1. Observing Standards, Shifts and Instructional Practice
June 2017
182 min as designed: 92 min before the 15 min break; 75 min after the break
Day 5 Materials:
Handout packet - 1 per participant
1 pink and 1 green highlighter per participant;
A printed copy of their evidence capture form Wednesday
Downloaded videos:

2. OBSERVING INSTRUCTIONAL PRACTICE IN GRADES 6-8 Welcome Back!
1min
Speaker's Notes:
Thank you for your time and attention yesterday! We are excited to dig into rigor today.
IMAGE CREDIT
"Welcome" by Josh Meek (Flickr)

3. OBSERVING INSTRUCTIONAL PRACTICE IN GRADES 6-8 Thank You for Your Feedback!+ ∆
3 min
Speaker's Notes:
Thank you for your feedback! I want to talk through some trends for the glows and grows and let you know what I’m doing for the grows within my control.

4. Take responsibility for yourself as a learner
OBSERVING INSTRUCTIONAL PRACTICE IN GRADES 6-8 Norms That Support Our Learning
Take responsibility for yourself as a learner
Honor timeframes (start, end, activity)
Be an active and hands-on learner
Use technology to enhance learning
Strive for equity of voice
Contribute to a learning environment in which it is “safe to not know”
1 min
Speaker's Notes:
Review norms.

5. OBSERVING INSTRUCTIONAL PRACTICE IN GRADES 6-8 This Week
Day
Ideas
Monday
Focus and Within Grade Coherence
Tuesday
Rigor and the Mathematical Practices
Wednesday
Across Grade Coherence and Instructional Practice
Thursday
Adaptation and Curriculum Study
Friday
Observing Standards, Shifts and Instructional Practice
“Do the math”
Connect to our practice
1 min
Speaker’s Notes:
Here is what this week will look like.
Our approach is to blend the conceptual with the practical:
We work to understand the big ideas of the Shifts, how they look in practice, and how we can use them to meet the needs of our students.
We will apply our understanding of the shifts most rigorously on Days 4 and 5 as we dive into curriculum.
The two strands that run through all of our work are:
digging deep into math content by “doing” the math
connecting all of the ideas and principles we look at to our work back in our districts
We will understand the principles that lie beneath curriculum, how to adapt curriculum, and how to interact with curriculum. This happens best when we understand the “load-­bearing walls” of the curriculum – the big ideas that curriculum is based on.

6. OBSERVING INSTRUCTIONAL PRACTICE IN GRADES 6-8 Today
Morning: Observing Standards, Shifts and Instructional Practice
Afternoon: Keynote
1 min
Speaker's Notes:
Here’s what we’re looking at today.

7. OBSERVING INSTRUCTIONAL PRACTICE IN GRADES 6-8 Morning Objectives
Participants will be able to capture low-inference evidence during observations of instructional videos
Participants will be able to use low-inference evidence and the Instructional Practice Guide (IPG) to identify where and when standards-aligned instruction is taking place in each of the Core Actions.
2 min
Speaker's Notes:
These are the objectives for the morning session.

8. OBSERVING INSTRUCTIONAL PRACTICE IN GRADES 6-8 Morning Agenda
Opening and Activator
Low-inference Evidence
Observing Instruction and the Core Actions with the IPG
1 min
Speaker’s Notes:
Here’s a look at our agenda for this session.

