001good evening ladies and gentlemen thank you for coming this evening we um get to call to order the do Middle School showcase and yes Miss Colin in here Mr eki here Mr grippo here M herrian here Mr perini M Rosenberg here Mr White here Madam Cher thank you please [Music] stand to the flag of the United States of America and to the rep for it stands one nation under God indivisible withy and justice for all there are any public comments please do stand and speak I think we good we're good thank you all right I'm going to pass this over to misso for our yes the my we're super excited to welcome you to DOD tonight to hear from these esteemed Educators they're going to walk you through a little bit of the evolution of
002teaching so to speak and they're going to share with you based on some new research strategies that they are using to strengthen their current teaching practices so without further Ado I will turn it over to Miss Kelly gillo hi everyone good evening I am really excited excited to welcome you to our Middle School showcase as marleene said we are excited to share with you some of the strategies that we are working on to sort of innovate and stretch um our current teaching practices so again I'm Kelly Gilla I'm the principal I'm going to introduce you to the team here Ryan Murphy our assistant principal uh Kristen C Alana who is a literacy support teacher and also uh the division leader for the unified arts department working really closely with them on these strategies as well
003Andrea kof Francisco who is a current eighth grade special education teacher and also the division leader for special education and Kristen Juliano current seventh grade social studies teacher and also the division leader for the social studies Department we're happy to have them here and they're going to work with me to bring you through this journey so um and we are engaged uh as Educators really working hard to um ensure that our academic and social emotional uh Journey grows our students in in those areas at all times as much as as much as is possible um and so we have to be committed to high quality instructional practices to meet the needs of our students who they are today and they are different uh than the students that I once knew myself as a teacher here
004at godd many years ago or just a few years ago depending on how you want to look at it um they are different kids and they have different needs now so just as medical professionals have to continuously update their processes and practices and they have to adapt to the new discoveries and new needs of patients and new technologies that are developed we also as Educators have to develop our practices and evolve so imagine a teacher is like a skilled surgeon right honing their techniques over time and studying new theories and utilizing ing um new Innovative teaching methods they're incorporating feedback all along from their patients as we do from our students and we are refining our craft based on that feedback so just as a doctor seeks to improve their patient outcomes Educators we are
005striving to enhance learning and growth all the time so this year we've dedicated our professional growth to exploring the strategies of building thinking classrooms so you've heard about this a little bit in other meetings I'm sure it's called building thinking classrooms in mathematics I tend to ignore the mathematics part because it's really just building thinking classrooms for us so we're dedicated to this these are research-based practices that we believe in deeply and we are seeing the results every single day um so I say I disregard mathematics here at dog we are building thinking classrooms in every classroom we are working in these ladies and Ryan and I are working very closely with leaders of all departments um including English language arts and social studies and Science and Math of course uh but also in art
006in robotics and Engineering to really develop and Implement these strategies because we know deeply that this is how we reach our kids how we develop their academic growth and support them social emotionally so that complex thinking is near and dear to us and that social emotional learning that they require in order to be successful academically and we believe it is these strategies that will help us get there for these kiddos um you'll also learn a little bit tonight you'll you'll experience some of this yourselves and so not only are we engaging students but by implementing these really really impactful strategies we we remove the options for kids to fake and mimic and stall in a classroom setting so we're wasting no time we're getting kids in classrooms thinking complex and working and collaborating together thinking
007at high levels so tonight Ryan I'll talk to you a little bit about how we will bring you through this evolution of how we as educators are continuing to just polish that stone and refine our craft yeah so what's on t for tonight first you are going to get the opportunity to observe a model one lesson and when we refer to it as model one it's a much more traditional lesson the type of lesson that we were Expos to when we were in a middle school classroom after that we are going to have the opportunity to really immerse ourselves in a model 2 experience and by model 2 again we're going back to the newly researched strategies that Kelly was just discussing that our staff has been working on throughout the entire year we're going
008to then have an opportunity to look at the model one lesson the model 2 lesson do an analysis of them compare and contrast the two different strategies and then we will wrap up with what matters most but before we hand it off to our colleagues just want to point out that the model one lesson that you are about to see it is not indicative of what you would see if you were to walk down the dot middle school hallways on any given day so while our teachers are front and center they are playing a role so we have Christen castalano playing the role of christen castalano from a more traditional era and we're doing this to really give you a foundation to let you be able to clearly see the evolution that our staff our
