Independent Reading Stations

 

Image by DavidRockDesign from Pixabay 

 This year I have decided I want to work on my independent reading stations. I have looked at the quality of work and challenging task I have gave in the past to keep them engaged. I have noticed some children have a more difficult time focusing and getting work done. I want to make student's stamina stronger to be able to stay focused and engaged the whole 20 minute stations. The data I gather was observational and anecdotal data through the years. I see this as a focus because students need to learn the routines better to eliminate wondering, focus, and quality of work. My hope is this topic will enhance the support and student learning by building stamina and giving them more challenging task to then help their word work and reading scores at the end of the year. I will be using the Jim Knight book, Jen Burns, and other staff members to help me this year. 

Effective Literature Circles

 I am focusing on literature circles in the classroom for my ICDP. I want to focus on this area because we utilize them in the Language Arts classroom and they are not as effective as we would like to see them be. Currently, students are given directions on lit circles and expected to complete their assigned role, but there seems to be no additional learning taking place. Creating plans that will assist in student growth and using methods that have been researched should increase student engagement and understanding.

At the moment, I have one book that discusses mini lessons in lit circles. I plan to use the AEA library and experts in reading for my resources. I will know that I have improved in this area with student growth. The evidence will come from their papers/projects that show an increase in understanding.

Learning after Trauma

 I am going to focus this year on trauma and school.  I am finding more and more that my students are experiencing more trauma and they do not have ways to cope with it. In a day and age of technology, kids often turn to the computer to find the information and that can lead them down some very shady paths if not done correctly.  By learning more about how to help trauma and coping with today's issues, I will not only be able to help my own students but I will also be able to help the population as a whole in the building.  

Learning to handle trauma will help my students be more successful in their daily lives not only in my classroom but long after they are gone from these walls. Unfortunately, trauma is becoming a bigger issue each passing year.  As we know now, no student has had a normal school year in awhile.  The last time my 8th graders had a normal school year was in 5th grade. That was their first year with me.  The rest of the kids in this building have never had a normal school year in this building.  

Literacy Footprints with Guided Reading

 I will be doing my ICDP on using the Literacy Footprints Kit so that I can be a better with Guided Reading teacher.

Being consistent and more intentional about using the kits will hopefully allow our students to make more growth in Guided Reading.

I will be more intentional about taking notes during Guided Reading groups, I will be more consistent about seeing each of my groups and I will be intentional about using shared reading strategies. I believe this will allow students to grow.

My  plan to use some of the shared reading ideas that we learned from Jennifer Burns will also be beneficial and allow our students even more growth. EK now has the goal of getting students to a level C by the end of the school year. Last year our EK data showed that we had only 34% reading at a level C. The goal is to use the kits for the entire time we are doing our Guided Reading groups .

My research will be focused on improving student achievement by using the Literacy Footprints kit to improve student achievement and prepare them for kindergarten. I will also use strategies in Jan Richardson's book in conjunction with the kits as well as shared reading strategies from Jennifer Burns. Using the books "The Next Step Forward in Guided Reading and "The Next Step Forward in Word Study and Phonics", the Literacy Footprints kits and information from Jennifer Burns will improve my teaching.

I will know growth was made by using our leveling information from last year. 

To be successful with implementation of all strategies our leveling data will improve from last year to the end of this year.

Alternative Assssments

 For my ICDP I want to learn more about tying the essential elements to alternate assessment tests and how these assessments can be illustrated in my student's iep goals.  Teresa Kaloupek is the master of this, and I'd like to learn more on how to tie these all together.  We give these alternate assessments, and currently they seem to not reflect the topics we teach or progress is not reflected on student iep goals.  When essential elements and alternate assessment are used together, they can drive our iep goals for our students.  Current practice leaves these three pieces jumbled and confused.

 

My learning into the essential elements has been progressing this past year as I've taken the elementary life skills sped position, and I have more to learn on how to adapt these to students.  I've worked on looking at curriculum, student needs, and progression for teaching.  More work needs done in this area, as well as incorporating alternate assessment into this mix.  My learning will come from studying with Teresa as well as researching trainings from the internet.

Alternative Assessments aligned to IEP Goals

Close up of young female teacher sitting at desk with a Down syndrome schoolboy using a tablet computer in a primary school classroom, smiling, close up, side view. Stock Photo. Clipart.com School Edition, Vital Imagery Ltd., 01-04-2019, https://schools.clipart.com/download.php?iid=1595552&tl=photos. Accessed 29-09-2021.

