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INTRODUCTION

This manual has been created as a resource for teams to work through the data team process. This manual should be used by those who have attended training, and not used as a substitute for data team training.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

STEP 1 - Plan and Prepare 3 - 5

STEP 2 - Organize and Chart Data 6

STEP 3 - Analyze and Prioritize 7

STEP 4 - Select Common Instructional Strategies 8

STEP 5 - Results Indicators 9

STEP 6 - Theory of Acton 10

STEP 7 - Reflection 11

Other Resources 12

Table of Contents

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(4-6 hours for first time creation of step 1, in subsequent years estimate 1 hour for review and improvement of core plan previously deconstructed standards and/or to add additional standards. This step must be completed before doing a full cycle (steps 2-7).

Purpose: The purpose of step one is to make a solid, core plan for grade level instruction, based on the priority standards for ALL students in your class. At the end of this step, you should have a unit plan/map that your team will use to guide instruction throughout the unit. Note: Core plans, unit plan and unit map are all terms frequently used to reference step 1.

Timeline: When starting step 1 with priority standards. Your team may need up to 4-6 hours of team time to complete this step. This step needs to be completed at least 2 weeks before your instruction for your cycle is set to begin to allow time for use of the pre-assessment.

How To:

Deconstruct priority standards into student friendly learning targets

Use the deconstruction template on the top of Step 1 to do this. Identify all nouns and verbs as a team. The nouns and verbs will serve as your academic vocabulary for the unit.
As a team, determine the nouns and verbs that you know students’ will need defined for them or that as a team you need to get clarity on. Have a conversation about what those student-friendly definitions are and list them for use in your instruction. Note: This should not be just a copy/paste of Webster’s Dictionary. Make these definitions useable for you and your students.
Then, identify the type of target of the standard. (Knowledge, Reasoning, Skill, Product, Disposition)

Keep in mind Not all of the learning target boxes need to be filled in. If a standard is knowledge, it will have only knowledge targets. If it is reasoning, it will have reasoning and knowledge (but not skill and product). If it's skill, it will have S, R and K. If it's product, it may or may not have skill, but will have R and K.

Use this information, as well as your list of nouns and verbs, to generate student friendly learning targets. These learning targets should help students understand what they are learning and how it progresses through the unit until they have mastery of the full standard.

Step 1: Plan And Prepare

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Select/revise a post assessment

If your district has not generated post assessments already, use what you have in your materials as a starting point. Remember - You don’t want to reinvent the wheel if you don’t have to! Look at the assessment to make sure it covers the learning targets you are going to teach, remove anything extra. If it does not cover the full standard, add/create/find assessment items that do match.
Check to make sure that the assessment matches the rigor of the standard (i.e. Depth of Knowledge, appropriate method for target type (Knowledge, Reasoning, Skill,Product, Disposition)

Use resources and materials to decide which lessons match, what to skip/skim, what needs to be supplemented

Now is the time to pull out your adopted teaching materials! Look at the priority standard as your FOCUS for this unit, but not the ONLY thing you will teach as we are often reviewing/previewing other standards. Look through the lessons to figure out where the priority standard is taught, using your learning targets as a guide for this work. Focus on these lessons, and decide where you can skip or skim over others to finish the unit according to your timeline. Record this information on the map.

Select additional strategies for core

In this section, you and your team will pick additional strategies to either cover portions of the standard that your materials did not adequate address AND/OR will choose additional high impact strategies to make selected lesson more accessible to all learners.
Student engagement is enhanced when teachers use high impact strategies, such as GLAD strategies or Manzano’s strategies. Look at your unit plan to decide where you can add in high impact strategies.

Step 1: Plan And Prepare

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Create pre-assessment

Now you are clear what students need to know by the end of the unit. Next, determine the prerequisite skills (underpinnings, previous grade level content) that students need to be successful in this unit. Create a pre-assessment using this information.
You should put some items that are “on grade level” for the standard in order to determine if you have students that may be proficient and to invite students into the new learning (connecting what they have learned and will learn next). Keep in mind the pre-assessment is unlikely to be the same as your post assessment and should be a fast (15 minutes or less) snapshot of what knowledge and skills students are bringing to the unit.

Create scoring agreements

Create the scoring agreements for the post and the pre test.

Decide how to administer and score the assessment prior to giving it to students to get the most accurate, actionable information.
Take the assessment to check for clarity and to better infer where students will struggle or if there are test design issues.
Identify clear criteria (cut-off scores/levels of proficiency) for each group of students that will best reveal their needs (What is Meeting? Close? etc.)

