The Geneseo Schools at the K-8 level are adopting the Discovery Education assessment system as a universal screener for Reading and Mathematics.  Students in grades K-8 will take tests in these two content areas and will be evaluated on their abilities to meet both the Illinois and the Common Core Standards. This first baseline assessment will be followed up by a subsequent administration of math and reading tests in late April.  Next fall, all students will be tested on the Common Core Standards in Reading and Mathematics through Discovery Education. Testing will be accomplished through use of lap top computers, computer labs and I-Pads.

The new assessment system provides teachers with detailed data, charts and graphs to pinpoint needs of students in relationship to the common core standards.  Discovery Education also provides a bank of questions that could be used to develop quarterly assessments for each grade level to assess students’ knowledge of the content taught throughout the school year.  These data will assist teachers to identify students who need additional instruction through the Response to Intervention program.

Once students are identified for RtI interventions in Reading, Mathematics or Writing and are given intensive instruction, progress monitoring of specific skills and knowledge will be undertaken through probes provided by the AIMSweb system.  Progress monitoring information provided by AIMSweb will be used to assist in making decisions concerning qualification for special education placement.

The IXL Math program has also been chosen to supplement RtI instruction in Mathematics for students in grades K-8.  This program is web based and provides access to hundreds of activities pinpointing specific math concepts and skills.  Students may use I-Pads or computers to engage in  mathematics games and practice on the IXL Math site.  Students’ progress on specific skills and time using the program will be monitored through the IXL site.

Training for the Discovery Learning and AimsWeb programs are being provided to teachers and instructional aides in the district over the next three weeks.

A special thank you goes to Nancy Wiese and Tom Ryerson who worked together to help the administrative team come to consensus on the use of these two programs.

On Oct. 24th, I will present the results of a case study completed recently regarding the outcomes of developmental education classes in Math and English at Geneseo High School.  The summary of my research is included on the enclosed page.

NACEP Conference Presentation Summary
The research included students who enrolled and successfully completed five developmental education classes – three in Math and two in English.  Junior and senior level students may enroll in these courses.  Data was collected over five school years.  The classes are closely modeled after courses with prefixes  80, 81, 85, and 90 taught at Black Hawk College.  If students enroll in these classes at the community college level, they will likely not receive any credits toward an Associates of Arts degree.  Students at Geneseo High School receive graduation credits and pay no tuition or book costs to take part in these classes.  The syllabi and course outcomes/competencies are closely followed, however the high school teachers also have more time with the students than would be possible in the community college setting.  Meeting five days a week, the students’ skill deficits are directly addressed by the teachers – most are in addition to the scope of the competencies required by the class.

Included here is the powerpoint shown at the conference.  My apologies, but the videos of Mr. Kiss and Mrs. Schneden will not play here  as they are too large to imbed.  If you have further questions about the results, please don’t hesitate to contact me directly.  The small number of students make the generalizability of the results a limitation of this research. I would encourage further research on this topic with a larger data set in order to make stronger suggestions of possible impacts of these courses upon student achievement and placement in higher education after high school graduation.

Pre-100 Level Classes Research

When viewing this powerpoint, please look at the notes pages in order to receive more information about the research methods and results.

On September 19th, the Dave Egger Ensemble came to Northside, Southwest and Millikin Elementary Schools.  The performances were sponsored by the Quad City Arts and the PTA’s of each elementary school. This program was unique in that it featured music produced by cello, bass, electric bass, and drums.  In conjunction with the music, Mr. Egger’s group brought in movement in the form of two Karate experts.  As the musicians played, the Karate Champions moved and demonstrated their skill, agility and daring.  Students watching the performance were awestruck by the abilities of all of these musicians and martial arts performers!

Quad City Arts will sponsor yet another program in the winter of the year.  In February, we will be treated to a Science Master – “Professor Smart’s Fun with Physics”.  The students will be treated to amazing ways to experience physics in our world and to understand the concepts through Professor Smart’s experiments and demonstrations.  We are looking forward to this interesting performance experience!