 I am going to be working to align my students IEP goals and our daily curriculum to connect to the alternate assessment's essential elements. The essential elements are the equivalent of the common core standards for our Level 3 students. Kerri, Teresa and I are hoping to create a more streamlined program that flows through the grade levels and supports all of our students.

This would be great for helping to create IEP goals that not only support the student's needs but also gives them more support for their assessments. 

We also feel that this will help point out more specifically and on a broader level, the skills that they have mastered as well as the ones they are struggling with. This allows us to break those skills down into even smaller steps to see how we can better support our students.

Literacy Footprints in Early Kindergarten

 

Female infant school teacher working one on one with a young white schoolboy, sitting at a table in a classroom writing, looking at each other, close up. Stock Photo. Clipart.com School Edition, Vital Imagery Ltd., 01-04-2019, https://schools.clipart.com/download.php?iid=1595800&tl=photos. Accessed 29-09-2021.

I am going to be doing my ICDP on the topic of using the Literacy Footprints Kit to improve my guided reading instruction.  By using these kits consistently as they are intended to be used I believe our kids will show greater growth in the are of guided reading.  I believe this will be beneficial in helping to prepare them for kindergarten, which is my goal as an Early Kindergarten Teacher.  I will work to improve my note taking during guided reading time and I will work to get to groups consistently so they have plenty of opportunity for growth in the area of literacy.  We also have plans to implement some shared reading strategies that we learned this summer that will help support the work we are doing in our guided reading groups.

This school year the goals for EK have changed.  We have the expectation of getting our students to a level C by the end of the school year.  When looking at our data from the end of last year only 34% of our Early Kindergarten students were reading at a level C.  I want to use these kits to  accomplish this goal for more of our students.  Last year we only had the kids for part of the school year so I am looking forward to using the Literacy Footprint Kits all year.  

I plan to focus my research on the progress that can be made by consistently using the Literacy Footprints Kits to improve student achievement when it comes to literacy.  I will focus on strategies in Jan Richardson's book as well as the kits to improve my teaching.  I plan to use the resources that came with the kit, the resources I have received from Jennifer Burns on the topics of shared reading and guided reading, and Jan Richardson's books:  "The Next Step Forward in Guided Reading" and "The Next Step Forward in Word Study and Phonics".  

I will know that growth has been made in this area by using our EK leveling data from last year.  If we are successful in implementing the Literacy Footprints Kits for the school year then our leveling data will improve from last spring to this spring. 

Morning Meeting in Preschool

Elevated view of infant school children in a circle in the classroom giving high fives to their smiling female teacher, vertical, close up. Stock Photo. Clipart.com School Edition, Vital Imagery Ltd., 01-04-2019, https://schools.clipart.com/download.php?iid=1595730&tl=photos. Accessed 29-09-2021.

 I will be focusing my ICDP for 2021-2022 on developing strong morning meetings with preschoolers. I chose to focus on this after I attended a Nevada PhD session on morning meetings that really intrigued me. I have always done calendar and good things but it never felt complete to me and after my morning meeting session, I realized I needed to add a classroom community piece that connects to social emotional learning. As a building, we have a goal to incorporate more social emotional learning throughout a student’s day and this is an excellent way to do just that.  Adding a morning meeting will help my students feel connected to each other as a classroom family and build social emotional and academic learning.

I would see implementing morning meetings more of an area of growth rather than an area of concern for me. I want to grow my student’s relational capacity and understanding with their peers as well as merging social emotional skills and academic learning. I will read The Morning Meeting Book by Roxann Kriete & Carol Davis as well as reading blogs or social media posts that gather ideas to strengthen morning meetings.  

I will use my Teaching Strategies GOLD data from Fall, Winter, and Spring to see the growth in my students. The areas in GOLD I will mainly focus on is social-emotional, language, and cognitive. I will know I have improved in creating strong morning meetings is the growth I will see in GOLD by increasing over the color bands.

Guided Reading with Intentionality

 

Cute cheerful little girl reading book wearing glasses, isolated over white. Stock Photo. Clipart.com School Edition, Vital Imagery Ltd., 05-09-2013, https://schools.clipart.com/download.php?iid=639741&tl=photos. Accessed 29-09-2021.

