As Bern previously stated in the last post “As always I found Michael McDowell very insightful about his
perspectives in a very practical way.” and I can not agree with you more Bern! The latter half of this
chapter focuses on ensuring that a as a school, individual teachers have autonomy to make key
decisions in their classrooms to move student learning forward. As lead learners we need to ensure
that our school is equipped with the tools necessary to identify and take appropriate action on
student progress to ensure that students are demonstrating high proficiency (surface, deep and
transfer understanding) and are showing more than one year’s growth in their learning.
perspectives in a very practical way.” and I can not agree with you more Bern! The latter half of this
chapter focuses on ensuring that a as a school, individual teachers have autonomy to make key
decisions in their classrooms to move student learning forward. As lead learners we need to ensure
that our school is equipped with the tools necessary to identify and take appropriate action on
student progress to ensure that students are demonstrating high proficiency (surface, deep and
transfer understanding) and are showing more than one year’s growth in their learning.
Micheal McDowell reinforces the importance of writing clear Learning Intentions and Levelled
Success Criteria and ensuring that students themselves understand what they are learning and
how they can be successful in their learning. As a staff, I believe that our understanding of the
importance of even having Learning Intentions and Success Criterias in our classroom has
increased 10 fold from when we first began having them in our classroom. I can honestly admit
that when we first started, I did not grasp the impact that Learning Intentions and Success
Criterias could have on student learning. With our heavy PD focus over the past 2 years being on
setting students up for success in the classroom, when Micheal states “Students have a far greater
chance of developing the knowledge and skills to take more responsibility over their own learning if
they know what is expected in their learning” I can whole-heartedly understand and agree with his
statement, now that my own understanding through practical application in the classroom has improved.
Success Criteria and ensuring that students themselves understand what they are learning and
how they can be successful in their learning. As a staff, I believe that our understanding of the
importance of even having Learning Intentions and Success Criterias in our classroom has
increased 10 fold from when we first began having them in our classroom. I can honestly admit
that when we first started, I did not grasp the impact that Learning Intentions and Success
Criterias could have on student learning. With our heavy PD focus over the past 2 years being on
setting students up for success in the classroom, when Micheal states “Students have a far greater
chance of developing the knowledge and skills to take more responsibility over their own learning if
they know what is expected in their learning” I can whole-heartedly understand and agree with his
statement, now that my own understanding through practical application in the classroom has improved.
Our next step as lead learners is to ensure that as a school, we have clarity in the level of learning
and consistency in the Learning Intentions and Levelled Success Criteria (Surface, Deep and Transfer)
across each grade level in the school. I believe we are on the way to achieving this, however we are
not at the ‘finish line’ yet. The changes in the way we are using our briefing time to share the learning
occurring in each classroom and present Learning Intentions and Success Criteria to gain constructive
feedback has put us further on the track to establishing some consistency across the grade levels.
Having the opportunity in staff meetings to examine different grade level understanding of a task,
like we have previously done in our Multiplicative Thinking, Geometric Reasoning and Reconciliation
Units have also put us further on the track. Leanda’s hard work in the writing of “From the Pit” and
the constant sharing of information in regards to Inquiry Learning and creating levelled Success
Criteria has lead to the establishment of school norms where we are all on the same page in
regards to the language we use, the colours of our Success Criteria (for Surface, Deep and Transfer
learning) and the importance of gathering students ‘Knows’ and ‘Need to Knows’ at the beginning of
a unit to guide our teaching.
and consistency in the Learning Intentions and Levelled Success Criteria (Surface, Deep and Transfer)
across each grade level in the school. I believe we are on the way to achieving this, however we are
not at the ‘finish line’ yet. The changes in the way we are using our briefing time to share the learning
occurring in each classroom and present Learning Intentions and Success Criteria to gain constructive
feedback has put us further on the track to establishing some consistency across the grade levels.