009district has made in the teaching practices in the learning opportunity you said are presented and offer to our students and with that said I proudly pass it off to to our staff here who the real stars of the sh so thank you welcome um I just wanted to share with you first um a video as as Ryan and Kelly both talked about a video of more traditional model one instruction and as you watch this video um we're going to ask that you have paper in front of you um and and a pen and if you'd like to either in your head or you can use the pen and paper in front of you to just jot down what you think about or what you notice about this instructional um practice that you're going to see
010next um particularly pay attention to student participation and what you see from the [Music] students canun Victor I would love it thank you I walk down the street sidewalk fall in a lot I am helpless isn't my but it takes me forever to find way out walk on the St Street there's a deot in the Sun and I pretend I don't see it on again can't believe I'm in the same place but it isn't my fault still takes me a long time to get walk down the same street there's de in the sidewalk I see it it he's there still falling I My Eyes Are Open I know where I am it is my fault I get out of I walk down the same street there's a deep ho in the sidewalk I walk around
011it I walk down and on the street thank you okay so I'm going to give you a minute to sit silently now just one quick minute to read it silent to yourselves did such a wonderful job read it out loud now I'd like you to read it to yourselves and then we're going to ask you some questions this and I are going to start a discussion with you we're going to ask you some questions about what you think about this had and take a minute what do you know what are the words of the PO describe what do you know tell me what you know I yes deep hole sidew there's a deep hole in the sidewalk what else did you know someone falls into the hole what El keeping the wall great yes on
012the same street every day anything else what else do we know yeah thank you okay so that is The Superficial kind of what happened in the going on as we all know in poetry there's a deeper okay our Target today again is to determine the central idea of the so let's take a minute to think about what the big idea is raise your hand anything else it's a bad outcome maybe change the way you're doing things learn from your mistakes okay now the the poet did this in a certain way right so the poet looked at this um or wrote this these words but wrote them in a certain way so what did he or she use to get that message across what kind of language what do you see in here what's one of
013the devices or something that he or she did to kind of drive that [Music] so repetition right so that repetition of those lines excellent does anybody know what figurative language what other device and figurative language is used in this C device was used guess who can tell me what a metaphor is any you remember that from so metaphor go ahead metaphor is basically saying something to compare it to something else saying something to compare it to something else raise your hand when you know how this poem may be a metaphor when you say something to represent something else raise your hand when you know why this P might be a metaphor okay so a comparison to all the other times that you felt okay I'm getting there any else [Music] yes anybody want to add
014to that M the met I don't know they walked down the street as saying that they need something bad and then they fell into a hole say like they leted in prison in the principal's office What specifically I have no idea but just the hole in the street the hole in the street being the metaphor thank you thank you does everybody see what Victor said does everybody understand what Victor said Can somebody repeat it for me somebody repeat for me what he said about that being that PO in the street being a metaphor somebody help me out with that yes [Music] is thank you so the author either ended up in prison or in the principal's office okay let's just take a moment to talk about some of your observations how many students did you
015notice engag and responding in the lesson sorry I just felt like those are those are two separate questions okay because you can't always tell if the students engaged just because they're speaking okay so how many students did you notice participating actively in the lesson um maybe five maybe five is that what you were going to say yeah so they were 22 students in that classroom so we are under 25% active participation rate meaning that 75% of the class was not actively participating which is a pretty powerful number um what else did you notice as you were watching that video well I I think it was in the depth of Knowledge Questions were low um mostly teacher directed um kind of traditional set up of the classroom not necessarily all rows but some rows some two
016students sitting together um you know it was mostly the teacher asking questions it wasn't coming from the students up so very teacher directed only one stud I me the standards were on the board the targets were there I mean there's some you know in the classroom that you could see what was going on what the teaching was at that particular Point um but like the question what's figurative language I would rather have seen figurative language answer come from the students right absolutely but I have to say I know thinking classroom so does anybody want to add anything else any other observations um was the uh the reading assignment given just then or was it part of their homework or no it was given just then so they required to process it right there and then
