EWinter 2010

Contents:

Title IID Update 1 Faulkton Spotlight 2

Faulkton Pictures 3 Advanced Applications in Reading 3 AIMSweb 3

Literature Review 4

Cognitive Coaching 5 ESA Dates to Remember 5

NSDC St. Louis 6 NSDC Cont... 7 Northwest Area Reads 7

ESA 5 Contacts 8

S A 5 NEWS

South Dakota Education Service Agency

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ESA 5 PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT OPPORTUNITIES

Curriculum Mapping•6+1 Writing Instruction•Assessment•Step Up to Writing•Achievement Series•DIBELS•RtI•AIMSweb•

School Improvement Assistance•Instructional Strategies•Whole Faculty Study Groups•eMetric Data System•Comprehensive PD Planning•New Teacher Mentoring•CGI Math - math interventions•Differentiated Instruction•SchoolProfiles•

Data Analysis•TechPaths•Brain-Based Teaching•Administrative Support•Writing to Win•Northwest Area Reads•Promethean Board /Active Studio •SoftwareHigh Schools 2025•

Vision of Education Service Agency Region 5ESA 5 aims to serve its schools by supporting them and their leadership teams. Our relationship with each school will focus on

building capacity for sustainable change. The vision of our ESA is to embed the following practices in each school: Use data to identify needs

Develop effective and usable plans based on needs Use research-based strategies, resources, and training

Implement PD that positively impacts student learning Use formative and summative assessments to monitor progress

ESA Joe Lenz Director Joe.Lenz@k12.sd.us Cris Owens Assistant Director Christine.Owens@k12.sd.us

ESA EDUCATION SPECIALISTS Erin Dale Reading Specialist Erin.Dale@k12.sd.us Brittany Knudson Education Specialist Brittany.Knudson@k12.sd.us Tracy Mittleider Math Specialist Tracy.Mitteider@k12.sd.us Holly Schumacher Teacher Mentor Holly.Schumacher@k12.sd.us

ESA REGION 5 CONTACTSwww.sdesa.k12.sd.us/esa5

On November 24, 2009 a Title IID grant application, Enhancing Education Through Technology, was submitted to the South Dakota Department of Education on behalf of 19 school districts in the ESA 5 region. This grant, if awarded, will support an ESA Region 5 project titled “Technology Boot-Camp: Learning to Lead in the 21st Century.” The grant will provide each partnering district with a unique learning opportunity. Participating teachers will be identified by school administrators using a set of criteria provided by ESA 5. The project will begin in early August 2010 with a three-day workshop. This initial workshop will provide the cohort of chosen teachers with a base of knowledge in 21st Century Skills and the latest technology initiatives. ESA staff and an outside technology expert, Kevin Honeycutt will provide instruction. Teachers will participate in monthly coaching sessions and attend four additional classes throughout the school year. These classes will involve learning new information and time for collaboration with teachers in the cohort group. To finalize the project, the cohort of teachers will participate in delivering a final technology summit offered to all Region 5 teachers in June 2011. Teachers will be paid a stipend and also receive graduate credits in technology for their work during this comprehensive project. School principals of partnering districts will be offered a two-day workshop led by Kevin Miller, an expert in leadership training, to be held at the end of July 2010. Leaders will learn how to effectively support technology initiatives in their schools. Principals will also be offered follow-up support for their leadership roles during the school year.There are many more details to be shared once we know if we are successful in obtaining this grant. We are full of anticipation awaiting the February 2010 announcement! We will pass on the news as soon as we receive it.

Title IID Update0

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

1400

1600

2004-05 2005-06 2006-07 2007-08 2008-09 Fall 2009

13151488 1351

1221

886721

Total number of teachers and administrators served by ESA 5

0

100

200

300

400

500

2004-05 2005-06 2006-07 2007-08 2008-09 Fall 2009

365397

286

477

340

20

Total number of college credits earned through ESA 5 professional development activities

ESA 5 News

2 7District Spotlight:Faulkton Area Schools

District 24-4Mascot: Trojans

Faulkton is located in the Eastern part of ESA Region 5. It is an extremely large district in terms of land area since the districts of Polo and Cresbard consolidated. The District houses 333 students that are primarily Caucasian/Non Hispanic. Thirty-three certified staff and 12 support staff are responsible for the students reaching AYP every year since 2002. Among this staff are two teachers that are National Board Certified, with one in English/Language Arts and one in Family and Consumer Science. Included in this district, and housing 25% of the student population, are four Hutterite Brethren Colony Elementary K-8 attendance centers: Brentwood, Blumengard, Evergreen, and Thunderbird. The district is led by two well-organized administrators, Superintendent & Elementary Principal Joel Price, and Secondary Principal Craig Cassens.

