Happy November!

November Visits: Due to some significant shifts in my calendar next week, I am going to have to ask for your grace and flexibility as I will need to reschedule my November visits. I anticipate rescheduling visits sometime before winter break as I want to get out to your schools as soon as I can! I was really looking forward to our visit, so again….please accept my apologies. Some of you had specific items you wished to discuss during our visit. I don’t want to lose these questions, so please feel free to email your questions. I am happy to respond via the phone, if you prefer, as I know sometimes it’s just easier to chat! If so, please share a contact number and I will give you a ring! Please look for an email from Bee regarding signing up for a new date/time. Also, I will be sending a copy of your updated “notebook checklists” that Penny has completed, based on the items you have submitted. These should be coming next week! Please check for accuracy and let Penny know of any discrepancies. It’s important to keep current on submitting your compliance documents, so if I can be of support, please let me know.

BE 212! At 211 degrees, water is hot. By increasing the water temperature one degree (212), water boils. When water boils, it produces steam….and steam can power a locomotive! So, with a small increase in temperature, we can produce enough energy to move nearly 200 tons! My motto for the year – be that one extra degree; be 212!!

Principal/Coordinator Meeting Minutes for September 30th: Attached, please find minutes for our Title Coordinator/Principal Meeting (093013M). Please print these minutes and include them in your Monitoring Notebook – there should be a tab for agendas/minutes located in the front of your binder. Thanks!

Coordinator Friday at 4 Invitation: Last spring, the idea of scheduling Friday at 4 gatherings for our Coordinator group was suggested as a way to stay connected, support one another and….most of all, have fun! I think it’s a great idea, so I have selected some dates to get us through December. Due to busy schedules, attendance will be hit and miss. Mark your calendar and come when you can!

• November 15 (BJ’s at Valley River Center)
• December 13 (TBD – suggestions welcome)

DO THE MATH “This and That”!
Do the Math Assessments and Accommodations: A good question was raised regarding student use of accommodations (ie number lines, number charts, etc.) when taking the assessments. According to the Math Solutions Representative, she said to use your professional judgement and that it really depends on what you want to find out. You could use it as an opportunity to see what strategies kids use when grappling with problems if they have access to math tools. This will tell you if they have moved from the symbolic to abstract representations. On the other hand, since students will not be able to use the accommodations on Smarter Balanced it may be a good opportunity to see what they know without the tools.

More Do the Math News: If you are having trouble opening your Teacher Space CD roms, don’t despair! The publisher is sending us updated CDs that will operate on our current operating system. In the meantime, all paper copies of the assessments are located in your teacher manuals, so you can go ahead and get started. Also, the Number Core CD does work!

Do the Math +/- Module C: The modules we purchased were a part of an Rti (IIPM) package. At the time of purchase, Scholastic reps indicated that when using this package, students could move from +/- module B to multiplication module A as +/- module C is using the same strategies, but with larger numbers – module A and B build the foundational skills. According to the rep, C is considered an extension of the grade level and that it may be appropriate for students to move from +/- module B to multiplication module A.  Regarding multiplication module C, this module has been defined as aligning with 4th/5th grade core. I hope all this make sense? I am currently looking into cost and funding availability  for +/- module C.

Parent Workshop Materials: To assist schools and districts in communicating with parents about the Common Core, ODE has designed Parent Workshop materials  to help facilitate a parent/community meeting. These materials, adapted from the New York Department of Education, provide some common, consistent language to help address parent and community questions or concerns about the changes currently underway in Oregon schools. Click on this ODE link to learn more. You will find agendas, an easy to use powerpoint, easy to read handouts, FAQs and more!

GoTo Meeting for Compliance Documents due on December 9: There will be an optional GoTo Meeting on November 14 @ 3:00, for those Coordinators interested in reviewing the documents due on December 9. Electronic invitations will be sent out a few days prior to the “meeting”. The meeting is strictly optional and is designed as a support for those who feel it would be beneficial. More experienced Coordinators are welcome to join the meeting to experiment with the GoTo tool and provide their own insights to the newer Coordinators!

