Extend Your Learning

• do not fundamentally change the standard
• can be provided to all students at the discretion of the teacher
• build a bridge from where the student is to where you want them to be
• must be accessible to students if they are part of the IEP

Student assessment enables instructors to measure the effectiveness of their teaching by linking student performance to specific learning objectives.

Formative assessment is designed to monitor student learning to provide ongoing feedback that can be used by instructors to improve their teaching and by students to improve their learning.

Summative assessment is used to evaluate student learning at the end of an instructional unit by comparing it against some standard or benchmark.

Summative assessments are often high stakes, which means that they used to make decisions about students (grades, placement for example). Examples of summative assessments include a midterm exam, or a final project or exam.

What is Career Technical Education? Related to high school students, federal law (P.L. 115-224) defines career and technical education as high school courses that focus on the skills and knowledge necessary for students to secure employment in specific jobs or fields of work.

• Two major goals of classroom management: (1) to foster student involvement and cooperation in all classroom activities, and (2) to establish a productive working environment.
• In a well-managed classroom, students are (1)deeply involved with their work, (2) know what’s expected of them and are generally successful, (3) not wasting time, disruptive, or confused, and (4) in a work-oriented climate that is relaxed and pleasant.
• Teachers practice proactive intervention strategies.
• Teachers have a keen awareness of the classroom. They know and understand their students.

Studies show that teachers are the primary variable in determining student performance in the classroom.

(Chetty, Friedman & Rockoff, 2014; Hanushek, Kain, O’Brien, & Rivkin, 2005)

The workplace is a learning environment. Every workplace offers its own opportunities, formal and informal, for life-long learning, and growth. Coaching can be used to facilitate the effective remediation of a performance issue or skill. Coaching experiences, designed to be short-term, do not rely on the strength of a personal relationship. Coaching goals should be explicitly stated and should include an agreed-upon strategy for achievement.

(Watt, 2004)

Improve your chances for success when working with a coach by considering the following ideas:

• Equality: I believe every person is valuable and recognize their individual dignity.
• Choice: I support the professional discretion and decision-making of others.
• Voice: I communicate and want to hear what others have to say.
• Dialogue: I believe in back-and-forth conversations.
• Reflection: I look back, look at, and look forward.
• Praxis: I structure learning in real life.
• Reciprocity: I converse openly and expect to learn.

(Knight, 2019)

Effective communication with students, parents, and colleagues may be essential for success. Specific areas of focus may include:

• Collaborating and sharing best practices with colleagues
• Making connections with students & maintaining those connections throughout the school year to establish a positive student and teacher relationship
• Ensuring students receive regular feedback on their work and engagement
• Engaging with families regarding attendance, grading policies, and student participation requirements
• Sharing concrete strategies for supporting learning at school and at home

• Peer coaching is viewed as a collaboration between participants.
• Peer coaching is perceived differently by different participants.
• Peer coaching participants have reported benefits from an organized approach, training, and a shared philosophy.
• With collaboration, organization, and targeted training, peer coaching participants identified benefits in the areas of job satisfaction and skill development.
• Peer coaches and critical friends should remain free of administrative influence unless they invite an administrator to participate.

(Aderibigbe, S.A. & Ajasa, F.A., 2013)

• Philosophy – every learner has the potential for success, accepting responsibility for student learning, and removing barriers to access.
• Principles – quality curriculum, ongoing assessment to inform learning, designing instruction to meet student needs, leading a flexible classroom.
• Practices – proactive planning to address readiness, interest, and learning profile, teaching up, respectful tasks, flexible grouping.

(Tomlinson, 2014)

• has positive expectations for student success
• is an extremely good classroom manager
• knows how to design lessons for student mastery

(Wong & Wong, 2018)

The One Thing All Great Teachers Do | Nick Fuhrman | TEDxUGA

With this talk, Dr. Nick Fuhrman encourages us to recognize the profound personal impact that we can have on others — both in and out of the classroom. Dr. Nick Fuhrman is an associate professor of environmental education in the Department of Agricultural Leadership, Education, and Communication.

