Social Science Department

Social Science Department Meeting Date: Monday, October 20, 2014

Time: 8:00-9:30 J - 364, Greg’s Room Attendance: Aufiero, Damian Lightbody, Michael Bendle, Wendy Pember, Ann Brown, Dana Marie Tivnan, Rick Corcoran, Rebecca Veritas, Kerry Filer, Michelle Copithorne, Jonathan Fersch, Ellsworth Graham, Caitlin Healy, Marsha Holland, Dave Hurley, Greg MacLaury, Duncan District Goal: Improved Student Achievement Students will increase their ability to interact thoughtfully with text, visuals, data, number and word problems, visuals, and phenomena, on their own and with one another, to build new knowledge, skills and understanding.

Department “goal-setting is the process of establishing a direction for learning. . ." Focus - Marzano, Pickering, and Polock, Classroom Instruction that Works

We will . . .  use the Understanding by Design (UbD) framework to plan and revise curriculum units, implement the Common Core, and to individualize instruction.

 expand the use of research-based teaching & learning strategies to increase student comprehension and support effective transfer of content and skills. (Stage 3)

 Encourage student inquiry while providing opportunities for students to develop 21st century skills and to apply those real-life skills in the context of a project. (Stage 1 & 2) ______Objective: Members of the department will work together to. . .  Identify weaknesses in student achievement as measured on initial District Determined Measures using the Looking at Student Work Protocol  Update and revise units based upon outcomes from today’s work

8:00-8:10 Chromebook 1:1 Initiative faculty survey. In order to help prepare for PD as we roll out our school wide 1:1 initiative please take this survey in order to help the committee gauge everyone’s comfort level with Google tools and using technology in the classroom.

Link: https://docs.google.com/a/maldenhigh.org/forms/d/1QeuQWG5elHEk5LgxKokfWhtGGvG3TaTRvdKyLkJixFs/vi ewform

Operational Issues 8:10-8:15 1) Bookroom now stores all spare McGraw Hill textbooks. If you take any out of the room, please email the number of the books you’re taking so that I can track who has them.

2) Online textbook: Please try to upload your USI and/or USII classes into the online system before the November 4th PD Day. McGraw-Hill is coming in that morning to show us some features about the online book. In order to help them gauge where to direct us it would help if I can tell them where we need some help and direction. If you need help uploading students or are running into problems then please let me know – I’m happy to come into classes and help students get logged in.

3) Sneak Peek at Google Classroom: What is it? I already have a wikispace page! Why are we doing ANOTHER new thing? Will it really make my life easier? YES! Resource: Looking at Student Work Protocols (adapted from: http://www.ncosp.wwu.edu/Resources/getFile.php?id=884)

5 minutes Step 1: Identify facilitators and timekeepers. Facilitator will help coordinate the discussion. Timekeeper makes sure that the group moves through all steps of the protocol in a timely manner.

10 minutes Step 2: Identify standards. Hand out student work, distributing all of the work you brought to other members of the group. Identify the standards being evaluated by the rubric used for scoring (this will vary for each course, but should all be tied to either curriculum frameworks or more likely Common Core skills). Record the standard(s) on the chart paper.

10-15 Step 3: Making a scoring guide. Generate a rough scoring guide for the work using the minutes identified standard(s) and rubric to create two categories. The two categories will be Meets Standard or Does not Meet Standard. Record the ideas that you would expect to find in answers that fell into each of the categories. Work through this as a group.

30 minutes Step 4 Analyzing Student Work. Using rubric, teachers “analyze” student work by sorting the student work into the two categories. This should first be done independently and then discussed. (It is likely that some papers will fall in-between Meets Standard and Does not. These papers might be set aside until further in the process or discussed as a group)

15 minutes Step 5. Evaluation. Discuss whether students have generally demonstrated an understanding of what was being taught. What do they know and what are they able to do. Did the activity give them an opportunity to reveal their thinking?

1 hour (For Step 6. Implications for change. Analyze whether the problem (if there is one) is in the Oct 27 Early lesson (which may have led to this student work) or in the assessment tool. Brainstorm a list Release) of ideas for how to adapt instruction to meet the needs of the students based on discussion of deficiencies. Encourage all ideas during brainstorming without comment. In planning for action, decide ahead whether consensus will be needed.

Since our goal is student growth and achievement, we should use our findings from reviewing our work to discuss the steps that should be implemented and scaffolded throughout the rest of the year to ensure that the majority of our students are able to show that growth.

We will spend about 90 minutes on the morning of November 4th (Full Day PD) actually completing this work in revising the units to meet our students’ needs.