1. Building Academic Language
Session 3
Drury High School
December 10, 2015

2. REMINDERS Licensure Issues
ALL educators need 15 PDPs in SEI for re-licensure.
DESE requires evidence of impact of PD on your practice, so keep all the writing/lesson plans you do to attach to your PDP certificate
SEI ENDORSEMENT is different from the SEI PDPs. (Only some educators require the SEI ENDORSEMENT.)
Licensure Issues
Be sure to point out that in relation to #2 the HW from these sessions is for your benefit. They reinforce you learning and prepare you for activities we will be doing in the next session. If you want feedback on anything you’ve developed you can hand it in to your facilitator, but we will not be collecting any of the homework. These products are for you to keep to document your implementation of what you are learning. (You may also choose to include them as evidence for your evaluation.)

3. All slides, handout and supporting materials are on the NAPS website (under “Staff- Professional Development”) and on the Drury website under “Academic Language”
NEW DOCUMENT: Compendium of Techniques
REMINDERS
Resources
Navigate to the website to show them the Compendium of Techniques document.

4. Where have we been? Session 1: Introduction
Explain why there is an academic language gap linked to poverty
Identify Tier 1,2, and 3 words in a text or discipline
Explain the connection between increasing productive student talks and improving student learning
Session 2: Techniques for Building Academic Language
Develop and use effective word walls and anchor charts
Implement one or more best-practice techniques for teaching vocbulary
Design high quality opportunities for student conversation (measningful task, accountability, talk structure)

5. Where are we now?
Today’s workshop will include:
Sharing our learning from the techniques tried over the past 6 weeks
New learning on the Five Core Academic Conversation Skills
Planning time to design a lesson or series of lessons

6. By the end of this session, you will be able to...
OBJECTIVES:
By the end of this session, you will be able to...
Explain the FIVE CORE ACADEMIC CONVERSATION SKILLS
Design a lesson or series of lessons that builds one or more of these FIVE CORE SKILLS through a student talk technique

7. Predict, at your tables…
Based on the December 9th Learning Walks, where we spent an average of 8.2 minutes in 38 different classes:
How many minutes of teacher talk, per class?
How many minutes of student talk, per class?
How many minutes of silence, per class?
What do you think and why?

8. Teacher Talk and Student Talk (Dec 9th Learning Walks)
Average Walkthrough Time: 8.2 Minutes

9. But…sometimes more than one student was talking at a time
Whole-class discussion, one student responding at a time for one minute = 1 “student minute” of talk
Four groups, one student responding at a time within each group for one minute = 4 “student minutes” of talk
Average number of students talking simultaneously during the observed time = 2.56

10. Teacher Talk and “Student Minutes” of Talk (Dec 9th Learning Walks)

11. CONNECTION TO THE 2015-2016 SCHOOL IMPROVEMEN PLAN
Drury Objective 1.a.2
100% of instructors will implement best practice strategies for small group instruction, student academic conversations and student discourse in the classroom to improve instructional quality, student engagement and critical thinking by June 2016.

12. What about the Five Core Academic Conversation Skills?
Elaborate and Clarify
Support Ideas with Examples
Build on and/or Challenge a Partner’s Idea
Paraphrase
Synthesize Conversation Points
Student talk for each of the above skills was rated as “Not Applicable” (0 points), “Rarely” (1 point), “Sometimes” (2 points) or “Often” (3 points)

13. Five Core Academic Conversation Skills in Action (Dec 9th Learning Walks)
“Sometimes”
“Rarely”

14. Sharing Our Learning
Explain that we’re going to be creating a series of posters about the techniques we tired out over the past 6 weeks and will be sharing them in a gallery walk during the last ½ hour of the PD today.
We wanted to start with one example from Kayla Keyes (4th Grade at Greylock that Lizzie Whitman happened to see when she visited the classroom). We want to show you this, both because it represents an excellent example of the use of both academic conversation and anchor charts to support a content objective and a language objective, and so we can provide come guidance about three things we want you to include on your posters

15. SHARE AT YOUR TABLE, THEN CREATE A SHARED DISPLAY
Take turns sharing the student talk activity you have tried with your students over the past 6 weeks. (1-2 minutes per person)
After everyone at the table shares and shows off any materials they have brought, discuss what common struggles, ideas, and learning has occurred. The big question is: Have any of the student talk techniques seemed to impact student learning? If so, how? (2-3 minutes)
Create a shared poster, using selections of materials from various members of the group and including any words, images, and ideas that you think capture the essence of what you and your students have experienced with student talk over the past 6 weeks. (15 minutes)
Hang your shared poster along the “gallery” wall and we will take a gallery walk!
Explain that they should work in grade level or role-alike teams to create their posters. Show and explain the model poster based on Kayla’s work.

16. After Gallery Walk – Submit homework reflections
We will collect your written reflections from the homework due today so we can use them to guide future PD planning and support
The reflections will be returned to you at a future date so you can submit them as evidence to your evaluator

17. Five Core Skills
Turning it over to Sara and Mary for this part

18. Independent Work Time
We will meet back together in the Library at 2:50
For Independent Work Time:
OPTION A: Develop a lesson with a student talk activity that helps build one of the Five Core Academic Conversation Skills
OPTION B: Develop an outline showing how you plan to provide students with specific practice in the Five Core Academic Conversation Skills over the course of an upcoming unit.
For non-teaching staff, please consult the Independent Work Time handout for examples of how you could use your time.

19. Report out to your group
One minute “whip around”:
What did you plan?
How will you implement it?