Sep 27 at 9:04am

Manage Discussion Entry

This year my focus for my ICDP goal is going to be guided reading.  I feel like I've focused on math instruction a lot in past years and need to spend time focusing on reading instruction.  Last year I was able to dabble in Literacy Footprints with my online students and then when I moved back onsite, I was able to continue.  I want my guided reading groups to be calm and intentional.  I want the kids to walk away with a love for reading and writing and having grown in their abilities everyday.   Looking at Leveled Benchmark data from the end of the year last year, I have quite a few 1st graders that did not meet end of year goal in Kindergarten.  I will be taking the Literacy Footprint Guided Reading class once a month with Jenn Burns and Erin Klopstad.  I will be using Next Steps Teacher's Guide to Guided Reading text along with videotaping myself working with students and digging deeper into the why and how of each piece of a guided reading lesson.  I will know students have been impacted by this goal when I do the Jan Richardson Leveling Benchmark at the end of the year and students will have grown at least 1 year or met the end of year goal.

Folk Dancing in the Music Room

Image from Unsplash (Yan Berthemy)

 For my ICDP this year I would like to focus on integrating more folk dancing into the music room!  

4th quarter last year (20-21), I started using a few folk dances as a way to get students' bodies moving either at the beginning of class to wake us up or at the end as a reward for hard work (because they are fun!!- at least most students think so).  The first time I did this in class with the 3/4 students, I got tons of eye rolls and groans that I was going to make them dance... by the second class period they were begging to have enough time to "Sasha" and wanting to know when we were going to learn a new one!  I quick checked with Shawna and Lisa about what dances they knew that I could learn/teach quickly and I made a list of 4/5 that we did throughout the remainder of the school year.  

I would like to spend more time researching and learning new dances that I can integrate this year with the students because movement is so important to our learning and (I am working on this next part) but research shows that dance teaches so many different parts of music as well (beat reinforcement, form, phrasing) as well as many other areas outside of music (posture, cooperation, SEL), not to mention it can be very fun!  I know though that I have to be purposeful in how I teach the dances and what I emphasize if I want to be able to actually teach those areas so I want to spend time a) finding more dances and b) planning how I will incorporate the teaching of form, beat, SEL, cooperation, etc.  

Wilson Reading System for 1:1 Instruction

Image from Wilson Language Training

 I am focusing on the Wilson Reading System with one of my students who will be new to it this year. I have decided to focus on this, again this year, because this student is significantly behind in her reading.  I will be working with her 1:1 during our time together.  This is a change because typically I work with students in small groups.  Individual student needs 1:1 instruction. 

I will have to revamp the class time she is with me because I had her grouped with two other students. I can tell that won't work and I will have to adjust things.  This should impact student learning by give her 1:1 attention and time.  It will also allow the other students who were going to be with her the ability to move at a faster pace.  

I do not need additional resources for this goal.  I will continue to talk with colleagues who are also trained in Wilson and continue to use their site for resources.  I will have to research for specific progression of skills.  

She currently reads 49 words per minute, has no work attack skills, and does not use or understand context clues.  She will reread a sentence again and again (due to her low speed) hoping to comprehend.  She verbalizes her frustrations.  

I will use weekly Wilson data, IEP data,  and FAST testing throughout the year to gage her progress.  

Self-Care

 This year I am going to focus on self care. I attended Kody Asmus and Meg Frieders sessions during Nevada PhD and found that self care is a missing piece for me, especially now with a little one at home. While attending Emily Kruse's session I learned that adult self care is even part of the SEL standards for the state. 

Last year self care was not a priority for me and I often felt frazzled and overwhelmed with the demands of my career. I did not give the extra time or effort to my students that I might have in the past. Personal factors such as having a baby and dealing with my father's cancer diagnosis was, of course, a big part of this but I suspect that if I gave myself the care I needed there would be more to go around to not just my students but also my family. 

I plan to read the book Heart! by Timothy Kanold. I have heard him speak on this topic a few years ago at a PLC training and feel this book will give me good information. I also plan to look into the resources Kody listed. I believe exercise will be a place for me to start to get back to walking 10 minutes a day at lunch time as well as develop my own yoga practice. In years past yoga my practice has been spotty but I fully believe in it. Through training and practice with kids I see how powerful it is. 

I will reflect back on the year and collect perception data on this goal as well as look at how many times per week I actually have been practicing mindfulness. While this might not have a direct link to student data, the health and mental well being of adults around them plays a part in their own development of social-emotional learning. 

