Transcript Career Academy - Green Hills AEA

Welcome
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Make sure you…
Have signed the roster
 Have a binder
 Have a name tag
 Are ready to go
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First up…
Introductions
 Housekeeping
 Registration
 Ground rules
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Next
Why are we here?
 History of Seamless work
 What are we going to do?
 What are the expectation for the three
days?
 What will the finished product look
like?
 Other concerns?
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Assignment
Take a few minutes and ponder what
you’ve heard so far…
 On the orange piece of paper express
your concerns and what it is that you’d
like to see come out of this work
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Career Academy
Developing the Algebra 2 curriculum
to assure a smooth transition
One of our goals is to try to
change the way we are
currently doing business.
Core Curriculum report…
 Rigor and Relevance work later this
PM
 Status quo…is not good enough
anymore.
 Status quo…That is Latin for “the
mess we’re in.” Ronald Reagan
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The Challenge to
Change…Marge Scherer Educational Leadership
Depth…To sustain education reforms,
we must focus on learning that
matters and that results in measurable
achievement.
 Endurance…To make change last
over time requires that reforms not be
linked to one’s person’s bright ideas.
If you want continuity, you must
distribute leadership to many.
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Cont.
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Breadth…High-performing schools are
communities of grownups whose members
have real input into conversations about
reform.
Diversity…Discovering that a given reform
is not a solution for everyone can take the
bounce out of the reform. There is no silver
bullet!
Resourcefulness…The supply of energy is
not bottomless. We need to attract the next
generation of school leadership.
Cont.
Conservation…Good changes occur
when leaders take time to understand
the past.
 Justice…As part of a system, every
school must consider its effects on
every other school.
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Does your society have more
memories than dreams or dreams
than memories?
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Thomas Friedman…The World is Flat
Curriculum…What is
it? What’s it good for?
Curriculum is the road map that we use to get to a
place that we have determined is worth getting
to…Too often we wander aimlessly through the
book with no purpose other than to “cover” it.
Three most important
reasons for curriculum work.
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Focus
 Focus
Focus
Is it the answer to all of our
problems?
 Unfortunately, NO!
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The role of the teacher…
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In effective classrooms, teachers
consistently attend to at least four elements:
whom they teach (students), where they
teach (learning environment), what they
teach (content), and how they teach
(instruction). If a teacher loses sight of any
one of these elements and cease investing
effort in it, the whole fabric of their work is
damaged and the quality of learning
impaired. -Connecting Kids to Content
We still need the highly
effective teacher…
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Quality curriculum should play a
central role in meeting the core needs
of students for affirmation, affiliation,
accomplishment, and autonomy, but it
is the teacher’s job to make the link
between the basic human needs of
students and the curriculum. – Integrating
Differentiated Instruction & Understanding by Design: Connecting Content to Kids
There’s more…
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In truth, far more students would be
successful if we understood it to be
our jobs to craft circumstances that
lead to success rather than letting
circumstances take their course.
Even the best curriculum delivered in
the take-it-or-leave-it fashion will be
taken by few and left by too many. –
Connecting Content to Kids
By product of curriculum
work
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Clearer understanding of what is expected
from your students
It allows us to give accountability to the
student for his/her learning. “To be
successful in Algebra 2, this is what you
need to know, understand, and be able to
do!”
Professional growth opportunity for each of
you – addresses the State Teaching
Standards as well as the demands of
NCLB.
NCLB vs Highly Qualified
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“Highly qualified” teachers are defined
as those who hold at least a
bachelor’s degree, are fully licensed
or certified by the state in the subjects
they teach, and can demonstrate
competence in the subjects they
teach.
Highly qualified doesn’t mean
highly effective. Qualities of
Effective Teachers
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Prerequisites of Effective Teaching
The Teacher as a person
Classroom Management and Organization
Organizing and Orienting for Instruction
Implementing Instruction
Monitoring Student Progress and Potential
By the way…Research
says…
A student who is forced to spend one
year with an ineffective teacher…
 …takes three years of highly effective
teachers just to get back to where
they should be in the educational
process.
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So what’s wrong with
teaching the book?
Wasn’t it written by “experts”?
 Doesn’t it have everything in it?
 Consider the findings of Robert
Marzano and John Kendall (1998)
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So…how do we decide
what’s important?
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You look at research
You look to National organizations (NCTM –
Standards and Benchmarks)
You look at State Standards and
Benchmarks – State Assessments
You look at local data and expectations of
the community
You look inwardly…what does your
experience tell you?
Content Standards
Number and Operation
 Algebra
 Geometry
 Measurement
 Data Analysis and Probability
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Process Standards
Problem Solving
 Reasoning and Proof
 Communication
 Connections
 Representations
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Format of Workshop
Look over past work done in Calculus
1, Trigonometry and College Algebra
 Identify the units necessary to support
this learning
 Identify what it is that we want our
students to know, understand, or be
able to do because of their exposure
to this curriculum
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Cont.
Identify the benchmarks/skills that
support these understandings
 Create common assessments to be
used by all participants to evaluate
student understanding
 Create “relevant” performance
tasks/assessments to be used by all
participants to support each unit (at
least one per unit…more is better)
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Finished Product
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Identify units that we teach to
support these classes
Identify what is that we want our
student to know, understand, or be
able to do because of his/her
exposure to this unit.
Identify Benchmarks/skills that
support these understandings.
Finally…
When we are done we will have
identified 80% of the Algebra 2
curriculum that you will teach.
 We will come back together as a
group to work on assessments/PBITS/
etc, after we’ve had time to work with
the curriculum.
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Curriculum Questions from
McTighe, Wiggins, and DuFour
What is it that we want our kids to
know, understand, be able to do be
cause of their experience with this
curriculum?
 How will we know they got it? What
will the evidence look like?
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Cont…
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What will we do for the kids who don’t
get it?
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What will we do for the ones who do?
Big Job …
Questions or comments?
 Tera and I will try to keep us on track
and moving in a good directions.
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