017answer those questions on the spot process on the spot they had time to read it silently it just was cut out of the video so they had had one read through or maybe two and then they had to answer your question it wasn't presented prior to class right okay okay I thought I just want to add I thought the students were very well behaved oh that's the thing were being recorded right they were they were great they were great and you'll see a little bit more of those students later on so now we're going to transition to another model of instruction and what we refer to as model two and this one is the one that we're really comfortable with and the one that we're really devoted to here at DOD um and as a
018part of this we want to immerse you into this process with us to show how this works in um in subjects other than math we know that you've had a little bit of exposure with math with this we want to look at how it works at the middle level and how it works in subjects other than math so you're going to find a card at your seat and if you flip that card over the that's going to correspond with one of the boards that's around the room and those are going to form some randomized groups so we're going to ask you in a minute to go to your board and there will be a poem there the same poem that you have at your seat you can take that with you as well there will
019be uh two prompts up at the board and there will be some group expectations so we're going to ask you as a group to move to those group to move to those boards rather and to answer those prompts with your random group um for and we'll be around to help if you need any assistance and around to talk to you about that and once you settle in we're going to put a little bit of a timer just to keep us kind of on our for minutes so thank you please do sh Car gallery walk around the boards to take a look at what others have said so just go and take a look at what other people in the room said about the same um TRS that you were looking at yourselves just take a
020quick look around the room from wherever you can there's no names associated [Music] thank you thank you as far as you know this is probably probably that's about right 1607 okay just take a look at uh the ideas on board seven um and they had some really nice ideas here could someone um go on the Li and summarize for me just some one of the ideas that you see here that you may either not have thought of or you thought is really cool or you think that they did a great job with anything that you could could help us to see yeah did you you called it something else we just we just wrote it the CH yeah yeah which is a whole other way to say it right same same idea different words yeah
021anything else that you notice here just to build on that we kind of said that it was a metaphor especially for middle school life said it was very appropriate to your age absolutely see and we thought the exact opposite or as I did I thought seventh graders were too young to call it a medical for life because B have not to know about these repetitions but they I think they would call it a metaphor for something else and I didn't catch what the student did say he said for getting in trouble like he mentioned prison or the principal's office is what he mentioned actually um how how it turned out if you didn't take other way respon for sure yeah for sure um did anybody notice anything or or have anything to say about the
022rep ition which is another thing that I don't know if you noticed that we came over for some people and it was a third question underneath and if you were kind of far along we asked people to do an extended question which required you to think even a little bit more a little bit of an extension about um the resolution of the final chapter of the poem and how that contributed to the central idea of the of the poem so that was just another um technique that we use in the classroom to push students along in their thinking and to get them to to dig a Little Deeper um when ready for it so that kind of builds in a little bit of SC for us okay so we're going to ask you now to
023return back to your original seat and take some time to just do some self-reflection on both of the models feel free to jot down some of your ideas and after a couple minutes we're going to have you do a turn and talk which we uh do often in the classroom where you simply turn to someone next to you and share out talk about your ideas so go ahead back and we'll uh take a few minutes to just reflect to reflect on the comparison between the two models that you witness and model two what you just experienced to share out what they wrote down they talk oh I'm sorry please turn and talk first so turn and talk with someone nearby just sharing out what you noticed just because of the sake of time if we
024could just now stop the Turning clock and let's share out as a group some of what you might have um reflected on or some of what you might have shared out when you when you talk to each other what did you say Yes um model one reward quick thinkers and those with more compx okay okay yeah so the quick wited ones they hand up right away they get uh rewarded The Confident ones absolutely great anybody else I did not know what the poem was about when I was watching the video I lost interest right away yep so yeah in that model one it's real easy to kind of like melt into the woodwork if you would to be a student who's perhaps quiet you sit you comply and you make it through the class and
025it's boring any other thoughts a contrast of model two there were every we we actually ended up with four people a group and everybody was contributing something into there so there wasn't a moment where we weren't talking or writing I was getting caught out for writing slowly but we were [Music] like and we had to put tape over his mouth so he wouldn't speak so so what you're alluding remember that the Norms so what you're alluding to is a big uh facet of this and that's involving the social motion development of our middle school students like Kelly mentioned it's a different kind of student today um and this interaction live is so important things like um taking turns I did notice some groups didn't take turns passing the marker and some groups did take turns
