The Road Ahead - OA Thorp Academy 2019-20

Hi, everybody.

Thank you so much for taking the time to come

in and watch this video called The Road Ahead.

What we're gonna do is we're gonna go over a

few things that we've done in the past and some

of the things that we're gonna be doing in the

future. The first thing is we want to tell you

where where we are in terms of how we've organized

our instruction.

At Thorpe there is Richard Gilmore's The instructional core, which

basically says that all learn all schools have three basic

components and the instruction that happens that school has the

student, the teacher and the content, and they're all organized

around the specific task that the students are supposed to

be doing.

So when we're thinking about that instructional core, we're always

thinking about how we're working with our students and helping

them progress.

The instructional practices of the teachers are putting into place

and making sure that the content challenges the students at

the appropriate level.

In order to do this, we've implemented a few things.

As you know, when you go into the classroom, you're

going to see a lot of small group instruction and

The reason that we do our small group instruction is

that by teaching, our students in small groups are teacher

are better able to gauge their understanding of key concepts.

The differentiation of instructions also a little bit easier to

implement as different groups may actually be grouped according to

their abilities.

So you'll always have.

During those small groups instructions, you'll have different students working

at different levels, and oftentimes you'll see the teacher working

with a small group on her own.

And typically, what's going on with that small group.

It's either remediation or extension, but the teachers taking the

time to actually work with those students and often times

she's only working with, depending on the number anywhere between

3 to 6 students in that small group.

We also are working on hat on on increasing our

specialized endorsements throughout the building by ensuring that most of

our students are dual endorsed and either general education or

special education.

And English is a second language.

We ensure that our students are taught in the general

education classroom.

What that means is that students are being challenged to

the same extent as your general education piers, so the

students who may be in special education, where the students

who might be in the bilingual program are being taught

by teachers who have not only an endorsement in science

or in language arts or in math.

But many of our teachers also have their endorsements in

special education or in E S L.

So that they can actually help modifying instruction and make

sure that they're addressing the needs of those particular students.

At Thorpe, we have over 20 special education endorsed teachers,

and more than half of those teachers are actually teaching

in the general education classroom.

We also have about 17.

Yes, L endorsed teachers, and all of those teachers are

in the general education classroom.

So what we've tried to do is instead of just

pulling kids out for a special education or pulling kids

out for bilingual education, we try to incorporate the best

practices in the actual classroom so that the kids are

always being challenged.

And they're not seen as being part of a special

group that many more support, et cetera, because what happens

is when we have the teachers in the classroom there,

helping the students individually and that mean mean some students,

maybe in special education, but others may not.

And sometimes you'll see these groups where you'll have a

mix of different students.

And I think that's best practice because it allows the

students, too, to work together and get get the help

that they need.

So in addition to the Instructional Corp, you know that

we've organized around the five seas the five seeds of

communication collaboration, critical thinking, um, creativity and caring.

One of the things that we that we have been

recognized that Thorpe for is what we're P 21 school.

That means that we're a national exemplar for schools that

are incorporating those 21st century skills into the everyday instruction.

And when you're looking at the the well, they giggle

with the four seas we've added caring that's at the

that's at the at the basis of what we're doing.

But in addition to that, we are also making sure

that our students are literate in different types of media.

In terms of information technology.

They also have illiteracy and basic psychology.

Ah, and communication.

So you're going to see a lot of projects and

different instruction that that's organized around around technology and using

it as a tool to help students communicate your understanding

were also focusing on helping students become more productive and

accountable as we focus on agency, uh, emphasizing leadership and

responsibility, making sure that they're flexible and adaptable, that we're

paying attention to social and cross cultural skills as well

as the initiative for self direction.

Like, how do we help our students become self motivated

and know that the that their purpose in there and

that the agency that they have in the classroom actually

gonna be reflected in the outside world as well?

Some of the other things that you're going to see

if you're going to see a lot of environmental literacy

global awareness were working on financial literacy.

We really haven't done too much with that, although we

have done a little bit with the junior achievement and

having our parents coming in and helping us with career

day off.

And but we'd like to we'd like to push that

a little bit more.

We're also working with our health literacy, Mr Ryder's full

time health teacher.

But in addition to that we've incorporated are the CPS

sexual health curriculum throughout Kenya, Kindergarten through eighth grade.

We have our counselor working with our teachers so that

the students know that counselor before there's a crisis or

before there's a moment where they would typically visit her

so that way that there's a relationship already established.