Thank you to the Northside, Millikin and Southwest PTA’s for lending their monetary support to the Quad City Arts Programs!

The teachers in the Geneseo School District have made great strides at understanding the Common Core Standards and engaging in discussions within grade level and content area groups to make decisions about power standards and student objectives to be taught during each quarter of the 2012-13 school year.  Teachers at the High School and Middle School – in mathematics and English/Language Arts – are working within their content area groups to modify their current end of semester or pre-post tests to reflect the power standards and student objectives.  Teachers at the elementary level have chosen power standards and student objectives for each quarter of the year and have begun to develop student assessments for each quarter to show mastery of the corresponding standards and objectives.  This work continue throughout the year with our early release days.  Teachers in the Geneseo Schools will implement the new curriculum and assessments in the fall of 2012.

If you have questions about the common core power standards or assessments at the elementary level, please contact me at jswanson@dist228.org.  If you questions about the power standard and assessments at the high school level, please contact high school principal Mike Haugse at mhaugse@dist228.org.  If you have questions about the power standards and assessments at the middle school level, please contact middle school principal Matt DeBaene.

On June 20, 22 and 23, teachers from Wethersfield, Bradford and Geneseo School Districts  worked together with  Joe Crawford to unpack the new Common Core Standards and to select power standards by which to teach students.  Common Core Standards have been developed thus far in English and Mathematics for all students, K-12.  Teachers representing all grade levels were assigned to work with one of these two content areas to further decrease the number of standards to teach to students.  This further synthesis of content standards are called Power Standards, a small number of concepts to be taught in each quarter of the year.  Furthermore, each of the standard will be linked to one or more assessment items on quarterly tests designed to evaluate student learning on these core concepts.  Students in all grade levels will complete the same or common assessments in order to gauge student learning.  Because the assessments will be identical for all students in Mathematics and in Reading/English Language Arts, it will be possible to provide more targeted interventions throughout the school year instead of the annual state tests or the biannual or trimester tests given at the present time in math and reading.  While developing the power standards, teachers at different grade levels were able to talk and articulate the content expected so that pre-requisite skills were verified.

Teachers in the Geneseo School district will read through the power standards in the fall, and will participate in creating and piloting the common assessments in the 2011-12 school year. Full implementation of the standards as the core curriculum and the common assessments as the means to evaluate student learning will be accomplished in the 2012-13 school year.

Mr. Crawford has developed a computer based product that assists teachers with organizing and creating the power standards, student objectives and common assessment pieces of the common core standards implementation process. The product, Partners for Results (P4R) allows teachers to discard the idea of curriculum binders and use a totally on-line program to view standards and linked assessments.  Students complete the assessments on line and teachers will receive timely feedback on individual students and classroom based progress. These pieces of data, linked directly to the power standards, will identify students who need additional interventions or assistance to learn the core concepts presented by the standards.  Teachers will be able to better discuss teaching and learning of the standards due to the fact that the instruction will take place for particular concepts at particular times of the school year.  Working together with this new data, teachers will be able to discuss what works and how to regroup students for additional instruction.

We look forward to the wide ranges of staff development that will be possible with the implementation of this Partners for Results internet based product and to the discussions of curriculum, instruction and assessment revolved around the common core standards in the coming years.

Dear Conference Participants:

This post contains copies of both the conference worksheet for implementing dual enrollment programs as well as the powerpoint presentation with notes.

Please feel free to contact me at: jswanson@dist228.org or 309-945-0450 with questions.

Joni Swanson

worksheet for IASC conference

IASC Conference 4-29-11

Enclosed here are documents to be used at the April 27th Writing Workshop at Geneseo High School.  Click on these documents during the powerpoint presentation.

