CEL Roles and Schedule

~ CEL Website ~


STUDIO TEACHERS - "Job Description"

Qualities: Studio Teachers should...

• Be good at their craft
• Be learners
• Be able to shift and change practice quickly
• Be student centered
• Have a good relationship with colleagues
• Have transferable skills that can be leveraged
• Be able to articulate thinking and decision making
• Have leadership capacity

CEL Focus for Studio Teams:

• Shared teachers' practices: How do we teach reading and thinking about reading instruction?
• Shared student practices and strategies: What does student work look like? What does proficiency look like?
  
• Collaboration: Create shared collaboration structures and capacity. We will create and support studio teams, each studio classroom will team with a SpEd or ELL teacher. Collaboration serves the purpose of creating equity of access for all students.
  
  

Studio helps us to elevate our shared understanding...which then elevates our shared practice.

NRC:  "...experts have acquired extensive knowledge that effects what they notice and how they organize, represent, and interpret information in their environments.  This, in turn, affects their abilities to remember, reason, and solve problems. ...expert knowledge serves to create a habit of critically analyzing evidence."

RESIDENT TEACHERS - "Job Description"

Qualities: Resident Teachers should

• Be good at their craft
• Be nonlinear thinkers - They can watch a lesson and apply it to their own room.
• Be learners - They are able to shift and change practice.
  
• They are able to articulate thinking and decision making.
• Be willing to be involved and ask questions. They cannot sit in the back of the room!
• Be student centered
• Have good relationships with colleagues
• Have leadership capacity
  

CEL focus for Resident Teachers:

1. Observe and try on shared teacher practice. How do we teach reading and think about reading?
2. Observe and create shared student learning practices and strategies. What does student work look like? What does proficiency look like?

What is a studio residency?

*A studio is a problem solving lab that promotes differentiation, collaboration, and unpacks and defines fidelity.

*During the studios, teacher learning is first.

*Studios are interactive. Resident teachers create an active audience.

*Studios illuminate the “puppet strings” and/or "Make the invisible visible"

*Studios provide a point to come together.  Between studios, the work spreads and grows.  Then, the next studio pulls us back together again.  Studios provide "launching points". 

Why studio work?

• This article has some nice reasons.  "Improving Reading Comprehension in Middle and High School" by Janet Angelis
•  Need to Know program on PBS:  Excellent program that is in line with CEL work.  (A focused video about Brockton's Script for Success)  (Included in the video is a case for fitness based PE b/c it raises reading comprehension.)

Norms for observations (from MHouser's Blog):

These were shared with teachers just to ensure that the classroom visits were as respectful and productive as possible.

Studio Weeks:

Dates: Week of October 4, November 15, January 24, April 11, and May 16 (tentative).

June Studio Notes:

• The studio is everyone's classroom!
• The studio is everyone's week, providing for everyone's learning.
• Teachers will leave with both a collective and personal goal. (Goals should be connected to the Essential Questions.)
• Goals will be measured in three ways: 1) Teacher and Student's behaviors, 2) Teacher and Student's ability to articulate learning, 3) Teacher and Student's access to content.
• Goals could be formatted like, "If I _______, my students will be able to ______." Please note the connection to PDSA goals and "purpose" and "student engagement" from the 5 dimensions. This speaks to both teacher practice and student behaviors.
• Our CEL work will fill in the Teacher and Student practice and Curriculum pieces of the JHMS Essential Question and Instructional Core Working Document (below).
  

Monday and Tuesday will be the JHMS LA Studio Days. During these days, studio teachers co-plan and then teach with Jenn in their classrooms. During these days, all teachers will study content, co-plan, observe, debrief (reflect, adjust, plan), and create goals for the follow up "coaching cycle" with Michelle.

Wednesday and Thursday will be the JHMS MATH Studio Days. During these days, studio teachers co-plan and then teach with Dorothy in their classrooms. During these days, all math teachers will study content, co-plan, observe, debrief (reflect, adjust, plan), and create goals for the follow up practice.

Studio weeks will be followed up with in-house Coaching Cycles.

JHMS Essential Question and Instructional Core Working Document:

Essential Question: How does JHMS improve reading achievement for all students? How do we challenge all students to be critical readers (another definition)? (Critical readers should be able to provide details and arguments to support interpretations of what they read from the text.)

Rationale: We are going to leverage what we know about writing to our teaching of reading. We feel that focusing on improving reading achievement AND critical reading allows us to differentiate our PD for all teachers and students (those who are already proficient and need a push to advanced).

Shared Teacher Practice (brainstormed in June): PDSA weeklyish cycles, UBD, Flexible groups - differentiation, SIOP, Sheltered Instruction - SIOP, Collaborative practices, Assessment practices (including differentiation for ELL and SpEd students), Marzano's strategies...

LA Teachers: Reading conferences (leveraging what we do during writing conferences),

Content Area Teachers: Focus on literacy across content areas using Expository Text Structures, QAR & PQPA, Reciprocal reading/SQ3R

Measured by TEACHER behaviors, articulation, and access/understanding.

Shared Student Learning (brainstormed in June): Use of reading strategies independently in all classrooms both when reading and talking, goal setting, fluency, self-efficacy, increased reading volume/interest/motivation, self-selected vocabulary and independent use of vocabulary strategies...

Measured by STUDENT behaviors, articulation, and access/understanding of content.

Curriculum Development and Support: UBD, IF, Media Center, Collaboration with support staff, classroom libraries, updated materials ...

Year 1 - District Outcomes for CEL work:

1. To develop shared practices based on our vision of our students as readers, writers, and thinkers. (Evidence: In classroom observations, we see participants applying shared practices. The vision document may be refined through collective learning.)

2. To engage in a professional development studio residency model that supports continuous improvement, collaborative inquiry, and instructional leadership. (Evidence: Through observation and CI plans, TCSD participants will be able to discuss, practice, question, and reflect on current practice. Leadership CI plans will reflect alignment with literacy work. Participants use processes and procedures for CI in other settings, such as team meetings.)

3. To develop effective collaboration among classroom, Special Education, English Language Learner, Title 1 teachers with support from instructional facilitators and district and building leadership. (Evidence: Participants use processes and procedures that collaboratively develop CI cycles. Leadership provides time and support for CI plan development by participants.)

4. To develop system coherence around the instructional core (Tier 1) as the foundation for literacy. (Evidence: TBD.)

Theory of Action: If we meet these four goals, all student will improve as readers, writers, and critical thinkers as defined by our literacy vision.

NOTE:   Bo explained the district agreed to 3 years with CEL.  The goal at JHMS is every teacher is involved with CEL work by the end of the 3 years.  This will become the norm of new teacher training.