1. How can your department maximize learning during study sessions? (Suggestion: make up work before school, 2nd half of EH/bring lunch, or after school) Other suggestions for making up missing work?
Have open study sessions that are not specific to a particular class. This allows more flexibility in scheduling, and will allow more students to come to study sessions. With open study sessions, peer-tutoring sessions can be used; for example, a high performer in an honors class tutoring a low performer in another class. We feel that doing make-ups work is essential to learning because the assignments are rigorous and involve critical thinking or essential concepts and knowledge (see question 7). Also, if a student is doing make-up work, the teacher should be working with the student, not sitting at their desk while the student works independently. Before school and afterschool sessions are not always viable do to commitments with athletics, and family.
According to teacher made Biology classroom assessments, students have either mastered the material, or have been remediated on the material through EH study sessions and by doing test corrections. Test corrections for all biology teachers involve student produced evidence that they have evaluated the concept for that question, and why the correct answer is correct.
2. How do we encourage and improve work ethic for our students? How can we get their input on this concern?
-make students redo unacceptable or incomplete work -praise good work, display examples of good work in the room -special recognition for consistent good work -survey attitudes on work and work ethic
Assessments show that students who fail to complete classwork and homework to a satisfactory degree also tend to struggle in mastering concepts that are tested. 3. How can teachers work smarter and the students work harder? For example, how can you limit late work all piling in during the last week of the grading period?
Using assessment data and classroom formative data will drive remediation study sessions for more efficient learning. Peer tutoring can be especially effective in helping complete missing classwork or homework, rather than have teachers continue to re-explain the same assignment again and again.
4. How can pre-teaching concepts help increase the number of students who master course content?
Pre-teaching can be done:
-during extra time at the end of a class to prevent students for packing up early -during empower hour study sessions, or at the end of study session when missing work or test corrections have been completed. -throughout normal instruction, whenever it is possible to incorporate an upcoming concept (Ex: introducing photosynthesis and cell respiration during ecology unit when teaching nutrient cycles). -introducing the anticipatory question for the next day at the end of class
5. Other topics to consider: If we have a large percentage performing poorly on EOCs/MSLs, and scoring less than proficient, then why is our failure rate so low (Should there be a correlation between standardized test scores and classroom assessments/grading)? -The EOC/MSL test is a snapshot of the work done during the semester. -Some students are horrible test-takers due to anxiety or some other factor such as poor reading skills -students are passing, but barely passing -because of empower hour incentive (hour lunch, more students are doing well enough to pass, but still struggling to master material at the level required for proficiency on the EOC/MSL) 6. What are we doing differentiate for low, middle, and high performing students?
-We admit that we struggle to differentiate for the high and low performing students especially. Typically, EH study sessions are the primary way we differentiate, but doing it within a whole class lesson is a struggle
Some things we will try: -extension assignments for students who finish assignments quickly -we would like some staff development in this area -more collaborative learning with assigned roles based on demonstrated student ability
7. Share lesson plans and take a look at how challenging the activities are. Examine what is intellectually easy and what is hard. Encourage faculty to lean toward the hard, and not just give extra work.
Typical activities in class: Newman: -having students identify important information from their notes -writing test questions -lab reports for labs that involve writing and analysis of data -requiring some writing on assessments -problem solving showing work -Using released EOC sample questions Patin: -having students identify important information for their notes -students evaluate examples of key concepts and explain how the example fits that concept
-lab reports for labs that involve writing and analysis of data -Using released EOC sample questions -Answering select questions that align with Essential standards and that are critical thinking.
Pegram: -having students identify important information from their notes -lab reports for labs that involve writing and analysis of data -requiring some writing on assessments -problem solving showing work -Using released EOC sample questions
8. What can teachers do in the last few minutes of class to support EOC test taking? Encourage working to the bell, not waiting for the tune.
-Practice test taking strategies -Pre-teaching -Introducing anticipatory question for the following day -Review of material covered that day -Ticket out -Review with an online game
9. Put together a resource for the non- core departments that shows how our EOC/MSL tests are formatted, such as types of questions, concepts covered, terminology, etc. mailto:http://www.ncpublicschools.org/acco untability/common-exams/released-forms/