All School Agreements

Who ever thought that reviewing All School Agreements would be such a difficult process! The delta responses mirrored our feelings exactly. Thanks for hanging in there with us. We will search for a more efficient process and bring this to the table again. Clarity in all school systems is an essential part of TQL and I value your input. Our move to everyone on one campus has provided us the opportunity to exhibit All One Family and Unity in Diversity! Let's hear it for being pushed out of the comfort zone!

-Amy

HSA Results 2006-2010

I talked with the guys at the accountability office earlier this week, and they said that the 2011 HSA score report is due out on Friday.  Which is great, because I've been waiting on it since April, when Deb already had the data and made nice charts for us to wring our hands over.

One of many things I don't like about the way the data are usually reported to us is the way they report by grade level, then compare last year's fourth graders to this year's fourth graders, as if that tells us much about our fourth grade instruction.  At a small school such as Voyager, the classes vary so much from one year to the next, that it's really comparing apples to oranges.  

What would be better, I think, is to track each class of Voyager students longitudinally until graduation.  Assuming the tests are equally challenging each year, and generally aligned with state standards (don't know if I can make this assumption), we should be able to compare this year's fourth graders with their performance as third graders last year, and see how well our fourth-grade instruction served them.  Capice?

So . . . I borrowed the last four years of data from the principal's report (thanks, Deb! Awesome organization!), and lifted the math scores by strand (more useful for planning instruction than an overall "math" score).  Then, I followed each class of students as they took the test, year by year.  The result is attached.  Once we get the scores from 2010, I can add the last data point in each of the charts, and then we can take a gander and look for pukas in math understanding.  It's just a little piece of the assessment puzzle, and it's fraught with problems, but more information is usually better, and I figure we should use what we have.  

One caveat about the data reported by "strands":  the "percent proficient" numbers are low because the test has a large margin of error, probably because of the low number of problems in each strand.  So there's a high percentage of kids whose score in a given strand is "too close to call".  Only the students whose score is safely above the standard deviation for that strand is deemed "proficient", or above.  So don't look at the scores that are like 8% and grieve--there were 80% of the students in some cases who MIGHT be proficient, the test just isn't good enough to tell us who is and who isn't. 

But the scores can be useful, I believe, in revealing our relative areas of strength and weakness in math, and which classes may need the most help this year to be successful (seventh graders).

The question of margin of error and statistical significance might also be why we were allowed to slip by with a 61% this year for AYP, even thought the goal was 64%.  At a school as small as ours, a 61% may just as well be a 64%, statistically speaking.  

I'd like to do the same type of charting with our schoolwide DRA and SRI scores, so that we can track progress over multiple years.  Still searching for the Google App that catalogs and analyzes assessment data for us. :)

It was a very good day to be a teacher,

Evan

Methodology Moment

Best Quantum quote of the day, from Elijah in Miss Michelle's class:

Elijah persisted in asking a question to which Michelle had no answer.  "I don't know," she honestly replied.

"That's an ILLEGAL RESPONSE," said Elijah.  "You can ask for more time, or phone a friend, or . . . "

"I guess I need more time," decided Miss Michelle.

Of course, Michelle, if you want to "phone a friend" over email, we may be able to help you out with the answer to Elijah's question!

Speaking of Michelle, attached is a graph of her class's multiplication timed fact test. It can also be viewed on the ILT page of our PLC blog here.  I believe the goal is forty correct in one minute?  This "run chart" shows the total number of problems the whole class got right. We can't wait to see how many they get right next week!  If it's a new class best, then I'd like to join in an impromptu celebration :).  

Thanks for being a fantabulous faculty.  I am truly blessed to have found my teaching home among such talented and committed educators.  And Inez says Voyager still "sparkles".

Here is my Purpose, Vision, and Mission, for those who are interested in seeing it in writing.  Upon further reflection, it looks like my purpose was actually an "aim", so I've revised it a bit.  

