Metrics for High School Performance – Social & Emotional Learning

For my response to intervention class, I monitor missed homework/in-class assignments. I look for:

• Missed assignments
• Assignments submitted but marked 0
• Assignments submitted marked below 70%

Each of these register an incomplete understanding of the content presented due to the following causes:

• Absenteeism
• Inability to translate content to practice
• Lack of time management to allocate adequate time to complete work in an exemplar fashion

Chronic absenteeism https://www2.ed.gov/about/inits/ed/chronicabsenteeism/toolkit.pdf

Adding to this spectrum of metrics is Social Emotional Learning:

Social-Emotional Learning Activities for Elementary School | Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

5 Social-Emotional Learning Activities for Elementary School

August 19, 2019

Sara BurenShaped Contributor

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Implementing social-emotional learning in schools is important for many reasons, whether to improve school culture, address discipline problems, or build strong relationships.

As teachers, we know that teaching is a social science, and the better students feel about themselves and their community, the better they will perform academically. So how do we teach students to be the best versions of themselves? To help, we’ve compiled some Hero Academy social-emotional learning activities for elementary students in Grades Pre-K–4!

Social-Emotional Learning Activities: PDFs by Core Competency

https://www.hmhco.com/blog/social-emotional-learning-activities-teach-students-tobe-the-best-version-of-themselves?utm_medium=email&elq_extcampid=7015A000001jvDiQAI&utm_source=WF1150100b&utm_campaign=7015A000001jvDiQAI

According to the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL), there are five core competencies that enhance students’ capacity to integrate skills, attitudes, and behaviors to deal effectively and ethically with daily tasks and challenges:

• Self-awareness
• Self-management
• Social awareness
• Relationship skills
• Responsible decision-making

Why do students accept “0” for assignments that teachers consider simple?

I have been looking over and considering “grades” to be posted in PowerSchool for the first weeks of class in Distance Learning.  I considered most of my assignments “soft” because each required the following:

• Show up at a specific time.
• Answer a few questions that require your opinion not background knowledge.
• Set aside time to work at your own pace on content designed to strengthen skills.
• Provide feedback to the instructor on how to improve the process.

I asked myself the question in the Title ……..

First Google search result led me to this:

To what extent do members of the educational community introduce nonacademic variables into the grading of student learning? How many of these variables lie outside of students’ direct control? These two questions will help guide the conversation in this chapter.

http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/114003/chapters/Grading.aspx

A High School Intervention Metric

As I review the work of my RTI cohort, I see a metric presenting itself that generates clear “real-time” markers for intervention.

Homework/Class Assignments that are below the benchmark set for Mastery.  In my district 70% is a D and serves as the lowest threshold for an assignment that moves a student forward toward their high school credit.  Red Flag scores are:

• Missing
• “0”
• <70%

These indicators show up immediately, either through Teacher-scored or auto-scored exercises, which are posted to the student’s cumulative grade report.  My work with the RTI cohort asks the student about the “root cause” of this Red Flag score and highlights some immediate challenges met by the student in pursuit of Mastery.

• “I was absent.”
• “I did not know where to start.”
• “I did not have enough time to complete all of the work.”

These reasons, or variations of these reasons, present themselves frequently as I canvas my RTI Cohort during their GradeBook review.

Each of these “root causes” is linked to obstacles to student content development:

• Chronic absenteeism – https://www.brookings.edu/research/chronic-absenteeism-an-old-problem-in-search-of-new-answers/
• Depth of Knowledge Development –https://www.edutopia.org/blog/webbs-depth-knowledge-increase-rigor-gerald-aungst
• Student Time Management – https://www.apsi.edu.au/7-time-management-tips-students/ 

A report of “missed or failed homework” should be the trigger for intervention throughout our progress-monitoring system.  As the instructor posts the grade the feedback loop should start to address the root cause and set an intervention. The frequency of these “root causes” may be the metric but the student’s support system must be positioned to address them at the time of occurrence.  The district’s gradebook setup is designed to acknowledge the posting but, if polled, not one of the stakeholders could set a defined direction for intervention.

Root Cause Analysis is not a typical tool in an educator’s toolbox https://asq.org/quality-resources/root-cause-analysis,  However, in an environment of data-driven action. This “root cause analysis” would provide frequency insight and timely intervention. 

Widest Common Denominator -#strongreaders

Widest common denominator

https://seths.blog/2019/08/widest-common-denominator/

Quoting Godin:”

Often, we make the mistake of focusing on too broad an audience. Obsessing about the minimum viable audience forces us to make something that’s truly better. But once we identify those we seek to serve, broadening access is a powerful way to add impact.

This isn’t a matter of high or low, more or less. It’s the power of thinking hard about who it’s for and what it’s for.

I need to “obsess about minimal viable audience” and who it is for and what it is for.

Toward full stack – educator version

Find the right clients – the clients walk in our door at varied points in their personal trajectory

Earn their attention and trust – new relationships must be cultivated quickly and existing ones strengthened

Identify the problem – Is it requisite knowledge? Is it current environment? Hypothesize and test assumptions. Be prepared to “re-tool”.

