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Based on my surveys and teacher competency results, I will be reaching out and collaborating with my 8th grade English and Math departments regarding the needs for evident improvement. I plan to meet with each group of grade level teachers each week, either before school, after school, or during or weekly PLC time to discuss these areas for improvement. My goal is to start to brainstorm strategies to improve these areas.
The focus on my evident needs for improvement via my collaboration/adult learning google form surveys are SPED to Reg. Ed. teachers meeting weekly to discuss lessons/materials to help resource students, better communication to collaborate via Reg. Ed./SPED settings, check-in’s (what, student needs help with, filling in gaps), student updates weekly, and observing classrooms weekly.
The next steps for Do Phase are:
1. Set up a day/time to meet with English and Math departments in the next week (March 18th-22nd)
2. Start meeting with a clear explanation of the purpose of the meeting.
3. Check in with Reg. Ed. teachers via email/face to face communication and collaboration each week regarding resource student progress starting March 25th-29th.
4. Send out monthly surveys to determine what student needs help with, filling in their gaps, studying for tests, etc.
5. Reflect and provide feedback at the end of this school year in May on how this process has improved via SPED to Reg. Ed. collaboration/communication (complete surveys via google forms send out) As I discussed this with teachers in May, it sounds like our discussion is tabled until we find out more information from our SPED coordinators regarding implementation of Core Plus (push-in model).
Artifact 1: Meeting 1 notes ALL English Department PLC 03/20/19:
I arranged and led this meeting at their ALL English PLC that was based on the following survey questions (See Artifact 1 below). Our meeting focused on what SPED teachers can do in collaboration with Reg. Ed. teachers to meet the needs of students in the resource room. We use a curriculum called Study Sync for our English classes. We have 4 Access worksheets to use with the program. We discussed SPED students using Access 4, as it is the beginner level. I am currently using this Reg. Ed. curriculum with a small group of my resource students. The main discussion that took place in this PLC English meeting was stressing the importance of communication between Reg. Ed. and SPED teachers when working with the same resource students. We discussed using email, google forms, or face to face each week to keep everyone on the same page and in the loop. The better we improve on communication, the more effective and efficient our resource programs will become. Lastly, we discussed pre-planning ahead of time if resource teachers believe a student is ready to exit SPED and go into the Reg. Ed. classroom. Often times, these students are just put into Reg. Ed. classes with no pre-planning or communication to Reg. Ed. teachers, which causes stress and frustration among teachers.
I gave a survey to the English department before our PLC meeting. 2/6 English teachers filled out the survey. The questions and their responses follow:
Artifact 2-Survey:
How can resource teachers incorporate Reg. Ed. curriculum in the resource setting?
Perhaps by visiting biweekly or monthly to what is being done in Regular Ed classrooms and what kind of support is being seen that the student needs, whether it's studying for vocabulary, reading comprehension, etc. This would really be helpful when we are doing a novel study as it's done at a pretty steady pace (and fast for the Resource student).
One way to incorporate the regular ed. English curriculum would be to utilize the Step-up to writing process and templates that we use to help students organize their writing. Although we don't have additional Step-up Binders that we could share, all of the templates are available as shared documents on our drive.
How can resource teachers support resource students in your Reg. Ed. classes?
Checking for their understanding....which can be seen if they are missing work most times. Ask them what they are struggling to understand or do.
Extra time to complete assignments with some one-on-one help is the best support any of us can give.
How would you feel about resource teachers sending weekly emails via student check-in's ? (what student needs help with, gaps. etc.)
This would be good AFTER the resource teacher has conferenced with the student.....let the student share his/her struggles, then let the Reg. Ed. teacher know so they can help give work that can bridge that gap.
A weekly Google form would be great, but I would need it sent to me every week as a reminder to fill it out.
How do you plan for instruction (differentiation), assessments used, and how do you incorporate SPED accommodations to resource students weekly?
It honestly depends on the lesson being taught. Sometimes it is multiple choice, small group, writing, etc....
I differentiate many ways.... One way is to set the reading level for each student on StudySync. Another is to group students carefully so that they can help each other. I find that the SPED accommodations are helpful for all of my students. For example, I will provided notes to anyone who asks and students are offered test retakes or corrections on almost all of the tests we have.
How do you gather/analyze data from your assessments? How do you make instructional decisions based on this data?
Depends on the assessment. Working on a variety of them this year with the new curriculum, some are computer, some are written, some are multiple choice and short answer, some are writing.
I work with my teaching partner to analyze data from assessments. I use NWEA data to group students and to choose language lessons.
8th Grade English Teacher and myself (Artifact 2)
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Artifact 3: I arranged and led an ALL math department PLC meeting. These were my meeting notes from that meeting.
Artifact 4:
Meeting 2 notes ALL Math Department 03/27/19:
I gave the same survey to my math department and their results were as follows:
How can resource teachers incorporate Reg. Ed. curriculum in the resource setting?
Re-teaching or pre-teach the lessons we are covering from the GO math book
Resource Teachers can just simply use the grade level material and differentiate for the students in the classroom, the same way that a regular ed teacher would have to for those students in their classroom.
Resource teachers can work with the students you have on assignments we are doing in the regular ed class. This would give them more time to get an assignment done if they work at a slower pace. I also think going over the notes we take with them and hearing another explanation may help their understanding.
Use the same topics with possibly just easier numbers to work with.
How can resource teachers support resource students in your Reg. Ed. classes?
If there is a manipulative or other resource they are using in your class that is helping, they could bring it to our class to use.
The way that I can envision this working is for the students to be in the regular classroom for instruction and then moving to the resource room to complete the assignment, in order to get the adequate amount of additional help that they need.