026sometimes it's just a matter of listening that's a skill for a middle school student that needs to be sharpened just listening to your peers some sometimes it's taking consensus just being able to say okay the consensus of the group is such therefore we're going to write that down so really one of my biggest takeaways as a social studies teacher is the social emotional piece it really has uh proven to to grow their development in that capacity in particular um so you know just the patients too and you saw like having to stand there and some of them don't have the stamina to and uh that's another thing I myself to get up off the floor come on stay engaged with your with your peers that's a really huge takeaway for me in my social studies
027classroom any other comments did you notice what we were kind of doing with them trying to do it was crowded in the back anyone take note of the teachers with the blue markers trying to give that feedback you were able to see where everyone right where where everyone's thoughts were and you were able to kind of direct people Al so you really get a sense of where students are so in a class of 22 that's why right I can see as kids are working but I can't see everybody and I surely can't give 22 or close to 22 feedback all at the same time so the magic of this is I can stand back and I can see and I can go up to a group of three and I can do written feedback I
028can give them verbal feedback when they're ready for an extension I could take them to the next level I can take them to that next lift if they're not quite there um you know I can guide them more directly it's much more conducive to get to all of the students when you have a model like this their thinking is very very visible so in contrast to model one where we talked about having 25% of kids engaged in participating during model 2 I think Kevin you said it um everybody was engaged everybody was actively participating you could see everybody's active thinking going on and especially when you talk about some of our um reluctant Learners some of the special ed kids um kids who don't have English as their first language uh somebody else me mentioned
029that the confident kids are the ones that are getting up and that are participating often the special ed kids are the ones who don't have that academic self-confidence and they do shrink down into their seats uh this gives them the opportunity to feel really included to be able to piggy back off of maybe their peers answer to listen and hear something that somebody in another group is saying which is okay okay we used to think of that as cheating if we heard what Marlene said and then I said to my group oh the metaphor is this that's okay we're looking for that I think in the back five and six might have H each other and perhaps jotted down no that's all that's part of learning at first when the students would hear what another
030group said they quickly said we have to whisper because they're taking our answers they're cheating and they would tell on the other uh group and that's it's really it's actually excellent because they're taking in information they're learning not just with their two other peers but they're getting the benefit of hearing what other uh groups said so that's part of the learning that is far from the che cheating that often the the kids will find and that's something that they appreciate they're they're directly speaking with two other kids but they're getting the benefit of potentially hearing other people's thoughts and ideas I also think in model 2 there's really no wrong answer when those kids are you know kiddos are standing and listen and answering those questions they can throw other ideas out that they wouldn't
031necessarily in a model one put their hand up and in front of everyone say something that kids will laugh at right seventh graders are that's that's absolutely one of the other big takeaways those uh students who tend to like I said melt into the woodwork in model two there's less of being on the spotlight there's less of putting yourself out there what if I get it wrong I'll be embarrassed in front of my peers that's wiped away in model two you're just with your peers you have a little more sense of of confidence that if you get it wrong you know what we can wipe it off the Whiteboard cuz it's not permanent so we can simply erase it and we could write something over there's no permanency to what you put down and it
032becomes about the learning and not about the grade and that is the huge part of this for me as a teacher it has taken that pressure away from kids who are who want to get the a it's not about the a it's like did you learn did you grow are you learning from your peers are you are you learning on your own um and that has been a game Cher for us I also just wanted to also add when you talked about um all students being able to participate and everyone having a say um I teach students who are from other countries and who speak English as a second language typically and um they are they Thrive with this type of instruction because even though they are not proficient in English they learn the language
033from their peers they can ask their peers questions they can listen to what's happening and still participate without feeling like they're left out so we can they can enter the instruction at any level and it's really been really been huge in one more thing I think Ann I think I heard you say this you said to somebody else you said we can't always work with our friends so that is so Middle School they always want to work with their friends but in model 2 it's randomized and that's a key piece when the the students learn that it is legit it is randomized they understand that on any given day when they're going to be utilizing the vertical whiteboards they're going to be with any other group of of students so they really do coming from
