The Big Picture
April 2021
Superheroes Unite!
By Dr. Martha Doennig
Superhero: an individual who possesses abilities beyond those of ordinary people; people who use their super powers to help the world.
It’s no secret that educators truly are THE superheroes of all time, helping learners one by one to impact the world in a positive way. Classic, though, is that once someone is identified as a superhero, expectations skyrocket, and the superhero is expected to conquer every challenge imaginable. Sound familiar?
Some might say this expectation just comes with the territory of being named a superhero, and we just have to suck it up. The truth of the matter, though, is that no superhero can achieve greatness autonomously. Changing the world one learner at time calls for a community: teams are required.
Batman was most powerful when working with the Justice League. Hulk’s strength made the greatest impact when paired with the powers of the Avengers. Look at those surrounding you in your professional learning community; those are the members of your superhero team, and it is this band of heroes that allows us to make a difference for each learner, every day.
When we consider each learner, every day, we know this creates one of the greatest teaching challenges. Supporting student learning regardless of entry point requires creativity, multiple approaches, and collaboration to achieve the established standards for learning. Two of the four essential questions that guide Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) touch on this:
How will we respond when some students do not learn?
How will we extend the learning for students who are already proficient?
It is knowing how to intervene and enrich the learning that makes the greatest difference for student learning. Read on to explore practical ways in which you can collaborate with your superhero team to continue to have the greatest impact for all!
March 2021
Monitoring Progress for Student Growth
By Dr. Martha Doennig
As we sit on the edge of a new season, I am reminded of the patience required to get to this point in the year, both personally and professionally. Personally, weathering the long, hard, cold winter requires patience, and our sticktoitiveness is rewarded with longer daylight hours, harmonious bird songs, and green growth slowly peeking through the hardened Earth. Professionally, our patience with each of our learners is rewarded with multiple sources of data that indicate our students are making great strides relative to the learning targets established throughout the year. It’s easy to see the contrast between student knowledge in August and where they are today. There are certainly many celebrations!
While spring symbolizes the collective student growth that’s occurred throughout the school year, I know, as educators, we don’t save up all our noticings about student learning to this point in the year. In fact, educators prioritize ongoing monitoring of student growth via an essential question that lives in each professional learning community: How will we know if our students have learned it? We ask this question continuously, which results in ongoing data collection and professional judgement about instructional moves to ensure students secure skills relative to the learning target.
This question, alive in the classroom instruction cycle and our collaboration with peers, holds us accountable to knowing how our students are progressing along the learning journey. Evidence of learning lives at the core of all the conversations we have about our learners, and there are a variety of tips and tricks that exist for monitoring student progress. Enjoy reading this month’s edition of In Focus for ideas of how to efficiently and effectively know where student performance is relative to established learning targets.
Zooming in on Monitoring Progress for Student Growth
February 2021
Monitoring Progress for Teacher Growth
By Dr. Martha Doennig
Humor me. Grab a pen and some paper.
Think back to the moment you accepted your first teaching position. What words come to mind to describe that bright-eyed, novice version of yourself? Write those words down. Now, think about who you are today as an educator...an educator navigating a pandemic, nonetheless. What words might explain who you are today? Capture those. Now, compare the two lists. What surfaces?
Likely, you notice a significant contrast between the two lists, a difference that is evidence of your continued growth as a professional. You are not today as you were at the beginning of your career. Likely, you aren’t the same educator today as the one who started the school year in the fall. Working in the people business demands continuous attuning to and adjusting for the uniqueness of all the tiny (or not so tiny) humans that walk through our spaces each day. This navigation requires us to continuously self-monitor and self-modify, to be adaptive, so that we are able to be the best version of ourselves for each student to ensure the greatest positive impact on student learning.
What’s sneaky about this personal growth is that it happens so fluidly and oftentimes goes unnoticed. Monitoring growth within yourself, and within your professional learning community, is especially important to achieving personal and student learning goals, so it's important to self-identify what is making a difference for your own growth and the growth of your team. Read on for ideas of how to monitor educator growth that has an impact on student learning.
