31 school days

Everyone is starting to gear up for KCCT testing - reviews, strategies, positive reinforcement and much much more. I thought it would be great for everyone to respond with ideas of preparing students to the BIG DAY or should I say days.

Here is what I have planned with my Junior Academy Special Ed. teaching partner.

1. Testing care packages: Students that receive accommodations will receive a zip lock bag with tissues (allergy season is upon us), bandaid (for paper cut from the KCCT), gum (my kids love gum =) ), honeybun (in case they missed breakfast ~yummy~), Starlite Mints (just because), and bottle of water. Each day students will return their care package for refills.

But if you want to know how I keep my sanity (see picture), we leave on May 29.

Video

Today, was the first day back from SPRING BREAK, and everything went better than planned. However, there was really no time to talk about what everyone did over the break. Time to hit the books and prepare for the KCCT... By the way, 41 days left and Grant County will be finished for one more year.

So last night a posted "the video" it was a little tough, because I couldn't find it and stressed a little so I posted it again. So I am unsure if it was posted twice or just once. For those of you that are in my domain and view it, please be kind. It was very difficult to really understand and know what to expected. However, my students did use it and today they were using several strategies that they learned.

Movie maker

So I have been working on my video this week. So far so good.

One thing that I have learned.... Make sure you get your voice recordings, videos, pictures, etc... in on folder first. Upload to moviemaker after you have what you want, this makes the process much quicker. Also, moviemaker is great for clipping part of the video out, that way you can narrow down to the important stuff.

I think I am ready to publish to blackboard or post which ever it is... Although I am unsure of how the video goes, it is certainly something you would not see in the theaters or home videos of the stars. he he he.

I had fun with the video making and the process, as well as my students as you will see.

Hope everyone has an enjoyable week. It is 10:00 a.m. on Wednesday and few friends and I are off to shop, look out Cincy outlet, Northgate area, and Cheesecake Factory.

taping complete

So I spent this past week taping... I have several short videos demonstrating how I give students various test taking strategies and how my students perform. Giving little tips is a constant process when working with students, especially when testing is right around the corner and we want all students to perform well.

My students really like the project of researching a strategy and creating a poster. It is very important for me to set a time frame with my students and grade them on the use of their time. Many times working with students having ADHD can be difficult due to distractablity. Also, use of time is important when my classes have mostly boys (teenage) and the week before spring break can be distracting as well.

All needs to happen now is that I put everything together in movie maker, so during spring break I will try to get this complete, along with some spring cleaning.

For those of you on spring break have fun and those of you that will be having spring break well ENJOY...

The beginning..... Permission Slips

I have spoken with administration, since GCHS is focused on curricular and making sure we are teaching "bell to bell" I wanted to communicate with administration the focus behind this project. Administration is supportive and seem anxious to view the results of this inquiry as well as speak to the students to see if they gained some knowledge. We hope that test taking strategies will be benefical to students.

I decided to have my students to create posters during the inquiry, it is my belief that students will take ownership in the inquiry and buy into the strategies.

Friday, I plan on having students sign off on permission slips as well as making a call home to the students parents. As many of you already know, I teacher juniors and seniors, so several of the students are 18 years old and sign there own permission slips. However, as a courtesy to the parents I will telephone each of them throughout the day. With small class such as mine telephoning parents is a very simple task. (My largest class is Geometry with 8 students, and 6 of those students are in my Math Development class.)

I am anxious to get started and finished. And hope to get started on Monday or Tuesday, because this is the week before SPRING BREAK...

Grant Co. is off for a week, can you believe it we actually got to our entire week.... So I want to relax, finish up and hopefully enjoy a few nice sunny days.

Student Assessments

At GCHS, there are concerns in regard student reading levels and low test scores. Low test scores are not a result of students not having knowledge and understanding the content, I believe the lower scores are due to students not having the ability to read and think through the process and respond.

At any given time I can walk down the hall of GCHS and see various types of formal assessment taking place on a continuous bases, and the most common type of assessment being used is paper and pencil. This is a problem and can hinder student performance as well as add to student frustration. However, the types of student assessment that I don't see enough of is projects. I find that students enjoy projects and put forth more effort, which can be a result of the hands on application and real life experience which makes the assessment more meaningful.

The question... What does student assessment look like in my classroom.
Well, let me think.
I am continuously assessing my students, in the beginning middle and end. At the beginning of my class I assess students previous knowledge. It could be a snapshot of something learned in previous math classes or a building block on the learning target for the day. My thought process in the snapshot is to help student not forget content. (which seems to be a cycle when working with students with exceptional needs).

During instruction I assess through direct questioning and encourage students ask me questions. Also, I like to give student practice problems, include opportunities for guided practice.

With a few minutes to go before the end of class period, I assess by using exit slips and at times homework. Generally, I allow time in class for students to complete assignment.

The forementioned is a typical day..
However, there are times when I have students complete project. Project assessment is the favorite for many of my students. They like to take "field trips" around the school and the campus. We use the repelling tower, flag, light poles, band director tower and much more when solving for sine, cosine, and tangent. I have students look for tessellations as we walk around the building and campus. Tomorrow, students will build pyramids and solve for surface area, volume, lateral surface area for their own individual pyramids. When working with polygons students were assessed on the creating a polygon monster (identify the polygons and solving measure of exterior and interior angles of polygons).

Common Assessment are very important and gives a snapshot of how students may perform on KCCT, and I am required to give a Common Assessment bi-weekly. What I have learned with my students is that they do not perform as well on the common assessment as the project work. I believe that the reading level is directly related to the academic performance of students on the common assessment. Although many have reader accommodations, there are a few that do not have the accommodation.

Domain 1 - Task 4

There are six components to Domain 1 - Planing and Preparation and the component which I am most comfortable with is "E" ~Designing Coherent Instruction. I believe that I am capable of translating the learning outcomes to the students in a way which they can best understand. I know what type of learner each student is and the can plan accordingly to get the desired results. I like to quesiton my students and have them explain to me what they know about a problem or equation before they begin to solve the problem. The question helps the students really think about what they know and have learned and how this knowledge can get them to the next level. However, the hardest part of this component is the depth of knowledge for the content. I feel that the hardest part of being a special education teacher is the need to have knowledge in all content areas.

The one thing I really enjoy at Grant County is there are 7 special education teachers, which are equally separated in 2 for 9th, 10th, and 11th grades (there is only 1 - 12th grade teacher). Each pairing divides the content; for example- I teach only Geometry and Math Development in a resource setting and collaborate in Geometry classes. Math Development is used as a prep class for KCCT, with flashbacks, reteaching, and reviewing, making sure students are firm on specific concepts. I do collaborate in one Science class, which I am weak so I do alot of common planning with that teacher. My partner, Ms. Howard, teaches English III, collaborates in English III and collaborates in one U. S. History class. This same example can be viewed in the Freshman and Sophomore academies. Once students get to 12th grade Ms. Southworth teaches and collaborates English IV, currently we are unsure how next year will development (Next year all 12th graders will need 4 math credits to graduate).

Having the content classes broken down in academies and teacher separate give the opportunity to develop a more indepth knowledge of a specific content area.

It is "component E" that ties all the instruction together. According to Danielson, this component is where, "teachers' knowledge of the content, knowledge of students, clarity of instructional outsomes and knoweldge of resources come together" (p. 57).