Expeditionary Learning National Conference

Take Aways from National Conference Baltimore 2013

Ida Beal

Southwest Baltimore Charter School

Intensives- interventions all students are involved in at the same time and students are either being extended or having an intervention. 40 mins long Monday – Thursday. Students change 3 times a year.
Students use NWEA data to set goals and graph to show their continued growth.
All crew groups are mixed and they stay with their leader.
Crew has a crew leader (student) this students runs all parts of the crew with the guidance of the teacher.
A part of every trimester students reflect on how they have improved in each subject area and what their next steps are going to be.
Internal Profile Assessment- identifies the most important words that describe you internally. Students, teachers, and administrators all take the assessment, the words are posted in the classrooms and it is a common language used to address all the needs of students and staff.

Student Lead Conferences using Voice Thread

*Students write their own scripts for their portfolio picks.

*Students choose 4 artifacts to share with their parents.

Discussion about what makes high quality work.
Students use Ipod touches to take pictures of their artifacts.
Parents are asked to reflect on their child’s work and leave a message for their child on voice thread.
Voice thread is only done once a year with student lead conferences.
Voice thread could also be used for brainstorming on writing in a story, working on fluency.

Preparing Leaders through the Habits of Mathematicians

*Students are given a problem to grapple with. They are asked to:

*Make sense of the problem and persevere in solving them

*Reason abstractly and quantitatively

Using a KWS chart (What you know!, What you want to know!, Are there any special conditions?) to tracking thinking

Supporting Students through the Revision Process

Teacher and students look at artifacts for what they are trying to create. The teacher and students create a criteria list that includes what the artifacts contained that they must include in their product. The criteria lists are then used by the students to create their product.
Students fill out a reflection piece that asks them what are the next steps they are going to take to have a high quality product.
Classmates and teacher provide descriptive feedback to help aid the student in their revision. This can be done as a gallery walk and sticky notes.
Authors websites are used to make the connection to real authors who go through the revision process.

Empowering all Students in Literacy Instruction

*Students used poetry binder to work on fluency. Two voice poems and class created poems were included.

*Students and teacher had a calendar to set date of next meeting.

*CAFE online~ www.ccpensieve.com $69.00 can be carried from year to year with student information.

Have students tape themselves and then have other students listen to the tapings for listen to reading. It motivates students to be more on task and fluent.
7 steps from assessment to instruction:
- assess individual student
- discuss findings with students
- set goal and identify strategies with student
- student declares goal on menu and in notebook
- teacher fills out individual conferring sheet
- teacher fills out strategy group forms
- Ready for instruction

*SNAP Concept Chart

Purpose- the concept chart could be used when students need to summarize information and create a visual representation of a text.

*S- Summary of the text

*N- New Learning- include as many key ideas as needed

*A- Information the reader(s) already knew about the topic

*P-a picture that represents an important aspect of the text

3. Include the title and author of the text.