Issue 43: Apr 06, 2009 Connections Newsletter

Assessment Prompts Assist Supervisors

Bill Blynt
Apr 06, 2009

Monitoring instruction is an essential practice found in exemplary schools. Supervisors responsible for this activity must develop an efficient system to accomplish this important task. Conducting classroom walkthroughs enables supervisors to observe teachers and students during the instructional process. Although observing the process provides supervisors with information about instruction, how do they know if students are learning or if the instruction is targeted to required curriculum goals? During the formal observation process, often a pre-conference is conducted that provides the supervisor with the goals and strategies of the lesson to be observed. The supervisor stays for an extended period of time to determine if the goals discussed in the pre-conference have been accomplished. The lesson is later discussed in a post-conference environment and conclusions about the effectiveness of the instruction are established. The informal classroom walkthrough provides a different set of parameters. How can a supervisor determine if students are learning and if the instruction is aligned to the specific course objectives?

Lesson essential questions and the corresponding assessment prompts can provide the supervisor with a quick understanding of the lesson goals. As the supervisor walks through the classroom, the posted essential question will provide the overall lesson objective. The assessment prompts will establish what the student will be learning as the lesson unfolds. Effective use of the assessment prompts requires the teacher to distribute the prompts throughout the lesson. These assessment prompts are used to frame opportunities for the teacher to allow the student to summarize the knowledge or practice the skill embedded in the lesson. Each prompt provides an opportunity for the teacher to utilize one of the teaching strategies with the students, actively engaging students in a thinking or practice strategy, and serves as a formative assessment regarding student progress. The teacher can monitor student responses to the prompts to determine if students have mastered the content or if alternative instruction must be provided before moving on in the lesson. Because assessment prompts are distributed throughout the lesson, the supervisor can stay in the classroom until a prompt is used. Observing this component of the lesson helps the supervisor to determine if students are learning or, if not, what alternative strategies were employed by the teacher to assist students to develop the required level of understanding.

Assessment prompts should be distributed throughout the lesson. Employment of the assessment prompts should occur as each 'chunk' of learning concludes or they should be coordinated with students' length of attention span. As a result, supervisors conducting classroom walk-throughs should observe a minimum of one prompt and corresponding student engagement each 8-12 minutes. A quick review of the teacher's lesson plan will provide the supervisor with both the lesson essential question and the assessment prompts aligned to the learning goal. Supervisors reviewing this information prior to or during the walk-through will provide them with a quick but clear snapshot of the instructional goals and the identified essential content. It also provides an opportunity for the supervisor to observe students actively engaged as they address the assessment prompts utilizing the activity selected by the teache r.

Refer to Connecting Exemplary Practices in Acquisition Lessons for more information on assessment prompts.



What is the Point of Flexible Groups?

Jennifer Partrick
Apr 06, 2009

The point of flexible groups is to teach students how to read by giving them the opportunity to practice their reading skills. Because students in your room are at different stages in reading, students should be homogeneously grouped according to their reading level for this portion of instruction. The teacher may model different aspects of reading, but during this time the students are doing most of the reading.

The lesson should be structured so that success is always the outcome. The lesson has three parts: word work, reading, and writing. Each part is essential and has its purpose. Begin with word work to introduce your students to the types of words they will be reading. If students are reading word family books, introduce them to the word family they will encounter in the book, so that the students understand how that word family works. They write the words, read them to their partner, and play a simple game with the words, so that the students are familiar with them. In addition, review high frequency words, and introduce any new high frequency words students will be reading in the book. In this section the students practice and build the types of words they will be reading.

The next section is reading. Here the students will read books in which the types of words they just learned are used, as opposed to working with random words. Naturally, as students read, they always focus on comprehension and use a graphic organizer that supports the structure of the text they are reading. Focus on a comprehension strategy, and as students read, they stop to summarize and place appropriate information on the graphic organizer. Students are also talking about what they are reading and answering questions that support the comprehension strategy. For example, if the students are using a sequence graphic organizer, they are answering questions about what happened after or before a certain event, predicting what they think would most likely happen next, what happened first, after that, in the beginning, or at the end. Thus, students have the opportunity to practice using sequence signal words in context.

After reading, students use the graphic organizer they completed in reading as a writing tool. As they write about what they read, they use relevant vocabulary in addition to the words they learned to build.

Students have interacted with the words they learned to build in three different ways, they learned how to build them, they read them, and they used them to write. When all three sections are utilized in flexible groups, reading is always the outcome. If students are exposed to this type of lesson in Kindergarten-2nd grade, then students begin 3rd grade as proficient readers. By grouping your students homogeneously, you are able to give direct instruction focused on areas where students have weaknesses. Students receive explicit instruction that supports them and gives them the tools they need in order to move to the next reading stage.

Refer to Learning to Read K-2 for more information on Flexible Groups.



Writing to a Prompt - Narratives

Brenda Hill
Apr 06, 2009

Research supports writing across the curriculum as a means of raising student achievement in all disciplines. Schools that have shown significant increases in student achievement have consistently focused on nonfiction writing. (Doug Reeves, 2006). Students write for various reasons, for different audiences, and from different perspectives.  In order for students to produce quality writing product is imperative that we teach them how to organize and pace themselves to effectively meet state writing standards. Narrative, expository, persuasive, and descriptive writing prompts are great ways to prepare students for formal and informal assessments.
 
Narrative writing is one type of writing that is consistently required of students on state-mandated tests. The characteristics of narrative writing are as follows:  tells a story, has a beginning, middle, and end, includes events and actions, contains descriptive, interesting details, creates a tone or mood, shares/expresses a point of view, and has a good organizational flow connected with transitional words. Students need multiple opportunities to experience narrative writing. Practice and preparation for narrative writing allows students to feel competent and confident in their ability to produce work of good quality. Narrative writing prompts will vary depending on the age and grade level of students. Examples of narrative writing prompts are -

  • Think of a time when you got in trouble and write a story about it. Be sure to include the lesson learned.

  • Imagine you are a specific type of rock.  Write a story to describe your journey from the earth's core to the earth's surface.

  • Imagine that you woke up one morning and you were a jungle animal. Choose an animal and write a story to describe your day as the animal.

  • You have been studying westward movement. Write a story about one day in your life as you were traveling in the wagon train.

  • You are a rain drop. Write a story describing your journey as you traveled through the water cycle.

  • Choose your favorite community helper - doctor, nurse, policeman, fireman, etc. Write a story about your most exciting day.

 As you can see there are endless possibilities for narrative writing.  Narrative writing can easily be used for students to creatively express facts, ideas, and information of new concepts learned.  Continue to encourage, teach, support, and provide opportunities for students to experience narrative writing on a consistent, pervasive basis in your classroom.  Happy writing!!!!   

See the Learning-Focused Literacy Collection for more ideas and support on writing.