6 Traits

Putting Voice into a Paper

Rubrics:

6plus1traits- 5 point rubric grds 3-12

narrative_assessment

persuasive_assessment

descriptive_assessment

process_analysis_assessment

Common Core Standards Documents:

College and Career Readiness for Writing 9-12

Writing Standards for Literacy in History

Activity Pages:

The Thesis Statement

The Thesis Statement Exercise

Writing an Analytic Research Paper

Write More – Grade Less – by Mike Schmoker

David Conley = College Knowledge

CollegeKnowledge_TheMainIdea

Below is the powerpoint presentation for the workshop on April 27th.

HS Writing Workshop 4-27-11

Workgroups:

Work groups for April 27th workshop HS

Looking forward to the session.

Joni Swanson

Wow!  Where did the time go between January and April!  Sorry that I haven’t published any of our great works here in the Curriculum area for some time. So, I need to catch everyone up.

Response to Intervention -   The Elementary Learning Team has been meeting nearly every other week to continue to collect and refine information to use to implement our new system in the fall 2011.  The three groups -  Data Collection Tools, Interventions, and Problem Solving Process – have done an outstanding job of investigating and identifying items of assistance to staff as well as developing a system for implementing the process involving staff and administration at the elementary level.  We are planning to present our new RtI system for the elementary schools to Superintendent Kuffel later in the month of May.

Common Core Curriculum – Teachers in all levels, K-12, have now been introduced to the new curriculum standards to be used by all teachers in the state of Illinois and across most all of the nation.  Teachers have read through the Math and English Language Arts standards for their grade level and the grade level both before and after the one they teach (elementary).  Teachers in the Middle School and High School have been led in their discovery process by the principals in those buildings.  All teachers have worked through the new standards that are not linked to the current Illinois Learning Standards.  Lastly, teachers have been asked to become familiar with the College and Career Readiness Standards for the Language Arts in their grade level area (elementary or MS/HS).  This summer a team of teachers will determine the 1) power standards that will serve as the basis for our district’s quarterly and unit assessments, 2) select individual student objectives, 3) write assessments for each unit and quarterly assessment and finally write units of instruction based on all three items.  The units will likely be written throughout the 2011-12 school year.

We have been told that the Science Standards for the Common Core Curriculum (C3) will be available in the summer, so work on these documents will begin as soon as they are received.

Teachers understand that the C3 is replacing the 1997 Illinois Learning Standards.  Although we don’t know at this time the sequence of student objectives for the quarterly state assessments (grades 3-12), we are going ahead to plan assessments to coincide with our new written curriculum. We expect to make minor modifications to the mapping or calendar placement of units in the year to reflect the assessments from the state.  Unit assessments will be written and used regardless of the time of year the information is taught.

Teachers will be receiving professional development to assist with data collection for the RtI and C3 assessments.  Additional PD will be planned in the area of lesson planning and implementation – especially in light of the exciting new technology we will soon have available throughout the district.

I-PAD Roll Out – Teachers in the Elementary levels as well as high school and middle school, will have sets of I-Pad 1′s to use later this spring and next fall as an instructional tool.  These great “hands on” tools will be fantastic for practicing literacy and numeracy skills, creating story boards and accessing interactive websites, and learning interpretive and research skills.  The goal in the district is to move to “one to one” computing through use of mobile computer labs and I-Pads.  Teachers in the elementary schools are checking the devices out overnight or for several days to experiment with applications and adaptations for students.  We anticipate having enough devices to create a classroom set or to share between classes and teachers so that every student will have access.  Teachers in Art, Music, and PE will also have access to the devices.

Writing Workshop at HS – On April 27, selected high school teachers will attend a content area writing workshop in the Library. The agenda will include a review of the 6 Traits of Writing, Common Core Standards for Writing, and David Conley’s College and Career Readiness related to Writing.  Teachers will use websites to investigate classroom activities to increase use of writing as an instructional tool to improve research and investigative skills.