9. Step Three – Recall and Describe Learning
OBSERVING INSTRUCTIONAL PRACTICE IN GRADES 6-8 Paired Verbal Fluency Activator
Step One – IPG & Notes
Take out your copy of the IPG and the notes that you took while watching the instructional video on Wednesday.
Step Two – Pair-up
Find a partner that you have not recently worked with in the sessions this week. Identify which of you is ‘Partner A’ and which is ‘Partner B.’
Step Three – Recall and Describe Learning
Partner A - 1 minute SWITCH Partner B – 1 minute
SWITCH
Partner A – 45 seconds SWITCH Partner B – 45 seconds
Partner A – 30 seconds SWITCH Partner B – 30 seconds
10 min
Speaker’s Notes:
1 min
On Wednesday we learned about the Instructional Practice Guide, developed by our friends at Achieve the Core. And we became acquainted with the adapted IPG that we use at D2D. You then watched a video, took notes about what you saw and analyzed where you saw evidence of the Core Actions.
<Click> - Step One: Please take out your IPG and the evidence that you captured.
2 min
<Click> Step two - For this activator, you will pair up with someone you have not recently worked with.
Have them pair-up and remain standing. When they are ready, ask Partner As to raise their hands.
<Click> On my signal, Partner A will speak uninterrupted for 1 minute about everything they recall from our IPG learning on Wednesday. Partner B listens. I will call out “SWITCH” and then Partner B will also speak uninterrupted for 1 minute. Partner B can expand on what they heard from Partner B only after completing their own download of information learned.
<Click> I will call out SWITCH and it goes back to Partner A who speaks for 45 seconds, again, expanding on what they heard B say if they have completed their own download of learning before SWITCH back to Partner B
<Click> then we will have our final round with each partner getting 30 seconds to finish stating learning.
3 min to do the Paired Verbal Fluency
4 min to ask for questions or to debrief the activity as something for facilitators to use in sessions.
IMAGE CREDIT

10. Low Inference Evidence

11. OBSERVING INSTRUCTIONAL PRACTICE IN GRADES 6-8 Guidance: Taking Low-Inference Notes
4 min
Speaker Notes:
This slide is from our Student Achievement Partners friends at Achieve the Core. Capturing high-quality notes during an observation is the first step in ensuring that ratings are accurate and feedback aligns to areas of improvement. Low-inference note-taking is a skill, not knowledge; it comes with practice. When taking low-inference notes, the observer describes what is taking place without drawing conclusions or making judgments about what he or she observes.
The resource, Best Practices for Low Inference Notes, is provided to build knowledge and capacity for this important skill.
Low-inference notes will provide an objective evidence base for reviewing and discussing the lesson throughout the toolkit.
Encourage participants to collect low-inference notes as often as possible. Remind participants to assume the role of researcher rather than evaluator and of coach rather than supervisor. The intent is not to pass judgment, but to highlight effective practices and to create a way to identify improvements needed and share best practices
SAP/Achieve the Core Source: We Teach NYC

12. OBSERVING INSTRUCTIONAL PRACTICE IN GRADES 6-8 How High Was Your Inference?
Step 1. Analyze your evidence capture from Wednesday’s instructional video. Highlight all high-inference evidence pink. Highlight all low-inference evidence green Underline evidence of student learning
8 min
Speaker’s Notes:
<Click> Step one is an individual task. Using the highlighters, analyze your evidence for levels of inference.
IMAGE CREDITS

13. OBSERVING INSTRUCTIONAL PRACTICE IN GRADES 6-8 Lowering Your Inference
Step 2. Working with a partner, share your analysis. Revise your high-inference wording to reduce the level of inference. Rewrite in low-inference language. Step 3. Compare evidence of student learning for points of agreement
20 min
Speaker’s Notes:
10 min for pairs to work together.
5 min to debrief what they learned about the way they’ve been capturing evidence. Ask the room to share any tips they have for evidence capture that is efficient, accurate and low-inference.
5 min to discuss the challenges of capturing evidence of student learning without including opinion or inferences
Collect the papers for the grant. We do not need their names.
MAIN POINTS
Scripting exactly what teachers and students say/do is the most importance. Making a decision about the learning that happened – or didn’t – can occur when using the IPG and in discussions after the lesson observation.
IMAGE CREDITS

14. Let’s Practice, Part 1 8th grade 8.SP.2 8.SP.3
5 min
Speaker Notes:
Using your app, look up the standards and make note of what you should expect to see, including the aspects of Rigor.