Having the opportunity in staff meetings to examine different grade level understanding of a task,
like we have previously done in our Multiplicative Thinking, Geometric Reasoning and Reconciliation
Units have also put us further on the track. Leanda’s hard work in the writing of “From the Pit” and
the constant sharing of information in regards to Inquiry Learning and creating levelled Success
Criteria has lead to the establishment of school norms where we are all on the same page in
regards to the language we use, the colours of our Success Criteria (for Surface, Deep and Transfer
learning) and the importance of gathering students ‘Knows’ and ‘Need to Knows’ at the beginning of
a unit to guide our teaching.
We as a staff have come so far, and when I was writing this post I was overcome with a sense of
pride in our staff. In saying that, we still have a long way to go. Our ‘What Now’ is to ensure we give
the staff more opportunities to develop their understanding of how we can reach that end goal of
“Students demonstrating high proficiency AND are showing more than one year’s growth” and to
continue to create clarity and consistency in student learning across all grades in the school. We
maybe look at creating our own Scale for Skills for the various KLA’s across the grades that devioid
the content or task and focus purely on the skills we want students to develop. The syllabus would
be a great starting point for this.
pride in our staff. In saying that, we still have a long way to go. Our ‘What Now’ is to ensure we give
the staff more opportunities to develop their understanding of how we can reach that end goal of
“Students demonstrating high proficiency AND are showing more than one year’s growth” and to
continue to create clarity and consistency in student learning across all grades in the school. We
maybe look at creating our own Scale for Skills for the various KLA’s across the grades that devioid
the content or task and focus purely on the skills we want students to develop. The syllabus would
be a great starting point for this.
Sorry Alyssa - For some reason your blog went beyond the page and was therefore difficult to read. However I also am full of pride at how far the staff have come and look forward to continuing the learning with them especially around High Proficiency and High Growth.
ReplyDeleteI have also outlined my thinking below:
I have read this chapter before but this time it all fell into place for me. Reinforcing the need to make sure the success criteria is free from tasks, activities and context is still a challenge, but makes so much sense in theory. I feel it is the best way for students and teachers to see the learning can be applied across many contexts. It makes me realise also how far we have come in our journey. Working together to create common learning intentions seems to be taking hold in our school, especially when we come together and share our learning during module meetings. As far as a system level of understanding I can't imagine how difficult this is as we all take on different aspect of the system learning and interpret it differently.
I like the idea of building the staff's (and mine) understanding of what instructional strategies, feedback and Learning strategies to use at the different levels of complexity. I feel building this knowledge up amongst staff will help drive the teachers along the continuum and shift them out of their comfort zone. It will also help me develop the autonomy of the staff, which also seems to be a key learning from this chapter.
A challenge for me as a lead learner is to instil in the staff that this is ever evolving but maybe starting with figure 3.9 ( pg 55 M McDowell) which illustrates potential approaches teachers could take and it fits in with the high proficiency, high growth quadrant which shows students/ teachers how they are going in their learning. To me this was the highlight of this section as it clearly explains the what for teachers and students.
Looking forward to discussing this chapter further in our meeting - it is time to 'know thy impact'.
Vocab from chapter that resonates with me - autonomy, tools necessary, progress and proficiency, intentions of learning ( I have ad a shift about this over the last few days) Links to RE Framework - pg 50 - Applying Understanding (Transfer), Making Meaning (Deep) Building Knowledge (Surface)
Voices from the field - The pathway - deep content knowledge, formative assessment, data analysis, best practice (at levels of complexity) instructional strategies, Moving towards transformational learning environment that give students voice, common understanding of standards (Outcomes) clear expectations, tiered instructional strategies, moderation of assessment samples, professional learning of teachers to meet their needs.
Sorry Everyone, I'll repost as a comment
ReplyDeleteAs Bern previously stated in the last post “As always I found Michael McDowell very insightful about his perspectives in a very practical way.” and I can not agree with you more Bern! The latter half of this chapter focuses on ensuring that a as a school, individual teachers have autonomy to make key decisions in their classrooms to move student learning forward. As lead learners we need to ensure that our school is equipped with the tools necessary to identify and take appropriate action on student progress to ensure that students are demonstrating high proficiency (surface, deep and transfer understanding) and are showing more than one year’s growth in their learning.
