001Morning everybody. It is Thursday, October 16th. This is a special meeting of the board of education's curriculum committee. We are going to talk about DHS new course proposals and we're glad to have um Ellen and some of the department chairs here and we'll have an introduction to SCP which I'm very interested in because I don't know a lot about them. I will turn it over to Eric or Amy or whoever wants to kick it off. >> Um we have Thank you so much Mrs. Dunn for being here today and Kristen Colonies our department chair for 612 English and Dennis Cabrera our department chair for 612 social studies. Um there are a couple of courses that you'll hear about today and that you read about in your packets. Some of the courses have to do with
002leveling changes as we've discussed in other departments other subject areas and we have an exciting course um in the elective area for English. So at this point I'll turn it over to Mrs. done who may want to talk about the process of how these courses um came to be. And I'm sure she'll want us to hear directly from both Kristen and Dennis. >> Push the button on. >> Good morning. Um we are delighted to be back with um new courses as we do each year. Uh three of the courses have really already been in the pipeline and been discussed um with um all of the um central office staff and also with all of you at different points. So some of the changes are things that I think you're expecting to see as part of
003the process. Um as you know we have a curriculum council that is um a group of teachers representing each department. Um department leaders are a part of that process and new courses emerge from within the department. Um there are long discussions about those courses and the curriculum council serves as a teacher leader role. um really looking at new courses and how they may impact other courses within the building and and how it fits with the big picture. That group is represented by Matt Bupta who comes to our departmental council which is made up of the department leaders and again those courses are discussed with that group before making it to um a continued discussion with Amy and Eric. So um it's a robust process. It helps to also set for the future. So some courses
004that may not get to this phase are still in the pipeline have gone back to departments and there's a discussion again about some possible tweaks or or expectations or timing um for the delivery of some courses because we don't want to have so many electives that then we dilute what we are offering and the important things we think are there. So, I am acting uh world language department chair today, which I hope you will not quiz me on any of my world language. That was not my great strength in my program of studies. But, um we have two world language courses um that I think you would expect to see. The French 2 accelerated um is being um altered slightly and the um expectations and rigor of that course will be worked on with your
005approval over the summer to rewrite that curriculum um and align it with the honors program that we have um in all other departments now. So the French to accelerated is the last of the accelerated courses that were once identified as 300 courses. And we've um over the last few years looked at that and um each department has decided that a true honors offering for mostly ninth graders, sometimes tenth graders in this case. um is more appropriate and more aligned to the work that we expect of students and the reward um that we hope they earn by the GPA adjustment in that course. So um that course uh the the population for that course exists currently um and the honors designation would go with your approval upon the decision to move in that direction and alter
006the curriculum appropriately for that. Um the ASL 4 is the natural progression of ASL. We are now offering ASL 3 at the high school and um American Sign Language 4 would complete the cycle and and uh kind of the commitment we've made to those students who want to have a 4-year program. Um and it's exciting to be able to make uh four levels of American Sign Language. I think it raises the um seriousness with which students may approach ASL because they will then see I do have a 4-year option. And so we really believe that adding this will strengthen the program that has already begun. Um and it is um I think a wonderful opportunity for students and and there are students who come in and out of that take a year maybe as an
007extra elective as well. So it's a wonderful learning process for those students. Um there is also um the introduction of a biiteracy seal for ASL now and so those students would be able to um sit for that and um more and more of our colleges are treating this as a world language and um I think it's a really wonderful opportunity for our high school and for our students. So, we're enthusiastically recommending that we kind of close that loop and uh make this a four-year language at DHS. So, I might stop there if you have questions unless you'd like to hear from everyone and then come back. Up to you. >> Uh I think we can wait for Yeah, we language. Yeah, >> I just I just had one question and um this is just along
008the lines of consistency between all languages. So, Mandarin right now, and I can't remember if the current eighth graders in Mandarin >> would be the first, >> the current ninth graders are the first students that have gone all the way through Mandarin at the middle school if that's >> So, and they are in Mandarin 2 or did we all >> They are mostly in Mandarin 2. Yes. >> And do we have >> Mandarin two honors? >> We do have a Mandarin 2 honors offering now for freshmen. Okay. So that will be um >> we will one of the courses in the pipeline um is the AP Mandarin um or a Mandarin 5 or a combination of those because those students will soon land without a Mandarin level at senior year. So that's that's one of
009the ones that's in waiting. >> Great. Thank you. >> Um in terms of the French two honors um how much work does the accelerated versus the honors? How much work do you think that will be over the summer? >> Uh work over the summer? Yeah, it's probably a 25 hour, you know, re revamp. If it's less, we put in 25 hours for the curriculum writing. If it's less than that, we won't need it, but that's what we put in for the budget. Yes. >> Question. Okay. >> All right. So, the I think we'll go next maybe to Western Civic. >> Okay. >> Um because that's also the next one in the kind of expected sequence which closes out the honors um expectations for our ninth graders. Um I would say that this is something that
010has been long discussed in social studies and I'm sure Dennis will reflect on that. Um and I think it's really important to say um with these ch final changes we have to do a very good job of educating our incoming nth grade families. um to make selections in the honors program by level of interest, by true passion for a subject because we really want to be careful about nth graders taking honors everything. And so that's something that we will spend um some considerable time. It's something we're always messaging at all grade levels, but I think especially in this transition, it's a big change to high school. there's a lot of things changing and so we want to make sure that we have the offerings in the subject that students love and that's this the thinking.