According to Marzano in The New Art and Science of Teaching, the following elements are important to the idea of engagement:

• Hooks (anecdotes, video, audio, headlines, & other short attention-grabbing items
• Enthusiasm (for your students, for your subject)
• Goal setting (accomplishments for the quarter, semester, and/or year)
• Notice when Students are not Engaged (take steps to reengage them)
• Boosting Class Energy Levels (brain breaks)
• Increase Student Response Rates (random names, equity sticks, hand signals, individual response boards/cards, wait time)
• Physical Movement (vote with your feet, corners activities, stand & be counted)
• Parking Lot (get stuck, off track…put it in the parking lot and come back to it later)

(The New Art and Science of Teaching Chapter 7)

• Section 504 protects qualified individuals with disabilities. Under this law, individuals with disabilities are defined as persons with a physical or mental impairment which substantially limits one or more major life activities. People who have a history of, or who are regarded as having a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities, are also covered.
• Major life activities include caring for oneself, walking, seeing, hearing, speaking, breathing, working, performing manual tasks, and learning.
• Some examples of impairments that may substantially limit major life activities, even with the help of medication or aids/devices, are AIDS, alcoholism, blindness or a visual impairment, cancer, deafness or hearing impairment, diabetes, drug addiction, heart disease, and mental illness.

IDEA is an education act to provide federal financial assistance to state and local education agencies to guarantee special education and related services to eligible children with disabilities.

Each school child who receives special education and related services has an Individualized Education Program (IEP). The IEP is an individualized document developed by a team of knowledgeable professionals, family members, and in some cases, the student.

Principle 1: Ethical Conduct toward Students - The professional educator accepts personal responsibility for teaching students character qualities that will help them evaluate the consequences of and accept responsibility for their actions and choices.

Principle 2: Ethical Conduct toward Practices and Performance - The professional educator assumes responsibility and accountability for his/her performance and continually strives to demonstrate competence.

Principle 3: Ethical Conduct toward Professional Colleagues - The professional educator accords just and equitable treatment to all members of the profession.

Principle 1V: Ethical Conduct toward Parents and Community – The professional educator pledges to protect public sovereignty over public education and private control of private education.

Who should plan? Every teacher should have a lesson plan.

When should we have a lesson plan? Always! Teachers should always have a plan.

Why should we plan? We plan to ensure that all students receive an appropriate education.

Wing it! I’m really good at what I do. Couldn’t I just “wing it?” No! “Winging it” can at times be entertaining for both you and your students, however, you are not employed as an entertainer, you are employed as a teacher and teachers’ plan. “Winging it” does not ensure that you are addressing learning objectives, using recommended learning strategies, or making required individualized student accommodations.

(Wong & Wong, 2018)

• Every teacher should have a lesson plan to ensure all students receive an appropriate education.
• Lesson plans may include 1) curriculum references, and the desired results; 2) formative and summative assessments; 3) learning activities and direct instruction.
• Students should be introduced to the learning objectives at the beginning of a lesson.
• Bloom’s Taxonomy verbs may be used to support differentiation.
• State standards are what students are to accomplish, not what the teacher is to teach or how the teaching will be accomplished.

Licenses offered, requirements, and resources.

Model Curriculum Units are a “Gold Standard” of lesson planning.

When working collaboratively with a mentor, the educator may take an active role in their professional development. Continuing professional education is beneficial when embedded in the workplace. Developing working relationships, formal and informal, with mentors who are familiar with workplace expectations and who can guide their mentees to learn from experiences in their setting, will support mentee development.

(Hansman, 2001)

Improve your chances for success by reflecting on the following:

• What are my responsibilities?
• What is important to me in a mentoring relationship?
• What am I hoping to learn from my mentor?
• What kind of mentor relationship will be best for me?

(Zachary, 2005)

• fundamentally change the standard
• must be provided to students as articulated in the IEP
• should not be provided to students unless identified in the IEP

Professional development and learning should focus on what is happening in classrooms, learner outcomes, and collaborative practice.

