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October 29th, 2020

10/29/2020

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Creating Culturally Responsive Learning Experinces

By Olivia Gillespie, Literacy Content Specialist at CDE
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I thought I should follow up Part V with tips for decolonizing our classroom libraries, whether those libraries are in our physical classrooms, online, or a combination of both.

  1. How do we ensure students’ exposure to culturally diverse texts that does no perpetuate dominant narratives of people of color or immigrant families?
  2. How do we select reading material that promotes equity by design, enabling all students to see themselves and others as equal and their stories as relevant and meaningful? 
 
In no way am I suggesting that any of us are intentionally choosing overt racist or deficit minded reading material for our students to engage with. Nor, am I suggesting that our current reading lists are not relevant and complete with narratives, messages, themes, etc., not worthy of analysis simply because the author, journalist, poet, playwright, biographer, editor, or writer is a member of dominant culture. What I am saying is as ELA/Literacy educators at all levels of our education system, we must become cognizant of the subtle messages that reinforce deficit views of people of color and immigrants. We want our students to feel and know they are valued as citizens of our local and global communities. While we cannot change history, we can however, use history to inform current practices in order to shape the future we want for our students, our colleagues, and our society.
 
The question then becomes, how do we decolonize our classroom libraries?
 
Here are a few things we can begin to use to assess a book’s worthiness to our vast collection of reading materials. The suggestions are based upon the work of Dr. Alfred Tatum, author of Reading for Their Lives: (Re)Building the Textual Lineages of African American Males Students.

  1. Does the book go beyond typical themes about characters of color? Avoid caricatures and the reinforcement of stereotypes like “the hoopster” or “fatherless son.” Dr. Tatum says we should ensure that texts offer counter narratives that shows students of color, especially males as problem-solvers, which challenges the “victim mentality” story lines.
 
The problem, according to Dr. Tatum and Zaretta Hammond, is that while there are more diverse books out there, typically there’s a theme. For example, books with African Americans typically revolve around sports (i.e., basketball), civil rights-era activities, or African American historical heroes. There’s an overrepresentation of low-income, urban communities. It’s even more limited for Latinx students. And, let’s not even talk about authentic books at Indigenous/First Nation children or Pacific Islanders students.

  1. Are there non-fiction books that have children, adolescents, and/or young adults of color doing everyday things? Too often dominant racial narratives about who’s the smart kid in the book does not include children of color. You also want to check to see if the non-verbal visuals are reinforcing dominant narratives. Remember the definition for text—any media, print or non-print, used to communicate an idea, emotion, or information—can be a speech, a video, a chart or a graph, an infographic, a photograph, a painting. It refers to any communication that ask students to “make meaning” or comprehend a message.  
 
  1. Do the children of color look “authentic”? Meaning, do they have varied shades of brown skin and textured hair, or are do they have White/Caucasian features, but with brown skin? The ideal is for students to see authentic representations of themselves and their cultural identities.
 
  1. Are the texts, especially fictional stories “enabling”? Dr. Tatum talks about ensuring texts are “enabling” rather than disabling students. This is a way of going deeper with the idea of “mirrors” in the popular “mirrors and windows” frame. So, the text should serve as a road map for being, doing, thinking, and acting in ways that congruent with cultural ways of being and doing
 
An enabling narrative recognizes, honors, and nurtures students’ multiple identities, academic/intellectual, cultural/racial, and personal/social. It shows these identities as integrated in a matter of fact way and common rather than having the high achieving child of color be the exception or characterized as a “nerd” or oddball.
 
The aforementioned are just a few important criteria to use to review books. A HUGE SHOUT OUT to our LIBRARIANS! You are essential, integral, and important contributors to our effort for educational equity in the area of literacy.
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October 26th, 2020

10/26/2020

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Distance Learning Playbook K-12 Series

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By Jef Fugita
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​Welcome to the second blog post in The Distance Learning Playbook K-12 series.  We are sharing tips and tricks around teaching for engagement and impact in any setting.  The ideas shared in their blog series will come from the Fisher, Frey and Hattie book.

John Hattie explains that while distance learning has an effect size of .14, the setting of the learning is not a deciding factor, rather the methods of teaching are more important. 
 