034four different elementary schools uh they really do get to know each other in a much better way than if they're if we're always kind of instructing in that kind of model one uh method probably from Marlene or Jeff just to be clear on the randomization part that is is that Li to D or is that this K12 initiative yeah okay just at this Showcase tonight to Showcase what DOD is doing I say you were randomized when we did the L entry showcase too no that's what iall I'm just thinking people are home and about high school you know we do a lot of that we're still we're my family's still in the elementary school and there's you know kids like I want to do it with my friends and yeah if I recall correctly got
035pushed out last year randomization at we we doing it depends it depends on the schools and but it is definitely broad now that we engage kids in randomized groups and that I think as Kristen was saying is part of the social emotional development for students as well uh Fosters both academic and social emotional growth yeah there was I based on my own experience there were you know kids who didn't like it because they wanted to be with their friends but I think I'm balance it is better overall random now kids are kind used to it yeah yeah okay at all levels can I just add Tim my college students do it they know that you know sometimes they get to work with their friends on a project or something but sometimes they come into the
036class even if it's the zoom classroom they go into breakout rooms it's totally random who they get in that break sometimes like even when you're working with like administrators they want to work with I don't know anyone like but that's life right go to work and they're going to go to jobs and they're going to have to work with people that aren't their best friends and that's exactly what I'll say to the students this is a real world you don't pick your colleagues you don't have that luxury to pick who you're going to be working with so these skills are crucial uh the final thing is that word in model one pingpong that resonated with me when I first um started started to utilize some of the strategies the model one just like a pingpong
037game back and forth back and forth teacher poses questions student U raises his hand or not answers and it's that back and forth kind of volley um that's really limited to like we saw like five kids only with model two you don't have that back and forth pingpong and sometimes when when Kristen was teaching you could see like we were waiting for a student to raise their hand and the te teacher as a teacher you feel like okay who's going to raise their hand how much weight time am I going to allow for before I just kind of jump in and kind of answer the question kind of myself so with model two that whole kind of torturous pingpong uh goes away so L time is wasted right time is wasted they are they are
038thinking the majority of the time I also think with MTO 2 there's approved movement for them I mean these are seventh and eighth graders who want their bodies are all over the place right but they have the opportunity to move within the context of classroom you know Behavior rules or whatever they need that movement for sure great goad so I think um we have these on the Smartboard projection just to make sure we want this is really this is really the heart of everything to really kind of analyze the differences between model one and model two so we have a uh some of most of what we said also here on this slide just to make sure all the points are are made now we care so much about this we just wanted to make
039sure we didn't miss anything right so you're really capturing all that building thinking classrooms um and these again these scientifically research based strategies that we are committed to at Dot and K12 like Marlene said as a district we have embraced this because we can see the results we see our students thinking complexly relating to one another in a way that is richer and more meaningful really giving them those experiences and the practice really to engage with one another um they need that just like with any uh any task in life that we want to get better at we have to spend time doing it right we have to spend time practicing it and student discourse is is one of those things um answering really difficult questions is one of those things working together so yep
040um to wrap things up a a little bit we we believe in this so so very much we are seeing some of the benefits of not only the academic growth but that social emotional growth and we again as Educators who are committed to our craft much like again the doctors of the world the medical professionals of the world we have to continue to practice ourselves and learn and explore and look at what what's happening evaluating what's happening and continue to grow um we're never going to stop we are committed especially in ches we have great Visionaries and we have great leadership and a wonderful administrative team and amazing amazing teachers to continue this process and we're really we're really excited about it and we're happy we had the chance to share this with you tonight
041if we didn't convince you ourselves we'd like for you to hear a little bit from our kiddos to talk a little bit about what they think when we're just like at of seas I feel like most of the time especially I zone out more like then I'll probably like be zoning out more and not paying attention cuz I'm not really like doing anything we just listening like I feel like I need to like do something but then when we're at the whiteboards like even if you're not writing then you're still like you have to contribute and like you're standing up so like it's not like you can be slouching down like lying on your desk and like you have to be actually like contributing so that you're you can get the work done so so