011However, we really do I I just didn't want to let this morning go without saying that's a a really important piece of this. So, thank you >> Mr. Cabrera. >> Uh so, thank you Mrs. Dunn and good morning. Thank you for having us here. Uh I I would say that yeah it was a long discussion. It was uh I don't think an easy decision to move forward with it, but ultimately it was about how we best meet the needs of students and and what we see students pushing for and wanting. So that argument sort of wins the day every time. So we decided to put the course forward honors Western Civ. Uh we we were also very mindful of not changing our western civ course because we recognize that it prepares students well in history
012as a foundational course. Uh so there's a lot of resistance in the department against watering down uh the 300 western civ. So, uh, the intention here is to better meet the needs of students and not to change the course that currently exists. Uh, and that said, I I would echo what, uh, what Ellen just said about we have to be mindful about having balance in students schedules and really, uh, emphasizing to families that this should be based on the students uh, drive and what what they're interested in. If if your son or daughter is interested in math and science, that's great. I encourage that interest even as a history teacher. Um but if they are focused on the humanities, then uh this might be a course that they want to consider. >> Um a couple
013questions about the honors western civ. So we've all lived that course multiple times in our own household and it is not it's not an easy course. Um, so can you talk a little bit more about why there's um I don't remember can't remember the word you use like hesitation to to quote water it down like what what how what's the differential between the current 300 level course and what you expect for the 400 level course and how many children do you think will actually be interested in taking this? So I would say that one of the reasons that western civ is difficult just the 300 western civ is because if you think about uh one of the points of emphasis for history teachers is primary source documents and if we're reading primary source documents from
014the Roman Empire or ancient Greece or even 16th century those are going to be dense and difficult texts and so we do scaffold and we do maybe change the language a bit and note that to students that this has been simplified but there are students who can handle that and can handle it well. Uh so the idea is it puts us in a better position to differentiate for those students who are advanced uh to be able to offer the course. So, it's always going to be a tough lift for 9th graders to do a history course that asks them to read difficult texts. Uh, and we want to be able to push those students who really want the challenge. So, that's the that's the sort of the the tension there is it's always going to
015be hard and there are kids who can meet that challenge and want to be pushed further. >> How many sections do you think will be in the honors? I couldn't give you a a good I can only go by what we see in terms of the other humanities course which is the English I believe was 80 or so. >> I don't know if you happen to know >> my head >> I roughly that's what I think it was when I looked. >> So a fair amount. >> Yeah. >> Questions. >> Um hi thank you all for being here. Um, so just a quick question about how we think about these classes and how we think about the changes. Um, I'm I'm really glad that we're always thinking about how to best serve our students and
016how to differentiate and offer these courses so that everyone is, you know, being challenged and reaching their potential. I am curious if there might be a way and not today. This is just to think about a way to help the board contextualize a little bit what the picture is of all of our students in at DHS. So, for example, I think it could be helpful to have some sort of snapshot in terms of, you know, this has been our enrollment in Western Civ and here are our the grades received, right? And I think that could help tease out especially for some of these courses that we've talked about that um you know have have the big reputation across town in terms of like how many kids like really are needing that honors class, right? And
017and how many kids are struggling with the 300. I think a little bit of context could help us just see um you know that kind of like numerical snapshot. So just a question for potential future conversations about how we think about shifting and evolving our courses. >> Go ahead. >> Um I do have a question. So I understand the the primary documents is one difference for the honors course. Is the intent that the the writing assignments or the grading or the assessments are going to be more challenging and how is that going to be kind of weighed, you know, because it will be challenging especially for students that love humanities and they want to take honors English and honors western civ and they might already be in accelerated math. So it I understand your point
018this freshman year as challenging as it is even without having this an honors offering. So how are you anticipating that that kind of would be handled? So I think with this course we can't change the breadth but what we can do is adjust the depth. Uh and that's where I see the primary difference. And in terms of assessment, the students will be writing uh these students would be on track for AP courses going forward. So this gives an opportunity to better prepare them for that kind of thing. Uh so DBQ is a document-based questioning. It's a very common form of assessment on the AP and I think actually a very good indication of students ability to read complex texts and make sense of them. So, I would imagine that we'll see a bit more of
019that in the uh honors section. And that's again not to say that it's not happening at the Western Civ 300. And another thing that we were mindful of is we always want to create opportunities for students to move up. So, simply because a student opts to take 300 Western Civ doesn't close the door for them to take 400 or honors uh world studies in their sophomore year and potentially take those AP courses down the line. I would never want to punish a kid who's trying to be responsible responsible and balance their schedule. So, you know, it's very common for a ninth grader to say, "I thought that math was my thing, but actually I think history is my thing." I encourage that. That's great. And, you know, they're >> when it goes that way. >>