Hattie & Zierer believe positive student-teacher relationships are the heart of learning.  During distance learning, we are no longer able to “see” all our students  and are lacking the face-to face interaction.  Module 3 in The Distance Learning Playbook K-12 goes deeper into strategies for forming and maintaining teacher-student relationships.  One of the strategies is having a system for calling on students and keeping track of who has not participated.  A positive outcome of having a system is providing teachers with a way to assess the level of understanding at a moment in time.  There are many different methods of calling on students.  In a distance learning classroom, the strategies are the same.  For example, announcing the students name and making sure you have their attention before you pose the question.   This method contributes to a positive relationship through respectful interactions.   Additional methods include keeping tally marks on class roster or student names on cards.   These are not new strategies; however, it is helpful to hear from education experts about their effectiveness in remote learning and remembering to trust our professional judgement in using highly effective teaching strategies that work whether in-person, hybrid or remote learning. 
 
Here are some additional participation strategies from Edutopia:  https://www.edutopia.org/article/8-strategies-improve-participation-your-virtual-classroom   

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October 22nd, 2020

10/22/2020

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Considerations for Teaching During An Election

By Sarah Hurd & Natalie Schaefer
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As we enter the 2020 US Election, we wanted to provide some resources and guidelines regarding teaching during an election year.  We want our graduates to be able to express an understanding of civic participation and the rights and responsibilities of a citizen, and learning about elections is an excellent and authentic application. National and local elections provide a prime opportunity for teaching a variety of social studies concepts as well as Jeffco Generations Skills. These include: the Democratic process, civic engagement, civic participation, media literacy, evaluating sources, identifying bias, and the voting process.  At the same time, even well intentioned lessons may unintentionally create arguments or name calling, community divisions in the classroom, unsafe feelings or feelings of insecurity in the classroom, or make it appear that the teacher or school are attempting to collect personal information from students and families regarding political opinions or perspectives. Our goal is to provide some resources for embedding the election into classroom lessons and reiterate district parameters about election behaviors for district employees.

The first set of resources we would like to highlight are aligned with the Jeffco Generation Skills of Civic & Global Engagement and Self-Direction & Personal Responsibility.  We included these scales because the targets are universal for all students, it is the sophistication and activity to demonstrate each skill that is different from grade level to grade level.  We selected these two scales because they highlight key skills such as students participating effectively in civic life and taking ownership of personal actions, upholding a high standard of behavior.  During elections, both of these skills are important for students to see and practice.

The next set of resource ideas come from a trio of trusted organizations.
    Facing History and Ourselves has put together a resource titled: Teaching Resources for the 2020 US Election.  Their resources include Teaching Ideas to explore election news and related history and Explainers to introduce key terms and concepts. These resources and activities can be used for all or part of a class period.  Also available are classroom routines and guides geared towards community-building and fostering inclusive, constructive discourse among your students in both remote and in-person settings.  And finally, they also have online professional development, including webinars and workshops focused on teaching during an election year and how to build connections between history, curriculum, and students' everyday lives.  We find their site to be well organized and easy to navigate to specific lessons and routines.
iCivics has created their set of Curriculum & Teaching Resources for elections.  This site offers a plethora of choices for teachers and students to engage in.  These range from games to lesson plans to webquests. A free login is required to access much of their content and can be time consuming to sift and sort through.  One place to consider starting is a blog post titled The Top 5 iCivics Election Teaching Tools to Explore.  If you are thinking about doing a mock election, this is a lesson option from iCivics that focuses on students supporting, campaigning, and voting for class policies to learn about the election process. iCivics also has several “games” available in Spanish, such as Win the Whitehouse and Cast your Vote.
And Teaching Tolerance has published their collection of resources organized by the themes Countering Bias, Civic Activities, Getting Along and How To that offers a range of resources for engaging students on some of our most pressing societal issues in their Voting and Elections | Resources for a Civil Classroom.  Again, this site offers a plethora of choices.  The Civic Activities portion offers options such as stories from Rock the Vote to Do Something tasks for all grade levels to build civic engagement awareness.  There is also a portion under How To for school administers.
Teachers may also want to think forward and provide some answers to possible student questions or concerns before they arise .  One example of a lesson to consider is Contentious Elections And The Peaceful Transition Of Power from the Bill of Rights Institute.  Another option could be The Election is Over... Now What? from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). 
Overall, we thank you for your interest in building civically-minded students, we know it is important and sometimes intimidating.  We would like to end this post with some District reminders about engaging in the political process as an employee. 
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October 21st, 2020

10/21/2020

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Webinar #6 Communicating Grades

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In the last webinar of the series we will delve into how to best communicate the standards-based system of grading to parents and other community members. It details how to approach parent-teacher conferences, including student-led conferences; how to convey proficiency scale grades on report cards; and how to convert standards-based grading methods to letter or percentage grades, when required. A list of frequently asked questions can be found in Appendix A for additional information on implementation of standards-based learning practices. 