042so um the other day you did a lesson with your teachers and you were sort of in a whole group reading this reading this poem um and um your teachers noticed that not every student was participating were you one of the kids who was participating um during that uh share out about the poem uh not really like I was really why is that uh I I just want to like to raise my hand ever like if I really know the answer a will but like if I'm not like the most sure I won't with topics I strongly have a good relationship with or topics that I know a lot about yeah yeah I do contribute with that yeah there are certain topics which I like to um stay away from or just don't feel comfortable
043about cuz I don't know much about it but uh yeah and like with like talking to a teacher like that can be like sometimes really intimidating for people cuz they're older than you they're they know the right answer so like a lot of kids fear that they're going to get it wrong so like if they help on their social skills then like they can be like okay it's okay if I get this wrong she's going to teach me why I got this wrong and what the right answer is I like to share my answers like with a group instead of like in front of the whole class I just feel a lot more comfortable uh I feel like people are more interactive with each other when they're in small gr so like you get to
044like know a lot of people in your classes and then I feel like the first couple weeks of school were hard cuz like I only really knew Norton kids and like all the other kids I didn't really know and like I didn't know their names or anything so like but now that we all know each other it's like really easy to like joke around with each other like get our work done and like talk with each other so you all know each other as you've gone through this year do you feel like you have um changed at all in how you are working in those small groups yeah like at stud here I don't really talk that much but now I talk a lot more with my group members I participate a lot uh most
045of the time I do hear a lot more small groups talking to each other than when you're just in a big group and then you hear like four or five main people always answering questions and then everybody else is just listening just like when we're collaborating and working on a vertical vertical whiteboard um it definitely improves on our social skills cuz like we're like the generation of the phones and like screens and social media so like we're so used to being like Oh we can just text them or call them like we don't really have like the like where like we don't really have like we need to go up to someone ask them we can just be like hey do you have this or something through text and like with the iCal whiteboards is
046helping us like figure out how to like talk to each other and not be like phone zombies I ideas from their ideas and they combine and make new ideas I don't mind I think interact I think the interactive whiteboards are great I they're definitely different from what I used to do back in grade school I just like just thought I like the vertical white a lot more M Bas right so um that is the end to our Middle School showcase I guess I'm going to toss it back to somebody well take take question oh oh yeah I'm sorry you're right we could certainly a question that look like are you doing vertical whiteboards in the elementary schools now yes okay well one of them just said it's not what we did in elementary school yeah
047but that's just I think it was more of a general throwback sort of com the 80s or something but the uh but we definitely have we boards available now at all grade levels yeah K 12 I I think this is great everything those three three kids just said completely resonated with me by the way um not to interrupt but we we did this um because at the end of the lesson the the teachers actually engaged in a quick conversation like how could we have made this better um and they tried to record it the recording didn't come out really all that that that um high quality we couldn't manage to show that to you um but we did want to try to capture some of what they had as their perspective about those two different
048teaching uh models we totally staged that you know the model one so that you can have ble two to something to compare it to we didn't plan the conversation and this started happen we started taping and then over I said okay guys well that was really kind of boring so how could we make this lesson better and that's when they started to come up well first thing I would do is take a copy of the poem and tape it next to each vertical whiteboard and i' have us answer these questions in small groups so we can talk to one another so they know um and it was impromed like like you said we got through we stopped taping and we're like okay let's can we make this lesson better what can we do and they
049came up with everything they did and then I messed up the tape that was my fault and she was holding a hall pass wasn't a scripted answer card they all had H passes yes yeah that's all authentic all of their responses are genuine for sure yeah so I was wondering um how the students treat each other is there a lot is there a lot of interference that has to be made by the teachers or do the students naturally encourage each other do they dismiss some students answers or ideas I think that you know it's a it's a process and we teach those skills along the way and this is a great vehicle for that because we can call out certain things that we see happening and then teach them the skills that they need or
