Month: December 2013

GALILEO ACADEMY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

 

Leadership Team/Department Heads Meeting

 

 

 

12/10/13

 

 

 

Eric and Myra returned for session #3.  There will be one more meeting in January of next year.

 

 

 

 

 

Teachers were asked to respond to 2 questions in writing at the start:

 

1.  What could a teacher do to support a student that feels like they can no longer pass his or her class?

 

2.  What is MISSING in the school experience of students who are failing?  What school structures or resources can help students believe that they can be successful?

 

 

Outcomes will be the same as in the past two meetings.  What are the responsibilities of teachers and grading and supporting students?  We will discuss this during the meeting.  How can we be intentional in class to get the struggling student in class working?

 

 

Eric reviewed the norms—raise hands, step up/step back, assume positive intentions.

 

 

Framing of the Day:  Assume every student at Galileo can graduate and be successful in college or in a career.  What are Galileo teachers doing to ensure students’ success?

 

 

Myra introduced an activity involving scenarios.  She went over the handout and the Scenario Discussion sheet.  White papers were placed on the walls, markers distributed and members broke into groups of 3 to discuss one of the 3 scenarios.

 

 

Scenario A:

 

Mario is a current sophomore at Galileo High School.  He attends class daily but is not very engaged and rarely completes his homework.  Mario does not participate often in class; however, Mario is NEVER a behavior issue either.  His exam scores are inconsistent. He does not have an IEP.  He is a native Chinese speaker, but he was reclassified by 5^th grade.  Mario received an F for the semester due to his poor HW grade, inconsistent exam grades, and lack of participation. On his final exam he got an 86%.

 

 

What are some support structures or policies that a teacher, department, or school can put into place to support a student like this?

 

 

Scenario B:

 

Wendy is a Junior at Galileo High School. She has never missed school and works hard in class to complete every assignment perfectly.  She often attends tutoring sessions in the library after school and finds teachers at lunchtime for extra help.  She is a native Spanish speaker and was reclassified in 6^th grade.  She does not have an IEP.  She does poorly on quizzes and exams.  Wendy received an F in class based on her poor exam grades.

 

 

What are some support structures or policies that a teacher, department, or school, can put into place to support a student like this?

 

 

Scenario C:

 

Derek is a Freshman at Galileo High School.  Derek rarely attends school and when he does he walks in tardy. Derek lives across town and takes two busses to get to school.  Derek is a native English speaker and does not have an IEP.  Due to his excessive truancy, Derek is missing numerous assignments and rarely tries to make up work.  In class Derek is often disruptive and off-task.  On exams, Derek frequently outperforms his peers.  Due to poor attendance and missing HW and CW, Derek receives an F.

 

 

Recognizing that attendance is a primary issue with Derek, what are some support structures or policies that a teacher, department, or school can put in place to support a student like this?

 

 

Members were asked to use a chart provided to record their responses along with creating a poster of their action plan.

 

 

Eric asked the group to star items on their charts to highlight those items that are “out of the box.”

 

 

Group C was called upon to report first.

 

Derek was the center and areas he needed to work on were highlighted.  Donald Harper explained the various parts of their chart.  Changing seats, work on behavior for relations, have SST, have parent meetings, develop weekly plans for him.  Learn more about Derek’s home life.  Weight test more heavily in his case.

 

 

Eric asked for comments from the whole group.  David asked why this student was not attending a school closer to home.  That would solve the tardy/absence issue.  There are so many variables as a Freshman.  Stan felt he was spending a lot of time on the bus and he could do his homework on the bus.  Lisa mentioned the data that Kathleen showed her kids about not graduating due to failing classes, etc.  Doug mentioned being more engaged in other activities at school would perhaps help.  Michelle suggested restructuring periods so that those commuting students could take a later schedule.  Marcus could not give this student an F.  He would question past knowledge.  He would try to find what the student has learned.

 

 

Group B presented next.

 

Marcus explained the scenario.  Alter the weight of assignments in the classroom.  Use alternate means of assessment.  Pair up student with a buddy.  Look at trying different engagement strategies.  As a department brainstorm what does and does not work with this students.  Have another teacher talk to student.  Emphasize anxiety reduction school wide.

 

Stan thought in both B and C it is unrealistic to give those students F.

 

Michelle suggested allowing an outline or notes the students can use during the test.

 

Eric mentioned what Lincoln High School is doing in this situation.  Teachers had conversations with students to see if they knew the content.

 

 

Scenario A presented last.

 

Alicia shared the scenario with the group.  Alicia felt the most important thing was to talk to the student.  Perhaps not all teachers are doing this.  The teacher can reflect on what their strategies are for engagement.  Sometimes parent contact is difficult if there is a language barrier.  Does the department have a grading policy about the weight of the final exam?

 

Lisa said they felt talking to the student is important.  Is the class too easy for the student, is there something going on at home, etc.?  Lisa talked about a strategy of identifying what each student is good at.  If the teacher can’t identify something for a student, then the teacher should have a conversation with that student, identify what the student is good at and plan a lesson around that topic.

 

Should that student go to college or should college be an option?  Some students will do well later on.

 

 

Eric said they would compile ideas from the discussion and use this at the next meeting.  He asked the group what they would need as support to continue this discussion in the departments.

 

 

Alicia said it would be useful if all the departments are asking the same questions.  Eric said they could bring to the next meeting what other schools are doing.  Marcus would like to know what the other schools are doing.