020And if it goes the other way, that's fine, too. But, um, you know, they're figuring out who they are. That's part of high school. It's just, you know, getting a chance to try different things and experiment with, you know, all of the different courses that we have available and and then ultimately making a better informed decision about what direction they want to take their academic life in. And just one follow-up question with with the vision of the graduate kinds of ways that we're implementing this in the curriculum. Is it your intention that the honors class might have more of those kinds of projects or the oral projects or the you know kinds of things or is that going to be offered still in both regular 300 and 400 level western SIP? >> Absolutely both. Um
021and and you know again my bias as a history teacher building empathy right this is a core skill I think of a historian is to be able to put ourselves in the shoes of someone who was alive 300 years ago let's say uh that's not an easy thing to do we we are in our own time in our own worlds so um yeah it's something that those are skills communication you know all of those those things are are skills that we want to encourage in in all of our students. So, yeah, across the board. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> All right, Kristen, you're up. >> Okay, English, I will say, um, you know, you know, it's been a long history of English departments, we really examine the literature courses at the senior level um,
022and make sure that they are responsive to interest and um, and content that have hooks for our students, keep them engaged in literature. Um, this final year before they leave us. Oh, I did it again. This this button isn't backwards from what you would think it is. So, so um I think it's um we have a new course and as you know they also are very thoughtful about removing one when they bring one forward and so um there's a new proposal from the English department for an elective which is very exciting. >> I apologize uh for not bringing my squirting flower and my clown cart um this morning. Um, so the English class that's being proposed is called uh punchlines and perspectives, thinking about humor writing, satire, and the art of commentary. This is a
023300 levelvel course for our seniors to take as an elective option, adding to our collection of electives. Um, the titles of which are at the bottom of this slide here. Um, we were challenged to find an equally appealing title to match its uh counterparts there. Um, but this is an opportunity for students to look at the genre of humor and satire as a way of expressing their thinking about the world around them, the world that they live in, and um, their feelings about life. Essentially, we wanted to make sure that our students who were uh, not pursuing the AP track in their senior year had uh, options to choose from in counterpart with their capstone experience. And uh out of the se students that we uh surveyed um this one was widely uh appealing to
024students and they seemed excited about it. I I always in my experience of getting to know the department last year. I found it really interesting to see how they moved into a recruiting kind of stance of getting kids like how are we going to recruit kids to take our electives and teachers are going into each other's classes and you know talking them up and um particularly a new one we have this year that's running that hasn't run before is dangerous creatures um and talking about women infection and uh Jennifer Swen did a great job of promoting that in all the classes she went to. So, it's interesting to see and this was a course that um the staff was excited about teaching and the students seemed excited about as well. So, if we can get
025kids excited about English in their senior year and give them options um we think this is a great opportunity for them. >> Thank you. I just wanted to point out um in the memo that this course will replace another course that was not offered because of low enrollment. So, I appreciate you going through the course catalog and looking to see what is not being um you know, you can't always add to take some things away. So, I appreciate that. Um I don't know that I have a ton of questions. Katie, >> um thank you. I when I saw this in the packet, I got really excited about this. Um this sounds so fun. Um, and I just wanted to say that um, I really appreciate the way that you are thinking about student interests to
026keep them engaged, but also the skills beyond, you know, um, Dennis when you were talking about building empathy through, you know, the study of all their cultures. I see that you have a bullet here about developing analytical and creative writing skills, but I actually think that this course could develop like so many things. um you know from um the use of humor as a way to diffuse situations right like that's something that we I see posted on job descriptions all the time right just about people skills and then the flip side of that is also about helping students to understand the appropriate use of humor you know what is actually funny and doesn't cross a line and I think that those are just skills that go beyond English beyond academics but really into that character
027building and interpersonal relations and how we relate um you know to to society in general. So, I'm super super excited about this and I can't wait to hear how it comes out and I hope you guys will share some of um the writing with us. >> Absolutely. >> And even if you guys wind up being subjects of them, >> I was going to say um I I think this is a great class and I I think um one of my students would have loved to have taken this who's now in college. Um the question I have is because in many ways this almost in some ways seems like a creative writing potentially class for you know students who can learn how to write in a humorous way or satire. So but I think that there
028are many students who would really love to do this just because they love the the humor and the comedy and that kind of writing. So, how are you anticipating balancing and not scaring away students who might not consider themselves to be creative writing people, but would love to take a class like this? I think the course is designed to both address the creative writing aspect, but also thinking about uh as they're reading examples of authors who have used humor and satire as a genre, critiquing their work and looking at those author craft moves and understanding how the author made decisions to reflect on on the world around them and taking a stance on whether or not it was effective or not. So there are lots of different analytical angles that they can come out with