AIM: Joy in Learning about Learning

Purpose: To learn (about professional and organizational learning)

Vision: I am the chiropractor of quality.

Mission: I empower myself and my Voyager colleagues to be masterful, creative, collaborative, joyful educators with purpose by gently stretching and aligning our teaching practice, freeing our creative capacity to flow through us, enlivening our classrooms and inspiring our students.

I'll report back on my Quality Factors tomorrow. Thank you for putting so much thought into drafting them today. I thought the process Amy chose for drafting the factors was efficient, and produced useful results. Next step will be to operationally define what the factors mean.

Speaking of "useful", here's an inventive way of turning our Singapore Math baseline assessment "lemons" into lemonade. It's from a Quality consultant named Lee Jenkins, whose books I'm really enjoying:

1) Give a "preview" assessment of the skills to be mastered by the year's end (Most of us have done this already--painful though it may have been).

2) Give short weekly quizzes on a small, randomly chosen subset of the items on the assessment (take the square root of the total assessment items, and that can be the number of questions on the quiz: Levels 3A and 3B, for example, have 31 questions in all. Square root of 31 is about 5, so select five questions at random from a hat each week).

3) Count up the total number of items answered correctly by the whole class, and post it on a class "run chart". Each student can keep their own run chart as well.

4) CELEBRATE every time the class hits an all-time high number of correct responses.

5) DO NOT attach a grade to any of the scores. The goal here is to build learning motivation and keep it high. Grades add anxiety, comparison, and judgment to the learning process, says Jenkins, and research does not support the use of grades in motivating students to learn (whoah . . . that's deep). Of course, DO analyze the type of items students are generally getting correct or incorrect whenever it's helpful to adjust instruction. We need to get as much mileage out of every assessment task as possible.

6) At the end of the year, give the full assessment again, and gape in awe at the amazing results.

Fascinating stuff. If anyone is willing to try out this model of Baldrige-Based Quality, I would be happy to compile the data and get your run chart up and . . . running. :) We could even do a whole grade-level or whole-team run chart!

Thank you for reading all the way to the end.

Evan

Voyager Staff Satisfaction Survey Results

Thanks to the 23 staff members who replied to the survey. Here are the results of the survey. The chart is interactive, so as you "mouse over" the bars on the chart, they will reveal their meaning (you can also use the colors and the legend on the right--I just don't know how to widen the legend box. Your help welcome!).

Looks like our greatest opportunities for improved satisfaction are higher pay and walking the Voyager talk. Where shall we begin?

Staff Interest Survey Results

Dear Voyagers-

I am happy to report a 100% return rate by teachers on the staff interest inventory.  I now know more than I have ever known about the rich background, varied talents, and diverse tastes of our teaching staff.  I will be using this information to tailor our professional development experiences to our unique characteristics as a staff (like guqin music at our next faculty meeting).

Attached are some visual representations of what I've gleaned from the survey thus far:  Why We Teach, How We Learn, Our Music, and Methodology Mastery.  They can also be viewed at voyagerpcs.blogspot.com, for those of you who have gained access.  :o)  I hope you enjoy perusing the data as much as I did. 

My next survey will be a Teacher Satisfaction Survey, which the Baldrige folks recommend we give every 6-8 weeks to gauge morale and adjust our processes when there is a need. I will report the results from this survey within a week of receiving your responses. Thanks for your kokua!

Enjoying the extended weekend,

Evan

p.s.  Sue would like permission to share our individual answers to the question "why do you teach?" for a "Meet the Teachers" bulletin board.  If you are willing to have your answer to that question shared with the larger Voyager community, please reply to this email with the word "yes". 

All About Us

Our Music:


How We Learn:


Our Understanding of Voyager's Three Methodologies:

Why We Teach

Thanks to everyone who has responded to my Voyager Staff Interest Inventory so far! I made a word cloud of our collective answers to the question "Why do you teach?" I think it's beautiful (Click to enlarge):