Spring Conference Presentations
SESSION DESCRIPTIONS: (Each session 70 minutes in length)
A. Top 20 Research-Based Findings/Realities to Make Your Teachers’ Hard Work Work! Presenter: Sharon Hayden, Ph.D., Superintendent Hartville R-II
Target Audience: K-12 administrators and curriculum leaders
Twenty-seven years of formal and informal research have yielded a top 20 research-based findings/realities to make your teachers’ hard work pay off. These 20 simple strategies can become a part of your curriculum development and integrated into your performance-based teacher evaluation process to generate tremendous results in student learning from pre-K to grade 12.
B. Vertical Teaming 101
Presenters: Salem R-80 School District Administrative Team
Target Audience: Curriculum leaders, administrators, teachers
The use of vertical teams to develop sustainable curriculum is essential. The Salem R-80 administrative team advocates vertical teaming as a means to insure involvement and a commitment to improving curriculum and instruction. Attendees will participate in a vertical team activity designed to identify measurable learner objectives. The team will also share their history and the steps they took to reach meaningful collaboration.
C. Enhancing Student Achievement through Compacting & Unpacking GLEs: One District’s Journey Presenter: Gina Chambers, Ph.D., Asst. Supt. Park Hill School District
Target Audience: Curriculum leaders, administrators, teachers
Looking for meaningful and sustainable ways to improve student learning and achievement? Learn about the process Park Hill School District, in collaboration with Dr. Robert Marzano, used to compact and unpack the Missouri Grade Level Expectations to identify meaningful learning goals. Hear about how learning goals have been translated into scoring guides that are used to measure student learning and the professional development training process used to build teacher capacity and understanding.
D. Making the Pieces Fit: Curriculum and Professional Development
Presenters: Carol Bauer & Carol Pace, Lebanon School District
Target Audience: Curriculum Directors, Administrators
The elements of curriculum: objectives, instructional activities, and assessments must drive professional development if we are to have effective schools and high student achievement. This breakout session will focus on the differences between 4th cycle and 5th Cycle MSIP curriculum requirements as a driving force in determining a direction for district professional development to sustain success in the classroom.
E. Career Clusters "A Missouri Initiative"
Presenters: Tanya DeGonia MCCE, Career Education Coordinator, Region V and Camille MacDonald, MCCE, Career Education Coordinator, Regin VII
Target Audience: 5th grade through 12th grade teachers, administrators, curriculum directors and counselors.
More and more students succeed in school but leave unprepared for the world around them, much less the careers they might wish to pursue. This presentation will address the core concepts guiding the Career Clusters framework, how clusters can bring relevance to your school and classroom, along with how you can incorporate Career Clusters into the curriculum already being implemented.
F. The Intelligence Behind the UbD Design: A Curriculum Director’s Perspective
Presenter: Janet Nease, Ph.d
Target Audience: Teachers, curriculum leaders, administrators
Understanding by Design (UbD) provides the framework for producing high quality viable curriculum. Before teachers can grasp the intelligence of the design and use UbD to their benefit, they first need to acquire background knowledge (A), make sense of that knowledge (M), and then transfer their knowledge to their circumstance resulting in UbD units and lessons(T). Using a Q & A format, participants will be encouraged to engage in the AMT process to better understand the intelligence of the UbD framework for curriculum development.
G. Missouri’s Race to the Top (RT3)
Presenter: DESE
Target Audience: Administrators, curriculum leaders, teachers
In this session, participants will hear about Missouri’s $743 million grant proposal, most of which would go directly to public schools across the state, calls for action on several fronts: curriculum and testing; expanding the role of technology in schools; expanding educational services and options before kindergarten; improving the way teachers are evaluated, rewarded and supported; focusing resources on low-performing schools; and revamping the structure of the state education agency, as well as other considerations.
H. BuildYourOwnCurriculum (BYOC)
Presenters: Chris Trina and Randy Jennings
Target Audience: Curriculum leaders, teachers, administrators
In this session, participants will receive a demonstration of the BuildYourOwnCurriculum (BYOC) web-based curriculum management tool that allows districts to customize the configuration of their format to follow the philosophy of Understanding by Design or other identified district specific approaches to curriculum and instruction. BYOC staff will show how teachers can locate current curriculum requirements and resources, to easily update and customize their lesson plans in alignment with district/state standards and expectations; how administrators can gain instant access to the learning paths in each building, grade, and classroom—and view this information by standards, by teaching objective, and by key concept. Reports, linkage to classroom websites for curriculum and lesson assignment, student and public access and other useful features of this curriculum management product will be presented
I. Electronic Alignment Tool (E.A.T.)
Presenter: Abe Ott
Target Audience: Curriculum leaders, teachers, administrators
Are you interested in helping teachers create, revise, and maintain a “teachable” curriculum that helps meet MSIP requirements and improves student achievement? The tool you will learn more about in this session guides teachers efforts toward that goal. EATOnline also generates reports that enable users to apply MAP data results and change specific curriculum parts to further increase achievement. EATOnline was created in Missouri for budget-minded Missouri schools and is continually improved based on suggestions from Missouri teachers.”
J. Our Standards-based Assessment and Grading Journey
Presenters: Beth Mulvey, Principal Grain Valley High School and Theresa Nelson, Principal Grain Valley Middle School
Targeted Audience: 6-12 Teachers, Administrators, Curriculum Staff
The Grain Valley R-V School District has taken on the grading and assessment challenge. Hear how we’ve gotten teachers at the middle and high school level out of the slow lane and in to the fast lane. Learn how we’ve taken Marzano and O’Connor’s work and implemented action research at a variety of levels. Samples of teacher success, grade distribution data, and road blocks in the process will be shared as part of this session. There are still some skunks in the road, but the traffic report shows real promise in meeting a district-wide implementation of standards-based grading by 2014.
WORKSHOP DESCRIPTIONS: (Each workshop 2 hours in length)
K. MSIP Mini-Curriculum Review (4th cycle Standards)
Facilators: SMCAA Members from Panel of Experts
Target Audience: Curriculum leaders, administrators, teachers
This session is designed for participants who wish to experience the process the Panel of Experts uses when reviewing curriculum for 4th cycle MSIP Curriculum Reviews. Participants will benefit most, from this session, by bringing a copy of one subject area (K-12) district curriculum to the workshop. Facilitators from the Panel will guide participants in looking at their curriculum to identify essential components and areas of strength and weakness.
L. Improving Student Understanding in Grades 5-12 using Reading Comprehension Strategies
Presenter: Tony English, SMCAA Consultant
Target Audience: Teachers, curriculum leaders, administrators
This workshop will examine the tools needed to empower students to improve their reading comprehension. A focus will be given to eight strategies that can be implemented effectively in any content area. The strategies are great for differentiating instruction and can serve as effective formative assessments. Participants will receive a packet of instructional activities specifically designed to build necessary comprehension skills. It is important that attention be focused on how to help students think at a deeper level, as they tackle the challenge of the higher level thinking skills of synthesis and analysis. Students will never do well if they can’t comprehend what they are reading.
M. Essential Questions
Presenter: Wesley Bird, Ph.D., SMCAA Asst. Director
Target Audience: Teachers, curriculum leaders, administrators
One of the first steps in developing or updating curricula is to determine the essential questions that need to be addressed in each unit or lesson. Essential questions are those elements that address or initiate such components as depth-of –knowledge, focus of content and instruction, types of assessments, real-world applications, and other critical curricula components. This interactive session will allow participants to practice in the development of such questions and provide information to guide teachers in using the questions to develop rich and sustainable curricula.