Fastt Math/Fraction Nation Training RESCHEDULED: This training, originally scheduled for 10/25, has been rescheduled for 12/3 (8:00-3:30 in the Tower Room). You are asked to please bring your laptop, charger and a set of headphones. Please mark your calendars and select “Title One” in Aesop when scheduling a sub!

Go Solve Training is set for the morning of December 9, 8:00-12:00, prior to our regularly scheduled Coordinator PD.

Student Profiles and Quickbase: As you may recall, last year you and/or your ESCs flagged students in Quickbase who you anticipated continuing on with interventions and progress monitoring. Matt has “rolled over” these flagged students so the creation of a new Intervention Profile form is not required.  Matt has archived this information and you should have a fresh profile form for the students “rolled over” and you can begin entering this year’s data/information.  Rest assured, last year’s data is not gone, it is archived. Matt is creating a link, in Quickbase, from which to retrieve archived information on students.

Matt will generate a Quickbase Report Summary, mid-year, which allows me to review the status of each schools’ profiles (are all student profiles current? For example,  has the above information been completed and entered into Quickbase, is there documentation of on-going data team notes for those students discussed during meetings, etc.). Individual student profiles must be printed and filed in student folders/binders in June (whatever your method of organizing student profiles).

Beyond the Bake Sale reading:

Percentile vs. Percentage: Distinguishing between percentage and percentile can be confusing! Here are a few simple definitions/examples:

A percentage is simply a representation of a proportion out of 100. For example, if a student answered 8 out of 10 questions correctly, she would have scored 80%.

A percentile is a statistical measure of distribution. For a given set of data, it is the level below which a certain percentage of the data falls. For example, if you score in the 72nd percentile on an exam, it means you scored higher than 72 percent of all the people who took the same exam— regardless of what your actual score was.

Another set of definitions: A percentage score indicates the proportion of a test that someone has completed correctly. A percentile score tells us what percent of other scores are less than the data point we are investigating.

In other words, percentage correct gives us information about how an individual performed on a test; whereas, percentiles give us information about how that score compares to the scores of other test takers.

easyCBM reading scores are reported in percentiles. For example, a student who scored in the 45 percentile, on a particular measure, scored higher than 45 percent of all students who took the same measure. The average percentile is 50, but students who are average can range from the 30-70 percentile. When determining Title services, we are looking to serve students scoring below the 20th percentile. The number you see on the easyCBM report is the students raw score, or the actual correct responses. If you hover over the raw score, the percentile will appear. Also, there is a box you can click that will show both the raw score and the percentile. Hope this helps, at least a little!!

ARTICLE: Mindsets About Failure and Effort (Originally titled “Afraid of Looking Dumb”)
In this thoughtful article in Educational Leadership, former teacher and principal Mark Jacobson describes one of his second-graders telling him she wasn’t smart at math, was afraid of being teased, and mistrusted her teacher’s reassuring words. “Do you want to change?” he asked. “Yes, but how?” she replied.

The key with students like this is changing the way they think about ability, says Jacobson. The goal of students fortunate enough to have a “growth” mindset (Carol Dweck’s term) is to get smarter. If they’re having difficulty, they work on a better strategy. But the goal of students who have the “fixed” mindset is to look smart. For them, being in a classroom is like stepping onto a stage with all eyes on them. “The teacher owns one of the most important pairs of eyes,” says Jacobson. “Fixed-belief students concern themselves with their teacher’s every glance. They see the teacher not as a facilitator and resource for their learning but as a rewarder and punisher, as a judge and critic.” These students constantly ask themselves, “Am I good enough? Am I smart? Am I right? Did I make a mistake? How will others see me? Does my teacher like me?”

“As long as students are driven by what others think of them, they’re focused on the external,” says Jacobson. “We teachers need to turn them inward, to refocus their attention on their own effort and abilities.” If a student mutters the answer to a question and the teacher says, “What?”, the student may say, “Never mind” or “I forgot.” These students may rebuff an offer of help, afraid that accepting it will make them look incompetent, or they may become dependent on the teacher and stop trying. They tend to be overly sensitive to mild criticism or body language. “I think I’ll throw this away,” said one of Jacobson’s students after classmates offered some suggestions on her story.