 

Doug asked how much time should we spend in our departments talking about this?  How do we frame it and how do we partition it?  What should we consider an expectation or an outcome?  Michelle said efficiency and time are important factors in the conversations.  David agreed—it will take a lot of time to do this.

 

 

Meeting adjourned at 12:15pm.

 

GALILEO ACADEMY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

 

Leadership Team/Department Heads Meeting

 

 

 

12/3/13

 

 

 

 

Eric and Myra returned and began the meeting by distributing a questionnaire concerning the activity at last week’s meeting.

 

 

Eric reviewed the concerns and the outline for today’s session.  He mentioned that grading is the preview of teachers, but many of us have not had experience with grading.  What are the best practices in grading?  We should be concerned with content and also with assessment.

 

 

We recognize there is inconsistency in grading and Eric and Myra would like to disrupt this.  One other outcome is to come to a consensus as to what is in a grade.  Students do many different activates and work and then at the end we give students a single grade. What should be in that grade?

 

 

Eric reviewed the agenda.  The minute paper was first.  He then reviewed the norms of the group:  Raising hands; step-up/step-back, assume positive intentions.

 

 

Framing for the Day:  How we grade students is within our control.  Inconsistency in grading among teachers is the NORM.  There is no DISTRICT grading policy—what do we want to create as a school?

 

 

Stan asked Eric to define inconsistency in grading.  Eric said that some students may have different experiences with different teachers.  Stan asked if Eric was recommending that teachers teach everything the same.  Eric said practices and grading go hand in hand.  He said we should be looking at our grading practices.

 

 

Myra talked about a handout Eric presented and asked everyone to partner up and spend 10 minutes discussing the prompts.  A’s and B’s pair together, C’s and D’s pair together.  First read the prompts and then discuss the concepts on the prompt.

 

 

Eric said the prompts are not from them, but are from an article that they will share with the group later in the meeting.

 

 

Eric asked the group to share their thoughts in the discussions.  These are conversation starters.

 

 

Thought A was read out loud first.  Mat read the thought.  Grades should reflect achievement of intended learning outcomes—whether the school is using a conventional, subject-based report card or a report card that represents these intend learning outcomes as standards. Mat said the good point was intended learning outcomes and thought about the mercy C in grading.  Sometimes we have to look at other things.

 

Michelle said they talked about the concept of learning can include improvement.  She mentioned contracts with students and the category of improvement in the grade.

 

Kathleen said if you look at the starting point and how far they have come they could deserve an A, but they still cannot go onto the next level.

 

 

Stan read Thought B and said he disagreed with it.  The primary audience for the message conveyed in grades is students and their parents; grading policies should aim to give them useful, timely, actionable information.  Teachers, administrators and other educators are secondary audiences. He felt the primary persons are for students and teachers.

 

Michelle said having time to do the grading is a challenge.

 

Lisa said colleges are a huge audience for grades at the high school level.

 

Joseph said the audience might be changing as students go through high school.  They are moving away from the parents and thinking about college and their futures.

 

 

Alicia read Thought C. Grades should reflect a particular students individual achievement.  Group and cooperative skills are important but they should be reflected elsewhere, not in an individual’s academic grade.  She felt it was not true.  Katie agreed.  Stan said cooperation is an important part of learning.

 

Eric mentioned a student who is not participating in the group work, but does know the material.  How do we handle this and grading for that student? Lisa discussed cooperative group work.

 

David talked about cooperative work and skills.

 

Michelle talked about higher achieving students versus the anxiety around some students and the product.

 

Marcus shared his experience with his daughter’s doctors and their discussions and compared this to schoolwork.

 

 

Doug read Thought D. Grading policies should be set up to support student motivation to learn.  A student should never reach a place where there is no point doing any more work because failure is inevitable.  Doug agreed with this thought, except for the word “Never.”  He felt students should be aware of this as they are going along.

 

David asked if there is anything in Board Policy about absences and passing or failing a class.  The answer is no. 

 

Stan said a student could miss all classes, take the exams, and could then get a final grade of D.

 

Kathleen asked him about those who show up all the time, but blow the final.  Stan explained his grading policy about this.

 

Katie talked about parent conferences and how to grade those students who start attending the last several weeks of the semester.

 

Stan said that 1 student aced the final after attending only 3 times during the semester and received a D.

 

Michelle says this happens in college—not attending classes, but can read and do well on the exams.

 

 

Eric mentioned thinking about what is important, what is being assessed, what are participation points.

 

 

Eric distributed the article mentioned earlier in the meeting and then he distributed the protocol—Punctuate Your Thoughts Protocol.  Eric guided the group as to what to read in the article.  We will skip to Step 2.  He asked the group to put an exclamation mark by what is interesting, a? Next to what you might question, and a + sign by what you agree with and a – sign by what you disagree with.

 

 

Eric asked the group to divide up into groups of 3 or 4 and asked the group to share their ! thoughts.  This will go for 2-3 minutes.

 

 

Next Eric asked the groups to share their ? thoughts for the next 2-3 minutes.

 

 

Eric thanked the group for their efforts.  He asked for thoughts that members wanted to share, questions, etc.

 

 

David felt the real question is in thinking about what they learned being a goal—how do we access this.  What standards do we use.  He also felt an overall grading policy is difficult for a diverse student body.  Eric promised to share with the group later what Lincoln High School came up with.

 

 

Eric referred to the rest of the article and what it addressed.  Myra had other information for the group that she distributed.

 

 

Doug asked if the members should share this with their departments.  Eric said it is up to the individual members when to start this conversation with their members.

 

 

Meeting adjourned at 1215pm.

 

 

Lewise2@sfusd.edu