New Employees  – The Elementary Principals have been interviewing candidates for elementary classroom and physical education openings.  Middle and High School principals have interviewed for dean of students and business openings.  We are very pleased with the background and strength of our candidates.  All positions have now been filled.  Applicants who were not selected will be sent notification letters in the coming week.

BUG project at Northside School – In conjunction with the Kiwanis Club of Geneseo, the PTA and 3rd through 5th grade classroom teachers participated in a program to help students improve their grades in the 3rd quarter of the school year.  Students in the 3rd, 4th and 5th grades worked together to learn and bring up their grades (Bring Up Grades) to earn a BUG certificate.  Students with straight A’s also helped tutor and otherwise assist their classmates. These students were recognized with a Super BUG certificate. An assembly was held on April 7th for parents of the students so recognized.  The president and other officers of the Geneseo Kiwanis club were in attendance at Northside school to help honor these students’ accomplishments!  The fourth quarter BUG awards will take place on the last day of school – June 3rd.

Developmental Class Research – High School Math and English Classes.Researchers at Columbia University Teacher’s College have invited me to undertake a research project dealing with students at the high school who have completed non-credit community college classes before graduation. Across the country, researchers and community college administrators and professors are concerned with increasing rates of students needing additional course work before qualifying for 100 level classes.  In order to learn more about the affect of offering these pre-100 level classes in the high school,  I am embarking on a project to learn more about student outcomes as a result of participation in these classes.  Geneseo High School offers a Literature and Communication class as well as 081 and 090 college algebra courses – all modeled after courses at Black Hawk College.

A variety of data has been gathered from records going back to the class of 2008.  Present year seniors and juniors taking our developmental level classes at the high school will be surveyed this spring regarding their post-secondary plans.  The paper will be given at a conference of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management in Washington, DC in November.

We are all looking forward to the last few weeks of school. The excitement for activities -such as field days for all elementary K-2 and 3-5 students – is mounting.  Our PTA’s have worked hard this year to make a point of promoting health and wellness.  We are exercising and enjoying lots of fruits and vegetables in our school lunches and snacks.

I promise not to be gone from the blog so long before my next entry!!

Dr. Swanson

The Elementary Learning Team responsible for recommending revisions to the RtI protocols has met twice this fall and will meet again on Jan. 25th.  At this next meeting, the group will begin to investigate three distinct needs for consistent RtI implementation at the elementary level:

1)  Problem Solving Process Group

The Problem Solving Process group will work to identify data-based problem solving processes to use for evaluating large group outcome data at Tier I and small group or individual outcome data at Tier II and Tier III. The problem solving process will be utilized to identify students who are at risk, evaluate data, and make decisions based on the data.

Examples include Data Analysis Teams at Tier I and Instructional Consultation for students needing more support at Tier II and Tier III.

2) Data Collection and Management

The Data Collection group will work to identify assessment tools that can be used to evaluate large group outcomes (Benchmark Assessments) at Tier I and small group or individual student outcomes (Progress Monitoring) for students receiving more support at Tier II and Tier III. Assessments are needed to evaluate reading, math, and written language skills.

Examples include DRA-2, classroom based assessments, F&P, Curriculum Based Measurement (DIBELS, Aimsweb, iSteep,  Vanderbilt CBM measures, etc.)

3) Intervention Group

The Interventions group will identify instructional supports and a set of interventions for use with reading, math and written language difficulties at Tier I, Tier II, and Tier III.

Examples include guided reading groups, Lexia, Reading Plus, Peer Assisted Learning Strategies (PALS), Reading Mastery, Corrective Reading, Project Read

It is the hope of this learning team to produce protocols that will be followed by all three elementary buildings in the 2011-12 school year.  Additionally, Dr. Swanson is creating a document for the elementary principals to follow when working with classroom and support staff to organize student data and keep the RtI process moving forward in providing assistance to students who are struggling to achieve at their grade level.