“We always ask students to try,” he says, “especially when they believe something is really hard. However, for some students, ‘hard’ means ‘impossible.’” Here are his suggestions for getting students to believe that effort really can make them smarter:

Have students rate how hard they are trying. Jacobson routinely checked in with his students, asking them to self-assess on a 10-point effort scale and push themselves to try harder.

Give better feedback. General praise like “Good job” is hollow and ineffective, says Jacobson. Feedback should be specific to the tasks or concepts being taught and reinforce incremental progress. “That was a good start, Jeffrey,” a teacher might say and encourage the student to keep going.

Ask questions that don’t have right/wrong answers. Foster deeper thinking rather than speedy responses and stress accountable talk.

Engage the disengaged. “Adrian, are you with us?” a teacher might ask in the middle of a discussion. “What are you thoughts?” The entire class can be enlisted in encouraging participation, effort, and risk-taking.

Investigate mindsets. Jacobson did some action research in his second-grade class and found that half of the students had the fixed mindset. Teachers should reflect on their own mindset and how it manifests itself in school – and outside.

“Afraid of Looking Dumb” by Mark Jacobson in Educational Leadership, September 2013 (Vol. 71, #1, p. 40-43); www.ascd.org; Jacobson is at mjacob47@yahoo.com.

DATES TO REMEMBER:
November
NO professional development or principal/coordinator meeting
Week of Nov. 4-8: Title school visits; Visitation Schedule (Nov. 2013) CANCELLED
11/8: Compliance documents, year to date, are due (please send these to Penny)
11/15: Coordinator Friday at 4 at BJ’s

The below listed compliance documents are DUE to Penny no later than November 8. There are no Title PD’s or meetings in October/November, so paperwork will need to be printed and sent to Penny via inner-district mail. You are welcome to drop by the Instruction Department if that is more convenient. Coordinator Resources may be found at this link.

Targeted Schools (TAS)

• Copy of Targeting Sheets, by grade level
• Priority list of identified students
• Copy of parent notification of services, including a copy of the “exit of services” letter

School Wide Schools (SWP)

• Copy of parent notification of services
  • Exit Letter (sample)
  • Initial Notification Letter (sample) 13-14
  • Initial Notification Ltr (sample; shorter version)

Both TAS and SWP

• Criteria for Services
  • Criteria for Services (TAS) 13-14 
  • Criteria for Services (SWP) 13-14
• Student Profile form (sample from Quickbase – redact student name) Student Profile Sample
• Copy of both the school’s master instructional schedule and intervention schedule
• Copy of both the EA’s and Title teacher schedules EA Schedule (SAMPLE)
• Copy of the school Compact
  • Compact SAMPLE (English)
  • School_Parent Compact SAMPLE TEMPLATE
• Copy of your Data Team/IIPM annual meeting schedule
• Copy of one set of Data Team/IIPM meeting minutes, including an agenda

December
12/3: Fastt Math/Fraction Nation rescheduled training (8:00-3:30)
12/9: Compliance documents, year-t0-date are due (see below)
12/9: Coordinator PD (8:00-2:30; Go Solve and regularly scheduled PD); Beyond the Bake Sale reading assignment is due Beyond the Bake Sale book study rdg
12/9: Principal/Coordinator meeting (2:30-3:45) NOTE time change of an additional 15 minutes, barring space availability
12/13: Coordinator Friday at 4; Location TBD

The following compliance documents are DUE no later than December 9:

• Current School Improvement Plan, with updated goal sheets attached (math and reading, minimally)
  • Goals template 13-14
• Comprehensive Program Design (NOTE: Reid and Raquel will help create the instructional need being addressed, the strategy and/or curriculum, the research-based principle and the research source for Do the Math and The Comprehension Toolkit). If you are using Indistar and are creating a CAP rather than a SIP
  • SWP Instructional Program Design 13-14
  • SAMPLE SWP Instructional Program Design 13-14
  • TAS Instructional Program Design 13-14
  • SAMPLE TAS Instructional Program Design 13-14

• Assessment Form
  • Assessments Form 13-14

• Attestation
  • Bee will send principals the necessary forms requiring administrator signatures, attesting Title funded staff are/are not HQ. These will go out the first part of December!