029this particular course as well. >> And and just to follow up and in some ways this could end up almost getting into like a political kind of a class. >> We're very cautious of that. >> We see in colleges and I would just want to make sure that >> you know because for instance all the SNL skits that get into political kinds of discussions with comedy. So if we can present both sides of the situation or authors who are you know on one side or another and see how that ends up you know influencing people I think that would be helpful. >> Absolutely. There's a note there about text selection, making sure that we're creating, you know, including a wide range of perspectives, but also making sure that the course is um not introducing a
030particular side at all, but really looking at it from an author's stance of how do writers and how do thinkers um take this genre as a mode of expressing their ideas. >> Great. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Um all right. Are we all in favor of moving forward with these class with these courses? All right. Perfect. We will see you on the 28th. All right. Thank you all. Moving on to our second topic of SIA. >> All right. >> You guys don't have to say if you want. >> It's funny. Um, you certainly don't have to say, but I was in a professional learning session that both Kristen and Dennis were facilitating earlier this week. Seems so long ago now, but earlier this week, and they were talking about um vocabulary and tier 2
031vocabulary and engaging um the middle school staff across the two departments about vocabulary instruction, and instructional strategies. And I said to them, "This is so this is amazing because we're going to be talking with the board um at the next curriculum committee meeting about vocabulary instruction." So um it was a wonderful connection to the work. So um just wanted to start today and have us think about meeting the needs of all of our learners and thinking about the core values of the district. Thinking about that idea of excellence for all learners and thinking about how we leverage instructional strategies and frameworks that we have within our system to make sure we're meeting the needs of the d the diverse learners we have um in our setting. So, we're talking about these vocabulary um strategies today
032and SCOP, and I'll get into what that is in just a couple of minutes. Um I want you to be thinking about how this how this instructional strategy and this approach helps students whether they are in ELP classes, kindergarten classes, first grade learning command of the English language in a different way than their natural acquisition of language at home when they're babies. um be thinking about our students who receive ML services and be thinking about our students who are studying a second or third language like we were starting to talk about Mandarin before or ASL4. Um these are strategies and these are frameworks that we think about when we want to meet the needs of all of our kiddos. So we thought today that we would engage the board in an interactive activity. We um
033recently and you I've been writing to you about this in um in the weekly updates um through Dr. burns communication with you. We have recently cooperated with the CES which is the cooperation for educational um services. It's a what part of our risk that we belong to and um we have set up two sessions with them. One that we just had in October and one that will be a follow-up in February. This gives our staff an opportunity to learn what SCOP is which is called sheltered instruction observation protocol. Um, it's really meant to think about how do we ensure that we have strategies that help all kids access vocabulary and really rich vocabulary, really rich vocabulary. And we'll talk about through this example, what is the difference between tier one, tier 2, and tier three
034vocabulary. So, this is actually an activity that we engaged with um Patricia and I and our staff. We had probably 25 elementary staff engaging in this in one session and then 25 in the secondary session later um on in the day. So I'd like you to just take a few minutes and you have if you have this printed you can do it on your printed copy or you can just kind of in your head think about how you might fill in these blanks. And Sarah was mentioning to me the other night this feels like the old mad lips from those of us who remember that in the 80s. So give yourself a read through and think about what might be some of the vocabulary words that you might put where those blank spaces are. Me
035a minute to do that. How are we doing? >> Do you think some spaces are really easy to like you're pretty confident that you have some of them figured out? >> Yes. >> All right, let's let's try to start the questions that what would we put there that people face? >> I did parents. >> Parents. Okay. Ra as they raise >> children. Children >> children. Okay. Children from >> infancy to adult life are not easy to >> answer. >> Oh wait, anticipate >> answer. >> Okay. Both >> fathers and >> mothers >> can become concerned when health problems such as >> I said colds but I don't think that's right. >> This is where I fell apart the other day. I also said colds. Pollock. >> Collic might be a tier 2 word. arise anytime
036after the >> I said embryo. That's not right. >> Embryo. All right. Embryo is not a tier one word. >> Embryo. Okay. Embryo or early early stage early might be a tier one. Experts recommend that young >> children. We're pretty confident about that. Should have plenty of >> Sleep not salad. Everybody, a nutritious food for healthy growth. >> boys and girls naturally should not share. >> Same bed. >> Did anyone come up with anything else there? >> All right, we're stumped. >> We're stumped. Or even sleep in the same room. >> Okay. They may be afraid of the dark. >> Okay. We're all confident and some of our answers we're pretty confident with. All right. I'm going to give you a um a clue. here. This is not about children. >> It's not about human
037parenthood. What are we thinking? >> The questions that people face as they raise chickens from >> incubation. >> Okay, that is definitely not a tier one word. Incubation to adult life. >> Analyze. analyze. Okay. >> Farmers and >> markets. >> Oh, >> yeah. >> Markets. Did you say >> manufacturers? >> Oh, manufacturers. Okay. >> Um, such as >> Oh, it's >> Yeah. >> Contamination. All right. That could be egg >> egg stage. That would make sense with the picture. Experts recommend that young >> children, >> chickens should have plenty of >> space, >> sunshine, space, and nutritious food for healthy growth. B and G. I'm pretty confident something like should not share the same barn. I don't know. Or even sleep in the same. >> They may be afraid of the >> Dogs. All right.