Immediate Data for Communication and Response

 I am wanting to focus on communication with the IEP team, but more specifically, the data pertaining to the student. I feel it is important for all team members to be able to look and analyze the students' data. The Iowa IDEA website is a great place to enter data on the IEP but only holds the basic data. By having data available live through google documents, all members of the IEP team can access in depth data at any time. 

I currently have most of my students' data being collected with pencil and paper. The paraprofessional or teacher that is collecting that data typically turns the data sheets into me on Fridays to be entered into the IEP system. This is nice to have the data at the end of the week, but does not allow for immediate or quick response to some behaviors. Having live data also allows for others to read specific comments, positive or negative, on any given situation. 

I will dig into reaching on the importance of communication between members of IEP teams. I will look for my research through various online websites and more specifically through the AEA website. I will know it worked through observations, and increased communication with the IEP team members. 

Guided Reading with ESL Students

Elementary Age Schoolgirl Reading Book In Class With Teacher. Stock Photo. Clipart.com School Edition, Vital Imagery Ltd., 01-07-2015, https://schools.clipart.com/download.php?iid=978228&tl=photos. Accessed 27-09-2021.

For my ICDP this 2021-2022 school year I will be focusing on Guided Reading for my Individualized Career Development Plan (ICDP).  My reason for choosing to focus on this area is that my practice as an ESL teacher in our building has shifted based on various professional development opportunities I have pursued.  Two years ago, I trained in Reading Recovery, which had a significant impact on my practice.  Last school year, I spent time with Jennifer Burns and our AEA ESL consultant reflecting on how Guided Reading and implementation of Literacy Footprints fits in with the teaching of English as a Second Language, and what a Modified Guided Reading Lesson looks like.  All of these conversations and classes around literacy have been percolating in my mind, but I have not yet taken the time to really reflect on how what I’ve learned applies to my specific role at Central as an ESL teacher, and to create a lesson structure that supports best practices in both literacy and language.

Our building data in the area of Guided Reading is something to celebrate, as 94% of students at Central made one years’ growth or were on grade level.  For my students, who are almost all discrepant to start the year, one years’ growth is not enough.  My students need to make accelerated progress in order to eventually catch up to their grade level peers.  The majority of the EL’s on my roster made accelerated progress last year, but are still not caught up.  I also have noticed a trend of very low writing scores on our state mandated assessment for EL’s, called Elpa21.  I need to shift my instructional time away from word work and sight word instruction, now that we have adopted Literacy Footprints as a building.  I need to focus more on building oral language and vocabulary to support writing, and using a Modified Guided Reading (MGR) structure to support with language as I teach literacy.  I also need to shift the way that I approach writing with my older students, using assistive technology to allow students opportunities to compose longer writing passages rather than just focusing on transcription at the sentence level.

This year, I will have the opportunity to work with Jennifer Burns in a monthly Guided Reading course with my colleagues.  I will also be attending the National K-8 Literacy and Reading Recovery Conference in Ohio with Erin Klopstad, and continue to attend Ongoing Professional Development (OPD) through Reading Recovery.  These professional development opportunities will support me as I work through determining how to teach language alongside literacy, and what to focus on as an ESL teacher who also teaches reading.  I will know I am successful if I see improvements in my students’ ELPA21 scores in writing, and continued accelerated progress in their reading.

Anchor Charts for Guided Reading Plus

 

I am focusing my ICDP plan on Guided Reading Plus. I currently use GRP for my reading groups because it ties in with the Guided Reading they receive in the classroom. I have used Guided Reading Plus for multiple years and would like to look through all my resources from when I took the classes, the videos and book, along with talking with Jen Burns about how to make it more effective.

I would really like to focus on the anchor chart portion of the lesson for my topic of research. I would like to connect the anchor charts they are using in the classroom to the ones they are using in my room. I am hoping with students getting guided reading in the classroom and GRP in my room they will really improve on the IEP goals, reading level and on their FAST assessments.

Kindergarten Reading

 

Pupils At Montessori School Looking At Book With Teacher. Stock Photo. Clipart.com School Edition, Vital Imagery Ltd., 05-06-2017, https://schools.clipart.com/download.php?iid=1553911&tl=photos. Accessed 27-09-2021.

