional Focus – Ramping Up For The High Stakes Assessments – Part 2  10:45 am- 11:00amResources For Schools  11:00 am- 11:30am Reflection and Planning

Opening Remarks

Instructional Focus: What are the High Stakes Assessments Asking of our Teachers and Students?

What are the tests asking of our students?  The high stakes assessments are asking our students to process information and/or data with a high level of independence and automaticity.  The high stakes assessments are asking our students to process all the content they encounter while simultaneously extracting and constructing meaning through the interaction and involvement with written language.

What are the high stakes assessments asking of our Teachers?  The high stakes assessments are asking our teachers to utilize facilitation techniques such as:  Probe student thinking with open-ended questions.  Explore divergent opinions.  Use cooperative structures.  Be non-judgmental in their responses.  Avoid repeating and paraphrasing.  Use wait time wisely.

What do you see in your classrooms?  What are your teachers doing  To support students in clarifying their thinking?  To support students to discuss their knowledge and understanding?  To support students in taking ownership of their learning?  To support student independence that is grounded in persistence and resiliency?  What evidence do you have to substantiate how teachers are supporting students to develop critical and analytical insights?

What Should You See In Your Classrooms?  Students should be demonstrating with deliberate intent and purpose…  Their ability to build strong content knowledge  Their ability to comprehend as well as critique  Their ability to value evidence  Their ability to respond to varying demands of audience, tasks, purpose and discipline  Their ability to come to understand other perspectives and cultures  Their ability to use technology and digital media strategically and capably  Their ability to demonstrate independence

Some Factors That Might Stand In The Way…  What is the proficiency level for your students when you examine the following academic foundations?  Word recognition and decoding  Fluency  Vocabulary knowledge  Vocabulary strategies  Syntactic knowledge  Morphological awareness  Written language register knowledge  Genre knowledge  Text structure knowledge  Short-term and/or working memory

 Strategic and deliberate strategy deployment  Knowledge and appropriate application of knowledge  Reading engagement  Reading volume (The above 4 factors are critical to student persistence, resiliency, and learner independence.)  What other factors have you discovered that are particular to your school and seem to be a barrier to changing the landscape of student achievement?  Are these factors particular to a grade, a class, a teacher, or group of teachers?

Let’s Take A Look At The NYS ELA…

NYS ELA rd Grade – 8 th Grade…  Grade 3 NYS ELA  Standard RI 3.3 Question 41  43% of the students across NYS answered this question correctly.  Standard RI 3.5Question 25  37% of the students across NYS answered this extended response question correctly.  What do you think posed a problem for the students?

 Grade 4 NYS ELA  Standard RI 4.4Question #8  25% of the students in NYS answered this question correctly.  Standard RI 4.5Question # 45  47% of the students in NYS answered this extended response correctly.  Grade 5 NYS ELA  Standard RL 5.4Question # 29  38% of the students in NYS answered this question correctly.  Standard RI 5.3Question # 57  34% of the students in NYS answered this extended response correctly.

 Grade 6 NYS ELA  Standard RL 6.4Question #22  39% or the students in NYS answered this question correctly.  Standard RL 6.2Question #59  48% of the students in NYS answered this extended response correctly.  Grade 7 NYS ELA  Standard RI 7.5Question # 20  34% of the students in NYS answered this question correctly.  Standard RL 7.5Question # 56  55% of the students in NYS answered this extended response correctly.

 Grade 8 NYS ELA  Standard RI 8.2Question #21  44% of the students in NYS answered this question correctly.  Standard RL 8.2Question # 59  62% of the students in NYS answered this extended response correctly.  When you compare your class data to these specific questions, what trends do you notice?  What is the question asking students to do?  What does the student have to know in an effort to answer these questions with greater success?  How challenging are the passages for the students?  Do you notice any trends when you look across the assessments from grades 3-8?

Going Forward….  9 Frames for Success 1.Encourage Independent Academic Behaviors 2.Ensure All Instruction Is Product Driven 3.Nurture Pre-reading and Pre-Writing Strategies 4.Always Require Students To Substantiate Their Knowledge 5.Require Text Annotation In Varying Degrees 6.Facilitate Text-Based Questioning 7.Ensure Immersion in Content/Topic 8.Provide A Wide Array Of Writing Options 9.Analyze/Interpret Utilizing Text Evidence

Study The Levels Of Performance: Strategy Use NoviceApprenticePractitionerExpert Strategy use is not evident or strategy is evident, but is not effective. The teacher introduces students to strategies for effective reading, writing, listening, and speaking, but students are not given the opportunity for guided practice in strategy use. The teacher directs students in an application of teacher selected strategies (based on data) for effective reading, writing, listening, and speaking. The teacher facilitates students’ use and monitoring of student selected strategies for effective reading, writing, listening, and speaking. The teacher provides authentic feedback to continually deepen their cognitive fluency.

Study The Levels of Performance: Self-Directed Learning NoviceApprenticePractitionerExpert Self-directed instruction is not included or it is ineffective. The teacher establishes the goals for improved reading, writing, speech and language and explains the connections to knowledge acquisition. The teacher solicits students’ input in the development of goals and learning plans for improved reading, writing, speech, and language. The students outline how they are building knowledge. The teacher promotes self- directed learning and guides students in developing a plan to meet student- generated goals for improved reading, writing, speech and language. In addition, students develop and answer their own research questions.

Resources for Schools  CFN 604 Website…  Engage NY – NYS ELA Annotated Questions  Engage NY - NYS Math Annotated Questions  Word Documents for Grades 3 -8 in ELA (with P-Values)  Word Documents for Grades 3-8 in Math (with P-Values)  PowerPoint Presentations from every “Professional Learning Opportunity”  Links to additional websites for resources to support the work in schools  NYS Testing Guideline Documents

Thank You “LEARNING NEVER EXHAUSTS THE MIND.” Leonardo Da Vinci