Common Standard 5: Program Impact
Program Impact (Common Standard 5)
Participating Teacher and Mentor work submitted through the Individualized Learning Plan provides strong evidence of the PAUSD Induction program’s impact on teaching practice and student learning outcomes. Participating Teacher and mentor survey outcomes, provide further evidence of the program's impact.
Below are some samples that highlight the work of our Participating Teachers, the role of mentors in accelerating learning and facilitating collaboration, and the direct impact on student learning for all students. Data analysis from the preceding two years, from state and local surveys, is also included to highlight the positive impact of the PAUSD Induction Consortium on teaching and learning in the partner schools.
Mentor & Participating Teacher Snapshots
All work used with permission from students, parents, participating teachers, and mentors, as applicable.
Preschool: Connecting During COVID
Mentor Reflection
When the pandemic hit and we all moved to distance learning, two special education teachers I was supporting (a transitional kinder teacher and a K-5 teacher) expressed concern for their student’s social skills. The transitional kindergarten student was matriculating to the other teacher’s program in the fall and it made sense to find a way to connect these teachers and students. The teachers worked with the two families and developed scaffolds to support the student’s videos. They also worked closely with the district's outstanding AAC specialist with the augmented communication devices and assistive technology. It was an amazing collaboration that greatly benefited the students and helped connect families. The reflection below is from the transitional kindergarten teacher.
Student Video Excerpts
Excerpt from Participating Teacher Reflection
My first goal was written one month into distance learning. I was trying to figure out how I was going to engage my students via zoom. I had a student who uses an AAC device to communicate, and I felt like I was not providing him with enough opportunities to communicate with peers. My coach had an awesome idea to connect me with an Educational Specialist at a different school who also supported students who use AAC devices. Together, we created a shared goal. “How might I improve the student’s ability to communicate with peers using his AAC device through the use of modeling, choices, and sentence strips as evidenced by his ability to answer questions from his peer?” We wanted to give our students the opportunity to communicate with peers, but we had to be creative and figure out how to achieve this when there was no in-person interaction.
We collaborated to develop an email to send to the families notifying them of our plan. This plan worked out really well since my student would be transitioning to the other school in the fall for Kindergarten, so this also provided him with an opportunity to meet a peer! The other Ed. Specialist wrote instructions outlining expectations. We also provided a couple sentence strips for reference. The goal was for each child to share a toy and then make a comment using their AAC device about the toy their peer shared. Both moms were very receptive to the idea and were on board with recording a video of their son and sending it to us to forward to the peer.
My student sent his video first and shared his recycling truck! He was able to introduce himself and say “hi” with his AAC device. He then shared his recycling truck and used his AAC device to describe what he was doing and request objects from his mom. The other boy shared a video of a school bus. He used his switch to say “hi”, say what color the school bus was, and ask what he thought of the bus. The reaction videos were also super engaging. My student used his AAC device to tell the other boy that he liked the bus and it looked like fun, as well as ask if he liked the wheels on the bus. The other boy used his switch button to say the garbage truck was cool and he can’t wait to play together soon!
My student’s mom was happy he was able to socialize and familiarize himself with a peer. She said she wanted to reach out to more parents to see if they would be interested in doing something similar with their kids! He was able to meet the goal and use his AAC device to socialize with a peer.
Through my work on this goal, I was able to see my student communicate with a peer in a way that I had not seen before. Prior to the pandemic and closure, we had been communicating in-person, and he had been doing so well. We were never challenged like this and we never had to brainstorm how to have peer interactions when we were not face-to-face. He uses a different mode of communication, so I had never thought about how I could create opportunities for him to engage with peers over a computer screen. This forced me to think of different strategies that I never had to think of before. I am lucky that I had both my mentor and the other Ed. Specialist to help me brainstorm because together, we were able to create a meaningful interaction between two students.
Though school closure was unplanned and unexpected, it has given me the tools to be prepared if this happens again in the future. I now know that it is possible to have meaningful interactions over the computer, even for children who have never had to do school virtually. This has been a huge learning curve for everyone, but it meant a lot to have this positive experience and see how much it meant to my student and his mom.
High School: Math Blasts to Support Student Learning
Mentor Reflection
Math Blasts are very short math talks that review fundamental algebra and numerical skills. Each Math Blast begins with an open-ended, strategy emphasized engagement with the math, followed by a “Chemistry connection” problem that utilizes a reviewed Math Blast skill. I started writing these in response to Chemistry teachers being frustrated because their students were forgetting fundamental math they needed for success in Chemistry. The participating teacher agreed to try the Math Blast strategy. I collaborated with the participating teacher’s induction mentor to support the teacher with this action plan. Before she used one in her action plan, I modeled a Math Blast in one of the participating teacher’s classes. The Math Blast reviewed rearranging equations to solve for a specified variable to prepare her class for a gas law lesson. The long term goal is that the Math Blasts will be adopted by other Chemistry teachers who need to supplement their teaching with some math review.
