Achievement Strategy #3 - January 2013 Update

Editor's Notes

• #2: Hello. This is Dr. Arbetter, principal of Walker Elementary School. In the next few slides, I will share with you our progress on our 3 rd achievement strategy aimed at increasing student achievement.
• #3: Our 2nd semester strategy reads: If teachers reflect bi-weekly on how to increase rigor using the Rigor/Relevance (R/R) Framework and keep track of higher-level questioning when planning lessons, then the levels of divergent thinking and evaluative questioning (Ques) and the amount of rigorous lessons on the R/R matrix will increase as measured from walkthrough data.
• #4: This slide shows the monthly levels of divergent and evaluative thinking observed in classrooms. While both of these levels decreased in January, the levels of convergent thinking continues to be high. The photo to the right shows the types of questions that fall under each of the 4 levels of questions. Notice how convergent, divergent, and evaluative thinking levels all require students to support their answers with evidence. These questions also require a higher level of thinking. In educator’s circles, we would refer to these levels as requiring higher cognitive processes.
• #5: While our data does not show that we are asking as many questions at the divergent and evaluative levels as we would like, our data does show that our students are engaged in rigorous instructional activities. The Common Core State Standards, of which many of you may have heard, has a heavy emphasis on learning that is applied across disciplines and in which students make real world connections. The framework we are using to measure rigor requires students to be engaged in high levels of thinking, or cognition, and apply their learning across subjects or in real world situations in order to be considered rigorous. As you can see, in the month of January we observed more rigorous instruction than we’ve observed any other month this year. I would like to conclude with thanking you for your support and helping us in our mission to ensure each student achieves maximum growth.