050show them or model the skills that they need to communicate with each other so no it's not always perfect um but that's what we we can use as a vehicle to teach them those social skills which is I think the real time in real time like right when it's Happ when we first started to do it in social studies one of the first um the first lessons was because as you heard from Lily she didn't know all of the other kids in the class coming from noren so one of the first things was when you're in this group of three and you don't know anybody what would be the first logical thing to start with before we start writing or talking about anything so we scripted like hi my name is and what's your name
051and uh just literally start with uh addressing each other by name knowing who's in your class knowing their names so you do have to pause event sometimes and you have to say okay you you kind of know when they're done with something because that's when they'll begin to have the side conversations and and you'll know right out the gate that they're ready to like either bring it to consensus or uh to move on to the next thing uh but yeah you you just behavior modification there's that you have to as the teacher kind of set up um and that every time as teachers we learn how to better refine that how to better sometimes it's just in how you direct them with what you want to do the language you're using the real concise direct
052language really goes a long way so as you practice you get better and you reflect on gez why was that a disaster well because I I was confusing I should have said divide the board into three there's going to be three prompts so you reflect and you figure out ways to support you know um support it being as productive but yeah there's a lot of guiding about behaviors how to behave how to interact with each other absolutely um so so it's clear that a lot of learning happens using these techniques but um what is the uh individual accountability look like when the learning is over good question so I did this recently we were trying to fight a Venice position paper before the break came to a close because we had just finished the case
053study between delays and snow we didn't actually get to do the writing so I was really unfortunate planning wise we were coming back after the holiday having to write this position paper so we came back and the first thing I said is there they're going to need memory they're going to need refresher so we did a review the parts of the paper were prompts for the vertical whiteboard they were up in the groups they got to use their notebooks they could use their Chromebook documents and we reviewed and that was excellent that served as um you know a a means of prompting them getting them ready to to remember to recall to look at their resources to look at their notes to talk to peers the next day we began to write and the end
054product was that much better so the grading if you would wasn't the vertical whiteboard the vertical whiteboard serves to you know uh support the actual end product which in this case was a was a paper that they were doing so is there is there processing after like do you do you do we do what we did here where we kind of looked at all the answers and do they do they take notes themselves and then have that on their Chromebook or whatever to refer to later at lat dat or how does that work depends T depends on the task but yeah there's there is I think to answer your question yes there's still a place for individual application right we still need to know what each child knows understands and can do and so we
055there's still some of that traditional stuff in you know mixed in with this there's still applying individually they're handing in a paper um that was theirs but hopefully the skills they they got along the way from the some of those Rich activities help that paper to turn out even even stronger right no no I just more there seems to be processing after oh yeah like you have the activity but then you're you're processing as a class again you bring bring important part of it is to bring it to consensus and as often when you talk about Behavior that's where you really have to practice like now is this is all part of learning this last piece you need to really listen to your classmates for the processing part because that's really a big piece of
056it and you have to get them to understand that this is not just fun in games and you know they they they need to really understand that everything is purposeful and it's all part of the whole class learning so yeah um so thank you for all this tonight I'm gonna uh jump off of the teaching method you use for just a second Jeff you know that I asked about it routinely alternative Pathways post high school so tonight's the Dodge showcase M do we as a school system have connections with the magnet schools or any other high schools in the area I'm thinking uh you know technical schools a science schools does DOD do any sort of communication with those other high schools to inform the kids and the parents as well that there are other
057opportunities I mean I went to cheser high I think it's great but there are other Pathways for kids including that could lead to jobs post high school without necessarily going directly to College college could be something later on but I'm thinking like in my mind a science true there could be technical jobs you know an 18 yearold without a college degree could do it could be a great job um as well as you know the trades at will Cox or whatever it might be so I'm just wondering is there a any sort of working relationship between DOD and other high schools besides ch High um I don't know that I would call it necessarily quot a working relationship engage with them a lot in the sense that we'll we'll engage with them about the options
