1. Facilitating Purposeful Independent Work
Sandra Schmidt
Office of Innovation and Digital Safety .

2. Facilitating Purposeful Independent Work
Pre-Assessment
1) In my classroom, independent work comes after instruction.
3- Sometimes 2- Often 1- Always
2) In my classroom, the goal of independent work is to ensure students have mastered the standard.
3- Sometimes 2- Usually 1- Always
3) In my classroom, every student is working on their independent work at the same time.
4) In my classroom, independent work is always done individually.
If someone, scores a 4-6 then they really need to consider how they use the opportunity for meaningful independent work and ways to be more flexible scores should think about those times that they have meaningful independent work now and use those times as entry points for TSGI. For example, during the drill/warm- up or drafting.

3. WHY?
 Effective instruction occurs within an optimal student-centered learning environment. A learning environment is defined as a support system that organizes the conditions under which students learn best (Partnership for 21st Century Schools, 2009). The development of an optimal student-centered learning environment begins with an understanding of learner variability and equity. Educators must proactively design environments that meet the unique needs of every student by considering structures, scaffolds, and opportunities. This proactive learning environment design ensures that all students can work toward becoming expert learners, and prevents teachers from meeting the needs of some students while leaving others in the margins (CAST, 2016). 
TSGI is a way to meet the needs of every student.

4. Purposeful Independent Work What does it look like
Purposeful Independent Work What does it look like? What does it sound like?
Purposeful independent work from the teacher.

5. How do we facilitate purposeful independent work for students during targeted small group instruction?
Essential question.
Dedicated time for teachers to work with small groups so they can give uninterrupted sustained focus.

6. What is it?

7. Planning the lesson Prep Work
Plan and prepare practice activities that reflect the instructional purpose of the lesson and are aligned to the standard. Differentiated activities are recommended.
Make sure materials are ready for use.
If students are intended to work together, establish grouping arrangements and time for completing the task.
Give complete and specific instructions. Include examples and models of products and/or work samples if necessary.
Communicate how their work will be evaluated; share the rubric or scoring guide if applicable.
Introduce a signal, verbal or nonverbal, that will be used at the end of the Independent Practice to indicate that it is time for everyone to regroup.
Allow students to get into working groups or pairs if applicable.
Provide practice at appropriate levels of difficulty. 
Offer alternative activities for students who complete assignments ahead of the others. They may also be asked to help and give feedback to other students/groups.
Use the verbal or non-verbal signal introduced earlier to regroup and debrief.

8. Building student capacity during the independent work.
Classroom management is very important in small-group instructional formats. While the teacher works with a small group, other students must be able to work without direct teacher supervision.
How do we build that independence? Discuss at your table.
Discussion or padlet? Provide some examples.

9. Creating routines and procedures
Implementing the targeted small group model successfully requires that students learn and practice regular routines. Directly teaching these routines is the key to sanity for the teacher and successful progress for the students. In other words, teachers directly teach students what they want the students to do as they work in pairs, when they have completed an assignment, or in other situations in which students will be expected to work independently of the teacher.
Danielson

10. Creating routines and procedures
It is critical that teachers create routines and procedures that facilitate small group management and ensure efficient transitions between activities. Since multiple activities happen simultaneously, routines and procedures are necessary to maintain an efficient yet flexible pace.
Strategies for teaching children to manage their independent behavior include:
Developing Independence Charts or Anchor Charts
Role-playing (appropriate and inappropriate behaviors)
Modeling (student and/or teacher)
Developing Behavioral Rubrics
Creating Job Charts (used to delegate responsibilities to students)
A flexible Daily Schedule that ensures specific time periods are assigned for when small group instruction will occur so that students know when they are expected to participate in either a targeted small group or complete purposeful independent work