Data from the 20-21 school year showed that 55% of our Kindergarteners achieved grade level reading goal (level D) for the year. After seeing this data and partnering with Jennifer Burns, our goal is to implement the interactive shared reading experience along with Literacy Footprints to work towards achieving higher literacy levels collectively. We will use our guided reading levels to determine the percentage of students who reached the end of year Kindergarten goal.

As a Kindergarten team we are meeting with Jennifer Burns once a month to continue to develop our shared reading experience. We are also individually meeting with her twice a semester to discuss our individual needs. Erin Klopstad is another resource we can utilize when needed to co-teach, collaborate, model, or discuss questions or areas of concern. We are using ESGI as an initial testing tool to gather a baseline for where our students are starting their reading journey. Having and utilizing these resources will help us reach our goal of 70% of Kindergarten students reading at a level D by the end of their Kindergarten year.

Number Sense in Preschool

 

Two Elementary Pupils Counting Together In Classroom. Stock Photo. Clipart.com School Edition, Vital Imagery Ltd., 18-10-2013, https://schools.clipart.com/download.php?iid=664642&tl=photos. Accessed 27-09-2021.

I chose to learn more about Number Sense Routines. I attended the Math Talks presented by Kedra Hamilton during our NevadaPHD this fall. I was excited to learn more about how to include more math learning into the student's day. I was intrigued by the idea of listening to the students to see how they processed numbers. I talked with Kedra, and have several books, websites and have signed up to take a Webinar to learn more about this process. As a team, the preschool teachers have and do focus on literacy. I know I don't give math the same emphasis as I do literacy, so I thought that I should pursue a math topic. 

After watching videos and doing some reading I thought I'd just try one learning experiment with my classes. I decided to focus on same and different. I used two sets of apples pictures, since we are currently studying apples. My AM class had no idea about same and different. I had to teach and show them the similarities and differences. The PM class was lead by one student who understood the idea of same and different. She lead the class in explaining/teaching. In my discussion with Kristi, I was encouraged to go a step lower to make it one step easier in the process. The I do, we do, you do process. She observed that many students are not able to have a conversation if they haven't been part of them at home. So working on simple conversations is my starting point!

All Hands On Deck for Reading

 

Image from Unsplash (gaellemarcel)

Last year we were told, "It's all hands on deck to improve reading performance at NMS."  This year we were told the same thing.  Since my ICDP last year was centered around creating a canvas course, I've decided to focus on improving student fluency and comprehension.  

Starting in October and continuing to the ISASP tests, I will do one reading lesson a month with all my classes using fluency routines, predicting, clarifying, questioning, and summarizing.  Last year I got a lot of push back from students when doing this (But it's PE!!!!!!!!).  A secondary goal besides improving student performance in the area of reading comprehension would be for lessons like this to be more accepted as common practice in areas besides reading/language arts.

8th Grade Math Interventions

Image from Unsplash (NeONBRAND)

 My focus this year for my ICDP is going to be centered around implementing math interventions to 8th grade students using Dreambox and evaluating the effectiveness of the program. The reason that I have made this my focus for my ICDP is because our Middle School building has the goal of using interventions for MTSS and this goal will help allow me to continue to pursue our building goals while helping students at risk with their math skills. As I reflect on last year and the interventions that I implemented, I want to be more effective at analyzing the data and the types of strategies used to identify students' progress towards improvement or needing either tier 2 or 3 instruction. By reviewing this data, I will be able to help identify if the effectiveness of the program on the students growth in the classroom, FAST, and on ISASP. At the end of the year, I would love to see that at least 50% of our students who were at some risk or high risk using the FAST aMath data are proficient following our Spring FAST assessments.

Vocabulary for Tier 3 Interventions

 

1. Why do you want to focus on this area for your ICDP?

I often find students skipping words that most other students their age would know simply because they don’t know them or have never learned them. In some instances, it impedes their ability to understand a passage.

2. What are you wanting to change about your practice and how will that impact student learning?

I am wanting students to start identifying words in their reading that they don’t know, instead of me finding 3rd Tier or High Frequency words they miss while reading out loud or for probes. I would like students to continue this practice of searching out a word’s meaning as they come across words that they do not know.

3. What school/class data shows this is an area of concern for you?

IEP Comprehension data, Teacher observations as students are reading fluency probes.

4. What do you see as your topic for research?

Teaching students’ vocabulary.

5. How will this topic enhance and support student learning?

If students start becoming self-motivated to figure out words they come across that they don’t know, maybe this can transfer to other subjects.

6. Where will you look for resources on this topic?

The internet.

