Weston Preparatory Academy

Road to Success Presented by Westons Core SIP Team August 27, 2009
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Core School Improvement Team

Kathy Allan

Chair
Co-Chair

Amanda Wey Nicole Gall Crystal Webb Shirley Brewer Jodi Tate Karen Winters

MDE SIP Coach

Holly M. Davis-Webster

We all see things a little differently. The challenge before us is applying all of our 3 unique insights and talents to achieving a common set of goals.

Agenda
Review of Achievement

School wide Objectives

SIP Initiatives/Goals Academic Vocabulary Math/Science Writing

Literacy Engagement
Continuous Goals Jump start
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Agenda
Purpose Professional Climate School Improvement Goals Continuous Goals

Professional School Climate

Deliver engaging instructions
Utilize recognized best practices

Provide ongoing guidance counseling

Efficient school operations & procedures
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MME Math Achievement Gains

MME Reading Achievement Gains

MME Writing Achievement Gains

MME ELA Achievement Gains

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MME Science Achievement Gains

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MME Social Studies Achievement Data

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2006-2008 Elementary Reading & Writing

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MEAP ELA Proficiency Data

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2006-2008 Elementary Math

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Michigan Report Card

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Can we agree that sometimes we have to find new ways to do old things?
Then we can agree that we need to constantly learn and retool.
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Relevance: How do we get there?

Meaningful

School Improvement

Initiatives
Staff

Development Activities

TEAMWORK!
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Monthly Writing Prompts

Strategy #1

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Building Upon Last Year

Monthly writing prompts that focused on persuasive writing were administered in every classroom, throughout the building. Each classroom teacher graded the essays based upon a 6-point rubric. Scores were tallied in Excel spreadsheets and collected

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This Year

Monthly writing prompts will be based on the Character Counts traits Persuasive format Classroom teachers will still grade on the same 6-Point Rubric, but will be encouraged to grade them in their grade-level meetings Results will still be recorded and emailed to grade-level representatives
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Strategy #2
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Vocabulary Development

Why focus on vocabulary? What is the difference between Academic Vocabulary and Content Vocabulary? How do I use/teach vocabulary in my classroom?
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Why Vocabulary Instruction?

Background knowledge is a strong indicator of academic success.

Factors correlated to vocabulary
General

measures of intelligence Ones ability to comprehend new information Level of income

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Robert Marzanos Research Findings:

one of the most crucial services that teachers can provide, particularly for students who do not come from academically advantaged backgrounds, is SYSTEMATIC INSTRUCTION IN IMPORTANT ACADEMIC TERMS (3).

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Consider this

Background knowledge is more important to understanding of reading than IQ. Vocabulary instruction in specific contentarea terms builds up students background knowledge in content area. Students who understand content for example, in a state mathematics standards document regarding data analysis and statistics have understanding of terms such as mean, median, mode, range, standard deviation, and central tendency.
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Why Vocabulary Instruction?

Peoples knowledge of any topic is encapsulated in the terms they know are relevant to the topic (2). When students have general knowledge of the terms that are important to content taught in school, they can be said to have the necessary academic background knowledge (2).
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Impact of Direct Vocabulary Instruction

Research shows a student in the 50th percentile in terms of ability to comprehend the subject matter taught in school, with no direct vocabulary instruction, scores in the 50th percentile ranking. The same student, after specific contentarea terms have been taught in a specific way, raises his/her comprehension ability to the 83rd percentile. 28

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What is Academic Vocabulary?

Academic vocabulary is the vocabulary critical to understanding the concepts of the content taught in schools. Academic vocabulary is the vocabulary that builds the foundation on which Content Vocabulary is built.

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Academic Vs. Content

Citizen Authority Duty Election Justice Power Revolution

American citizenship American revolution Biding agreement Environmental Protection Act Greenpeace Mayflower Compact NAACP
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Academic Vocabulary

Content Vocabulary

Marzanos Building Academic Vocabulary

Listing of 7,923 terms in 11 subject areas All terms are from national standards documents Broken down into Four Levels:
K-2 3-5 6-8 9-12
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7,923 terms in 3 Trimesters?!?!?!

Not all of the terms are critical Some are critically important Some are useful, but not critical Some are interesting, but not useful

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How Do I Choose?

Self-Contained Classroom teachers

Choose

at least 20 terms per core subject

areas Think of teaching 1 term, per core subject area, per week

Single Subject Classroom teachers

In

your subject area teams, choose 30 terms in your subject area.

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Math and Science: Story Problems

Strategy #3

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Why address Math and Science?

Reading, Writing and MATH are important to our Culture of Universal Achievement.
Both the Math and Science departments have seen a need for students to improve in their use of TABLES, CHARTS, and GRAPHS.
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When and how will we begin to address this strategy?

This strategy will be developed with input from all faculty members. We hope to begin implementing monthly story problems by the second trimester.

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What is expected, exactly?

The monthly prompts should help students to better understand and use TABLES, CHARTS, and GRAPHS. Teachers will grade these prompts, so clear rubrics are needed. These prompts should be graded with a number score in order to record our data (student scores) over time.

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What do we do NOW?

As a team, we will brainstorm and discuss how best to implement these prompts:
How

many problems each month? Who will collect the data recorded by teachers? How will these problems be graded? What will these problems look like? How much time will students spend? What else needs to be considered?
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Literacy Engagement
Strategy #4

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Purpose of Literacy Engagement

To identify the reading levels of high school students through use of the Performance Series Testing and other local data To place the students in one of the three categories of literacy according to the data
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Purpose of Literacy Engagement

To apply specific teaching strategies to address literacy weaknesses To track student progress and evaluate the effectiveness of the applied teaching strategies (DATA) To apply additional strategies when deemed appropriate To refer student to Student Study Team if strategies are unsuccessful

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Literacy Engagement Categories

LEARNING LANGUAGE GROUP PST scores from 1700 2499 1st through 4th grade reading level Students in this group use language, vocabulary and other sign systems as ways of making meaning from reading
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Literacy Engagement Categories

LEARNING ABOUT LANGUAGE GROUP PST scores from 2500 2700 5th through 7th grade reading level Students in this group understand how language works, including word play, the teaching of letter-sound relationships and spelling or grammar patterns, and analysis of texts
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Literacy Engagement Categories

LEARNING THROUGH LANGUAGE GROUP PST Scores from 2800 3000 + 8th 9th grade + reading levels Students in this group use reading and writing as a tool for exploration or for purposes of learning about or critiquing our world
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Learning Language Strategies

Read Aloud Partner Reading Readers Theater Independent Reading Journal Writing Reading Logs Writers notebook Poetry

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Learning About Language Strategies

Word Study Word Walls Guided Reading Graphic Organizers Story Mapping Critiquing the Media

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Learning Through Language Strategies

Literature Study Reflective Journals Social Action projects Technical Writing Collaborative Writing

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How will this be implemented?

1st Trimester 2009 2010

Literacy Engagement Program will be tested in the 9th, 10th and 11th grade Social Studies classes with assistance from ELA Program effectiveness will be evaluated by the SIP team for possible further roll out later in the year
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ACCOUNTABILITY
We as a staff have committed to a culture of universal achievement. We must build in accountability as we develop our school improvement strategies. We will first agree on strategies, then implement them, then follow up with key team members.

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ACCOUNTABILITY

Our future efforts will ensure the success of the plans that we are making now.
We are setting an example of high standards and responsibility for our students!

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