Support for curriculum change, summer conferences, school recognition

April 27, 2018 Vol. 6

Preparing for the future

Changing workplace demands rethinking K-12 curriculum

The most difficult jobs for future employers to hire and the most lucrative for future employees to find require these skills: “algorithm design; distributed systems; cloud computing; machine learning; mobile development; NoSQL; Scala; data science; big data and 1Python.” If you’re drawing a blank on what those skills are, you should register for Future Ready Learning.

This one-day conference is aimed at connecting careers and civic life to instruction of the Iowa Academic Standards. The conference is designed for curriculum leaders, including members of the statewide content area leadership teams, administrators, curriculum directors, teacher leaders, and teachers,

According to the speakers presenting at Future Ready Learning, technology will dramatically reshape the workplace. We can expect to see a dramatic decline in manufacturing and production, and a dramatic increase in business and financial operations that will require computer and mathematical skills. It’s estimated that 65 percent of children entering kindergarten this year will work in jobs that don’t now exist.

Joe Fuller, a Harvard professor who co-leads the school’s initiative, Managing the Future of Work, is a keynote speaker at the event who talks about the changing workforce. “It’s going to be much more variegated than it is today. People will have lots of different types of working relationships. Most companies today are made up of full-time and part-time employees. Expect to see a significant increase in gig workers.” The term ‘gig worker’ is borrowed from the music industry where musicians move from job to job (gig to gig). A gig worker is employed for a particular task or a period of time.

Fuller’s message to conference attendees will be that schools need to change to better prepare students for future workplaces. “We have to start revisiting curriculum, particularly how we equip kids who are not on a college path. We have to have a math curriculum with basic statistics and data recording and measurement being much more prominent. We need to have the capstone course in statistics instead of calculus,” he said.

Fuller also calls for greater technology literacy and skills in using a variety of technology. “In Russia, they have an informatics curriculum that covers various elements of computing, such as writing software and interacting with different types of devices. Here, we’re introducing devices to enhance teaching and learning, but we’re not treating it as a discipline,” he said. “Good paying jobs, whether they require a college degree or not, will involve a significant interaction with computing devices.”

In addition to adding computing to the curriculum, Fuller said we need to think about the soft skills. “From being able to deliver brief written and oral communications effectively to interacting with a stranger successfully, these are all skills that are needed in the workplace. Educators don’t sufficiently think about that as something we create pedagogy around and include it in a curriculum,” he said.

For more information, contact Erika Cook at erika.cook@iowa.gov or (515) 240-3103 or Rita Martens at rita.martens@iowa.gov or (515) 281-3145.

With support from ACHIEVE

Districts take stock of science standards implementation

Two Iowa districts, Bettendorf Community School District and Davenport Community Schools, are taking steps to improve their science education programs.

Partnering with Achieve, the education nonprofit that coordinated the development of the Next Generation Science Standards, and with funding from Arconic Foundation, the two Iowa districts are evaluating how far their implementation of the Iowa Science Standards has moved them toward their vision for science education.

As a first step, the districts will work with Achieve to determine their current state of science performance in key areas identified by the districts through an educator and school leader survey, classroom observations, and data analysis.

The districts will then use what they learned about their identified areas of strengths and growth to modify their district plans for science, including

Identifying what success looks like and how to measure it in areas such as professional learning, internal and external communications, instructional materials, assessments, general management, and collaboration,
Identifying milestones and setting up a system to monitor progress and determine whether interventions and projects are on track; and
Developing routines and mechanisms to adjust the science plan as additional data become available.

Achieve will also provide professional learning for the districts that focus on building educator capacity around high quality instructional materials and classroom assessments that are designed to meet the Iowa Science Standards. These sessions will be tailored to the two districts based on what is learned in the initial audit. They will be available at no cost to educators who can earn license renewal credits through the Mississippi Bend Area Education Agency.

The instructional materials professional learning is a two-day session in May to support teachers in the use of the EQuIP Rubric for Science to measure how well lessons and units are designed for the Iowa Science Standards and to help deepen understanding of the standards. This course will help teachers to better recognize materials that are truly designed for the Iowa Science Standards and to think about how to modify the lessons and units teachers are already using to better match up with what is new and different about the Iowa Science Standards. If you are interested in attending this training on May 14-15, there are about 30 spaces available. Registration link is https://bit.ly/2vkPpsm.

The assessment professional learning is a two-day session in July that will focus on evaluating assessments for alignment to the Iowa Science Standards. Teachers will use the Achieve Task Screener to evaluate a common assessment task, then will use their deepened understanding of high-quality assessments designed for three-dimensional standards to evaluate the alignment of locally-developed assessments, including suggesting improvements to the tasks to meet their intended purposes.

For more information, contact Kris Kilibarda, science consultant, at (515) 322-7620 or kris.kilibarda@iowa.gov.

Opportunities for social studies educators

Institute offers in-depth elementary, secondary sessions

A new format for the annual Best Practices in Social Studies Institute is being offered this year that will accommodate a more in-depth learning component for participants. Tina Heafner, a professor from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and a notable scholar in social studies pedagogy, will present a full-day session to elementary teachers on Day 1 and to secondary teachers on Day 2 of the conference.

“We don’t normally have a full day dedicated to a specific grade span,” said Stefanie Wager, social studies consultant and lead organizer of the event. “But because elementary tends to get overlooked, we wanted to make the all-day sessions specific to the different needs of elementary and secondary social studies teachers."