Find their fear, embrace their objectives – Establishing this in a limited personal space can be challenging but should be a shared mission.

Prototype possible solutions – https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&source=images&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwiDkZT9-4nkAhXCna0KHanCCzoQjRx6BAgBEAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fscreenster.io%2Fregression-testing%2F&psig=AOvVaw0E3FWyZPijl-I3Nzfs0ny9&ust=1566133452606379

Create an architecture that supports your solution to the problem – An environment to support change is necessary. Blanket strategies may fail,

Build a minimum viable solution – Looking at the “disruptive model by Christensen” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disruptive_innovation

Test it – Remember, it might fail.

Program a well-documented, resilient piece of code – Replace code with process or protocol.

Test it – Remember, it might fail, but Fail Less.

Debug it – The process or strategy may need to be “differentiated” or accommodate “accommodations”,

Ship it – Measure continuously.

It’s easy to get distracted by the part of the stack that we consider to be our job or simply our expertise. But it’s all connected.

“5 Truths You Must Accept Before You Can Grow”

“5 Truths You Must Accept Before You Can Grow” by Ayodeji Awosika https://link.medium.com/pvrbms6RQY

Sarcasm & Climate Surveys

Seth Godin – the problem with sarcasm

“The problem with sarcasm is that the level of displeasure is hidden.”

Is it possible to account for “sarcasm” in “attitude surveys” that are used to craft “workplace snapshots”?

High School RTI Subjects

Pivoting the education matrix

Seth Godin – Pivoting the Education Matrix provides and innovative lens to see High School RTI.

https://seths.blog/2019/07/pivoting-the-education-matrix/

It turns out that the typical school spends most of its time on just one …… skills (obedience through comportment and regurgitation).

What would happen if we taught each skill separately?

Obedience

Management

Leadership/cooperation

Problem-solving

Mindfulness

Creativity

Analysis

Summer Reading – Learning Goals Thought Experiment

A thought experiment I have been struggling with for the last two weeks.When we issued the Summer REading for rising 9th graders.I am setting up a month for my RTI students to complete their summer reading and succeed with the assessments that follow one month after school starts.  I am looking for “learning goals” that i can outline for students as they read fiction in general or specific books,  

The ELA Standards are divided into:ReadingSpeaking & ListeningWriting
Each has a series of grade band standards starting on Page 27 in the Standards Publication 

ELA Standards

This global set of “expectations” are applicable to fiction and non-fiction literature.I am working to define “Learning Goals” for a specific fictional selection, say “Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen”This could/would provide a “checklist or note-taking structure” for a student as they are processing this text.Another thing of note, Summer Reading would be done with prior year expectations; 

• 9th-grade reading would be completed using 8th-grade expectations
• 10th-grade reading would be completed using 9th-grade expectations

In my RTI populations, grade level summer reading would be completed using expectations 6 or more grade levels below the on-grade level of the text.  A rising 10th grader would be reading the following using 4th-grade reading skills:

1984 by George Orwell

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Feed by M. T. Anderson

Excerpts from ELA standards:The focus in elementary is on the foundational skills married with thereading skills. Middle school solidifies the foundation and continues to build reading stamina withincreasingly complex literature and literary nonfiction, and the high school standards focus on thestudents’ ability to recognize archetypal patterns, nuances of language, and intertextual connections.Page 26GRADE SPAN – LITERATURE & INFORMATIONAL TEXT

11-12

11-12.RL.KID.1 Analyze what a text says
explicitly and draw inferences; support an
interpretation of a text by citing and synthesizing
relevant textual evidence from multiple sources.

11-12.RI.KID.1 Analyze what a text says
explicitly and draw inferences; support an
interpretation of a text by citing and synthesizing
relevant textual evidence from multiple sources.

9-10

9-10.RL.KID.1 Analyze what a text says
explicitly and draw inferences; cite the
strongest, most compelling textual evidence to
support conclusions.

9-10.RI.KID.1 Analyze what a text says explicitly
and draw inferences; cite the strongest, most
compelling textual evidence to support
conclusions.

“The standards overlap!” It is important!

Tennessee State ELA Standards, their practices and expectations overlap with Math, Science and History. https://docs.google.com/document/d/11RnCf-D4uwbLbucabUnMI2tNpXJIL6AgVj_8I4uqbl8/edit?usp=sharing

They are not discrete or siloed and should be shared as a common set of expectations.

Businessman and philanthropist W. Clement Stone claimed that “Definitiveness of purpose is the starting point of all achievement,” and standards provide that definition of purpose for each grade level. Standards should measure excellence, not just benchmark skills; therefore, the committee of Tennessee teachers, administrators, and higher education faculty developed

a set of learning outcomes that embraces an overall expectation of 21^st century literacy skills necessary to succeed in post-secondary and workforce arenas. Thus, critical and divergent thinking, problem solving, active listening, recognition of patterns and anomalies, and evaluation and questioning of source material are essential skills in this document.

Furthermore, these expectations reinforce the three ELA instructional shifts:

regular practice with complex text and its academic vocabulary; reading and writing grounded in evidence from literary and informational text; and building knowledge through content rich literary and informational text.