7. How will you know you improved in this area? What evidence will you have?

When students begin to recognize there are words they come across every day that they don’t know and that they can begin to take responsibility and look for the meaning to make sense of what they are reading now and in the future. Also improvement should be evidenced in students reading probes, both comprehension and fluency.

Increasing Engagement with Formative Assessments

 

I'm always thinking about how can I improve students learning without overwhelming them. We just finished up prioritizing standards last spring and it just makes sense to evaluate my formative and summative assessments that I administer to my classes.  Obviously, this is also the schools main building goal but making it my ICDP will make me focus on it even more.  Changing things can be hard but also rewarding and going back and looking at my completion data of formative assessment, and how I can be more impactful with less work seemed like a good place to start.  I believe that I give too much homework to my students, and how can I give less homework but provide more formative assessments in-class to grade their understanding.  I also want to tier my summative assessments and change the nature of my questions to challenge them to think more metacognitively. My overall concern is participation, I want students to participate more during in-class learning, and I would like students to be challenged more to think creatively and make connections to other world events.  Creating meaningful activities in-class may generate the outcome I'm looking for.

 

I do believe students will develop a better understand of course material if more formative assessments are given in-class.  I also believe that knowledge will spill over into their summative evaluation of the standards and create more in-depth thinking. When it comes to resources dealing with these topics there are a lot to look at.  Finding the best ones will take some time.   I have already received some resources from you, and will continue to ask other teachers in the building especially ones that are in my curriculum area. I will also search credible sources online.  By the end of the semester I will send out a survey to the kids to see if the in-class learning was effective for them and helped them also with their summative assessments.  I will discuss with my AIW team and curriculum team my summative assessments, and what I need to do to improve my questioning or the way I tier those assessments.  Overall, I believe that if I lessen the load of homework and bring it into the classroom not only will I see better participation but less stress in students which is also a main focus of mine!

Leveled Assessments

 Why do you want to focus on this area for your ICDP?

None of my classes in the past have had leveled assessments.  I am hoping to learn more constructing effectively written questions and assessments for all of my courses. 

 

What are you wanting to change about your practice and how will that impact student learning?

Evaluate my current assessments in terms of what type of questions and the level of questions that I am currently asking on assessments.  Create new assessments that reflect the high school goal's expectations.  These tests will be used as summative assessments and eventually be used as create corresponding formative assessments.

 

What school/class data shows this is an area of concern for you?

No particular data; however, it is a high school goal and expectation.

 

What do you see as your topic for research?

Writing effective formative leveled assessments.

 

How will this topic enhance and support student learning?

Effective leveled formative assessments coupled with summative assessments may reduce the number of reassessments for students.

 

Where will you look for resources on this topic?

Handouts from professional development sessions, articles from the internet, possibly YouTube.

 

How will you know you improved in this area? What evidence will you have?

From a quantitative standpoint, i will be able to count the number of courses and assessments that I change to leveled assessments.  From a qualitative standpoint, I will be receiving input from my AIW team and from a meeting with administration.

Benefits of a Sketchbook or Visual Journal Practice

 

Keeping a daily sketchbook helps students to see and be present in the world. This artistic practice can also help them:

• Grow and develop new ideas
• Make connections and foster creativity
• Improve drawing ability and observational skills
• Maintain and ignite inspiration
• Experiment with new techniques and materials
• Encourage happy accidents or those unforeseen and unplanned creative discoveries

Boosts creativity

Keeping a sketchbook helps ideas growing and helps to develop new ones. It allows for random connections and juxtapose ideas. Tear images from magazines, then draw over them. Rip out half an image and extend it into something else.

 Continuous Practice / Keeps skills sharp

• Keeping a sketchbook improves drawing ability and observational skills dramatically.
• Do draw at least 10 minutes a day from direct observation.
• Drawing from direct observation is the best way to improve observational skills.
• Drawing for the artist is like doing push-ups for the athlete. It is the way that you make your drawing muscles (your observational skills) stronger.  
• Keeping a daily sketchbook helps humans to be present in the world. You start noticing everything around you. Nothing is too mundane to draw – your cup of coffee, the materials you’re using to draw with, squirrels at the park, a bike in a rack, a trash can.

