Orchid

=Round 1=

- Strong Relationships among students and teachers will encourage students to take risks. (lowering affective filter) - The one course a day to be completely comfortable because they are asked to be risk takers. - Learning becomes interactive, increases motivation - Clarity of goals

- Like riding a bike

- Goal setting (showing progress according to where individual students are)

1. Goal setting conferences with individual students 2. Self-Assessment (LInguaFolio, reflective journals, etc.) 3. Monitoring Student Progress towards goals 4. Goals of a language department/district 5. How do you create the whole student? Teaching learning skills Teachers need to shown how to become facilitators. Supervisors need to develop professional development opportunities for teachers to experience this type of learning.
 * Steps for Risktaking and Empowering Students**

Teacher is the leader to determine what energizes student

research and learning in the classroom: Purposeful and meaningful learning experiences, strategies for staying in target language, clear and aligned curriculum, personalized learning opportunities to be successful - for teachers AND students, time for collaboration and coaching, district initiatives (marzano), self assessment for teachers along best practices, embedded formative assessments and use of data, collaborative assessments (teacher no longer the sole source of content and assessment)

Round 4: How can common and/or district summative assessments become pathways to student proficiency?

In the previous, we talked about we didn't know which strategies to use before knowing what the assessment is first. We need to look at the assessment first and then design the lesson which is best practice now. This has been a big change for us and to have a common understanding of the assessment. Our national standards are tools to help us. It doesn't have to be a paper and pencil test. Assessment is not always a test. We can collect smaller pieces and use dip-stick testing to form our lessons. This gives us data and should nto be punitive and we need to make teachers aware of this. Is it possible to have a performance based assessment that is not authentic? ex. Pretend you are a real estate agent...is this authentic and do we use it? Are role-plays authentic? Is giving them the role making it authentic? What if it is it authentic to the learner but not to the culture? A bigger question is it appropriate for the culture or just another Ameican doing something while speaking the language? Real world scenario is different than authentic. If you have never been in that situation, how do you know what to say? Preparing for the prom in Chinese? or a guy preparing for the quinceanera? It is like being in a play. Is it motivational to the learner? Does that count? Does it still hold value if you have to explain something to a foreign exchange student who is coming? What do you do with presentational speaking at the novice level? Why is presentational appropriate for a novice or intermediate? Interpersonal speaking is more appropriate. Some cultures have reasons to use them like singing in Russia. What about show and tell? What about a foreign exchange student presenting him or herself? We need to distinguish between practices to get to that level versus just creating the assessment. Is this worth having as an objective in this case? What do we do with the disengaged learners? Another question, it is obvious to know somethings to speak, so is a vocabulary or grammar quiz a formative assessment or is it a quiz or a test? What does the data show? If it is clear what the summative assessment is, than yes they can be formative. Formative assessments are often mini performance assessments....but shouldn't they be many different times. How does this turn into make us make the changes in our lesson plans? This is very hard to get teachers to start doing this. What do we do for the kids that don't get it....are we using the formative assessments to change our teaching to get them on board? Is the vocabulary quiz diagnostic for you or does it help with holistic grading later? We see student engaged and interactive practices in the classroom and then give a paper and pencil test at the end. We are seeing evidence of teacher thinking. There are things that constrain teachers too....like final exams and turning in grades...or it is also difficult for them to do it differently as they learned in the same manner. It is hard to explain and justify but you need to know what and how you are going to assess.

This ties into round 1...if teacher and students are to do goal setting....what do you do when they don't want to learn how to write? Isn't this collaborative seduction? Isn't the point that the students needs a voice, a buy-in? Here is the framework, how can we make it work for us in the classroom...but it is really collaborative path way setting.

//**Round 5:**// Day 2

How can incorporating feedback based on data analysis to improve student learning?

How can a portfolio of student products motivate, direct, and inspire student performance?
 * Gives perspective on student growth; a chance to reflect back on
 * The challenge is the consistency of grading among the various teachers. The teachers really need to buy in to the grading rubrics. However, the question remains that maybe all work does not need to be graded. Feedback is essential, but the grades are not.

How can teacher-led data teams be best utilized?
 * Lingua Folio is an example of data for students to use.
 * AP scores
 * Retention data
 * Number of students studying multiple languages
 * Use of common summative assessments, based on standards, to further dialogue about best teaching practices


 * Round 6** Day2

Team articulation positively impacts student learning in many ways. Articulation involves clear and deliberate goals from level to level. The learning is constantly reinforced and there is less of a chance of the repeating of units or topics. There is a sense of responsiblity and accountability across the team to student learning.

Purposeful collaboration is everything. Collaboration provides ownership of the curriculum among teachers. Teachers are not in private practice. Shared understanding provides clarity to our students.

Empowering teacher growth.. One strategy is to use Title II funding to help grow teacher leaders by providing substitutes.. Bring in new teachers to see model lessons by experienced teachers.