Excerpt from Participating Teacher Reflection
By introducing the Math Blasts and the multi-step approach required to solve many of the Chemistry problems such as stoichiometry, gas laws and solutions math based problems and giving ample amounts of in- class practice I helped my students to practice their problem solving skills and to progress in their Chemistry studies. I found that the use of the Math Blasts improved students’ understanding of the math skills, such as the knowledge of scientific notations and exponents, needed to succeed in Chemistry. I believe the use of math blasts as an instructional strategy was effective. Without the math blast, the majority of the target students showed a decrease in their performance, while only one student improved. In my analysis of student work, the ratio was 3:1 with one target student having no evidence. It appears, although our target sample is small, that math blasts shows an increase in performance. Although the target sample is small and the number of math blasts introduced were limited in number, it appears that math blast introduction does have a positive effect on the performance of the students and I would definitely incorporate it in my future teaching. I believe they are an important tool to assess and monitor students’ fundamental understanding of algebra. My plan in the future is to put at the top of each exam one or two mini questions such as exponents and scientific notation as a primer in order to show them that they know it and to internalize it so that they can do the more complex questions. Additionally, Math Blasts are an easy and fun way to introduce and review the necessary math skills required to succeed in Chemistry.
High School Special Education: Learning to Use Accessibility Tools
Mentor Reflection
For this action plan, the participating teacher decided to focus on her Language Acquisition Class. This is a class of Special Education students who are also English as a second language learners. The participating teacher wanted to help her students learn how to annotate their work as this is an important skill they would be able to use in all of their classes. As the students are learning English, she also thought it would be important for the students to have access to a dictionary and vocabulary organizer. I suggested that she introduce her students to the Texthelp Read&Write tool. Our district has installed this extension on our domain and all students and teachers have access to it. I created a slide deck of step by step instructions that introduced her students to some of the Read&Write features, and to using comments in a Google Doc to create annotations. The participating teacher chose a reading that she thought the students would enjoy as this is a class of all boys and they love video games. She also made the wise decision to do the activity over two days so that the students would have enough time to engage with the tool. The participating teacher has found that her students have continued using this tool and were able to successfully use it to engage in their final project last semester. I believe engaging in this action plan helped the participating teacher understand the importance of providing enough scaffolding when introducing a new digital tool to students before expecting them to be able to use it successfully. We shared the step by step slide deck with other teachers.
Excerpt from Participating Teacher Reflection
At the start of the year I was struggling to help my students navigate different digital platforms that not only will it be useful in my class but in their other classes. While it would have been easy for me to spend a couple of minutes during class showing them how to use one or two platforms, I knew they would have struggled. After talking to my mentor about this the first thing we worked on was figuring out what was my goal for the students and picking one platform that we could focus on. I decided to focus on the read & write tool because it has so many different tools within the platform. For example it has a dictionary (both a word and picture one), it also has highlighters and text reader. Once I had picked the platform my mentor advised that I give students class time to use each one. In the past I would probably have had them use it once in class and then move on.
I showed students a powerpoint with an overview of the platform, then it went into depth with each tool that it has and had them do an activity that used the tool. This was extremely useful for students because they were able to play with it and do assignments that required them to use it. This lasted a couple of weeks which was very important because my students benefit from repetition.
One thing that I have learned is to make sure to spend time going over any platform that I want them to use, even if they have used it or seen it before and give them time to just look around and play with it. I need to remember that just like teachers get overwhelmed when so many technology platforms are introduced, students do too and need time to practice. Even if that means taking away from class time because it will be very helpful in the future.
Collaborating with my peers and mentor has been really helpful because I can bounce ideas and get feedback. During this time that I collaborated with my mentor and colleague I was able to see what worked, what needed improvement and how I can change it for next time. I think by getting constant feedback and having conversations as I executed this goal I was able to make some changes as well as see what I can do next time I have to introduce a new technology platform to students.
PK-5: Accessibility in Music Courses
Mentor Reflection
This K-4 music teacher focused her Action Plan on providing support for all students in a particularly diverse 4th grade classroom so that every student could learn the recorder. This classroom consisted of students with various special needs and many English language learners. Many students faced challenges with accessing traditional music instruction. Through our conversations, the teacher recognized that, given her limited time with this class (40 minutes per week), she needed to create focused, educational support strategies to foster growth in student learning. She sought out collaboration with classroom teachers, special education teachers, parents, and aides to gather additional information about areas of students’ strengths and challenges. Together, we created a tracking system to assess students’ initial ability to access the curriculum, identify barriers and supports, implement changes, and then reassess. Her students all showed an increase in learning as a result of this action plan process.
Excerpt from Participating Teacher Reflection
My teaching peers have been an invaluable resource regarding differentiated instruction. One of my colleagues had great suggestions about dyslexia research articles. I collaborated with two other colleagues to write a grant to obtain percussion instruments to correlate with a curriculum written to support dyslexic students, and I learned so much about how to support students with learning differences. For example, color coding visuals can be a great support for students who have difficulty tracking and identifying the lines of the musical staff.
My mentor helped me to develop systematic approaches to really track the growth of my teaching practice through the action plan goal. She guided me to create the support strategies table and point rating system to track how my adjustments in instruction were impacting student learning.
