Each fall, there is always some new demand I have to make sure is part of my instruction. Moving three years ago to a new district is was innovation and tieing everything to the real world. It really wasn’t about moving students but what they would face in the real world. Well, after a year, I found you can have both.

Many innovations include elements of more established strategies for which do move students--like Master Learning.

So what is it??

The concept is simple: Students master concepts and skills before going onto other learning. How do you know they mastered it? You give them tests. If they do not reach mastery, then they go back and study and take the test again until they pass it. Benjamin Bloom, of Bloom's Taxonomy fame, came up with mastery learning in 1971.

I had noticed that because of the limited time I had with my groups, I always had a couple who need way more time than the everyone else. I also discovered that some of the basic skills had not been taught as I had been told. (You know how some IEPs are written.) I realize that part of the difficulty is that I am required to move these guys, no matter how big the gap.

What it looks like in my room?

Most mastery learning models stress the importance of giving quick and targeted pre-assessment to all students before beginning instruction to determine whether they have the prerequisite knowledge and skills for success in the upcoming learning sequence.  I do monthly progress monitoring and I give them the grade level assessment but also the grade under. I’m looking for the skills they don’t have. I’m also looking for data to support they have mastered the previously taught skill. I don’t have time to get both pre and post assessments. (EasyCBM.com has reading and math K-6. It’s free, has norms, and students can take it online.)

For students whose pre-assessment results suggest deficiencies, mastery learning teachers take time to directly teach them the needed concepts and skills. In other words, I break the skills down and teach just that subskill. When they have that one I move on to the next. In math, skill accuracy is king. With my reading groups, if my group of 10s is working on picture clues--I’ll use two or three-word books to focus on picture clues or reading what is written. When that skill is mastered go back to 10s and move to the next skill they need to work on. (When working on skills go back to an easier level. This is important when working on comprehension skills, so they are using all their energy on decoding the text.)

To help students out, I rely on learning targets. I post them and they always reference the bog outcome. We talk about what it looks like and in some cases what it sounds like. I find this helps everyone get real clear about what their job is.This has saved me more than a couple times when an administrator pops in.

As a teacher, I’m not going to tell you this makes planning an easier for me and I find I have to be very clear about the steps needed to do a task. Backwards planning has become key when I’m planning. Backwards planning also helps make sure I’m hitting IEP goals.

Mastery Learning helps me balance focusing on students’ strengths and interests. Together, IEPs and mastery learning helps students to work on weaknesses and a customized path that engages their interests and helps them “own” their learning.

Mastery Learning can also give students the chance to build self-advocacy skills. I encourage students when they don’t understand a step or are lost “where are you confused?” If they everything, I try to get them to be more specific. This helps them focus on their own learning but also helps guide my own instruction to fill in that hole before moving on. We all think primary students are too young to self-advocate but how many times are will serious thinking about adding it to an IEP.? (stepping stones now)

The Hard Part?

The extra planning and comes with analyzing data. Some days I feel I’m drowning in data. But I have found if I’m truly teaching to IEP goals, then I’m progress monitoring IEP goals too. I don’t teach random stuff that has nothing to do with IEP goals. I only teach the IEP goals. The 30 minutes that student is out of his classroom, he is working on his IEP goals. Backwards planning and data dialogues help to ensure I’m hitting that target.

The key is to make sure that mastery learning is targeting the small skills needed to meet a larger target. By doing this, I can innovate how they demonstrate mastery--sometimes this is with technology and sometimes it's with STEM tasks.

At the end of the day is student growth. My goal is to work myself out of a job.

Until Next Time,

Today, I'll linking up with Stephanie from "Forever in 5th Grade" for her monthly Show and Tell about what's been happening in my room. It only seems like yesterday I was welcoming students back from Summer Break and now I"m thinking about January. AHHHH!!!
















A big thing I have been working on this year is getting students to get and receive authentic feedback.  Launch comes from John Spencer and AJ Julian. I went to Summer PD and learned about Launch and liked the idea but really wondered how I would make it work in a 30-minute IEP based session. At the same time of this presentation by AJ, my district rolled out a Design Thinking Cohort. Here's the thing--this idea was a direction I was hearing I needed to move my instruction to score really well on my evaluations because of the student voice, choice, and feedback. Even as a special education teacher these three ideas are the cornerstone of my evaluation.






One thing I found was Design Sprints. Here they only have 30/45 minutes to build 2 prototypes and give each other feedback.  I make sure to have time to do a group debrief but we don't do the whole cycle. I would love to have more time to do the whole cycle but to really hit student voice, choice and feedback--not sure I really need to carve time to do the whole cycle with my students.

Design Sprints also break up the day to day work they do as well. The pumpkins were done a couple of days before Halloween Parties. They loved the change of pace.

