Topic: Personalization Project

Professional Development Program: Summary and Objectives:

Summary: According to an article written by Gwande (2003), To create new norms, you have to understand peoples exiting norms and barriers to change. You have to understand what's getting in their way. This is the basis of the professional development plan. It is proving a space where assessment and understandings can be looked at from the notion of bottom to top, what does it actually look like when teachers collaborate around data to improve instruction.

The professional development plan will be center around teachers who are working in ICT and self- contained classrooms (15:1). Teachers will select specific students to work with. Students work will be used as a means of learning and problem solving. Teachers and mentors will use selected protocols that will first address the learner and second to reflect on the relationship between the teachers goals and the students perspective. Initially a mentor will be provided to structure meetings and provide feedback. Eventually teachers would internalize the process, share with each other and continue without the mentor.

Criteria:

      Students in a specific ICT and self-contained classrooms. There are two self-contained classrooms and two ICT classrooms. Teachers will select 4 students from the self-contained and 4 students in the ICT classrooms.

        Must  attend school regularly: for the assessment to be successful

       Looking at reading, writing and comprehension in humanities and science (literacy)

       The group has to chose a facilitator, a presenter, and group member; totaling four individuals.

        Several protocols will be used to discuss students work. (Turning and ATLAS)

Objectives:

       To provide support for teachers to perceive, observe and develop strategies for eight target students who are academically unsuccessful. The school is an Exhibition/portfolio based school therefore emphasis will be based on completing the projects together with ELA scores. (Tables 1 and 2)

       To  provide a forum for individual teachers to learn the power of collaborating and sharing successful strategies for student learning.

      To have teachers use successful strategies in future classes with students other than the targeted students.

      To have teachers focus on individual students and develop ways to differentiate their materials targeting real individual student needs.

Model/ Process:

Choose 9th and 10^th grade students who are not being academically successful (completing the different exhibitions, assessments and portfolios) and describe learning interactions and learning behaviors.

Each of his/her teachers will record the learning anecdotes on a spread sheet, specifically a tracker so that knowledge of the students strengths/weaknesses/ learning styles are common knowledge for all teachers. The tracker is an online Google Spreadsheet and will updated and share with all involved in the PD. The teachers meet for half an hour a week to share successful strategies and to develop strategies for remediating difficulties.

A teacher mentor provides further insights and records them on the tracker.

Once a month, each participating teacher prepares a summary of the successes/ learning styles/learning strengths/interventions and suggestions. The whole house (system in which the students are scheduled) shares this information in a group meeting/collaboration.

This information is passed to future teachers so that they can use successful interventions from the beginning of the school year. 

Needs Assessment:

Background: Looking at Student work through the lens of the Mission and Vision of the School.

Fannie Lou Hamer Freedom High School is part of the Coalition of Essential Schools, and therefore is provided a wavier from the DOE. However, as a result of the wavier students are required to complete three portfolio (mastery on projects) and panels, in math, science social studies and English language arts. In addition, even though the wavier is granted students are also require to pass the ELA Regents Exam with an 85% or higher, (See Table 2). Moreover, the day-to-day engagement of our students in each of the areas identified above is guided by five Habits of Mind, dispositions that our students learn to use as they move through their processes of problem solving and complex thinking. Our students ask questions about viewpoint, such as What is my position? How might this look from someone else's point of view? Students think carefully about evidence. How do I justify my viewpoint? How do I know what is true? As students develop ideas, they strive to make connections, to see patterns, and to engage their ideas with the ideas of others in surprising ways. Conjecture lets students imagine different possibilities. Students evaluate the relevance of their and others thinking and that of others. These questions undergird student work and staff professional development as we develop classes and projects. These projects are so designed to allow multiple access/entry points for all students.

*Please See Attachment*