If you don't get anything else, get this:
Continuous Classroom Improvement isn't about what's on your walls.
Seriously. If creating data walls was a miracle cure, CMS would be the top district in the country. Their test-centric culture produces data out the wazoo. During my employment there, groups of enforcers cruised the Title I schools to make sure everything was posted like it was supposed to be. Yes, bulletin board Gestapo. Despite the time and expense invested, many of their schools continue to struggle - and struggle badly.
So that must not be it.
Continuous Classroom Improvement is about the conversations you have with your kids.
...and therein lies the difference. Using this model makes you refine your goals, think, ahead of time, about assessment, and crunch the data with the help of those most affected, your children.
Let's start with goal-setting.
Remember the SWBAT thing? Start there. Choose a specific, measurable objective. What will kids do? And by kids, I mean all of your kids. PDSA is about every child you teach; begin each objective with "All of us will..."
You might choose an academic goal:
"be able to read and write numbers up to 1 million in word, standard, and expanded form."
or a behavioral goal (which would be common at the beginning of the year, less so later on.)
"come to the carpet for Readers' Workshop on time, with the right supplies, choosing the/an appropriate spot"
Continuous Classroom Improvement isn't about what's on your walls.
Seriously. If creating data walls was a miracle cure, CMS would be the top district in the country. Their test-centric culture produces data out the wazoo. During my employment there, groups of enforcers cruised the Title I schools to make sure everything was posted like it was supposed to be. Yes, bulletin board Gestapo. Despite the time and expense invested, many of their schools continue to struggle - and struggle badly.
So that must not be it.
Continuous Classroom Improvement is about the conversations you have with your kids.
...and therein lies the difference. Using this model makes you refine your goals, think, ahead of time, about assessment, and crunch the data with the help of those most affected, your children.
Let's start with goal-setting.
Remember the SWBAT thing? Start there. Choose a specific, measurable objective. What will kids do? And by kids, I mean all of your kids. PDSA is about every child you teach; begin each objective with "All of us will..."
You might choose an academic goal:
"be able to read and write numbers up to 1 million in word, standard, and expanded form."
or a behavioral goal (which would be common at the beginning of the year, less so later on.)
"come to the carpet for Readers' Workshop on time, with the right supplies, choosing the/an appropriate spot"
(Yeah, I make them big. I want them visible. It is, after all, our work for the week.)
Next, make it clear how and when they'll be assessed:
For the math goal, "We will show we know this by scoring 9 out of 12 (75%) on Friday's Classscape quiz."
For the behavioral goal, "... starting Thursday. We will show we can do this by using a class checklist."
Easy-peasy! The week's goals are posted and will eventually be combined with the data and plus/delta that go with it.
Other stuff:
I don't usually go crazy setting a bunch of goals. Keep it simple. I typically set one objective for a 5-day math cycle. You'll notice that on my goals for reading for the first week of school, that one is behavioral and one is academic.
One more time for those of you just joining us: Begin PDSA with one subject. If you can, make that one subject math. You'll be much more likely to keep your sanity and get this working for you. :)
