The Power of You...

As we head into Thanksgiving break, the thing that is most powerful about Sendera Ranch Elementary and YOU the teacher is how you are constantly moving forward in your practice and how you are profoundly impacting student success. No matter the coordinator, coach or administrator that walks through the halls of Sendera, they are always amazed at YOUR transparency, honesty and willingness to learn. Never do they hear the words "I can't," "I won't" or "It is not possible." Often, the response is "Yes, lets do it!" "What more can we do to improve." or "Would you help us put _____ in place."

More than that, is how well each one of YOU know yourself, your team and your students. With every opportunity that arises to tweak, move forward or present next steps, YOU ALL are talking about it BEFORE it is even brought to you by the leadership. Your PLC notes, conversations you share with us or the initiative you take to reach out to coaches and others for supports and resources speaks to your constant desire to learn and grow.

We see so many amazing things happening because of this "learner mindset." Those things include:

• Alignment between classrooms with instruction
• Lesson plans that show evidence of intentional planning both as a team and individually and thought to how lessons connect to previous lessons or future lessons
• Lots of intentional use of academic/content vocabulary in journals
• Guided math groups and reading groups have become a routine practice
• Use of student goal setting is in place
• Teachers AND students utilize academic vocabulary in conversations and in instruction
• High quality of writing/justification in journals in 5th grade
• Good organization in journals

Wonderings or Next Steps that have been both for our campus and as a district include:

• How can the cycle feedback (feedback, response, reflect) become part of journaling in our content areas? (both peer and teacher feedback)
• What are ways that we can continue to grow in our content knowledge and vocabulary, and build awareness of vertical alignment to aide student understanding and prevent unintended misconceptions?
• What are our teacher model journals needing to look like and to what extent should we take our models to support student journal entries?
• How can we ensure that students are revisiting goals that are set and are able to determine where they are as learners?
• Does the value we place in literacy rich tasks reflect in student work particularly in our student journals? Are we seeing growth and development in their journal responses? 
• In reading/writing are we seeing growth since BOY and better organization, clear explanations and ideas? 
• In math problem solving block journals are we seeing written explanations that mirror verbalized explanations (K-2) and depth in justifications (3-5)? 
• In science are we seeing well organized journals/observations with diagrams with labels (K-5), clearly stated and supported conclusions with 1-2 CERs per unit(3-5)?

Many of you have already begun to think in the direction of the above wonderings/next steps. One thing many of us forget is where we have been and just see where we have to go. Then, for those of us who have the historical frame of reference, we remind those who don't how far we have come in just a few short months. Just think... a year ago, where were your reading response journals, your problem solving block journals, your lesson plans, the conversations in your PLCs? Congratulate yourself, your team, your students... YOU have come so far. YOU do have the power to change things and YOU have. When we all commit to have a growth mindset, we have the power that is going to transform learning.

The change happens because of the POWER in YOU and through YOU. Thank you for being YOU!

John and Kirsten

Creating Space for Making Thinking Visible

Whether your content is ELA or Math. Capturing thinking in student journals is not only effective but provides a way to archive individual student progress. 

Journaling is the space where we can fill in the gaps from a scope and sequence or a scripted lesson plan. It is where the thinking becomes real and personal for each learner. 
In Math we use the tool of journaling through our Problem Solving Block. Vertical conversations have brought consensus that we all want students to be able to show a complete solution and show that they understand the problem. From there we continue to strive for thorough explanations through words and models K-2 and explanations with justifications 3-5. We know that this is where the meat of what students learn is applied with rigor and depth.
Problem Solving Block questions are designed to spiral in previous learning, see where students are with upcoming new concepts, provide emphasis to current content and/or create opportunities to reteach where concepts may need more instruction or clarification with ways it can be presented. With the autonomy of this time and the journals, comes in the importance of planning and collaboration. Planning moves from the what to the why and how. Planning begins to evolve from not just what lesson we are teaching, but drives deeper into what do we want the learner to know (learning target), what questions are we asking and hoping to hear students asking, and what activities/tasks will best elicit the data that tells us that our students KNOW IT!

Another idea to consider is how can we move beyond just the look fors... as teachers model in their Problem Solving Journals, how can we enhance the literacy rich focus of our Problem of Practice. The following article from blog The Cornerstone for Teachers "Everything You Need to Know About Math Journals" by Angela Watson affirms so much of what we are already doing. The portion that talks about 'Why math journaling?' is powerful where it states: 

"-Kids have the opportunity to reflect on their strategies and assess their own learning

-Students practice putting their knowledge into words both verbally and in writing

-Instructional focus is shifted from computation to problem solving and real-life application

-The teacher gains insight into children’s abilities, opinions, understandings, and misconceptions

-It creates a documented portfolio-like record of student growth and progress"

Furthermore, the portion "What do students write about?" suggests a move beyond what are presently being done where the focus is mostly on strategies and processes. How powerful might it be to take a moment every few weeks and address not just the processes, but the attitudes and learning. Reflection, as we know, can be the most powerful of all teachers.

In the coming weeks there is a focus on the following look fors in math problem solving block time: 

¨ Daily Problem Solving in journal with explanations (K-2) and justifications (3-5)

¨ Student discourse and use of talk moves by teachers/students with high level questioning

¨ Alignment of quality instruction from class to class within the same grade level

¨All components of the Stepping Stones Journal complete (Step Up and Step Ahead for deeper thinking)

Beyond this, what can we do with our journals, in ALL content areas to make student journals a piece of the learning that students own and value. A space for making thinking visible? Please share your comments below.

-Kirsten and John

Talking about Journaling...

As we move into the final week of the first six weeks, we have secured our rituals and routines in the

classroom. We have moved beyond the first 30 days, completed our DRAs and BOY of math assessments. We are now bringing into focus the day to day instructional practices with rigor and relevance. In particular we are honing the practice of capturing learning through our journals. A literacy rich best practice.






Becoming transparent in our practice in regards to journals is two fold... it is, on one hand, examining teacher model journals and how we utilize them to guide student work; on the other hand, it is examining student journal work/responses.

With teacher models, we consider what are we wanting to focus on, sharing what work meets expectations (utilizing rubrics to guide our responses), syncing with our grade level/content in regards to aligned task/model entries and demonstrating reflection/depth in the responses. Additionally, ongoing action research supports that quality teacher models encourage longer student responses.

With student journals we want to consider number of opportunities to respond (3 to 4 times per week), the responses of students in journals vs. anchor charts/resource items, depth of responses, teacher/peer feedback provided in student journals, and student's opportunity to respond to/ reflect on feedback.

Journaling both for student and teacher models requires specific, purposeful and intentional planning to ensure time for journaling. Time must be taken to pre-plan/create the teacher model for journal responses. Furthermore, finding effective ways to leave feedback in a timely manner both for individual student growth and to inform instruction must also be a consideration.

As we close our first chapter in the 2016-17 year and move into our next six weeks, what are ways we can continue to grow in this area? How can we strive for best practices? What are ways we are being purposeful, intentional and sharing/collaborating on this practice?