Implementing CRM week 5

Today's focus was to prepare for our first Collaborative Team Meeting (CTM) which will be November 2nd, 2017. We started off the meeting reviewing a presentation put on by Kurtis Hewson the day before for our district's CRM leadership cohort. I had attended with the school’s Classroom Support Teacher (CST) and a District Optimal Learning Coach (OLC).  We spent 40 minutes sharing our school’s action plan (completed at the session the day before), watched a video of another school’s CRM, shared the meeting notes template and the student form that will be filled out before each meeting. These resources are all located on the Jigsaw learning site. We set a date for our first CTM and the cycle that will occur afterwards (every four weeks), knowing that this may be adjusted. The next 40 minutes teachers spent time in their groups working on improved instructional practices.

In one group further discussion around a CTM occurred. The CST and I talked through what the CTM could like and examples of students that might be brought to the table. Another group started talking about deficiencies they are noticing in math students and spoke about how to scaffold their three grade levels. I sat back and listened and noted some “sound bites” 

“I’m struggling with this too. You are not alone”

“How are they (students) applying this? They aren’t.”

“Can we try a number of the day strategy?”

“Lets create a template and use common language.”

“Have you set up a Google classroom? When you do we can….”

They came up with strategies and a template to implement  into their classrooms and some next steps. Our OLC made appointments to follow up with support the following week before our next meeting. Another group identifying weakness in their language arts programs met with an OLC and came up with a plan to develop common literacy centers that are easily adaptable (low floor, high ceiling) for their diverse students. They have a vision of what they eventually want to move towards, but are going to start off smaller with the help of OLCs who will follow a “gradual release of responsibility” model.

Implementing CRM week 4

Today was our fourth Collaborative Response Model (CRM) meeting. Last week, for the morning of our professional development day we worked together on our Pyramid of Interventions, which we refer to as a Continuum of Supports. We have now discussed the contents of the book. Last year, before summer break, we did an informal look through the book in groups. Some teachers read a chapter or two and some read it in its entirety. I had shared the jigsaw book study guide to use if they wanted, but the purpose was really just to have teachers familiar with the journey we would embark on this year.   

The goal for the meeting today was to reflect on the model thus far, explore the jigsaw  website and Google plus network for supports and new ideas and to continue some work that they had identified week 1. We began the meeting having each member share any thoughts, fears, insights, questions that they may have regarding CRM. Every teacher feels that they have a solid basic, foundational understanding of CRM, but also recognize that we are not even close to being “experts” or even overly confident in what we are doing. Teachers input ranged from “I want to get doing something” to wanting to ensure that we don’t rush anything. Another thing that I learned from the meeting today is the importance of keeping good “team meeting notes.” I had shared a template with each group and had volunteered to be recorder and facilitator, but had forgotten to add some things and the night before our meeting I was unsure where each group was and what they had committed to for this week’s meeting.

At Southview Community School we have three different CRM groups and each is at a different place. No group is ahead of another, they have just taken different paths. One group has decided that they want to do a 10 minute “mindfulness “activity before each meeting to help them “settle their minds” and get prepared to focus on their work. They are not all working on the same thing, but are using one another to collaborate on ideas, another group has focused on assessment and has spent a lot of time working on how to use it to inform practice, a third group is focusing on curriculum as a starting point to develop some literacy resources. They are recording a lesson for feedback, exploring different literary techniques and visiting each other’s classrooms. All three groups are working with one of our district’s Optimal Learning Coaches (OLC) who are referred to as instructional coaches in many other districts.

This week I asked one of the CRM groups to write a reflection from their perspective to share. CRM group # 3 consists of three teachers, Shirma Rose,Cassandra Silver, and Megan Westgarth. They teach grade four, five and six and combined have 24 years teaching experience.  

Our CRM team decided to focus our work around assessment.  We began our journey by administering the Math MIPI school wide. When presented the information about a comprehensive tool that only took 1 hour  to administer and would give us a comprehensive look at how our students are doing overall in math, we knew we had to utilize it in our class and throughout the school. The MIPI results helped identify basic skills our students are lacking in. These results will also drive our
instructional practice this year. After much discussion in our CRM meetings with administration and Michelle, our Optimal Learning Consultant, we decided to create a strong database of math strategies that can be used at all grade levels. Collecting common strategies from K-6 will provide consistency for students as they move throughout the elementary years. Two of our members on our CRM team are also attending a mathematical MIndset Professional development opportunity that is providing us with strategies we want  to offer to our students.  For example, the idea of increasing mental math abilities through daily games, problems and activities.  As a lead CRM team within the school our goal is to ensure we support all teachers with their chosen CRM journey. We will look forward to the triumphs and the challenges we will face as we travel on this exciting road.

Implementing CRM week 3

Today marked our third Collaborative Response Model (C.R.M.) meeting. Because I decided to spend ½ of our professional development day today committed to Collaborative Response, I let teachers use their CRM time yesterday to work on students'  Individual Support Plans. Our first two CRM meetings focused on beliefs, working agreements, a common understanding, Collaborative Team Meetings, and assessment. Today we focused on “Pyramid of Interventions” for nearly two hours. Collaborating as a whole staff worked very well and everyone was engaged for the entire meeting. One of our district’s “Optimal Learning Coaches,” Michelle Hilton, and I had met a week earlier and she had shared some methods (inspired by Jigsaw) to create a pyramid of interventions. I welcomed her expertise to lead the school in various activities so that I could fully participate  with the staff. Michelle is also a Kagan structure coach so she implemented many of their protocols to facilitate the meeting. She modeled different activities that teachers can also take back to their classroom. You can find a copy of the presentation here.

District "Coach" setting the stage

our pyramid

jot thoughts