Zooming in on Monitoring Progress for Teacher Growth
Instructional Snapshot: Seeking Student Input for Teacher Growth
January 2021
Assessments Part 2: Summative
By Dr. Martha Doennig
The simple explanation of a summative assessment is an evaluation that provides students the opportunity to prove what they’ve learned. The more complex explanation lies in unpacking the responsibility of what to do with the data from these assessments. What are some ways they can inform our future instructional decisions?
Whether unit tests, benchmarks, MAP Assessments, EOCs, or Advanced Placement exams, summative assessments are threaded throughout a student’s educational career, providing copious data regarding student learning. As educators, we may feel paralyzed by this data. We might feel uncertain about how the data can have an impact now that we have moved on to new standards, new content, or even a new group of students. So what is our responsibility in regard to summative assessments?
The data from the summative assessments provide the evidence for student learning that resulted from the delivered content. Delivered content is the outcome of the professional decisions that we made about our students’ learning needs. As we engage in our professional learning communities, we should hold up the mirror of reflection and explore the impact of our instructional decisions using the summative data as an anchor.
How did it go? What might be some patterns that surface? What might be some of the instructional strategies that were effective? What might we continue to refine?
What might we learn from each other about teaching and learning?
These reflective conversations will only go as deep as your learning community is willing to dive. With your team’s norms at the core of the conversation, vulnerable and reflective conversations will turn summative assessment data into instructional practices that positively impact your students.
As John Dewey reminds us, “We do not learn from experience...we learn from reflecting on experience.” Thank you, in advance, for the deep work of reflection with your professional learning community.
Zooming in on Summative Assessments
December 2020
Assessments Part 1: Formative
By Dr. Martha Doennig
‘Tis the season for early evenings, hot drinks, and settling into a snuggly spot to watch a holiday film. If Home Alone flashes on your screen, Kevin McAllister might fondly remind you of a student you frequently see--one who might struggle to self-regulate or get along with others, and who might even demonstrate explosiveness when things don’t go as planned. Think of the dinner scene at the beginning of the movie: Kevin doesn’t get the cheese pizza he wants, his brother Buzz rubs it in, and his explosive reaction gets him sent to bed for the night.
If you were to assess and define Kevin in that single moment of time, you’d presume his social and emotional development is lagging, his ability to demonstrate flexibility is nonexistent, and that he certainly is not capable of sound decision making to achieve a goal.
Just minutes later in the movie, watch Kevin again. He realizes his family has left for Paris without him and responds by scanning the news for grocery bargains, making a list, and heading to the store to stock up on food and supplies. How’s his social and emotional development now? Soon after, he recognizes that the police officer who visited his home the night before is actually one of the most wanted burglars. Is that flexible thinking in action? And at the moment that Kevin realizes his home is a target for the next burglary, Kevin designs and executes a battle plan complete with a flying hot iron, iced-over steps, a flaming-hot door knob, and strategically rigged glue and feathers. How’s that for decision making to achieve a goal?
This example illustrates the power of ongoing formative assessment. Just as we quickly stereotyped Kevin in the opening scene of Home Alone, a single moment in time can define our students if we are not careful. Ongoing formative assessment provides multiple sources of data so we always know where students are relative to the standards, and it is crucial to excellence in teaching and learning.
As you engage your students, consider how using formative assessments all along the way can paint the just-in-time picture of what each one needs to learn. Enjoy this month’s edition of In Focus that prioritizes ideas for how we can have an accurate pulse on all our students, Kevin included.
Zooming in on next steps with your Common Formative Assessments
Instructional Snapshot: Making Assessments Common and Formative
November 2020
Learning Standards
By Dr. Allison Pilley & Dr. Martha Doennig
“The purpose of collaboration--to help more students achieve at higher levels--can only be accomplished if the professionals engaged in collaboration are focused on the right work.” -DuFour, DuFour, Eaker, Many, & Mattos, Learning by Doing (pg.59).