038>> How did we do? >> The questions that poultry men face as they raise chickens from incubation. And Katie got that one to adult life are not easy to answer. Both farmers and merchants, Shirley was on to that a bit, can become concerned when health problems such as coxidiosis arise any time after the egg stage to later life. Experts recommend that young young chicks should have plenty of sunshine. Dennis and nutritious food for healthy growth. Bant bantes and geese should not share the barnyard or even sleep in the same roost. They may be afraid of the dark. So guessing at words is not always the best strategy, right? And so we've talked a lot about this. I know Katie and I have talked a lot about this. So, let's be thinking about, right, how do
039we give all children access to language and to vocabulary and instructional strategies that help them grow as readers and writers using not only tier one vocabulary like sunshine, but vocabulary that they need to be really successful and to have, you know, expertise in areas where they find interest. So, how did you feel during this activity like the first time around? >> Like mad limbs. >> But pretty confident. >> Yep. >> Right. And confidence can give us the bias that we have it. Right. Whether we're the student who's confident I have it or the teacher who thinks that the student has it and how important it is to really dig deep. And when you found out what this was really about and you saw some of this other vocabulary thinking about like you know we might
040have gotten like Katie got incubation I don't think I ever would have come up with coxidiosis. >> I don't even think I knew that word until now. >> Yeah agreed. >> Yeah. What's a banding? That's a word. >> It's a it's a species of a type of one of these chicks or birds. >> We need a leash. >> Exactly. Exactly. So, what we wanted to talk about are when we think about um language development and how critical that is with our young people in school, again, our littles and ELP all the way up through our kiddos that are taking AP lip um AP comp. We're thinking about conversational fluency, right? Even thinking about how children are putting in order their words as they're putting sentences together and they're having more complex sentences in the younger
041grades in speech and in writing. Think >> I want to point one thing out. >> Sure. So in the second example, you had a visual prompt. Okay? And you didn't have them in the first. So I just want to show about um reasonable accommodations. And looking at that, you only had prior knowledge and you went with what your first knowledge was with the first stimulus. But on the second one, you had a visual um prompt that really let you know what context it was. So >> and we're going to get into that with another example. >> That teacher in me loves that. So the discrete language skills, thinking about the function of language and how language works, right? There's definitely a pattern and English is a very complex language to learn. And then academic language
042proficiency, exactly some of the things we're talking about. And when I went the other day um to MMS and Dennis and Kristen were both working with the departments together social studies and English there there was really a heavy focus on tier 2 vocabulary and what are those vocabulary words that across subject areas across disciplines if the child doesn't know specifically what it means to for example analyze a text then they can't demonstrate what they know about the subject matter. So really helping to make that more concrete for our students. So what is SCUP? So SCUP again is that sheltered instruction observation protocol. There are eight components of this framework and 30 features. The first half of our session that took place just October 7th, we were working with staff on specific instructional strategies to support
043their lesson preparation, thinking about alignment to the standards. The standard is the same for any child regardless of where they are in their continuum of learning. Which is why, as Shirley mentioned, we have to think about how to use cues, differentiate resources to help all children meet with success. Building of the background knowledge. When we entered that exercise first with all of those blank spaces, we only knew what we knew. Coxidius was not in there for me. That's that was not part of my background knowledge. Comprehensible input is a strategy that is that was really um developed by a linguist and was really first taken hold in world language classrooms. And it's the idea of when you are working with young people or or young adults, anyone really, and you want to make another language
044that's not their native language more accessible to them, you think about how to make the language comprehensible. In other words, with our young children, right, they think birth to five, they have a pretty significant command of the English language if you know they're here with us in Darian public schools and that's their home language by the time they come to school. Not as much perhaps for our students who are studying Mandarin. So, how does a Mandarin teacher make that language comprehensible? And it's not, as you can imagine, by saying, you know, I can, you can, he can, she can, we can, they can. It's different when we say I do, you do, he does. That gets tricky, right? That's that's you have to think about ways to make language and language function more comprehensible. So,
045we talked about strategies for that. And then, of course, we talked a little bit about practice and application so that the staff who attended that session will have an opportunity to come to practice what they've learned. They've committed to a couple of strategies. We'll come back and talk about it in February. and the next session in February, those pieces that aren't highlighted, especially the the review and assessment, how you use SCUP strategies to support assessment will be our focus for that next session. So what we also talked about is like what does it mean to really know a word? And I think you know Sarah your point about you know we were pretty confident about some of the words that we thought we had there and the the surface understanding of a of a word
046is really only a very small part of understanding that word. So what we're trying to do is think about morphology and word meaning and all of those other those other other studies, I'm sorry, of aspects of vocabulary, vocabulary development that will strengthen and enrich our children's experience with language. So we think about synonyms and antonyms, categorical information. Gosh, a lot of our words, especially in the English language, have multiple meanings. Again, morphological knowledge, conceptual knowledge, formal versus informal, nuanced meanings. Think about idioms and how challenging those are to learn. Funological knowledge, which we know is a critical focus of working especially with our littles and wanting to make sure that that funological knowledge is really strong by the time our children leave second grade. Orthographic knowledge and the spelling piece, discipline specific vocabulary. I'll go
047back to cxidiosis um and appropriate syntax how we use language structurally. Just wanted to um talk about again our shift to our new resource for um literacy instruction K3 into reading. Um this resource uses a lot of instructional strategies embedded within the text to support vocabulary development. And here on this page are just a couple of snap uh screenshots of different things that would point that out to you. So there are vocabulary cards. We think about text features. We think about concept maps and word webs. So really the focus is thinking deeply about vocabulary, word structure, word development, vocabulary and how that helps to grow really strong readers. The same thing with math. You know, some of our staff asked questions with SCOP. You know, it seems so language-based. Should the math interventionists attend? Should
048math teachers attend? We know that so much of math is connected to reading and children being really strong readers. Children can never problem solve if there's a vocabulary word in a problem, whether it's the function of how to solve or even a descriptor like the bantes that can completely throw a child off. So, um we did have the math um folks attend as well. And we just wanted to show with the math resource again, there are other instructional strategies and um approaches that help our children access vocabulary. I mentioned before, you know, which words uh the tier two, tier tier one, tier two and tier three vocabulary and what we should focus on in our instruction. The answer really is is all three. I would say tier 2 vocabulary is definitely a throughine when we
049think about how we ask kids to apply what they know. If we don't have kids have a solid handle on tier 2 vocabulary, we won't be able to get them to tier three, if that makes sense. Right? So we spend a lot of time it should seem like you know it's obvious to tell a child you need to analyze but that is not necessarily um an inherent understanding for a child to have what does that mean? So we're working on that all the way up through in a very articulated way especially thinking about the transition from fifth to sixth as you know as literacy becomes much more complex. Okay. And I'm going to stop this >> stop her. All right. We're going to engage in our second activity now. And this is a brief activity.