I challenged my 3rd graders to a Design Sprint. They had a create a Jack o'Lantern using tangrams. The harder part was giving feedback to each other after creating their prototype. #iteachsped #iteachtoo #designthinking #perfectforprimary

A post shared by Alison (@toadallyexceptional) on Oct 21, 2017 at 6:29am PDT

The other place I build in student voice and choice is in their daily work. My 3rd graders are working paperless while they read a short chapter book. This is their targeted guided reading time. All their assignments and work is turned in using Seesaw. I create the reading response directions using different apps, so they can move to something other than Chatterpix or Explain Everything to complete their assessments.

They are getting more used to giving themselves feedback in this system and have begun to get it to others. The work they turn goes in the hallway and is shared to an authentic audience. This has changed the quality of work they produce and they know t make several tries (aka prototypes) to get it just how they want it. I have chunked it out by chapter and given deadlines for when things need to be turned in so they aren't just spinning and have to get things done.

The big thing: The assignments target the chapters they have read but all the questions are based on Bloom's. Mind you they hate this but they rise to the challenge and figure out the answer and how they want to turn in the assignment. I do delete work that is not of high quality. (This is a very long and second conversation. But this solves my students who want to rush through everything.)

Here I have let go of everything. I conference with them just about daily--somethings it just a "Hey, tell me what your working on" or "Can I help with anything." I am a guide or somedays strickly an observer as they get the work done. (This is a huge step into--well I have no clue as I've never done anything like this. The big key to keep on going is 1--they are so happy to come to group each day. It's not a drag which in 3rd grade is can be a big thing for them. 2--the monthly grade level progress monitoring scores are raising. And 3--their chapter fluency reads and comprehension products student turn in scream growth. Mind you not all on my caseload an in this place. So we will see when their winter benchmark scores look like. I'm not stressed if they don't finish the book they are reading. I would to change it up and let them have more choice in what they are reading come January.)

Voice and choice using @seesawlearning to complete reading responses. My students love using Seesaw for work. #iteachtoo #iteachsped #iteachreading #seesawlearning

A post shared by Alison (@toadallyexceptional) on Oct 10, 2017 at 12:41pm PDT

The biggest voice, choice, and feedback task we did was before Thanksgiving Break and had a bonus of authentic feedback as well. This was a STEM activity creating a method to transport a turkey without harming it. So what that it was my father but the kids LOVED it! Having someone who worked in engineering and not be me was the coolest thing ever. They want him to come back. We're talking about something for January. Something STEM and something engineering related.

Here again, we only had 45 minutes to do the activity. Students created 2 prototypes and got authentic feedback from someone who worked in the field was the best.

Getting authentic feedback from an engineer on their Turkey transport system today! #iteachsped #designthinking #authenticfeedbackrocks

A post shared by Alison (@toadallyexceptional) on Nov 17, 2017 at 2:59pm PST

With each of these, I was able to target student voice, choice, and feedback in a short amount of time. It looks very different with the other students I work with but my 3rd graders asked for their IEP time to be something different and the asked for something outside the box. I'm not sure if I will get to do a whole LAUNCH cycle with them but to create something where they know their voice is heard, they are challenged to think outside of the box too, and get and give feedback is a back deal to a group of 3rd graders who thought none of this was possible.

I don't know what is around the next corner of them this year but they have the skills to ask the questions and work through the challenges.

Until Next Time,

 This is the time of year where my team is working thought DRA's for their SLO (Student Learning Objectives) and figuring out what they are going to do when we come back from Spring Break.

Math has been challenging for me this year. I go into one class and pull out two other groups to teach/reteach math. Last year the comment that I got from evaluations was, "How is what you're doing helping students access core in a timely manner?"  Meaning, stop spending all your time filling in the holes and do it as your helping students understand core. Well-easier said than done.  But I had a light bulb moment early in the week, when I was talking with my coach about my math instruction.

Bloomin' Apps has made it's way to creating. All with free apps. The fun my students had creating this examples was unbelievable. They can't wait to do it again. Students had to read and reflect before they could come anywhere near an iPad. The video was done using Gina the Giraffe, Talking Tom, and Roby the Robot. I've talked before about how the students created their scripts and then went to town. Word Mover is like magnetic poetry but free. The students used this app for their response. After reading about Extreme Weather, they have to create a poem using word association. Have a great weekend!

Its been five months since I first laid my hands on an iPad. It has been a challenge (but fun) to find ways to bring them into small group interventions without them becoming a gaming station. My students love when I say, "We're going try this and hope for the best." They just grin from ear to ear and go along for the ride. I would say that my best lessons have happened after playing and after those days of "let's try this."