Inclusion, Class Reviews, Performance Based Reading Assessment, language counts, what counts in teaching, what counts in reading

1. Supporting Inclusion: the lens
of educational leaders
Administrators
SD 20
September 20, 2018
Faye Brownlie
Slideshare.net/fayebrownlie.admin.sd20

2. • If someone were hovering above your school,
what evidence would they have that inclusion is
alive and well?
– Sounds like
– Looks like
– Feels like
– 5 minutes to draw, write, doodle, think ALONE
– 12 minutes in teams
– Be prepared to report out

3. • What else would you like to be seen, heard,
felt?
• What is prevenLng this from happening now?

4. McKinsey Report, 2007
• The top-performing school systems recognize
that the only way to improve outcomes is to
improve instrucLon:
learning occurs when students and teachers
interact, and thus to improve learning implies
improving the quality of that interacLon.

5. How the world’s most improved
school systems keep getting better
–McKinsey, 2010
Three changes collaboraLve pracLce brought about:
1. Teachers moved from being private emperors to
making their pracLce public and the enLre teaching
populaLon sharing responsibility for student learning.
2. Focus shiRed from what teachers teach to what
students learn.
3. Systems developed a model of ‘good instrucLon’ and
teachers became custodians of the model. (p. 79-81)

6. Hattie –
Visible Learning
webinar on feedback
17-09-18

7. Ha[e

9. Structures to Support Inclusion
• Class Review Process
• FormaLve Reading Performance Assessment

10. The Class Review Process

11. Class Review
• Strengths-based approach
• CollaboraLve
• The classroom teacher is the heart of the
process
• Goal: support a community of learners
• Goal: create a plan

12. • Meet as a school-based team, with the
administrator
• Each classroom teacher (CT) joins the team
for 45 minutes to speak of her class
• Subs provide coverage for CTs
• Follow the order of strengths, needs, goals,
individuals
• The CT does not do the recording or the
chairing

13. • One team member conducts the interview.
• Another records.
• The classroom teacher(s) do not fill in a form
to answer the quesLons in advance, but
should know the quesLons they will be asked.
• The class is described as a whole first, then
individual students are described.
• The goal is to create a plan of acLon.

14. • Decisions about individual students focus on
supports already in place.
• New supports developed are to be used as
part of ongoing classroom acLvity.
• All adults and students work toward skill
development, applicaLon and generalizaLon
as a shared goal.

15. The Class Review
What are the strengths
of the class?
What are your concerns
about the class as a whole?
What are your main goals
for the class this year?
What are the individual
needs in your class?

16. Class Review
Learning in Safe Schools
(Brownlie & King, 2011)
Teacher:
Class:
Classroom Strengths Classroom Needs
Other
Socio-EmotionalLearningLanguageMedical
Goals Decisions
Individual Concerns
Class Review Recording Form

17. Reading is understanding.
Reading is thinking.
Reading is making sense in
disciplines.

18. The goal of teaching reading is
to create kids who can read and
who choose to read.

19. Some Best Practices in Reading
• Choice
• Volume
• Read aloud
• Student eyes on text
• Thinking strategies
• Modeling thinking
• Encouraging student talk about texts
• Responsive, responsible, compassionate reading

20. Some NOT best practices in literacy
-no research support for decades!
-over-used, under-supported!
• Teaching grammar in isolaLon
• Friday spelling lists
• Assigning topics in wriLng, with no 1:1 no
conferencing, just collecLng the work
• Too much teacher-talk
• Fill in the blanks, MC, closed thinking exercises

21. Ministry of Educa0on’s Defini0on of
Literacy
Literacy is the ability and willingness to make
meaning from text and express oneself in a
variety of modes and for a variety of purposes.
Literacy includes making connec0ons, analyzing
cri0cally, comprehending, crea0ng, and
communica0ng.
B.C. Ministry of EducaLon, 2017
21

22. Reading Assessment
• The goal of a formaLve reading assessment is
to determine the strengths and areas to
strengthen of a student’s reading with
understanding.