Reflective Questions:
1. What are some common nonacademic factors that are viewed as important by most educators?
2. Why is it important to separate academic factors from nonacademic factors when giving feedback to learners?
3. How might performance on nonacademic factors be determined? 

To access the webinar please click the link and use the password. 

https://vimeo.com/460696797
Password: JeffCoMR


​You can search for prior webinars using #Webinar under the right categories nav. 


*Clock Hours- if you would like to earn 7 clock hours, please complete this Webinar Series Clock Hours Google form. You will need to complete a brief reflection and acknowledge having viewed all 6 webinars in the series to receive the clock hours*

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October 13th, 2020

10/13/2020

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Webinar #5 Teaching Exceptional Students

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 Webinar five is about special considerations for teaching exceptional students. This webinar provides guidance for using and modifying proficiency scales with exceptional learners, such as students with disabilities, English learners (ELs), and gifted learners. It also discusses how to link standards-based grading with special classes such as advanced placement (AP) and International Baccalaureate (IB) classes.

To access the webinar please click the link below and use the password.
*You can now search prior webinars using #webinar under categories.
Link: https://vimeo.com/461188691
Password: JeffCoMR

Guiding Questions:
  • ​What groups of students are considered exceptional learners?
  • What is the difference between accommodations and modifications?
  • What is important to remember regarding using proficiency sales when a student requires accommodations? Modifications?
  • What should you remember about English learners who have limited understanding of the English language? Why is this important?
  • Why is it important for teachers to communicate with parents of exceptional learners?


*Clock Hours- if you would like to earn 7 clock hours a google form will be available with the final of the 6 webinars you will need to complete a brief reflection and acknowledge having viewed all 6 webinars in the series to receive the clock hours*

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October 13th, 2020

10/13/2020

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Welcome to The Distance Learning Playbook K-12 blog post series.  We will share with you some tips and tricks around teaching for engagement and impact in any setting.  
The ideas shared in their blog series will come from the Fisher, Frey and Hattie book.
“To be clear the pandemic teaching of 2020 was really not distance learning it was crisis teaching”. Now, we have time to be more purposeful and intentional with distance learning. We will share Hattie effect sizes to determine the impact that specific actions o r influences will have on student learning.

Consider how these themes have looked in face to face settings in the past and how they could look in a virtual /distance setting.
  1. Teacher clarity and feedback is used to fuel student’s ability to become their own teachers.
  2. Methods for measuring the impact of teaching are used to understand each student’s progress and achievement, with adjustments to teaching made accordingly. 
  3. Investment in collaboration with adults and relationships with students is continuous.
While the effect of distance learning itself is small (0.14) we will need to look beyond that to methods of teaching to see greater impact. Leveraging interactive video (0.54) will have a greater impact on student learning.
  • Optimize social interactions (we do not want to be talked at, but learn with)
  • Check for understanding (listen to the feedback from the students about their learning even more when you do not have the usual sues of the classroom>)
  • Make sure there is a balance between the precious knowledge and the deep thinking(too often online formeres the former over the latter.)

*Understand what it means to be a learner online. When the usual peer interactions are often not as present, the teacher’s observational skills are different, and there is too often an overemphasis on content and repetition.*

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October 07th, 2020

10/7/2020

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Webinar #4 Administering Quality Classroom Assessments

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Webinar four thoroughly explains how to administer quality classroom assessments in a standards-based environment, and how to subsequently figure student grades. We present types of assessments and different scoring methods, as well as strategies for calculating summative scores using proficiency scales and dealing with unusual patterns of performance.

Please use the link below and enter the password to access the webinar.
Link: https://vimeo.com/446323146
Password: JeffCoMR

  1. How are the ideas about assessment in this webinar different from the philosophies that shaped your assessment experiences as a student?
  2. Reflect on the variety of assessments you use in your classroom.  Which of the three types (obtrusive, unobtrusive, and student-generated) do you use often?  Which type might you want to plan for more intentionally?
  3. Which element of assessment development (fairness, validity, reliability) do you  and your team want to focus on as you analyze the tests that you already have available?
  4. In what ways is finding a final score under standards based grading different or the same as processes you have used in the past for figuring a final grade?
  5. What do you believe about:
    1. the purpose of assessment?  the purpose of grading?
    2. the influence student behaviors should have on students’ grades?
    3. the impact late and missing assignments should have on students’ grades?
    4. giving students the opportunity to re-do assignments?  assessments?

*Clock Hours- if you would like to earn 7 clock hours a google form will be available with the final of the 6 webinars you will need to complete a brief reflection and acknowledge having viewed all 6 webinars in the series to receive the clock hours*


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