In order to continue to build their academic performance, Faulkton added an Agriculture Education and FFA

program at the start of the 2007-2008 school year and joined the Classroom Connections 1 to 1 Laptop Initiative in the fall of 2008. They are currently testing the Senior Experience Capstone class with the long term plan of instituting this program as a local graduation requirement. The FFA and FACS programs continue to build the students’ academic experiences by sending them to the National Convention every year. Faulkton is also very proud of being the three time State B Competition Cheer Team Champions.

The staff at Faulkton continues to grow their professional knowledge by involving themselves in professional development activities. Over the past five years, the teachers have been involved in Curriculum Mapping, Data Retreats, Achievement Series, Wikis & Blogs, and Thinkfinity.

The district will continue to serve as an educational and technological leader for their students today and tomorrow. The goal of the district is to prepare the students to be life-long learners who will graduate from high school with the skills, abilities, and technological tools to succeed in the 21st Century. One of the biggest challenges for the school is continuing to provide the best instruction utilizing as many educational tools as possible. At the same time they are attempting to work with a shrinking budget due to declining enrollment and changes in State Aid.

Northwest Area ReadsConsulting Classes

Erin Dale, literacy coach for Northwest Area Reads, has been conducting consulting classes with ESA 5 schools: Harding County, Timber Lake, and Chey-enne-Eagle Butte. Classes have been tailored to the needs of each school and teacher. Many research-based strategies for teaching reading have been shared with teachers in these schools. Content that has been covered includes methods and research on vocabulary, engagement, content area reading, phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, and com-prehension. Teachers are using the research-based methods to increase student achievement in read-ing as well as other content area classes. Seeing the need to keep up with new classroom technologies, Erin has also been demonstrating reading lessons in elementary and junior high classrooms using the interactive white boards that have been installed in many schools. Erin has developed these lessons to align with the South Dakota reading standards.

St. Louis Tripby Tracy Mittleider

To enhance my professional growth, I also attended the National Staff Development Conference in St. Louis “Gateway to Learning”. This conference provided me opportunities to attend the following sessions: Building Your Professional Tool-kit Using Web 2.0 tools, Differentiating Staff Development, and Using Humor in Staff Developments. The keynote speakers included Tony Wagner, Michael Fullen, and Fredrick Brown. They were motivating and inspiring as they talked about closing the gap, the six secrets of change, and the “Principal’s Story”. This experience has strengthened my commitment to creating environments that promote high-quality professional learning for all educators.

in humorous activities like “dress-up day”, creating/performing in a sketch written by/for your colleagues, making a presentation in costume. Hang out with funny people – try the humor buddy system, use humor in your correspondence/surveys/tests. Tell stories on yourself. Have some sort of humor always at the ready! Smiling is an act of safety-sets a better climate for connecting. What a simple task! Humor-the most significant activity of the mind. To access their informational power point: http://www.wavelengthinc.com/web/sensehumor.pptFor more information as well as activity ideas visit: www.wavelengthinc.com

Whether we want to believe it, or even think it, our world is probably in its most progressive and vastly changing era considering technology. From hi-def/blue-ray televisions to mind-blowing applications on the web, being in the educational profession we are faced with a significant responsibility. In fact, in a short amount of time, all educators will be faced with yet another set of state standards, this time in technology. To remain at the top of the scale with our ever-advancing counterparts, we undeniably must learn, use, and teach with the various technological tools available.Among the technological tools I was presented with are the following for:Desktop Conferencing – skype, oovoo, adobe connect, dim dim, eliminate.Hosting/Sharing – flickr, google, zoho, you tube.Applications – splashup, jay cut, photoshop.Creating/Presenting – prezi, vuvox, slide share.For more information, visit: www.educause.edu/eli

Erin Dale consults with HardingCounty Teachers CJ Wilson and Robyn Floyd. Below Erin models guilde read-ing with second grade students.