23. Fountas and Pinnell – interviewed in the
School Library Journal, Oct 15, 2017
• It is our belief that levels have no place in
classroom libraries, in school libraries, in
public libraries, or on report cards….
• We designed the F&P Level Gradient to help
teachers think more analyLcally about the
characterisLcs of texts and their demands on
the reading process.

24. • The goal was for each teacher to learn about
the characterisLcs of each level to inform their
decisions in teaching …
• We created the levels for books, and not as
labels for children…

25. • Does your assessment inform your decisions
in teaching?

26. Purpose
• To determine class strengths and areas to
strengthen
• To build a plan of acLon once these have been
idenLfied
• To return to the assessment to see if teaching
has made a difference

27. No plan, no point

28. Standard Reading Assessment
• Choose a common piece of text.
• Build background for the reading.
• Have students respond to common prompts.
• Have students read a short secLon aloud and answer several
interview quesLons.
• Code using the Reading Performance Standards
• Described in Student Diversity, 3rd ed – Brownlie, Feniak, Schnellert & in
It’s All about Thinking – collaboraLng to support all learners in English,
Social Studies and HumaniLes – Brownlie & Schnellert & It’s All about
Thinking – collaboraLng to support all learners in Math & Science –
Brownlie, Fullerton, Schnellert & It’s All about Thinking – creaLng
pathways for all learners in the middle years – Schnellert, Watson &
Widdess

30. • Connec0ons: How does what you read connect
with what you already knew?
• Summarizing: Choose a way to show the main
ideas and details in what you read.
• Inferencing: Read between the lines to find
something that you believe to be true, but that
isn’t actually said. Explain your reasoning.
• Vocabulary: Here are 3 challenging words from
the text. Explain what you think they mean.
• Reflec0ng: Was this easy or hard to understand?
How did you help your self understand?
(SD, p.27)

31. Interview QuesLons
• When you come to a challenging word, how do
you figure it out?
• If your reading does not make sense, what do you
do?
• What is this selecLon mainly about?
• What surprised you about this selecLon? Why?
• DART

32. Read Aloud
• Select a porLon of the text for students to read
aloud.
• Record miscues as they student reads. Watch for
a pakern.
• Give the student a compliment on his oral
reading.
• Chose one of the following descriptors:
– HalLng, careful, confident/fluent, expressive
(Its All about Thinking, p.28)

36. Grade 4 Grade 5
+’s Can use a web
Can organize informaLon
Make simple connecLons
Foci Text Features – can’t use them
to extract informaLon
Strategies – need them
+’s Check for understanding but may
not use strategies
Can use note-making frame
Foci Note-making in own words
Strategies needed
Maid Ideas/Details
Text Features
Grade 6 Grade 7
+’s One or two strategies
Get gist – don’t misread
Some main ideas
Simple inferences
Make simple connecLons
Foci Need more strategies
Lack details and thoroughness in
note-making
Support inferences
Need to connect more widely
+’s One or two strategies
Get gist – check for
understanding
Main ideas
More thoughnul inferences
ConnecLons have impact on
understanding
Foci Evidence and detail in note-
making
Personal opinion, with
evidence

37. Finding Time for Conversations

38. • Staff meeLngs – 10-15 share of something
• Third days – 2 TTOCs, meet with a grade
group, a department…
• Teachers choose a personal focus aRer a
school or district pro d, during walk throughs,
this leads your conversaLon (Mark’s story)
• Assemblies – do all staff need to be there?
(applicaton)

39. Choice Words
… our language choices have serious
consequences for children’s learning and for
who they become as individuals and as a
community.
… the language we choose in our teaching
changes the worlds children inhabit now and
those they will build in the future.
-Peter H. Johnston, 2012

40. What language would you
disappear?

41. Special needs kids Kids with special needs
Low Learning
Cracking into print
In the early stages of…
Level ‘M’ readers Readers who …
Behaviors NOT a number
Split classes Combined
MulL-age