050And Patricia Thalisinos, who is sitting to my right, she is our coordinator for MLL services for Darian public schools. So, she supports um our MLL programming from kindergarten all the way up through um grade 12 plus. And she's going to help lead us in this second activity. And I think this will make really clear what the strategy of comprehensible input is. And I want to thank Patricia because she really um was very vocal about bringing SCOP training to the district. You can imagine that our colleagues at the secondary level where tier three vocabulary becomes especially critically important in the different disciplines um wanting support for vocabulary instruction. Again, whether they're working with students who receive ML services or, you know, one of our typical students who has studied the English language for a long time
051and it's their native language, that tier three vocabulary is really tricky and thinking about strategies to support that. Do you want to introduce this activity? >> Sure. So, this activity is to emphasize the importance of comprehensible input. Um, we will transport you to a lesson right now and then we'll come back to do an activity so you can demonstrate your understanding and your learning. >> Do you want me to hit [Music] It's the first. Yeah, that's the first. >> Sorry. Sorry. [Music] Foreign speech. Foreign speech. Foreign speech. [Music] Fore! Foreign! Foreign! [Music] We're going to So now it's your turn. partners, right? [Laughter] >> He's a ringer. >> No, I think we're good. >> So, take a look at your sort and see if you can successfully complete the task. If you notice in the
052video, she did repeat herself several times. We always think that that's a great strategy to comprehend. >> How is this making you feel? Any guesses what the >> the test is? >> Do we all have the same things? >> That's a great question. So, you do have the same sort, but if you notice, some of you have, as Shirley was pointing out before, providing scaffolds to have access. Some of you have more of that than others. And that's just something for the teacher to decide who needs more of a scaffold or based on the activity they can kind of tell, oh, we have to swoop in and provide a little bit more support. >> I'm going to go with first >> also working with a partner. Okay. So, we're going to now go revisit the
053lesson, >> take a look at the instructional strategies that the teacher is using to help the comprehensive >> check. [Music] Hold. [Music] How do you go? Come to [Music] How do [Music] Gorgeous. How do [Music] to daddy to [Music] So, it's riveting. I'm I'm sure that was we wanted to check back in to see how you're feeling now about your sort. >> We sort of So, the first once again visuals, the first one did not have any visual or any any kind of concept of what they were doing. So, we actually had the right answer, just the wrong animal. Okay. So, we sorted we thought we thought the panda was the healthy eating one. So, we sorted all of our carrots, apple, and oranges and rice to the panda. We gave the monkey all the
054not so healthy stuff like fried chicken. >> So, you had pictures of you had pictures. >> Sorry. >> You had pictures of the animals at the top. >> Yes. >> We had no pictures. >> Had no pictures. >> We And we had pictures of food, but not the animals. >> Okay. So yeah, ours. Yeah. So we got nothing. >> Okay. So So we had the best we had the best visuals of Cinn. How about over there? >> They had no photos. >> No photos. So we were the lucky ones. We were the lucky ones. >> And so you're saying that the pictures really helped you be successful. >> Yes. >> In understanding the task. >> Absolutely. >> And understanding what her message was. Because the first time we had no context. We had no idea
055what she was saying. She did repeat things lots of times, which we do as as educators, but when there was no context and no other clues, it really wasn't helping. And so besides the pictures and the images, she was using gestures, she was pointing, she had facial expressions, she went like this. So all of those pieces together, they're all really strong instructional strategies that we use, especially, you know, as an elementary teacher. We use them all the time to make the abstract concrete. And that's part of the thinking and the philosophy behind setup, making it more um hands-on and concrete to help students access the content. So without these instructional strategies, we need to be thinking about, you know, again, the students current level of language proficiency with comprehensible input, we can make sure that
056the the vocabulary is not too challenging. It's like kind of that Goldilocks, that just right um that just right spot for students. And you know, another thing that I think is so important to recognize is that no matter what the role of the person was in the professional learning session the other day, they could access this. When we think about children's language development, children develop their receptive language skills first as we know, right? Think about your own children at home. And so there are other strategies that we would we would make sure that we're having so that children are also practicing the vocabulary in an expressive way that would be through their speech and in their writing as well. So, I I wanted to just bring this um to kind of our local work and
057thinking about some of our strategic work in district with MTSS and some of our conversations last spring were help us understand how all of these things connect, right? How does MTSS connect to everything else we're doing? How does the professional learning connect? How do the different interventions that we provide and strategies? How do all of these pieces of our work in teaching and learning connect? This professional learning session with SCOP is something that um for part of our MTSS work when we think about MTSS at multi-tered systems of support that's really about meeting the needs of the whole child and it's really about every child in the district. So I just wanted to show this as an example when we think about our students who are receiving ML services. Um this was the 2024 2025
058performance index for ELA collectively across the whole system across all tested grades. Um for non-English learners typical population almost 83% 68% for our students who are ident identified to receive ML services. As a reminder there are really high expectations when children are newcomers. they are pretty quickly expected to take the SBA in English >> immediately, >> right? Like it's >> there is no more opt out of um every student. >> So if they come in in June in May toward the end of submission, they're not, but if they come in April, they are could be they the day that they come to school is the first day they sit for the assessment. We're trying to think about MTSS and meeting the needs of learners who need that type of instruction as well as our kiddos
059that are receiving instruction in a second and third language and ultimately toward earning a seal of biiteracy. So we think about building an MTSS framework providing instruction and professional learning that supports all instruction across the continuum. So that's how that would connect that MTSS model to for example um an instructional strategy or approach such as SCUP. That's how it connects to the bigger picture of our work. Something that we're um anchoring to preschool through grade 12 plus. And that was an exciting learning opportunity, I hope, for all of you. You may have questions about vocabulary instruction. Um you certainly will hear more about our MTSS work in December. We've tried to kind of talk a little bit about it in each meeting leading up to that December share out. But at this point, we're happy