15. Take low-inference notes. What do you see and hear?
OBSERVING INSTRUCTIONAL PRACTICE IN GRADES 6-8 Watch the Lesson Video – 8th grade
Take low-inference notes. What do you see and hear?
Keep in mind CA1, CA2 and CA3, but don’t complete the Instructional Practice Guide, yet.
18 min
Speaker Notes:
Watch the lesson video, for the first 15 min (approximately 15 minutes run time for the edited video); collect and record notes
Remind participants to pay close attention to teacher-student interactions during the lesson: What does the teacher say and do? How are students engaged in the lesson and how does the teacher encourage that engagement? How are students demonstrating their understanding, their strategies for answering questions or completing tasks?
Other helpful hints:
Participants should not worry about putting their notes into the right core actions, let alone the right core indicators! They should just capture notes and sort out where they belong immediately afterwards.
Participants should make sure their notes are ‘low inference’ that they are not judging what they are seeing but simply recording what they are seeing and hearing.
Participant may note questions they may have as they watch the lesson.

16. Complete the Instructional Practice Guide
OBSERVING INSTRUCTIONAL PRACTICE IN GRADES 6-8 After Watching the Lesson Video
Complete the Instructional Practice Guide
Spend 8 min individually applying the low-inference notes you gathered from the lesson video to the Indicators under each of the Core Actions. NOTE: do not give ratings to the indicators
12 min - Discuss the indicators and share the evidence with colleagues. Come to consensus on the evidence for each indicator and the strengths and weaknesses of the lesson.
20 min
Speaker Notes:
Complete the IPG by providing observational evidence for the appropriate indicators. It is not recommended that participants give ratings for each indicator so that the discussion can focus on identifying evidence that aligns to each indicator.
Although we are asking for evidence tied to each indicator, participants should note missed opportunities or times when the teacher or student did not engage in the indicator, as well as times when each indicator is being met.
After individually completing the IPG Coaching Tool, discuss first with a partner or in small table groups, then discuss evidence. Share reflections as a whole group.
Some options for sharing: Have participants norm as a small group and then share with the full group (can be done with concretely using poster paper and post-it notes or digitally using a google doc spreadsheet.) It’s is often interesting to discuss indicators where there isn’t consensus.
After discussing, participants may want to note specific strengths and specific areas in need of growth that could be used later in a coaching conversation.
Compare participants’ responses with the annotation notes that accompany the video.
Important Facilitation Note:
At this time, ratings are not provided in the model response, only video-specific evidence is provided for the appropriate indicator to support clearly identifying evidence of standards aligned practice and facilitate the group discussion.
If calibration is a key goal of the training, at this point these discussions about ratings and evidence will support the calibration process.
We will calibrate a bit in our second video viewing after the break.

17. Break
15 min
We’ll return for another practice after a break.

18. Let’s Practice, Part 2 6th grade 6.EE.A4
5 min
Speaker Notes:
Using your app, look up the standards and make note of what you should expect to see, including the aspects of Rigor.

19. Take low-inference notes. What do you see and hear?
OBSERVING INSTRUCTIONAL PRACTICE IN GRADES 6-8 Watch the Lesson Video – 6th grade
Take low-inference notes. What do you see and hear?
Keep in mind CA1, CA2 and CA3, but don’t complete the Instructional Practice Guide, yet.
18 min
Speaker Notes:
This time, we are walking into the lesson at the halfway point, about 15 minutes in.
Watch the lesson video, beginning at the 15 minute mark (approximately 15 minutes run time for the edited video); collect and record notes
Remind participants to pay close attention to teacher-student interactions during the lesson: What does the teacher say and do? How are students engaged in the lesson and how does the teacher encourage that engagement? How are students demonstrating their understanding, their strategies for answering questions or completing tasks?
Other helpful hints:
Participants should not worry about putting their notes into the right core actions, let alone the right core indicators! They should just capture notes and sort out where they belong immediately afterwards.
Participants should make sure their notes are ‘low inference’ that they are not judging what they are seeing but simply recording what they are seeing and hearing.
Participant may note questions they may have as they watch the lesson.

