Observation #1

Hey everyone!

I was supposed to have my first classroom observation last Friday. However, this was not possible due to re-testing of students and some updates to the WIDA provisions. Instead, I was able to meet with my mentor, do some research myself and observe some of the meeting she was having with the new High School ELL teacher they just hired and a couple of the Elementary ELL teachers. Here is what I observed:

NOTETAKING:

8:00 AM - The secretary, Susan, brought me to Dr. Harsh's office. One of the elementary ELL teachers was already there. Dr. Harsh spend about 30 minutes making calls to find out if anyone was actually teaching so that I could observe. No one was going to be teaching a full class. A couple of teachers were helping parents with issues or having parent meetings. She asked all the teachers to come to her office at some point in the day if they had time. Dr. Harsh also made some calls about student F. She kept saying, "[Student F] is in trouble."
8:35 AM - I was taken into an empty office and given access to a computer so I could read up on WIDA and look over the school Report Cards. A couple more teachers arrived between 8:40 and 9:15. They were discussing the Student Evaluation Plans.
9:20 AM - Dr. Harsh asked Susan to track down all information on Student F taht she could. Susan found that Student F had not been tested and that he had been in and out of the school system. Dr. Harsh discussed the issue with her teachers and what they were going to do to rectify the situation.
- While they were discussing this issue I looked over the WIDA website and read a brieg of the Can Dos and the History and Development of WIDA.
10:30 AM - The newly hired ELL teacher for the High School arrived to meet everyone who could make the meeting.
10:40 AM - Dr. Harsh and the ELL teachers who were present spent some time catching the new teacher up on what they had been discussing: Student F (who is in the High School), the SEP's and how testing was going.
- I continued reading everything I could on the WIDA site. I found out that there is reasearch being conducted on allignment of standards:
* Goals - to analyze the relationship between ELP standards and assessments and to analyze the relationship between ELP standards and academic content standards.
* The approach is based on Dr. Gary Cook's 2006 adaption of Dr. Norman Webb's alignment methodology: to look at whether the content matches between tests and standards and to look at the extent to which tests and standards reflect the linguistic/cognitive complexity and breadth of a set of standards.
10:55 AM - The discussion in the meeting has turned back to Student F. There are many factors they must consider, not just language proficiency and school attendance. He has had problems with Marijuana in the past. They discussed whether this issue has affected his attendence. They also reviewed his grades in all his classes. (They discussed the student's history and family life and did a breif comparative analysis of his academic record. There may be a correlation between his lack of attendance and substance abuse and his academic performance.
- While they discussed the student, I found a great example of mixed methods research while reading about the research done to develope the WIDA Can Dos. I was very interested because I am taking FOED 6610 right now as well and we are doing a lot of reading and discussion on mixed method analysis, as well as qualitative vs. quantitative analysis and Human Subject Research.
11:00 AM - The discussion in the meeting moves on to the WIDA provisions and some changes that have been made that they must incorporate into their practices and framework. While discussing the provisions and changes, the conversation did turn back to student F at one point and then the ELL teachers gave a re-cap of last Tuesday's meeting (See my first blog post) for the new teacher.
- While this was going on I continued to educate myself on WIDA. I read the document discussing the guiding principals of language development. This was mainly a reminder for me because these guiding principals have been discussed in the previous classes I have taken for the ESL Master's Program. Next, I read about the SLA (Spanish Language Arts) standards: research supports the notion that students benefit when they have foundational literacy skills in their first language and when schools incorporate their primary language and culture into the classroom. They support planning curriculum for bilinguals and two-way immersion. This too has been discussed in my previous classes. Then, I read about ACCESS. This is a test that is given annually. The test items are written from the model performance indicators of WIDA's five proficiency standards and forms which are divided into grade level clusters. Within each grade level cluster ACCESS consists of three forms (or tiers): beginning, intermediate, and advance. They cover the four areas of language learning: speaking, reading, writing and listening.
- Throughout the meeting Susan was called on to investigate a few student backgrounds, retrieve documents and remind Dr. Harsh of issues that must be discussed or whether certain things had been done.
11:25 AM - A lady came in to pick up tests to distribute to the schools. I am not sure what tests these were though. It is important to remember that Dr. Harsh is also the testing coordinator for the district.
- I continued to read about the purpose and use of the ACCESS test. The test exceeds the requirements of NCLB (No Child Left Behind). It gives resyults that inform educators whether a student is proficient enought to participate in content area classes without support and on state academic content tests without accomodations. It gives information to the districts about the success of their programs. It identifies ELP levels of students with respect to WIDA. Finally, it gives information to educators on how to enhance instruction and learning for ELLs.
11:30 AM - Dr. Harsh re-enters the meeting.
- I read about the test development cycle for ACCESS. They have just put into use (March 2010) an alternative ACCESS test for ELLs with cognitive disabilities.