So what is the right work? Just collaborating is not enough; rather, it is what are we collaborating about that makes all the difference for learning. The first of the four PLC questions is What is it we want our students to know and be able to do? To answer this question, we must name the essential knowledge, skills, and dispositions each student should acquire. In Springfield, we know what students should learn thanks to the Missouri Learning Standards. The Missouri Learning Standards, as set by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE), define the knowledge and skills students need in each grade level and course for success in college, other post-secondary training, and in careers.
As a result, all of our students need to experience teaching and learning aligned to their grade level standards, regardless of their current learning levels. Since one year’s standards build on the next, it is essential that students experience the content, depth of knowledge, and rigor that is expected of the standard at each grade level. This comprehensive approach ensures that all students have the building blocks for more advanced learning throughout the preK-12 experience. In other words, what you choose to teach students now has a lasting impact on their educational careers.
As your PLCs collaborate to answer the first essential question, know that the standards provide a road map for the learning ahead. Within the standards, you can find the following:
Performance level descriptors: These paint a picture of what proficiency looks and sounds like for all learners. Think of these as checkpoints along the way.
Item specifications: These demonstrate an unwrapping of the standard, a ceiling for the depth of knowledge (DOK), and sample assessment stems for formative and summative assessments.
All these tools support your PLC in answering the first essential question of PLCs while paving the way for the second: How will we know if each student has learned it?
Thank you for all you do as a collaborative team to ensure that instruction is aligned to the expectations of grade and content level standards while also differentiating along the way to meet the unique needs of all of your students. Your hard work is noticed and appreciated.
Zooming in on Unpacking your Standards
October 2020
Collaborative Culture
By Dr. Martha Doennig
“When at its best, teamwork builds group (and individual) capacities to meet the challenges of teaching and learning. Working in high-powered teams changes lives.” Zimmerman, Roussin, & Garmston, 2020
With time set aside throughout the school year to engage collaboratively with your peers to move the needle on student learning, what is it about your work as a collaborative team that’s life changing as the quote above notes? If you find yourself in a rich collaborative culture, what might be the things that are happening that contribute to such success? If you hesitate to engage in collaboration, what might be stopping you?
According to Zimmerman, Roussin, and Garmston (2020), teamwork that truly transforms lives is rooted in three integral strands: psychological safety, constructive conflict, and actionable team learning. Psychological safety is about trust and rapport as a collaborative group as well as the ability to show deep respect toward others. Constructive conflict exists when team members have the ability to provoke each other’s thinking while being skilled enough to work through the differences that surface. Actionable team learning surfaces in deep collaboration regarding problems of practice in which the team demonstrates high levels of collective teacher efficacy as action is taken to make a difference for student learning. The intersection of these three is not only a life changer for those collaborating, but also results in transformative teaching and learning in the classroom.
As you enjoy this month’s edition of In Focus, consider how your contributions positively impact the collaborative teams in which you engage. Consider ways to refine your work to ensure your efforts are life changing. Finally, what might you need to pay attention to in yourself as you enhance the culture of your collaborative teams?
Zooming in on Collaborative Culture
Instructional Snapshot: Breaking Down Barriers to Classroom Collaboration
Spotlight on Support
Dr. Martha Doennig, Director of Learning Development
September 2020
Laying the Foundation
By Dr. Martha Doennig
Welcome to another year of learning and growth for all! As educators, we have the opportunity and responsibility to be a learner at all times so we can be the best version of ourselves for our learners day in and day out. This year, like none we have ever experienced, is providing ample growth opportunities as we navigate multiple learning curves that are present when teaching through a pandemic. Know that the learning you have been doing as well as the hard work to lift this school year is noticed and applauded as you lead learning with flexibility, compassion, and the desire to ensure meaningful, engaging learning experiences for every learner, every day. As you pour into your students, don’t forget that you can never pour from an empty glass, so be sure to make time for yourself by refueling with the things you love. As learners, may this edition of In Focus provide fuel to you as you explore ideas for laying a firm foundation in your work with students and colleagues .
Wishing you a delightful month ahead, and thank you for all that you do!
Zooming in on the Foundation of PLCs
Instructional Snapshot: The 3 Cs of Virtual Directions
Spotlight on Support
Dr. Christen Glenn, Learning Specialist