060to discuss or answer any questions that you might have. >> Yeah. I just want to share that I'm excited that we're talking at the table about um you know the whole learn learning of the whole child and that each child is is different and that differentiated differentiated instruction for each child is really what we're focusing on. So I appreciate that. >> Um you are focusing a lot on vocabulary but the question I have is for for math or science. um is is part of the intent of this allowing teachers to have more instruction techniques to teach math or science for instance using visual cues or you know in science kind of the lab experiment because I think it's great if we can also meet the needs of students who might be more visual learners and
061and this is let alone language or English as a first or second language um students who are visual learners and learn much more that way as opposed to reading a text and is that something that this is helping teachers with additional instruction strategies? >> Yes, that's an excellent question. So, we know that strong literacy skills are foundational to students success in mathematics. Um, something that uh I could compare this to with mathematics instruction would be what we call CRA and that's concrete, representational, and abstract. So we want to make sure there are some students who can understand some mathematical concepts and they're ready for the abstract representation. There are other students that we would start with we would differentiate and offer concrete, you know, something like a manipulative and then there's the representational which is
062typically more pictorial. And so we want to make sure that the standard is the same for every child, right? That that's the point of these standards. We want to make sure that there are pathways and and toward access for all kids to develop and have those standards mastered. So the CRA is an example of a strategy um that's part of what we do for our core instruction that's not about intervention. We should be thinking about providing that that kind of access in our core instruction for all children. And then with play-based learning for in for you know a lot of like monastery kind of schools will really use the manipulatives that especially at the earlier kind of ages to help kids actually learn math >> using that before they can even read. So I I
063mean I would imagine is is part of this whole philosophy and teaching strategy kind of >> along the lines of that and are we also using that as part of our play-based learning curriculum development? I'm so excited by that question because yes, and when you think about play-based learning and the curriculum being very student driven, the students really are often thinking about the teachers seeing what are the students interested in wanting to learn about. So, if it's, you know, fire station or weather or dinosaurs, it's pretty amazing when you think about tier three vocabulary. There are some three-year-olds that can really tell you a lot about dinosaurs and use very complex terms to talk about the different species of dinosaurs. So, exactly. We think about tier one, tier two, and tier three vocabulary through play-based
064learning as well. >> Thank you. >> That's an awesome question. Thank you for that. >> Um, I have a lot of questions. Um, so first I just want to kind of ground the context of this. Um, this um did you did you shorten it to SCOP? Is that what you called it? Okay. Thank you. So SCOP is not a regular instructional practice. It is more based in the MTSS tier for >> it's um well MTSS really begins remember with tier one with core instruction. >> Sure. >> Okay. So this this will show up in the classroom and also be used to help students that need some extra support. >> Right. Yes. It's an approach that >> was developed to help access for multilingual learners, but the strong instructional practices can be used with all students.
065Like you said, some are more visual learners um >> as some are more sensory learners, >> right? And I think, you know, for the purpose of this meeting, he pulled out like the vocabulary pieces, but if you looked at the um like that closed passage that had to do with building background knowledge and activating what they already knew about something and how it affects what they bring in. Um the comprehensible input video was about making it visual bringing in you know there might be videos there might be graphic organizers posters realia that was like the bananas and then the yogurt and then types of things. So there's many different pieces um that addresses the whole child. If I may just add to that to Katie's question, these strategies, methodologies happen in all classrooms. They already
066exist. I think the notion of emphasizing it with multilingual learners of looking at strategies that work in our classrooms as daily practice, but also emphasizing in the visual is a great example of that that when you're acquiring a new language or acquiring, make sure you're using those practices and engaged in that learning. I think if you went down the list of all of them um down to manipulatives down to different aspects in mathematical instruction and language learning they already exist. I think it's just capturing and putting them together to your point. >> Thank you Shirley. I appreciate that. >> And and I'll just I'll just to Robin's question also um for early based learning also play-based learning and you probably do remember when your children grow growing up that correspondence is done with how many
067M&M's go in that circle to make five. No one's doing the numerals. We're using real tangibles before that. I think they're just emphasizing as this question did, although Ellen and I had a cheat sheet because we had the animals and the pictures, but of how to make sure that you're using all those multiensory pieces and that you're capturing ways that you can give meaning to language and and that would be the most reinforcing way to learn and acquire a new language. >> Thank you. Um, so yes, I absolutely noticed um that you in your presentation, you know, I think it was on the iceberg slide that you were talking about the components of language and how students learn and you know, as soon as we started talking about this, I was thinking about morphology and
068syntax. And so I'm really glad that you mentioned that. Um, and especially as it relates to multi- language learners. Um, I'm curious about how deep we go into that, right? like the idea of those kind of um compound words with bases, right? Like class, room and and if we kind of are explicit in telling children, you know, to look for those things and what they mean because I think that um >> you know confidence is a big part of it like because I can tell you that I was extremely frustrated with this. Like I did not like the way that I was feeling when I was doing this project. Um and so I I can see the benefits of of kids getting confidence of looking from different ways and syntax in particular is fascinating when