Administer pre-assessment and score

Remember that you need to get student pre-assessments to your team time at least two meetings before instruction begins to allow yourselves time to analyze and utilize the data to modify instruction to better meet learner needs. This may cause a revision of the unit map, where your team may decide on additional differentiation and scaffolds to support different learner needs.
Be sure to calibrate if needed. Once you have agreement on what proficiency looks like, it will only take a few assessments (3-5 assessments) to ensure the team is calibrated in scoring.
Generally, scoring is done before coming to the PLC meeting. If your scoring agreements are clear, scoring during the meeting will be unnecessary.

Step 1: Plan And Prepare

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(10 minutes)

Purpose: During Step 2, you want to place students into groups in order to best reveal student need. Remember, all students are going to receive instruction from the unit plan that your team made in Step 1, but Step 2 is where we apply student reality to that plan and answer “Where are kids in relationship to the standard” so that we can plan and revise for those whose needs are not yet addressed.

Timeline: This step is done after an assessment has been given and scored.

With a pre-assessment, this step is done two weeks BEFORE instruction on the unit begins.
For a post assessment, this step is done using post assessment data at the end of the unit to create an intervention plan, which has a flexible timeline, based on availability and resources
For pre/post assessments, students should be placed into four categories to ensure students with different needs are not grouped together.
For quick progress monitor assessments, this step could be skipped and a quick sort could be used in its place, depending on the length of the unit. For longer running units, student should be charted again using a progress monitor at the mid point.

How To:

Use your cut scores to reveal student need. If cut scores have not been determined, or if you find that most/all of your students are going to end up in one category, adjust cut scores before you chart. Remember the following:

Proficient/Exceeding:

Student has mastered the full standard (not time dependant)

Close to Proficient:

Students who have the prerequisite skills needed and some portions of the current standard.

Far To Go/Approaching:

Students who have some prerequisite skills. May or may not have correct responses on the current standard of focus.

Intervention:

Students who lack most or all of the prerequisite skills

Step 2: Organize/Chart Data

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(15-20 minutes)

Purpose: In this step, you will focus on a specific group of students, for whom the core plan is not going to work. Looking over your chart in Step 2, your team will select one group of students to conduct your cycle around.

Timeline: When using Pre-Assessment data, this is done before Unit instruction begins.

When using Progress Monitor data, this is done during instruction. When using Post Assessment data, this is done before Intervention instruction begins.

How to:

Select one group of students prioritized from your charting of data in Step 2.

Pull out the assessments of the group of students your team has chosen to target. You will use the focus group to determine your targeted instructional plan.

Look over the assessments for strengths. What can students do that you can build upon? What skills do they already have/what do they already know that will help them be successful in the unit? Write these strengths down and corresponding inferences

Move to errors/misconceptions. What are students showing they are not able to do? What misconceptions are leading them to incorrect answers? Are there any obvious holes you need to fill? Write the list of errors/misconceptions down and corresponding inferences.

When making inferences consider what is happening for students that is producing these results. Put yourself in the students’ shoes. What is going on in their head to make them answer this way? Another way to think about this is to move beyond labeling the need of the ‘what’ to infer the ‘why’ or root cause.

Decide together on the error/misconception your team is going to prioritize addressing first. What is most foundational or what is most enduring for students to learn? Remember, this isn’t the ONLY error/misconception you will choose for this cycle. You will come back and pick up another one later in the cycle. But, choose only one for now.

Step 3: Analyze & Prioritize

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(10-15 minutes)

Purpose: During this step, your team will select one or two strategy/strategies that will most effectively instruct for the error/misconception you identified in step 3. You will only name the strategy here. The details of how the strategy will be taught in the classroom comes in step 5. Remember, this strategy is either addition to or a revisions of the core plan you create in step one. Keep in mind, strategies chosen will modify teachers’ instructional practice and are not a repeat of same strategies in the core plan. As a team, you will brainstorm and decide on a strategy that you think will have the greatest impact on the prioritized need.

Timeline: When using Pre-Assessment data, this is done before Unit instruction begins. When using Progress Monitor data, this is done during Unit instruction. When using Post Assessment data, this is done before Intervention instruction.

How To:

Using a list to jog your memory of high-impact strategies (GLAD, Marzano, QTEL, Avid, etc.), your team may use this time as brainstorm for ideas.

After looking at your brainstorm, select the strategy that will be most effective when teaching the prioritized need you selected in step 3. Before moving on, make sure you have agreement as a group that all teachers agree to use the identified strategy in their classrooms, with the student group you selected. You may choose to include other students, if it is appropriate, but the acceptable minimum is the targeted group.

Record which strategy you have chosen to use. You do NOT need to discuss details. This will happen in step 5.