058that are available there and communicate that to our students and families that yeah indeed uh there are Myriad options that exist out there from you know sound school on the water to um technical other technical high schools in W Cox or um the boag program at Lyman Hall so yeah we share those and and we've had um solid participation in those uh over the last several years uh obviously treasure High Remains the predominant choice for folks um I thought maybe your qu line of questioning was going to be closer to the idea that you know we engage in these learning strategies here at DOD and then you move on to a different high school that maybe doesn't engage in the strategy and you know I've heard that for a lot of years in practice at
059middle school or high school okay you know sure we're going to allow um a student to redo to demonstrate their learning but College will never let you do that or that you know the high school won't won't use whiteboards of course we do but others may not you know and how is that preparing kids well because they use bad practice doesn't mean that we should first of all and second of all you know you engaged in this process today this was really an learning enriching learning experience we've taught for deeper understanding um then they carry that deeper understanding and these skills with them which will help them be successful in bad instruction just the way it would in good instruction so um that's where I thought maybe you were going but certainly in terms of
060respect with respect to um you know the the other opportunities that exist Beyond treasure I mean I'm sure Ryan and Kelly could talk more about that too but uh Beyond treasure high school there are other opportunities and we do you know educate parents and and students about those things thank you sure um I I just had one more comment um that um I thought this was a great presentation and um if we're going to be committing to it seems like we're committing to to this method that uh this particular presentation no offense to the to the Highland folks a few months back I thought this one uh um gave a a great representation of of what uh you could expect a child to see in a classroom that would encourage other parents who are curious
061to know what's going on that I think this is a this video that will be out there I guess on YouTube be a good one to watch to kind of get a feel for I can set it out to our families to encourage them watch good idea yeah and you guys got the beginner and this is a yeah I still never figured out the right answer to that M you're G to get more you're G to get more excitement when we do the High School showcase in m so um one thing I I would say to that question about uh you know and I think Chris and Juliano did a nice job articulating about why it's important to teach things you know we used a lot of our boun for forward money as you know
062to engage in professional development and one of the you know big pieces that we we brought into support our growth was a guy named Mike Anderson um who's worked diligently with folks in the elementary level and spent a lot of time here uh in the last couple of years and is also working with the high school and you know he would say really you you can't assume kids know how to work in groups and communicate like collaborate you know we would often just put kids together and then be frustrated when one kid did all the work or um that they talked about what was going on at the football game on Friday night or whatever the cas is and instead you know we're we're coaching kids more because it's necessary um and because we want
063them to successfully engage in in this practice about what does effective collaboration look like what is your role what what do you do and that's the norm are a visual reminder of what we're expecting of you when you go to the white board but the prec coaching that exists so that when they go to the Whiteboard and you know none of us is naive enough to think that they're not going to go to the Whiteboard and and maybe got lucky cards and their with their two best friends talking about the game you know Kristen knows that cues them and they they know you know and they they re-engage in a different way than Maybe they had in the past so you know there's a lot of intentional work that goes into priming for Success when
064you get to the whiteboards and I give these guys a ton of credit because it is a shift and in a lot of ways it's harder and and so when we talked about why collaborative time for our teachers is really important it's easy to stand in front of the room and talk at kids it's harder to come up with challenging activities that require a lot of complex things thinking at whiteboards and so you know you put you know a few rock stars together in the room they going to come up with you know great prompts that Force kids to think deeply um and it's different than just standing in front and let's read this piece and and memorize it and then you tell me what it was about and we're going to move on um
065and so it does take a little bit more clab time but the the results are incredibly powerful so um I want to you guys for taking the time to build these sort of things and this is just an aside in your free time to do that so thank you you guys coms questions so I just want to thank you I mean full disclosure I am a huge fan girl of Peter ladal so um and math being my background um I I appreciate also the teachers taking the RIS of jumping in there's 14 strategies I recognize that we can't do all 14 at once and so thank you Dr s for mentioning that there's support for teachers as we move along to these practices um and engage our students because I mean I'm going back to
066the poem this was a prime example of what this poem is about you try something you fail you've learned from it um so I appreciate this presentation as well too and I would love to see what the high school has to offer I mean Mary this is your future right here you know on the screen but it just shows that you know all students can access learning so thank you very much this a lot of work I realized behind and with that is there a motion to adjourn second um German all in favor we