ESA 5 News

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Faulkton 4th grade teacher Alicia Hammond and 5th grade teacher Brice Cunningham teaching SD History using Promethean Board.

Faulkton Senior English Students

NSDC 41st Annual Conference ~

St. Louis, MOby Holly Schumacher

Among the variety of professional development opportunities to attend, I chose sessions focusing on designing feedback, differentiated instruction and diversity, blending technology into the classroom, and increasing motivation and achievement with humor and laughter. It is my pleasure to share with you, in the following paragraph, a few items of interest that I obtained from this conference.

Did you know…that your age has a direct effect on how long your brain can pay attention to and retain information? For instance, the average one year old, can only stay interested for one minute without activity. A five year old, for five minutes. This pattern continues up to twenty years of age wherein the maximum capacity for brain retention is twenty minutes. These twenty minutes maintain themselves for an uncertain amount of time, of course, as we age. This information has been determined through extensive brain research and is something to consider when planning lessons for your students. In addition, it is something to consider when presenting to adults as well. Incorporate a short break, an activity, or even a simple joke into your presentation when necessary, and you will do yourself as well as your audience, an educational favor.

Additionally, increasing motivation and achievement with humor and laughter was another excellent session I attended in which the presenters’ focus was: happier, healthier, and more effective. This session was titled: The Sense of Humor: Using humor, laughter and improvisation to train, motivate, and inspire. I will share with you, their keys to the successful use of humor:

Relationship: Know your audience. Tell stories 1. with a purpose.

Rapport: Have an understanding of your au-2. dience’s feelings. Laugh with, not at someone.

Setting: Make sure the humor is appropriate for 3. the space. Humor should enhance, not distract.

Timing: Allow time for the imagination to work. 4. Remember the non-verbal pathway to humor.

Areas of humor to likely avoid: Sexual, Ethnic/Racial, Religious, Hostile/Sick, Demeaning to men/women.If you truly want to develop your personal sense of humor, look for humor in everything. Collect humor in books, signs, magazines, anecdotes, excuses, headlines, oxymorons, videos/audio tapes, stories, jokes, and cartoons. Smile more, lighten up, be more playful. Participate

AIMSweb is a progress monitoring system based on direct, frequent, and continuous student assessment. The results are reported to students, parents, teachers, and administrators via a web-based data management and reporting system to determine response to intervention. To assist schools who wish to implement this program, ESA 5 has recently added a two-day AIMSweb training to the service plan.At this training K-8 educational staff and administrators learn to administer AIMSweb assessments for the purpose of benchmarking and progress monitoring student learning. Participants will also learn to manage the data to make informed decisions regarding goals and instructional methods.It is important that any school using AIMSweb participates in a whole-staff training to ensure fidelity of the program and encourage commonality in language between teachers, students, administrators, and parents. In addition to benchmarking and progress monitoring regular education classrooms, AIMSweb can be a valuable resource for identifying students requiring additional assistance and as part of the South Dakota RtI model.

ESA 5 is pleased to add a new course; Response to Intervention: Applications in K-8 Reading, to our list of services. This course, offered by Erin Dale and Brittany Knudson, teaches ways to provide high-quality instruction and interventions matched to student needs. Participants will build awareness of the need for frequent progress monitoring to make informed decisions about changes in instruction or goals and applying data to important educational decisions. The course focuses on theoretical and practical aspects of reading instruction in grades K-8 and ties in very nicely with the RtI model.Upon successful completion of the course, participants will have developed a thorough understanding of the five major concepts in teaching reading, developed a working knowledge of assessment needed to specify interventions, and have applied the material presented in the class to their teaching practices.Applications in K-8 Reading consists of 5 days (30 hours) of class time and requires the purchase of the Teaching Reading Sourcebook for each participant. Two graduate credits from Northern State University are available.