Haefner’s teaching and research focus has been on effective practices in social studies education including technology integration, content literacy development, and service learning. “I am excited that Tina is coming to work with Iowa teachers on our new social studies standards. I think she will provide a perfect combination of practical information that teachers can use in their classroom with the research-base for why social studies matters,” Wager said.

Participants will have the opportunity to hear from a number of early implementers of the new social studies standards during breakout sessions. Norwalk teacher Jenny Sinclair and College CSD teacher Kim Heckart will share the progress their districts have made in implementing the K-8 standards. The secondary strand will feature Jennifer Paulsen, a teacher from CedarFalls, presenting on teaching Iowa history. Teacher Janet Wills from Southeast Webster Grand CSD will talk about the efforts her district is making to implement the standards.

The institute is free and license renewal credit is available.

For more information, contact Stefanie Wager, (515) 725-7842 or Stefanie.wager@iowa.gov.

Advanced Placement Honor Roll

Schools honored for improving the impact of AP classes

Three high schools are being honored by the College Board for their efforts to increase access to Advanced Placement (AP) coursework while simultaneously maintaining or increasing the percentage of students scoring 3 or higher on AP Exams. The schools being selected for the AP Honor Roll are Cedar Falls High School, Pleasant Valley High School and Marion High School. Each of the schools uses a different approach to recruiting AP students and helping them score above a three on the AP exams.

Mike Zimmer, principal at Pleasant Valley High School, said that district begins laying the ground work for AP by offering honors classes in junior high and into 9th and 10th grades. “Once students get to AP, they are prepared to meet the expectations,” he said. “We try to set students up to be successful. It starts with recruiting students based on tests scores, academic progress, and work ethic.

Zimmer also attributes the success to the training AP teachers receive. “We fully support sending our teachers to AP Conferences, including one organized by the Mississippi Athletic Conference where our teachers can collaborate with other AP teachers from neighboring schools.”

Cedar Falls High Schools has doubled the number of AP courses in the past seven years, which, according to Tim Kangas, AP coordinator, is due to interest from students. “The kids were very interested. They will jump at the opportunity to take AP courses. Many of our students want to do college level work in high school,” he said.

He also says the success of the program is due to the AP teachers, who are really engaged. “They want kids to succeed so they are trying to get them as ready as possible for the AP tests.”

Sarah Doyle, AP coordinator at Marion High School, said that offering more AP courses on site has caused the shift in their school. “We’re increased the number of AP courses we offer onsite. Kids prefer having a teacher in their classroom. Students do better when the content is delivered person to person.”

Also the teachers are able to monitor the students day to day, which she said contributes to their success. “We have a really great staff here. Because they courses have the AP tag on them, they want their students to do well on the test.” She said Marion High School teachers offer review sessions and provide review materials to help the students do well on the exams.

For more information, contact Rosanne Malek at Rosanne.malek@iowa.gov or (515) 281-3199.

Systemic thinking

Teacher leaders need to connect the pieces to see the whole

Teacher leaders, to what extent have you had the opportunity to work effectively within your system and been able to understand your school improvement process and the changes leveraged by teacher leadership? As a teacher leader, looking at your roles and responsibilities, to what extent have you been able to align your efforts in MTSS, Iowa Core, Early Literacy, English Language Learners, PBIS and other district wide efforts? The district Teacher Leadership and Compensation (TLC) plan is not a separate plan. Teacher Leadership is a leverage tool that impacts school improvement efforts and district wide change.

The Center for Strengthening the Teaching Profession (CSTP) identifies the following skills for teacher leaders, as they reflect on their work in the school wide system. Here are some questions that may guide your system thinking processes: What are the layers of system(s)? What is the decision making context in the building I serve? What are the formal and informal rules in my building? How do I best garner support from and work with staff? How do I deal effectively with resistance? What collective inquiry practices do I facilitate? To what extent do I understand and leverage finance/resource allocations to impact school improvement? Do I ask the right questions at the right time?

For teacher leaders, their desire to work with classroom teachers is grounded in their belief that systems-level change will positively impact student learning, and that their contributions to the profession are important and needed.

For more information, contact Lora Rasey at lora.rasey@iowa.gov or (515) 419-2088.

Hampton-Dumont TLC Program

Systemic thinking is a natural for this small district

For the Hampton-Dumont CSD’s Teacher Leadership and Compensation (TLC) program, the role of TLC coordinator has been critical in achieving a systemic approach to school improvement. “We’re blessed to have a TLC coordinator,” said Todd Lettow, superintendent. “Having one person overseeing the entire program helps facilitate systems thinking.”

Jen Koenen, curriculum director and TLC Coordinator, agrees with Lettow. “Having one person lead the TLC work seems to be an advantage over having building principals do it,” she said. She meets with instructional collaborators weekly; they support each other and have a common implementation plan. In Hampton-Dumont, instructional coaches are called instructional collaborators, because that better described their role.

Koenen said TLC has been vital in tackling some of the district’s big initiatives like Multi-Tiered System of Support (MTSS) and Early Literacy. “It’s been invaluable in getting the MTSS processes up and running. We’re implementing teaching strategies through coaching cycles. We’re also using our professional learning communities to dig into analyzing the standards and reviewing the data from the new assessments.”

According to Koenen, TLC has been critical in helping the district move through second order change. “In Responsibilities of a Leader, Marzano identifies four responsibilities that are negatively charged in second order change: culture, communication, order, and input. Those are the things that TLC leaders help principals monitor,” she said. “Marzano also says that knowledge of curriculum, instruction, and assessment is important in getting through second order change. Our instructional collaborators share those responsibilities with the principals.”