State+Flag

State Flag Goals are important at the district, building, and student level so that teachers and students know where they are headed and what they need to know and be able to do. Goals should be focused on student learning and should be providing students with the skills that they need for success. We have to differentiate professional development as we expect teachers to differentiate instruction. We need to be willing to take risks and feel uncomfortable in order to model 21st Century Learning. Let the students evaluate and self select the web tools to be used.

Performance based learning helps students function within the target language and increase their proficiency; students will be using Thomas' 7 Cs and working at higher and rigorous levels; supervisors will need to encourage risk-taking in the types of activities they try in their classrooms; Shifts the focus on specific skills - reading; writing; speaking; listening- provides scaffolding; transfers the responsibility for learning on the student;

Curriculum: content guidelines and targeted levels of proficiency; map of learning goals and expectations; curriculum is the content and process fo what and how you teach; what students should be know and able to do; guaranteed and viable common curriculum;

Consistently implementing curriculum can only happen with horizontal and vertical articulation; It may never be guaranteed? provide consistent professional development; peer observations for teachers; performance based learning reorders the hierarchy of curriculum, instruction and assessment.

Strategies: activities with real-world connections; sister-city programs; language in a real-life context; skyping; authentic materials; teachers should use a communicative approach

PD for teachers: mentoring; collaboration; view videotaped lessons

Assessments with rubrics; offer clear guidelines regarding levels of proficiency; Linguafolio; portfolio; student can function better in one modality than in another;

Comprehensible Input: should be engaging; repetitive; scaffolding the information; needs improved articulation


 * Topic 4:**

• rubric appropriateness -- depends on which type of assessment you are delivering (degrees in formative, black or white in summative) • formative assessment is good to establish common benchmarks • valid and reliable: STAMP test? conversations prompted by the tool can prompt discussion that begin these discussions. Multiple types of assesssment -- eportfolios to show what students can do. What is an alternative assessment? Not a pencil paper test? Simple observation is one alternative form -- once a checklist has been developed. Qualitative vs. quantitative approach? We know it more experientially rather than data. What do we do with that assessment? Partnership of assessment -- student-centered for individual progress and teacher-centered for class reporting • formative assessments: are we bringing these things to informal conversations? • authentic assessment: showing kids that language isn't just in their textbook is inherently engaging (Latino American Idol for the listening assessment), choosing material for those assessments should be connected with information that's relevant for kids, assessments shouldn't be contrived
 * teacher-student and teacher-teacher discussion, team approach, prompts discussion on how to differentiate, establishing these as a team creates a common goal

TOPIC 5: feedback & data to improve student learning

feedback needs to be specific to goal to improve performance. we need to learn to use/interpret district collected data (MAP, CogAT, etc) and transfer implications to WL instructional environments. Feedback to students on their ability to transfer knowledge to unique situations?

Round 6 We discussed: Teacher Collaboration Common Assessments/data collection Shared vision/accountability Use of protocols in meetings Walk thrus with constructive supportive feedback