150 Mile Elementary

2016-2017: The PLC Facilitator at 150 Mile Elementary this year is the Teacher-Librarian, Maria Lepetich. She is guiding the PLC through this inquiry question:

• Inquiry Question-Primary: Which highly effective writing practices can be improved or trialed to support (struggling) learners? How much affect will trialing highly effective writing practice have on (struggling) learners?
• Analysis: The four teachers involved in this writing inquiry all focused on different points in the spiral of their professional learning. Overall, they all had students who:
  • Showed improved confidence and independence.
  • Many students now see themselves as writers and choose to write in their free time.
  • Talking with partners helped students clarify what they wrote (except for some grade 1 students in one class. The conclusion was made that a one day write is better on one topic, rather than extending the same topic over 3 days.)
  • Students were eager to draw (not all classes had this opportunity) and write.
  • The more students wrote, the better they got.
  • Teachers felt they needed to continue building more writing strategies into weekly practice.

Part A: Which highly effective reading and writing practices can I improve or trial to support my (struggling) learners? Some teachers wanted to:

• Increase the number of writing opportunities each week.
• Needed to make their mini-lessons more focused.
• Use a very structured format and only changed 1 or 2 elements. They modelled the “Optimal Learning Model,” I do, we do, you do.
• Present their personal stories with a “sense of urgency” and energy in order to draw students into storytelling to model how much fun story telling is.
• During mini-lessons, focus on a particular skill that students needed based on evidence from their writing.
• Provide A/B partner talking time in each lesson to ensure that all students had the opportunity to rehearse and to verbalize their thoughts and clarify the meaning of their story.
• Ensure that students always had time after A/B partner talking to draw (if they needed to), write and share.
• Do more 1-1 conferring with students.
• With struggling learners, confer with them 1-1 to clarify their plan, verbalize their first sentence(s) and monitor students practicing Self-monitoring: Does it make sense? Does it sound right? Does it look right?
• Wanted to create more time for student’s to edit and listen to each other’s stories.

Part B: What affect did trialing highly effective writing practices have on my (struggling) learners?

• Overtime students became more confident, independent and they took greater ownership and pride in their writing.
• All teachers noticed that when they gave A/B partner talk time for students to think and rehearse what they were going to write, students were better able to record clearer and more detailed ideas in their written work.
• Most teachers reported that the partner talk became more focused and most students participated with greater confidence.
• The few students who had a lot of difficulty knowing what to write were better able to do so now after their partner talk.
• Using the 3 day writing process with some grade 1 students was not successful. It was too long of a process and became overwhelming.
• The focused mini-lessons and oral practice improved students output.
• Some teachers were successful with the very structured format when using a graphic organizer.
• The OLM model was used and then with repeated practice overtime students became more successful with organizing their thoughts before they wrote.
• Reflection: What have you learned as a result of this process? Teachers learned:
  • Teachers found that meeting with other colleagues to share ideas in the PLC group, and in the school has been helpful. They supported each other, they learned and built their confidence.
  • That collaborating with colleagues helped to clarify and guide their practices.
  • It confirmed that using best teaching practices supports each learner and leads to successes for each student.
  • The strategies used to be successful readers and writers are more alike than they thought. They are reciprocal processes. Teachers need to expect that students will use the same strategies when writing as they do when they are reading.

What have you noticed with your students as a result of your focused and explicit teaching? Teachers noticed:

• Increased focus, confidence and independence in their students.
• Some students are more able to actually write their “talking” down or know what to say after telling their story to more than 1 person.
• Students appreciate the writing structure and knowing exactly what the next step is in their writing. They are able to take the lessons taught in mini-lessons and transfer it to their personal writing.

What will teachers consider keeping as a part of their repertoire of strategies?

• Increase the number of writing opportunities each week.
• Share and model their own experiences during writing workshop.
• Model the “sense of urgency” and energy when telling a story that matters.
• Mini-lessons will be more intentional by focusing on a particular skill that students need.
• Students will continue to be given several opportunities to use A/B partner talk to rehearse what they will write in order to verbalize and clarify the meaning of their stories.
• Continue to structure writing time to have students exposed multiple times to the same graphic organizer in order to gain proficiency and confidence in their planning of their writing topic.
• To ensure that students always have time after A/B partner talking to draw first (if they need too), then write and finally share.
• With struggling learners, after the mini lesson talk briefly to guide them to clarify their plan and to verbalize their first sentence(s) and support/teach Self-monitoring: Does it make sense? Sound right? Look right?
• Ensure students have the opportunity to show and read their writing to classmates.