Step 4: Common Instructional Strategies

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(15-20 minutes)

Purpose: In this step, teachers will determine exactly how the strategy will be implemented. You will determine what will actually happen in the classroom, how students will engage with the strategy, and how you will know if the selected strategy was successful. This is where we make the steps of the instructional plan, being specific to ensure that the strategy is executed similarly in each classroom and used to its maximum potential. Descriptions of strategies should be detailed and thorough enough to allow for quality replication that allows your team and others to replicate the described strategy in the future (i.e. implementation, frequency, duration, resources).

Timeline: When using pre-assessment data, this is done before unit instruction begins. When using progress monitor data, this is done during the unit instruction. When using post assessment data, this is done before intervention instruction begins.

How to:

Using your selected strategy/strategies, determine answers for the following 3 questions:

What will the teacher do?

Remember to be specific. Avoid vague terms like “model” or “go over” that can lead to different interpretations. Describe what the teacher will do, using your collective brain to enhance the instruction. Think through the lesson/s, and write out each step. The more detail, the better. If this is done well, you should only need to prep materials needed.

What will the students do?

The goal here is active engagement. How will students engage with the content? What will they be doing while you are instructing? What will help them absorb what you are teaching? Consider gradual release and how students can do more over time. Record your plan.

What will we look for in student work?

Again, be specific. What will it actually look like in the student work if the strategy is working? What will we hear students saying? See them doing? Your answer to this final question will be the basis for your progress monitor assessment.

Decide when you will give the progress monitor based on how long it will take for students to learn the prioritized need and for the strategy to be executed well. The more times you can get through steps 3-5, the more errors/misconceptions you will be able to address, so make this timeline realistic, but rigorous.

Step 5: Determine Results Indicators

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(No more than 10 minutes. After 8 minutes, get help or move on!)

Purpose: In this step, teams set a theory of action for themselves to set a goal about the success of the plan.

Timeline: Variable. This can be done once at the beginning of each cycle, and the goal can be for the entire cycle. Teams can also write smaller goals along the way for each error/misconception they choose to create an instructional plan.

How to:

Use the sentence frame to generate your theory of action.

If we (execute the strategy we selected in step 4) then (use the algorithm below) % of our students will be able to (demonstrate proficiency as detailed out in step 5c) by (date).

Percentages should be calculated using the following algorithm:

All students on the roster/in the grade level is the number of your denominator.
To create the numerator, add up the following:

All students in the proficient and close to proficient categories.
50-75%* of the students in the far to go (3rd column) should be added into the numerator.
In the Intervention column (4th column), add no more than 25%* of students into the numerator.

Divide the numerator by the denominator to get your realistic goal percentage!
Keep in mind that ALL students will demonstrate growth. The algorithm is helping determine the likelihood of students making it to proficiency during core instruction.

Step 6: Theory of Action

* This percentage should be determined by looking at the standard. If it is a standard that is easily learned once taught (ie, names of angles) use a higher percentage. If the standard is a skill that evolves over time (ie, narrative writing), chose a percentage on the lower end of the range since students are unlikely to make a sudden, large jump in performance.

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(Time varies for this step, typically ranging between 5 to 20 minutes. It should be performed multiple times throughout a cycle, as well as at the end, to ensure that lessons learned are incorporated into the core map/plan for next year's instruction.)

Purpose: In this step, teams pause to reflect on what is going well and what needs improvement to enhance the instructional plan further, better meeting student needs and addressing any assessment-related issues. Additionally, this is a time for teams to reflect on their group process and workflow. It is crucial for schools and teams to allocate time for this in their agenda both on a cycle-by-cycle basis and at key points during the school year. Reflection aids in learning from past experiences and will contribute to more efficient future cycles. These reflections will be documented on the unit map for future reference and potential assessment changes.

Timeline: This step should be done multiple times throughout a cycle and at the end to ensure lessons learned are added to the core map/plan for next year’s instruction.

How to:

Set aside time on your agenda for reflection (5-20 min)

Use reflection as a time to set time to celebrate new learning, students gains, discuss and rectify things that didn’t go well during the cycle or in the team’s process and add to the core map (Ie add successful strategies to core plan, removing a strategy that was unsuccessful, adding a norm to address interpersonal challenges etc).

Step 7: Reflection

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Educational Excellence Website

(Training Materials, Slides, Handouts, etc)

www.educationalexcellence.org

Example of a complete Process Sheet (in Google Docs)

http://bit.ly/ExampleTeamF

Standards:

https://www.oregon.gov/ode/educator-resources/standards/Pages/default.aspx