Micheal McDowell reinforces the importance of writing clear Learning Intentions and Levelled Success Criteria and ensuring that students themselves understand what they are learning and how they can be successful in their learning. As a staff, I believe that our understanding of the importance of even having Learning Intentions and Success Criterias in our classroom has increased 10 fold from when we first began having them in our classroom. I can honestly admit that when we first started, I did not grasp the impact that Learning Intentions and Success Criterias could have on student learning. With our heavy PD focus over the past 2 years being on setting students up for success in the classroom, when Micheal states “Students have a far greater chance of developing the knowledge and skills to take more responsibility over their own learning if they know what is expected in their learning” I can whole-heartedly understand and agree with his statement, now that my own understanding through practical application in the classroom has improved.
Our next step as lead learners is to ensure that as a school, we have clarity in the level of learning and consistency in the Learning Intentions and Levelled Success Criteria (Surface, Deep and Transfer) across each grade level in the school. I believe we are on the way to achieving this, however we are not at the ‘finish line’ yet. The changes in the way we are using our briefing time to share the learning occurring in each classroom and present Learning Intentions and Success Criteria to gain constructive feedback has put us further on the track to establishing some consistency across the grade levels. Having the opportunity in staff meetings to examine different grade level understanding of a task, like we have previously done in our Multiplicative Thinking, Geometric Reasoning and Reconciliation Units have also put us further on the track. Leanda’s hard work in the writing of “From the Pit” and the constant sharing of information in regards to Inquiry Learning and creating levelled Success Criteria has lead to the establishment of school norms where we are all on the same page in regards to the language we use, the colours of our Success Criteria (for Surface, Deep and Transfer learning) and the importance of gathering students ‘Knows’ and ‘Need to Knows’ at the beginning of a unit to guide our teaching.
We as a staff have come so far, and when I was writing this post I was overcome with a sense of pride in our staff. In saying that, we still have a long way to go. Our ‘What Now’ is to ensure we give the staff more opportunities to develop their understanding of how we can reach that end goal of “Students demonstrating high proficiency AND are showing more than one year’s growth” and to continue to create clarity and consistency in student learning across all grades in the school. We maybe look at creating our own Scale for Skills for the various KLA’s across the grades that devioid the content or task and focus purely on the skills we want students to develop. The syllabus would be a great starting point for this.
This week I found the comments from the blogging teacher a good synthesis of what has happened so far and the way many of the strategies are working towards the same end. I think a challenge for a school is always that of how to encourage and facilitate staff to work together and then give them to time to do so. The level of understanding of LI and SC should not depend on what teacher they have but rather as consistent and equitable as possible. I think the use of the 4 quadrants is so very useful and I like the explanation on Pg48 gives clarity to High Growth and particularly High Proficiency.
DeleteOn second reading I found the tables easier to understand - it is amazing how the brain works over time. The table I found most interesting is the one that explained the potential for intervention and how these interventions are different for the different levels on the quadrant. Perhaps this is an approach that may assist staff in their own learning journey - worth a thought
i agree with you Alyssa. Isn't is satisfying when you read a section of MMs book and think: Yes we are doing that! Our students will become drivers of their own learning because they have clarity about what they have to do to be successful. All of the work from Leanda in her "from the pit", our module meetings and PL around LI and SC are enabling us to implement high impact strategies therefore the show be no impediment to all teachers collectively planning and programming with clear learning intention.
ReplyDeleteI know it is difficult to write success criteria devoid of context but I can see the benefits of how this maximises the autonomy for each classroom teacher.
A particular sentence that resonated with me was " no matter what teacher a student gets at a grade level, the learning intentions and success criteria should be the same."
I loved the sample success criteria for Biology and Working mathematically and I even had the urge to look at the rate of osmosis across a semi permeable membrane with a variety of different salt concentrations!
Im thinking how we can write SC for our reasoning and communicating component of Maths as a staff so we are all consistent.
Can we design our MAI data wall into the four quadrants. Would this form of data analysis be more informative about 'where to next?'