069you think about it from other languages. In English it's very much about order but that is not the case for other languages and you know can be really really confusing for um for people who come from you know places where the word order doesn't mean the same thing. Um I am curious. Well, my first thing is that I will tell you um you know having gone through the the recent curriculum change and some of the deficiencies that we did in early literacy, this does bring back a little bit of nerves in terms of introducing pictures as children are learning to read. I think it's important when we talk about this to um to be very clear about it as being um you know a way for children to just even understand the spoken language and
070what we're talking about and that we're not replacing reading with guessing and pictures, right? I just think with the history that we've gone through and the the, you know, two years of detailed curriculum evaluation that we went through, I I think it's just important to make sure that that we're being explicit about how we're using this and why and that it's it's not just a backside. >> I'm glad you mentioned that, Katie, because I that's why I intentionally said during that close activity, so guessing isn't a good strategy. >> I I that was music to my ears. I absolutely did. So when we and you know part of our shift to a new resource is absolutely focusing on morphology and that was not necessarily an explicit part of our curriculum before that's why I made
071that connection also to the HMH resource not only for the literacy piece but also for mathematics yes but you will definitely see a focus on morphology and as um we come forward and obviously share update with the board regarding K3 literacy resource we will work to make that really explicit so that you can see evidence of That great. Thank you. And then my last just um my last question for you is, you know, as we're thinking about these multiple resources that that give children access to to the lessons, I'm curious about um about background knowledge and um content exposure for comprehension. Um like for example, I know that there um is an edtech that's very focused on that. um it's called Readworks and it's about the idea that like children have better comprehension when they're
072more familiar with concepts. So I'm curious about how we might be exposing children just to a broader variety so that then when we have lessons it makes sense. And then additionally the use of audio books um you know um I know Shirley knows exactly where I'm going here. Um but especially when we have children who are um either have language-based learning disabilities or who children who are coming from um you know learning a new language being able to hear a book at a higher level than they can read keeps them engaged, exposes them to higher level content, you know, is not like trapping them and frustrating them and you know like something that they feel is perhaps for children who are you know in younger grades. So I am curious to hear about how we
073might be incorporating those aspects as well. >> So the language teacher I mean that's music to my ears because when you think about again think about how young children learn through rhyming and their command of understanding then eventually beyond rhyming you know letter and sound connection. Think about in a world language classroom um there's so much more that children can learn when you give them those multiple modalities. It doesn't replace the need to continue to work on how children would re read a text. We want to be focusing on developing those skills all along, but the comprehension piece is certainly strengthened with background knowledge. And I'll give another example with play-based learning. Um, you know, you think about in many many times in elementary schools, you know, you learn learn complete a unit of study
074and then go on a field trip. Conversely, putting that experience on the front end increases relevancy and engagement and and helps children to make meaning. So, all of those strategies are happening and and will continue to focus on through all levels. We think about that MTSS frame. Our whole point is is that has to exist in core tier one instruction. That is not about intervention. That has to be for all kids. Um, and I'm hoping that you're seeing that through this one example. Um, just one follow-up question on the the high school level because you mentioned how some of the teachers were interested in learning more instructional techniques for how they can teach that tier three kind of vocabulary or the, you know, nuances or things like that and how with this um framework, can
075you just give some examples of how they would, you know, start going about that so we can more we can do a better job with the vocabulary development even at the high school level or even middle school, I guess. >> So, at this the secondary level, I'll give you the example that would actually be used during that session. Um, the group was asked to put forward in order all the steps of how a bill becomes a law. And so, you know, you could you could present that to students, you can have them read about it, you can have them write about it. In this particular example, we used a strategy where um there were the most important components of how a bill becomes a law in those steps and we put them we put the
076participants into groups. So there was opportunity to discuss there was opportunity to access background knowledge. Some of the peers in the groups had more background knowledge of this. One person in the room had just become recently a US citizen. So she was like a ringer. And then we had pictorial um cues for group. So in a very similar way, you know, the strategies can be applied, but that's the point because we don't want children when that tier three vocabulary becomes more um demanding, we don't want there to be a shutdown, right? We have to think about those again, how do you access background knowledge? How do you build background knowledge so that there is enthusiasm when the when the work becomes more complex? And so there's especially a need to do this at the secondary
077level because there's such a focus at the elementary level on language learning and literacy development that a lot of times that whole idea of reading to learn and then learning to read and reading to learn, right? That that we need to make sure that we're sharing these strategies with our folks up in grades 6 through 12. And I'll follow up on that just and this gets back to either visual learners or people who learn with like listening at the high school level in particular where the courses are much more complex and detailed. Would we also be offering resources for high school students in order to potentially be able to, you know, listen to something like an audio book or have more of a visual example available as an online resource if that is how they
078can more effectively access material as opposed to just a straight lecture where they're supposed to be writing in a notebook. >> Yes, that's that's the point and that's why it was so important. for example, you know, we had a DHS chemistry teacher in the room with us. So, yeah, really spreading the knowledge of instructional strategies that support that. >> Great. Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> All right. Thank you everybody for being here. I think we've had a really enlightening and fun meeting this morning. So, I appreciate it. >> Awesome. Um, thank you for playing along. >> Absolutely. We'll move on to public comment. >> We have nobody in the All right. May I have a motion to adjourn? All right. Thank you, everybody.