Works as an Emotional Download

• Clear your mind of all it needs to remember/ “Download your brain!” It is getting all the noise out of your brain into a system or on the page. This opens us major brain capacity for other tasks.
• Draw all the things that were troubling the mind.
• Distill the mind and gain clarity and focus on major creative projects.
• There is no wrong way to approach a sketchbook. The daily meanderings and doodles are not meant to be art. Nothing is too lovely, too silly or too cliché. Sometimes sketches will be colorful and other times negative and full of self-pity. All the anger and petty stuff stand between the artist creativity.

Self Regulation of Behaviors

 When learning the skills of executive functions and self regulation the students are learning skills that will enable them to have a positive behavior and help them make healthy choices for themselves. I have decided that learning these skills will benefit them as they transition into the Middle School next year.

I want students to leave my room with the ability to self monitor their behavior, Focus their attention on the task, be able to multi-task, plan, and organize their day. Working on these items will hopefully help them be successful as they move forward in both school and life.

Swimming into Seesaw

 I have decided after reflecting on past years I want to narrow down how I am communicating with my parents. I have used lots of different platforms in the past, but feel like I bounce around or am inconsistent.  I am going to focus on Seesaw as a form of communication and as a way for parents to see into the classroom to see what they are working on. I will use PD in Pajamas and a blogger Kris Szajner to help me learn more about the platform and how to use it effectively in the classroom. I want to use Seesaw with the purpose of not only communicate with parents, but also enhance the learning in the classroom. 

Kindergarten Literacy Levels

Data from the 20-21 school year showed that 55% of our Kindergarteners achieved grade level reading goal (level D) for the year. After seeing this data and partnering with Jennifer Burns, our goal is to implement the interactive shared reading experience along with Literacy Footprints to work towards achieving higher literacy levels collectively. We will use our guided reading levels to determine the percentage of students who reached the end of year Kindergarten goal.

As a Kindergarten team we are meeting with Jennifer Burns once a month to continue to develop our shared reading experience. We are also individually meeting with her twice a semester to discuss our individual needs. Erin Klopstad is another resource we can utilize when needed to co-teach, collaborate, model, or discuss questions or areas of concern. We are using ESGI as an initial testing tool to gather a baseline for where our students are starting their reading journey. Having and utilizing these resources will help us reach our goal of 70% of Kindergarten students reading at a level D by the end of their Kindergarten year.

Executive Functions before Middle School

 I have decided to learn more about executive functions as my ICDP goal this year.  The biggest reason to work on these is to help bridge the gap as my students are preparing to enter Middle School.  Research shows that many students are not born with these skills and need to learn them, just as they do any other skill.

     Over the years, I have noticed a difference in what students can handle and I want to go back to boosting that up.  I want to work with them on  areas that will include things like self control, planning, organizing themselves, working on instructions, and being able to take on multiple tasks/multiple stepped tasks.  I am hoping this will help them be successful as them move forward, both in school and in life outside of school.

Research of SEL and MTSS Assessments

Reflection over Research

 As I researched MTSS and SEL assessment, I have visualized a solid plan for the use of the DESSA data. Using DESSA data, we will be able to look at building-wide instructional needs, classroom level needs, and small group/individual social emotional needs. We can use both SEL PD time to look at data as well as PLC time eventually. Just as we look at academic data, our DESSA data will help us understand where our gaps are and help us determine a plan for instruction on all three tiers of intervention. With universal curriculum in place already, we will take a look at tier 2 interventions needed which can be done within the classroom or by me as a school counselor in small groups, or with Mrs. Murphy in Life Skills. 

While we have some systems in place to follow the MTSS framework, like PLCs, BATs, and counseling, I think it will be important to take the time to explain the MTSS process within SEL PD this year so staff knows how to look at the data and what to do with it. If we take the time to learn and understand how the data can be used, the ultimate outcome should be greater social emotional skills, classroom culture and climate, and therefore, greater academic abilities and achievements. Within the Aperture system, there are tier 2 resources available to all staff and that will be helpful in our planning of tier 2 interventions. Beyond that, being a counselor, I will help develop tier 2 and tier 3 interventions for students or classrooms that are in the need.

I used a variety of resources to help understand the MTSS framework, including resources specific to SEL. They are listed below. For now, I do not have further questions. However, as we administer the DESSA and look at data, I know I will need to come back to the model as we review data and plan interventions.

Resources for Research

Dept. of Ed Multi-Tiered System of Supports

Second Step Alignment Chart

Michigan's MTSS Levels of Support

6 Steps to Effective SEL Assessment
 (Links to an external site.)