Resource teachers can help by assisting the students with any work from reg ed classes. I think extra time and help can always benefit the student.
pre teach, reteach, and work on assignments with students
How would you feel about resource teachers sending weekly emails via student check-in's ? (what student needs help with, gaps. etc.)
I think that would be a good idea so we can work together to help the student.
This is where that I think that the push back is going to happen. The resource teacher needs to be involved enough with the curriculum and the SPED student within the grade-level curriculum to know what the student needs help with. Regular Ed teachers already support 120 - 150 students each in their Math classes that already have varying levels of additional support that we either give through a 504 plan or differentiation that we know that they need but are not supported through SPED or s 504.
This would be a great help to students. I think being more connected is a good idea. It would be helpful to see what they are working on with the SPED teachers.
that would be fine with me as long as the student is also aware of what they need help with.
How do you plan for instruction (differentiation), assessments used, and how do you incorporate SPED accommodations to resource students weekly?
If students have specific testing accommodations they are met when we take a test. Some students are given fewer problems on assignments.
This happens daily -- in the reg ed classroom, you plan for what you want to accomplish for the week, knowing that some of the students are not going to get it and you need to re-teach. Other times it will surprise you and everyone gets it. The problem is that we do need to keep moving and although we don't leave many behind, I am sure that there are always a few that don't have a concept at mastery when we move on, but we hope that we pick them up when we spiral back to the topic. SPED accomodations up until now have generally have been about seating and behaviors because if they have math goals, they are not in the gen ed classroom -- so those accomodations are made early in the year and just followed -- we get into a routine.
We use our PLC time wisely to make sure our students (across grade level) are doing the same thing and adjust as needed. Our 6th grade team plans all of our weekly lesson plans and quizzes together. Each week we discuss how students are doing and what we need to reteach or what we can do for our higher-level learners.
shortened assignments, shortened tests, notes provided when needed and work with students one on one.
How do you gather/analyze data from your assessments? How do you make instructional decisions based on this data?
Assessments are broken apart by standards. We can see which areas students are struggling with and then spend more time on those topics.
Although this is not a new thing to do, we are continuously improving our skills in gathering and analyzing data from the assessments in our PLC groups, This is based on whole grade analysis and not necessarily individual student at this time. The instructional decisions may be what we will change for next year, omitting questions from an assessment, or reviewing the concept and trying again.
We had our quizzes broken into standards and kept track of which standard/problem on the quiz was missed the most. This helped us determine what skills needed to be retaught or which concepts they understood 100%.
I gather data daily through assignments, warm up problems, and questions asked by students. This helps me determine if students are in need of more practice or if they are ready to go on.
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Artifact 5: 6th Grade Teachers and myself collaborating during a PLC meeting. I led this meeting and the focus was again on the survey questions that I send out to them via google forms.
Analysis of Surveys/PLC Meeting notes:
- "Core Plus" will be the direction that our district is going next school year. What this means is that more special education resource students will be pushing into regular education math and english classes. Throughout my learning from TLI and collaboration with all peer groups at my school, we will push for this to include our SPED students as much as possible in ALL regular education classes. We will be utilizing pre-teach/re-teach, various teaching strategies, approaches, and assessments, and maintaining student engagement as much as possible.
- The results of my surveys given to staff members via my chosen competencies were consistent and similar among teacher groups. The evident areas of change from my data during the Learn Phase are areas that are ongoing and will continue to be practiced next school year via collaboration and PLC's each week. These areas are:
- Share teaching strategies and use to help students learn and meet needs, accommodate student’s special situations, stressing importance of diversity and equality, SPED staff provide area/time for extra work time to complete work/tests, embrace all perspectives, ideas, and creative processes
- SPED to Reg. Ed. teachers meet weekly to discuss lessons/materials to help resource students, better communication to collaborate via Reg. Ed./SPED settings, check-in’s (what, student needs help with, filling in gaps), student updates weekly, and observing classrooms weekly
- Based on my capstone project, evidence for learning, and artifacts, many of these concepts were discussed and addressed via PLC teams and in collaboration with Reg. Ed. peers. This will be continued into next school year as we implement the "Core Plus" program with our SPED to Reg. Ed. staff and students. I implemented all four of my chosen competencies at different times throughout my development of the capstone project. I used group processes and adult learning during PLC SPED and Reg. Ed. meetings with staff. My foundational competency (Collaborate Purposefully) was also accomplished through PLC meetings and while I collaborated with my different departments regarding key supports to assist my resource students. (See Meeting Notes and SPED PLC agendas Artifacts 1, 3, 5 Do section).
- Some obstacles that I encountered were staff not filling out my surveys or being willing to participate in collaboration regarding my resource students. I sent out 2-3 emails to remind them to fill them out, yet they still failed to fill them out. If this continues next school year, I will have to set up official department and grade level meetings to address my proposed challenge (this will help via weekly face-to-face PLC meetings).
- I feel like my action plan results in addressing all four competency areas is and will to continue to be an ongoing progress into the next few school years. I feel like my work throughout TLI with my Reg. Ed. teachers set the foundational ground work to expand more into details and specifics during the next few school years regarding our new "Core Plus" model. Reg. Ed. teachers were responsible and willing to collaborate to best meet the needs of our resource students.
- The changes that I might make to my action plan depends on how my Reg. Ed. teachers respond to this this upcoming school year. I will continue to collaborate with these teachers face-to-face and send out google form surveys each week. This will allow me to analyze and reflect as to what needs to be changed to meet my action plan goals.
Artifact 6: Module 7 Post Workshop Assignment: Competency/Evidence Collected
PLC 5/22/19 Agenda: Final Week PLC Agenda
Artifact #9
Special Education Resource Staff at our PLC meeting.
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