What would you do differently? Teachers said they:

• Must do “Daily Writing” everyday.
• Would do more modelling of their personal story telling and planning.
• They would provide more opportunities for 1-1 and small group conferring.
• Would provide more opportunities for students to share their writing.
• Inquiry Question-Intermediate: To what extent will teaching Self-regulation strategies result in the most noticeable growth/change for our unregulated learners?
• Analysis: We gained deeper understandings and insights into our students and their ability or inability to control behaviour/learning. Teaching the strategies from the Zones Program did strengthen those students Self-regulation skills who were not our most concerned students. For our most struggling students, we realized that we have to continue to arrange for their success by minimizing their “Sensory” triggers, and by ensuring students have “think” time to make decisions before speaking, and to give them time and opportunity to get into their “green” calm zone before expecting them to listen and learn. With our students who struggle the most with Self-regulation, even our 1-1 concentrated efforts and trying to arrange for success was often met with opposition.
• Reflection:

1. What have you learned as a result of this process?

We have learned that by framing our thinking with the 3 Neurological Components that attribute to student’s ability/inability to Self-regulate, we were better able to understand which processing systems a student’s decision making was affected by. We then could more aptly recognize what support a student needed and make mindful attempts to arrange for students to be more successful with Self-regulation.

Teacher increased their awareness of how important is was for them to get into their “green zone” before attempting to support students. Managing unregulated students was more affective when both the teacher and student were in their “green calm zones.”

Some teachers noted when they communicated with parents, they were able to sometimes get parents to ensure incomplete school work was done. However, parents were limited with supporting any real changes in their child’s behavior. In most cases, parents were struggling with their child at home as well.

Next year, we want to communicate the Zones and Strategic Learners programs to parents. We need parents to be aware and use the goals and strategies we are using with their child(ren). We will formulate a plan for the next school year.

As teachers, we realize that we are limited in our expertise and time to deal with our most unregulated students. Many of these students have sensory, cognitive or emotional issues that require expertise from counsellors. They need often need to have support starting as early as kindergarten. The earlier the 1-1 intervention for our unregulated learners the longer time they will have support to be better able to succeed.

2. What have you noticed with your students as a result of your focused and explicit teaching?

By using the Zones of Regulation program, we have noticed that our Self-regulated learners and students of little or some concern gained the most from the zones lessons. They strengthened their Self-regulation strategies, knowledge and abilities. For our most struggling learners, we feel that the program brought attention to their unregulated behavior and that made them uncomfortable because they didn’t want to have to think about what they were doing. They didn’t want to take responsibility for inappropriate behaviour. We also realize that our most struggling students often had an unwillingness to accept our support and lacked the desire to improve their behaviour. In many situations, they continued to deflect their behaviour onto the teacher or towards another student.

3. What will you consider keeping as a part of your repertoire?

We have decided to use the Zones Program in conjunction with the Strategic Learners Program next year to infuse positive, personal learning, goal setting for our learners. In order for our most struggling students to have more success with the Zones Program, much more time is needed for them. We recommend that all teachers at our school use the Zones program starting in Kindergarten to catch all of our learners early, especially our unregulated students. We all recognize that change takes time and patience, lots and lots of time and patience.

4. What would you do differently?

We realize that our Self-regulators incentive program, which recognizes and celebrates those students who are Self-regulating, has not been attainable for our most struggling students. Our most struggling students do not have the ability and skills, yet to Self-regulate consistently enough to be recognized in this manner. Some teachers are still using the incentive behaviors reward program and some have revised how to use this reward system. We all agree that it is important to recognize students often who are consistently Self-regulating because so much of our time and attention is spend supporting our unregulated learners. The way in which we do this varies from teacher to teacher.

2015-2016: Natalie Ohlhauser continued as PLC Facilitator this year. Staff worked on the following question:

• Will implementing various components of a balanced literacy program improve the literacy skills of our students?
• Analysis: Implementing various components of a balanced literacy program has improved the literacy skills of our students. A comparison of School-Wide Write data from the beginning of the year to the end of the year indicates a balanced literacy program at 150 Mile has improved students’ writing skills? At the Primary level, we know that students’ reading levels have improved by comparing PM Benchmark assessment results from the Fall to results from the Spring. Running records demonstrate improvement for students in Grades K-3. The Intermediate teachers may use PM Benchmarks, as needed. The majority of the readers in Grades 4-6 are determined to be average or above average by other means of assessment including conferencing, anecdotal notes, read aloud, literature circles, etc. If students are below average, then PM Benchmarks may be used. The students who did not demonstrate improvement may be on an IEP or adapted/modified program.
• Reflection: During Buddy Reading times, we alternated weeks for meetings between Primary and Intermediate teachers. During the meetings we discussed teaching strategies used to promote literacy. A couple of teachers who were in the group at the beginning of the year did not participate for the whole year. This occurred because of changes in staff and teachers feeling overwhelmed with being in too many groups.
• Primary Group: Teachers discussed how writing was going in their classes and share a variety of lessons, ideas, and samples. Using the school-wide write analysis form, teachers notes strengths and areas requiring further instruction and then planned for instruction.
• Intermediate Group: The two members of the CR4YR group shared their ideas and inquiry with the other teachers. The others were interested and it meant that no one felt overwhelmed with being in too many groups. Topics discussed included: peer evaluation and independent reading effort rubrics; researching a variety of rubrics and modifying them to suit our needs; how to organize rubrics and other student materials most efficiently for teacher evaluation; how to select student partners to create variety and how to have partners complete rubrics effectively; strategies (A/B partners, good reads, reading logs, book talks); student goal setting; and use of Roll and Retell. Teachers discussed a variety of Internet resources to use, including EPIC and Wonderopolis. WE also explored options available on Google to assist struggling readers.
• Overall: Although there were some ‘growing pains’ in the groups, the members involved were passionate during discussions and actively shared ideas about ways to improve literacy in our school. They enjoyed getting together during Buddy Reading to share ideas and make suggestions.

2014-2015: The PLC Facilitator at 150 Mile Elementary is the Learning Support Teacher, Natalie Ohlhauser. She is guiding the PLC through this inquiry question:

• In what ways will implementing various components of a balanced literacy program in our school improve the literacy skills of our students?
• Analysis: Implementing various components of a balanced literacy program in our school has improved student’s literacy skills. With the definition of literacy being the ability to read and write, we will break the results into these two categories.

Writing: A comparison of school-wide write data from the beginning of the school year to the end of the school year indicates a balanced literacy program at 150 Mile has improved student’s writing skills.

Reading: At the primary level, we know students’ reading levels have improved by comparing PM Benchmarks assessments from the fall to results from the spring. The teachers for Grades K-4 have running records with improved results.

The intermediate teachers may use PM Benchmarks, as needed. The majority of readers in Gr. 4-6 are determined to be average or above average by other means of assessment including conferencing, anecdotal notes, read aloud, literature circles, etc. If students are below average, then PM Benchmarks assessments may be used. The majority of the students who were assessed using PM Benchmarks in 2014/15 demonstrated improvement. Those who did not are usually on a modified program.

• Reflection: As a staff, we noticed that our current inquiry question may be too broad and could be revised Fall, 2015. The question was intentionally broad to accommodate a large staff with various interests. Next year, it may be preferable to have two more specific inquiry questions: one for intermediate and one for primary.

During Buddy Reading times, we alternated weeks for meetings between primary and intermediate. During the meetings we discussed teaching strategies used to promote literacy.

Intermediate teachers discussed strategies from Marvelous Minilessons. Most of the teachers would use the book again because the lessons were easy to follow. In addition, teachers liked it because their students enjoyed the assignments, topics and examples. A favourite lesson: Love It, Loathe It motivated students by generating ideas they were interested in writing about. In addition, Intermediate Teachers used the Writing A-Z website. They liked that the lessons, activities and assessments covered different genres and were leveled. This resource covered topics not included in the Marvelous Minilessons.

Primary teachers discussed strategies from Guiding Readers: Making the Most of the 18-minute Guided Reading Lesson. All of the teachers liked the book and would use it again. It is full of great ideas including: Bubblegum Writing, Book Review and Retelling. During the Retelling discussion teachers shared other resources and suggestions. The Retelling Map was a “hit” because teachers thought it was good for large group discussions and A-B partner work. Teachers questioned some of the Must Do activities suggested because they seemed to be time consuming and wondered if they were “authentic.” The teachers were using their reading conference notes to drive instruction and personalize it for the students.

Overall, both intermediate and primary groups think the books we chose were useful to improve literacy. The teachers enjoyed getting together during Buddy Reading to share ideas and suggestions. The books used either introduced new ideas or built on previous strategies to promote both teacher and student learning. Everyone mentioned they use a variety of resources throughout the year to meet the needs of their students and to promote literacy.