11. Routines Supporting Independent Work
Instead of:
Try this:
Behavior in certain settings (independent work, station/center work, pair work)
Just lecturing the students on the behavioral expectations for each type of routine. . .
Develop a rubric with your students for each routine/setting. Post the rubric. Have students rate their behavior.
Develop an Anchor Chart with your students for each routine/setting. Post it.
Model the expected behaviors for each routine/setting for your students.
Have your student role-play a scenario in which they must preform the expected behaviors. Have your class critique.
Practice routine behaviors, gradually increasing your students’ stamina by expecting longer and longer periods of appropriate behavior.
Transitions:
Trying to yell movement directions over the din of the classroom. . .
Use a bell, timer, or other signal
Post a rotation chart in the classroom telling students where they are going and what they are doing
If a student you’re not working with in a small group has a problem. . .
Stopping small group instruction to take care of the problem. . .
Train students not to interrupt you unless there is an emergency
Have a “parking lot” space for the student with a problem to write his/her name. When small group time is over meet with those students whose names are in the “parking lot”.
Adapted from

12. Establishing the environment
This step involves organizing the physical environment. Classroom furniture is arranged to include work areas. One area is for small group, teacher-led instruction. That area is often called the teaching table. The class must know that they may not be able to communicate with the teacher if they are not at that table.
The rest of the room is arranged for independent work from the teacher. Consider if those students will be working alone, in pairs or in groups.
Create a plan or a job chart to have students rearrange the room if necessary.
Danielson

13. Suggested Planner For Teachers
Review the planner and consider how you can start the school year by teaching students how to be successful with targeted small group instruction and purposeful independent work.

14. How can we use technology to support independent work?
Blended learning is an instructional delivery model in which the student accesses content and instruction through a blend of face-to-face interaction and digital learning opportunities.

15. Acquire Knowledge and Skills
Develop Knowledge and Skills
Independent Study
Demonstrate Knowledge and Skills

16. Turn and Talk
What are some ways that you are currently using BCPS One to support teaching and learning? How can we use BCPS One for purposeful independent work?

17. Available as a tile in BCPS One, digital content gives teachers and students access to a collection of paid databases which provide access to a wide variety of digital resources to address K-12 information needs. Resources include:
evaluated Websites and education-friendly Web search engines
Full text e-Books and interactive eBooks
Articles from encyclopedias, reference books, magazines, newspapers, and journals
Videos, images, audio, and multimedia
Games, interactives, and simulations
Lesson materials, activities, and assessments 
If you are direct linking an item from digital content to a lesson tile, you must use the direct linking structure outlined here.

18. These resources can be linked directly to a lesson tile in BCPS One.
Available through the Instructional Tools section of BCPS One, Microsoft Online is available for all teachers and students in BCPS. Microsoft Online gives teachers the ability to share content through Word documents, PowerPoints, and Excel Spreadsheets.
These resources can be linked directly to a lesson tile in BCPS One.

19. Available through the digital content section of BCPS One, Discovery Education gives teachers access to thousands of resources from Discovery. In order to help students acquire knowledge, we will focus on content students can view, listen to, and read.
To link Discovery Education content to a lesson tile be sure to use the direct linking structure outlined here.

20. Available through the learning management section of BCPS One, discussions is an application that allows students to engage in asynchronous discussion. This discussion could be used to allow students to demonstrate their knowledge.

21. Question types available include: Multiple choice
Available through the learning management system of BCPS One, test and quizzes is an application which allows teachers to build question sets designed to assess student understanding.
Question types available include:
Multiple choice
Multiple choice/Multiple Select
True/False
Matching
Short Answer
Essay
Fill in the Blank
Cloze
File Upload
Image Label
Bucketing
Ordering
Grid In
Graphing
Select Text
Equation
Audio Recording
Number Line
Choice Matrix

22. Visit the Padlet link below to find examples of Tests & Quizzes that use many of the question types:

23. Office of Digital Learning Wiki
Visit
Click on the “Toolbox Index” page.

24. Purposeful Independent Work What does it look like/sound like
Purposeful Independent Work What does it look like/sound like? What does it not look like/sound like?
Self-reflection. How has your idea of independent work changed? What questions do you have?

25. Closing reflection
“Trusting children is the underpinning of what makes. . . any structure for teaching children to manage themselves independently to work.” (Boushey & Mosher, 2006)
Take a moment to reflect on the quote. Think about how Children need to develop “principled habits” to be successful within a small group structure, but students need guidance over time to learn how.