STLinSTL 2018

How do we ensure that when students engage in inquiry and project-based learning that they are actually getting better at important disciplinary practices? How do we embed what parents, students, and teachers care about most in our common assessments? At Fox C-6 we have committed to developing curriculum and assessment around common complex tasks. We focus our improvement processes exclusively on the quality of the work students produce.

Can curriculum embody the values of choice, independence, and inquiry and still have common assessment that produce evidence of student growth? Building a curriculum around units that culminate in complex tasks, allow us to focus all our efforts on the quality of the work that students produce.

Often priorities from best-practice instruction, assessment, and PLC work seem to be in tension with one another. We strive to ensure that our curriculum, assessment, and PLC improvement process all emphasize the same values. We also have to ensure a guaranteed and viable curriculum that produces evidence of student growth.

In this session participants will experience engaging complex tasks from across grade-levels and subject areas. They will provide success and growth feedback for students at all levels, and practice aligning tasks with core content.

Assessment is a communication tool. What and how you assess says as much about the assessment writer and what he/she values as student results say about the learning. While American assessment has focused nearly exclusively on psychometric validity and reliability, this session will challenge attendees to focus instead on assessment that centers on meaningful, valuable outcomes that prepare students for life beyond school.

St. Clair High School reduced Fs for Freshmen from 66 Total for first semester to 9 Fs TOTAL for first semester! We had a student apathy problem. Now we have system of Support, and a proven way to help support our students. AND IT WORKS. Come hear about the Power of ICU!

Presentation Resources: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1NVsU_JGh9fR4BT3IPKr8-udTs5I0joFRUzeih2fArD8

Hear from a school that has defeated student apathy. Jackson Junior High School (8-9th grade) has completed every assignment over the past 4 years resulting in eliminating retention rates, increasing state scores and A and B grades went up to a whopping 80% of all semester grades. In this session, you will receive a multitude of daily strategies that administrators and teachers can utilize in their school to begin winning the war on apathy.

There are so many wonderful ideas, strategies, and programs that are available to teachers. How do we fit everything into our already tight schedules? In this session, we will share ideas and resources that work in our classrooms as well as suggestions for how to blend everything together to create a cohesive, effective program. Participants are encouraged to bring at least one strategy or resource used in their classroom. A comprehensive list will be compiled and shared with all participants.

My session will show how I have incorporated technology to facilitate differentiated instruction in a student-centered science classroom. I will discuss how I use pre-testing, multiple learning modalities, student choice, and varied assessments to reach a diverse range of learners. By moving away from the traditional lecture format, my students are able to learn the material in a format that works best for each of them, including watching videos, reading text, attending a mini-lecture, or working with hands-on activities. In this format, I am not directly instructing the whole class but meeting with students individually or in small groups to provide more nuanced feedback. Students are able to take the assessment at any point in the process and can retake it up to three times to encourage mastery of the material and a growth mindset. In addition, those who master the material quickly can pursue independent extension projects. Every student in the classroom is unique and our instruction should match this diversity rather than attempt to conform it to one model.