20. Complete the Instructional Practice Guide
OBSERVING INSTRUCTIONAL PRACTICE IN GRADES 6-8 After Watching the Lesson Video
Complete the Instructional Practice Guide
Spend 8 min individually applying the low-inference notes you gathered from the lesson video to the Indicators under each of the Core Actions. NOTE: do not give ratings to the indicators
12 min - Discuss the indicators and share the evidence with colleagues. Come to consensus on the evidence for each indicator and the strengths and weaknesses of the lesson.
20 min
Speaker Notes:
Complete the IPG by providing observational evidence for the appropriate indicators. It is not recommended that participants give ratings for each indicator so that the discussion can focus on identifying evidence that aligns to each indicator.
Although we are asking for evidence tied to each indicator, participants should note missed opportunities or times when the teacher or student did not engage in the indicator, as well as times when each indicator is being met.
After individually completing the IPG Coaching Tool, discuss first with a partner or in small table groups, then discuss evidence. Share reflections as a whole group.
Some options for sharing: Have participants norm as a small group and then share with the full group (can be done with concretely using poster paper and post-it notes or digitally using a google doc spreadsheet.) It’s is often interesting to discuss indicators where there isn’t consensus.
After discussing, participants may want to note specific strengths and specific areas in need of growth that could be used later in a coaching conversation.
Compare participants’ responses with the annotation notes that accompany the video.
Important Facilitation Note:
At this time, ratings are not provided in the model response, only video-specific evidence is provided for the appropriate indicator to support clearly identifying evidence of standards aligned practice and facilitate the group discussion.

21. ACROSS GRADE COHERENCE IN GRADES 6-8 Norm - noun \ˈnȯrm\
Webster:
a set standard of development or achievement usually derived from the average or median achievement of a large group
a pattern or trait taken to be typical in the behavior of a social group 
widespread or usual practice, procedure, or custom 
Spend 5 min individually rating all the Core Actions’ indicators.
10 min - Discuss the indicators and your ratings for your assigned Core Action. Come to consensus on the rating for each indicator, based on the evidence and your analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the lesson. Prepare to share with the whole group.
25 min
Speaker’s Notes:
One goal of this pilot is for coaches to be able to consistently identify standards-aligned instruction using the modified IPG.
These scores are used for getting to agreements about what the evidence tells us about the observation and for data collection. They are not to be used for rating teachers or for evaluation of teachers.
Let’s practice now norming on rating the evidence. Our working definition of “consensus” is that you arrive at a rating that you can live with after having equal opportunities to express your opinions and understand the options (even if it is not your original rating), and are willing to support publicly.
Assign each table 1 Core Action to discuss for 10 min. and come to consensus on ratings.
Transition – we will now spend 10 min sharing ratings and seeking a wider norming across all Core Actions

22. 10 min
Speaker's Notes:
Ask each table to report their ratings for each indicator. For their reports, ask them to state their ratings and to briefly describe only those ratings that required more discussion to get to consensus.
After the ratings for a Core Action have been reported, ask the wider group if they have any questions about the ratings, based on what they’d individually scored them. Mind the time here, though.
Transition – we will have much more time over this next year to get better at this, but this was a good start.
IMAGE CREDITS
Share” by GotCredit (Flickr)

23. OBSERVING INSTRUCTIONAL PRACTICE IN GRADES 6-8 How did we do?
Participants will be able to capture low-inference evidence during observations of instructional videos
Participants will be able to use low-inference evidence and the Instructional Practice Guide (IPG) to identify where and when standards-aligned instruction is taking place in each of the Core Actions.
2 min
Speaker's Notes:
These were the objectives for the morning session. How did we do?
We have one ore daily survey before lunch and then an important keynote this afternoon to end our Institute experience.

25. ACROSS GRADE COHERENCE IN GRADES K-2 Lunch 12:00-1:0025 25

26. INSTRUCTIONAL PRACTICE IN GRADES 6-8 Reference List
Slide
Source 11
SAP/Achieve the Core Source: We Teach NYC
14-16
18-20 21

27. INSTRUCTIONAL PRACTICE IN GRADES 6-8 Image References
Slide #
Name and Photographer/Artist 2
"Welcome" by Josh Meek (Flickr) 9 12 13 17
“muumuu coffee” by Ken Yamaguchi 34
“Lunch” by MIKI Yoshihito (Flickr) 22
“Share” by GotCredit (Flickr) 27 27 27 27