- I also read about the W-APT which is the WIDA ACCESS Placement Test for incoming ELL students.
11:35 AM - Susan recieved a call about a returning ELL student and pulled his records.
11:39 AM - Susan recieved another call about a returning students, an ELL students, and pulled his test scores for the teacher.
11:45 AM - I finished reading everything on the WIDA site and went to get coffee.
- Dr Harsh was discussing the imortance of the scores, Can Do descriptors, etc., as well as teacher support for the students and parents.
- They discussed the importance of positive verbal interactions and making personal connections.
- The teachers were discussing their previous experiences and giving examples of positive personal interactions and connections: achknowledge everyone and students will have a positive reaction.
- The discussed another student, student G. He has been a great student but his mom is worried he might drop out. The mother had previously contacted one of the teachers, Sandra, because he did not want to go to school and was always giving excuses. They have not heard from the mother this year yet. His older brother dropped out and went back to Mexico. They are considering him 'at risk.' He has been moved to the High school but is still showing up as an 8th grader. So, Susan was called in and asked to make the adjustments to his record. She is asked to change his grade level then re-print the High School list with all the notes.
- They then discussed another student, student J. He was moved from the 7th grade to the 8th grade last year and is now in the 9th. Dr. Harsh wants to know what test he was given and does not beleive he was tested at all.
12:00 PM - They got back to discussing the WIDA provisions. They discussed the number of years of additional support and regular checks each student is given after becoming proficient and being placed in the regular content area classes full time.
(4-5 years depending on student)
12:05 PM - They then discussed scheduling the individual student conferences to go over scores, goals and course of action. They also discussed making student contracts for improvements and using the mathamatical data for make goals realistic. One of the teachers explained what she did in her student meetings last year: had students decide on goal for improvement and draw a line to show it visually on their report. She also talked about the rewards that are in place for the regular education students who scored high on their MCT 2 (state test): They get to go to a pizza place called Gattytown. Dr. Harsh asked, "Are our students included?" (We must keep in mind that the ELL students must take the state tests as well.) The teacher said that she was pretty sure they were included. The teacher also explained that she wanted to do something special for the students in the lower grades who had improved on their major tests.
12:10 PM - They discussed hot to use some money they have in the budget that must be used by a certain date. They want to do something for the parents like provide a breakfast or lunch for a meet and greet. They do not want to hold formal meetings yet and they want the parents to be able to meet as well. They think it would be nice for the parents to come eat with their childre, meet the teachers and meet each other. They plan to poll the parents to see what times they can come to the school.
- Susan was called in again to make copies.
12:15 PM - Dr. Harsh asked if there were "any other hot topics to discuss." A teacher suggested that they look at page 15 of the WIDA provisions and discuss the influences on academic success.
12:17 PM - They briefly discussed the Newcommer program.
12:18 PM - Susan asked for a thumb drive from the High School teacher with student information so she could make some changes.
12:19 PM - The discussion went back to the WIDA provisions and W-APT. WIDA says that the placement test does not necessarily mean there has been progress.
- pg. 37 of the provisions - Alternative ACCESS for ELLs. There was some confusion on the dates. Someone had confused the month of the ACCESS test with the month of the alternative ACCESS test and had told some of the other teachers the wrong dates.
- Dr. Harsh: "There is another students I want to talk about but" she needs to talk with another teacher first.
12:20 PM - They discussed ordering the test materials, which Dr. Harsh will handle on her own. A teacher mentions the coding for the native language and ethnicity on the testing sheet. They could not find the key for the identification codes for the two questions. They did find out that it was not necessary to fill out that information on the test, though. Dr. Harsh explained that they just sent that information to her.
12:25 PM - They discussed the scaffolding academic language. Sandra explained the workshop that she and the other teachers attended. (The session was mainly used to explain to teachers who were new to the program.) Harshe asked if she and a couple other ELL teachers would like to discuss the scaffolding and other information with groups of Regular Education teachers. She said it might be good to do on an early release day and that one or two of the ELL teachers could go to each school in the district and go over what they did in the workshop. Sandra explained that at the workshop they were put into grade level groups and an ELL teacher was assigned to each group. They discussed activities, etc. Sandra really liked the way it was organized and said that the regular education teachers at the workshop had really positive reactions.
12:30 PM - I had finished doing my research so I sat outside the room they were using for their meeting from about 12:00 until they asked me to come in. I met the new ELL teacher for the High School and they I talked to Dr. Harsh and Sandra about observing at Grace Christian Elementary school - the school Sandra works at mainly. Sandra is going to try to schedule me to observe a sixth grader ELL student she has during a regular math class. The student has been struggling. She said that I do not have to just observe. I may be able to assist the student as well. I exchanged numbers with Sandra and we left.

It was a very interesting and informative meeting and observation. I can't wait until Tuesday.