(Easton, 2004)

• Ensure the personal safety of students and faculty in teaching areas
• Prevent damage and danger to equipment
• Inspect and replace equipment as needed
• Provide proper safety training for students on equipment and tools
• Ensure awareness of hazards
• Document all training tools and equipment
• Maintain updated SDS sheets

Special Education is defined as specially designed instruction.

The IEP is developed by a team. According to regulation, the team must include the following members:

• the parent/guardian,
• the student (age 14+),
• a general education teacher, preferably someone who works with the student,
• a special education teacher, preferably someone who works with the student,
• someone who can interpret testing results (usually a psychologist, therapist, or counselor), and
• a representative of the school district who is authorized to commit the resources of the district.

• Secure your copies! They are confidential documents.
• Read the plans
• Understand what you read
• Build a working relationship with your students
• Build a working relationship with co-teachers and support staff
• Ask questions
• Implement your section(s) of the plan.

• When designing a challenging vocational curriculum, consider what the students need to know, understand, and be able to do before entering and advancing in a career area.
• Make connections between academic and vocational competencies.
• Provide students with practical experiences with tools, equipment, materials, problems, and projects associated with chosen careers.
• Continuous assessments based on academic, occupational, and employability knowledge and skills are necessary to gauge students’ progress in understanding concepts and skills.

UbD is a three-stage backward design process for curriculum planning developed by Jay McTighe & Grant Wiggins.

Stage 1: Identify the Desired Results (This comes from your Curriculum Framework document.)
Stage 2: Determine Summative & Formative Assessment Evidence
Stage 3: Plan Learning Activities and Instruction

Accommodations - Accommodations build a bridge for students from where they are to where you need them to be. Accommodations do not fundamentally change the standard and therefore can be provided to all students. Students with 504 plans may have accommodations identified for instruction and assessment. Students with 504 plans are classified as general education students.

Career Technical Education (CTE) - provides students of all ages with the academic and technical skills, knowledge and training necessary to succeed in future careers and to become lifelong learners. In total, about 12 million high school and college students are enrolled in CTE across the nation. CTE prepares these learners for the world of work by introducing them to workplace competencies and makes academic content accessible to students by providing it in a hands-on context. The high school graduation rate for CTE concentrators is about 90 percent – 15 percentage points higher than the national average. https://careertech.org/cte

Curriculum – the course of study that determines what knowledge and skills students are to learn. (Wong & Wong)

Differentiated Instruction – tailoring instruction to meet the needs of your students. Differentiating is teaching the students who are in front of you.

Discrimination - The unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people.

Equality – Everyone receives equal treatment; everyone receives the same.

Fairness – Everyone gets what they need.

Free & Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) - an educational program and related services that are individualized to a specific student and meet the standards established by the state, provided at public expense and without charge. The Massachusetts Public Education Law, Ch. 766 M.G.L. c. 71B, §§ 1 - 16 guarantees a "free and appropriate public education in the least restrictive environment" to all school-aged children (ages 3 to 21) regardless of disability.

Gender Equity - Fairness and justice in the distribution of benefits and responsibilities.

IEP – Individualized Education Program – Students with an IEP are classified as special education students.

Justice - The morally fair and right state of everything.

Learning – What the student accomplishes.

Learning objectives – Objectives are what a student is to learn, accomplish, and master. (Wong & Wong)

Least Restrictive Environment – students should spend as much time as possible, in an environment where they can be successful, with peers who do not receive special education

Managing a safe learning environment by establishing procedures (what the teacher wants done) and routines (procedures students learn to do automatically).

MCU – Model Curriculum Unit

Modifications – Fundamentally change a standard and therefore are written as part of an IEP.

Negligence – a teacher’s or other school employee’s failure to exercise sufficient care in protecting students from injury. A teacher is generally responsible to make a reasonable attempt to anticipate dangerous conditions, take proper precautions, establish rules and procedures to prevent injuries, warn students of possible dangerous situations, and provide proper supervision.

Special Education – Specially designed instruction

UBD – Understanding By Design offers a planning process and structure to guide curriculum, assessment, and instruction. Curriculum design begins with the end in mind.