Advanced Applications in Reading

Just For Fun Find this hidden chicken in our newsletter. The first person to email Joe Lenz with the answer will win a prize! Email Joe at: Joe.Lenz@k12.sd.us

ESA 5 News

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Literature Review by Cris Owens ESA 5

Critical Issue: Finding Time for Professional Development,

(Cathy Cook and Carol Fine, 1997)

What does it take to learn a new skill and master it? The answer is practice, perfect practice, which takes time. In this Critical Issue published in 1997 by North Central Regional Educational Laboratory, the authors discuss the problem of how to take more time for educators to participate in meaningful professional development opportunities. Even though this article is over ten years old, the issue remains much the same today! We know teachers in the last few decades have been expected to learn a variety of new skills that they were not taught when they attended college. These skills vary from understanding data, formative and summative assessments, state education standards, engaged learning, differentiated instruction, technology, and numerous other ways to provide meaningful education experiences for diverse student populations. Most teachers agree that these initiatives are a good way to increase the effectiveness of their teaching and as a result, positively impact student motivation and learning. However, teachers are usually not provided with time to learn new skills, see them modeled, and then practice them in order to help them effectively change their teaching. Teachers need the appropriate guidance to implement new skills they learn in order to change their roles and practices. The profession of education has recently been able to use research in order to focus on school reform that will increase effectiveness. We know what we need to do to make important changes. The challenge that schools face is how to take the time to make these changes. We cannot make time; we need to decide locally how to take the time we have and use it creatively and effectively. Some local communities and policy makers “continue to think teachers are working only when they are with their students” (McDiarmid, 1995). It is our responsibility to educate our communities and policy makers in order for schools to move forward into the 21st Century. At a recent conference I attended, I heard a speaker refer to the Rip Van Winkle phenomena, which goes like this; Rip Van Winkle woke up after a

100 year sleep to a different world surrounding him. As he observed his new surroundings, he was awed by the cars rushing by, the planes flying overhead, the huge buildings towering over him, the powerful farm machinery and other amazing technologies. He was truly overwhelmed by all the changes and then he saw a building that looked familiar to him and he entered it. In this building there were desks with students sitting in them, books, teachers talking and he said oh yes this is something I recognize, it is a school! The obvious point of this story is that schools have not changed at a pace fast enough to keep up with the changing world around us. This is a little humorous but very serious. School districts have begun to make changes in order to improve their schools. Some districts with the support of their communities have altered their schedules to create more time for professional development for their teachers. Four day school weeks, early dismissals, proactive Professional Development Plans based on local needs are becoming more common. Classes offered by ESA 5 are focused on a model of instruction and coaching throughout the school year in order to provide time for teachers to learn and reflect. School leaders are challenged to keep the focus of these schedule changes and professional development opportunities as ways to create time for teachers to learn, practice, and collaborate. The focus must remain on improving education for students. Our Educational Service Agencies, State Department of Education, school districts, and policy makers must continue to work together to be creative in taking time to move our schools towards the highest levels of performance possible by providing the time for the professional development our educators need.As we move through the second semester of 2009-2010 school year and begin to plan for 2010-2011, let’s be certain to take the time we need to focus on creating good plans for our teachers’ professional development. Teachers are the single most important factor impacting the quality of our schools.

Cognitive Coaching: Setting the foundation for successful communication

One does not have to think too hard to recall a time, or various instances in which a crucial conversation could have been handled much more effectively. How about an opportunity to help a friend or colleague through a tough situation? If and when effectively used, Cognitive Coaching can be the answer in improving these very situations. Cognitive Coaching skills offer great promise for dramatic educational progress if one properly hones the skills and approaches necessary in this advanced communication process. Cognitive Coaching focuses on these five states of mind enabling people to perform at their best:

Efficacy- The effectiveness one demonstrates 1. or value one places on any given conversation or relationship.

Flexibility- The ability to give to the individual 2. and to adapt accordingly to their needs.

Craftsmanship- To proceed through every in-3. stance with great skill.

Consciousness- A strong, non-judgmental 4. awareness of the needs of the client.

Interdependence- The ability to reciprocate or 5. respond to another’s thoughts and emotions.

Simply put, this is a communication style used to connect more effectively with others. It emphasizes reflection, proper questioning, restating one’s thoughts, and probing for further understanding. When one gives thoughtful reflection to any given situation, it is almost always effective in improving their next encounter or even their next step.All of our professional development coordinators have completed, or are currently receiving this intensive and comprehensive eight day training course. We are confident that strong Cognitive Coaching skills set the foundation for successful encounters with the teachers and administrators we work with.

ESA 5 Dates to Remember

April 14• ESA Advisory Board Mtg. at the Mobridge Pizza RanchApril 1• 8-20 TIE Conference in Sioux FallsApril 21• NWAS Academic Olympics in BuffaloApril 28• NWAS Spelling Contest in McIntosh

Harding County teachers take part in ESA 5 PD