Working with classroom teachers was also a formative part of the process of developing this action plan goal. Collaborating with my teaching peers allowed me to expand on strategies already practiced in the general classroom, so that I could provide consistency and improved support to students struggling to adapt to the new recorder unit and students having difficulty with treble clef reading.
Excerpts from Music Class Support StrategiesHigh School: Revising Presentation Skills with Focal Student
Mentor Reflection
This high school educational specialist has worked hard on refining his co-teaching skills. He has been paired with an English teacher for the last year-and-a-half and they have done great work with accommodations for all learners. This semester this teacher wanted to do some focus work with specific students. After an observation we both agreed that the student in this video could use some specific supports to better access the curriculum. The teacher did a wonderful job collaborating with the case-manager of this student, the speech and language pathologist, and his co-teacher to come up with different scaffolds and methods to help with the research process and presentation skills. The individualized supports were resoundingly successful and this student did an amazing presentation on a tough and relevant topic.
Student Work Samples
Controversial Issues Presentation:
First Draft
Controversial Issues Presentation:
Final Draft
Excerpt from Participating Teacher Reflection
Overall my focal student had a very successful semester. He proved to be very resilient and open to working hard. Our final was a presentation on a controversial issue. Even though his first draft would have earned a passing grade, my co-teacher and I felt we should challenge him to create an even more robust presentation. The student readily agreed to continue working with me.
The collaboration with peers, mentors, and my co teacher has been incredibly helpful. They offer a different perspective, come up with ideas I never would have thought of, and have just been generally supportive overall. This has been a very challenging semester for our whole school and without us all working together as a team, there is no way our English class would have been successful as it was.
Local and State Survey Data Analysis
Each year program staff and stakeholder groups review quantitative outcome data for our program to understand the impact of our work and to determine areas of strength and areas for growth. Our analysis is grounded in several data sources: the State Completer Survey that allows us to compare our results to programs across the state; our local survey that allows us to gather more nuanced information in alignment with our program goals; and input from mentors to understand strengths and next steps for supporting their work.
Aggregate data from the 2018-19 and 2019-20 school year from the State Completer Survey reveal that 92% of respondents felt their Induction program helped them develop the skills, habits and tools to grow their teaching practice. Additionally, 92% felt the program was responsive to their individual needs. Respondents found all elements of support listed on the survey helpful, especially modeling instruction, providing feedback from observations, suggesting teaching practices, and working toward professional goals. Eighty-five percent reported that they were well-matched with their mentors, and 11% reported being somewhat well-matched. In particular, respondents felt they were well matched along the following criteria: familiarity with site; knowledge of grade/subject; personality and working style; and teaching philosophy. Respondents overwhelmingly felt their mentors were collaborative or highly collaborative (31% and 62%) and skilled or highly skilled (27% and 69%).
Respondents found great value in peer observations, reflection activities, analysis of student data, and collaboration with colleagues. Outcomes on these measures are overwhelmingly rated as having a “strong impact”. “Moderate impact” is the second highest rating. Overall, ILP goals were strongly aligned to professional goals, teaching contexts, mentor and administrator input, and progress toward mastery on the CSTP.
Local survey data also reflects overall satisfaction with our Induction program. For 2019-2020, 94% of our respondents rated their experience in the program as “good” (6.4%), “very good” (28%), or “excellent” (62%). Additionally, our survey outcomes show progress toward our goal of strengthening the support we provide to Participating Teachers in working with English Language Learners and Students With Disabilities. While the outcomes have been overall positive in the past few years, results have been higher in the “agree” than the “strongly agree” category. Our 2019-2020 local survey data shows the highest responses in the “strongly agree”, an early indication that program updates are effective. One example of a program update is the addition of a professional learning module focused on dyslexia. 90% of participants found the module to be effective.
Finally, in 2019-2020 our mentor survey provided valuable feedback. Mentors felt the program made strides toward established goals, including working more closely with administrators; supporting further development of professional learning modules (modeled after the dyslexia pilot); and appreciation of the knowledge, skills and commitment in the mentor group. Mentors identified that they feel “very supported” or "supported” by the Induction staff, the mentor team, and their evaluator.
*NEW*: State Completer Survey Outcomes 2020-2021
The main focus for data analysis for the State Completer Survey responses for the 2020-21 year focused on two categories: 1) the equity indicator questions focused on supporting teachers with meeting the needs of English Learners, student with disabilities and minimizing bias and using culturally responsive pedagogy; and 2) questions addressing collaboration and alignment between the Induction program and the administration and site and district goals.
Overall, indicators in the equity questions maintain a high rate of positive responses. In 2020-21, 78.5%, 85,7%, and 78.6% found the support of the program and their mentor to be “helpful” or “very helpful” in meeting the needs of English Learners, students with disabilities, and minimizing bias and using culturally responsive pedagogy, respectively. Additionally, outcomes show an increase in the percentage of “very helpful” responses as compared to 2018-19 (program data is not available for 2019-20 due to a low response rate).
Similarly, responses to questions about alignment, including the extent to which individual goals were aligned to site administrator’s input; site initiatives; and district initiatives showed an increase in the percent responding “strongly aligned”, no responses of “not aligned”, and overall fewer responses of “somewhat aligned”.