And our civic literacy is also part of what we

try to do here at Thorpe, as students understand, like,

for example, through student council that their role in the

school they have a voice in the school and helping

determine where we're headed and also how to improve another

area that I really want to focus on is our

problem based learning initiative are probably is learning initiative.

There's a number of things that we're trying to do

first. We're trying to make sure that the learning that

happens in the classroom is meaningful and memorable for our

students. So we try to make sure that we're organizing

around problems that they can actually have on effect eso.

What we've tried to do is we try toe, incorporate

certain components into this problem based learning.

These components are things like uninterested problem that kids can

tackle at their at their own level, making sure that

they can research then that they can actually critique each

other in terms of in terms of that research, coming

up with solutions that emphasizes their agency doesn't matter that

they're eight years old.

They can still have agency over the problems that they're

working on in their classroom, having an authentic audience.

So oftentimes you'll be asked to come in so that

the students will be able to present the things that

they're learning.

It's really important because an education, oftentimes we forget that

the purpose that we teach kids so that they can

go out and teach others or implement their learning outside

of school.

So that cycle is incredibly important, and the last component

of that is the reflection.

So when we have a problem based learning unit, the

students reflect on how they went through that process.

Now we're just starting off on this.

This is our 2nd 3rd year working with problem based

learning and and different teams.

We're getting better at it throughout the school, but it's

one of those things that we that we're committed to

doing because under the principles of your universal design for

learning what this does is it allows all students to

contribute at their particular level.

So I'll give you an example.

Um, back in eighth grade last year, Miss McNally had

a catapult project that she came up with with the

students, and the students were employing algebraic concepts in the

actual construction of that catapult.

They were studying parabolas, et cetera.

How the quadratic equation sort of fit in there.

Now. There were some students where the mathematics was way

beyond them, but the actual building of the catapult waas

was the strength.

So we saw some students who who demonstrated their understanding

of these key concepts through their mechanical thinking.

Um, oftentimes these students haven't been recognized.

They haven't been able to demonstrate.

Oh, a shine in front of other students by having

these types of problem based learning units.

You have so many different components in so many different

things that we can actually incorporate that students, for example,

in our bilingual program, or are in our special education

program. Or just students who are typically not the ones

who are highlighted because they've been shy, etcetera still have

the opportunity two to share their learning with their peers

and the authentic audiences that that we asked to come

in. The next thing that we've been working on in

here or is just outgrowing our labels and one of

the things that we like to say is that labels

are for jars, not for people and many of the

things that we're trying to do here address our diverse

learners are special education students as well as labeling students

as gifted or non gifted, or things like that that

we really want want to address.

First and foremost, we realize that all students are gifted

in different capacities.

Some are gifted in math, somewhere gifted in reading.

Summer gets it in both summer, gifted and, as I

said before, in mechanical understanding, how we connect to those

students and and help them demonstrate their gets in.

Their understanding is at the core of what we're trying

to do.

So here's some of the things that were that were

doing with their teachers and students.

First, we know that how you proceed to perceive yourself

matters one of the things that we noticed after my

second year here we started shifting how we were working

with our with our student populations before if a student

was in to get the program.

They were there from kindergarten through eighth grade.

They were there for all nine years on.

There were a number of students that could be part

of that program, that warrant because of the amount of

space. So we made that a little bit more fluid.

We introduce our accelerated program.

We actually expanded our gifted.

So that way, from fifth through, eighth grade students maybe

peered in different classrooms for math and for reading, depending

under strength.

And we also just differentiated the instruction into small groups.

And this helped in a number of ways.

First, they got rid of some of those labels that

have been a one of the issues that that we've

been tackling.

Second, it also moved our progress.

So, for example, in the 2012 2013 school year off

bound up, we were We were at the 66th percentile

in the country for our academic achievement.

Since that time, we were typically in the top 10%

throughout throughout the year, so there was a substantial shift

in just in just one year.

The other thing that it allowed, it allowed challenge levels

to be extended to all students so that it wasn't

just a select few that were getting lessons that were

based on unit plans or interesting interesting assignments or participating

in things like history, fair or science fair, etcetera.

We want to make sure that everybody participates in those

opportunities in those memorable moments that we have in our

education. So that's that's allowed a lot of that else

to happen.

It's also the reason that we're including our problem based

learning, because it does include all of our students, and

it gives every student the opportunity to demonstrate their understanding

in multiple capacities.

So where we going from here?

Well, the first thing is, we're looking at our curriculum

throughout the building, and we're making sure that our curriculum

is challenging for all of us students and also aligned

from kindergarten through eighth grade.

Now that's difficult to do.

So what we're trying to do is we're aligning our

curriculum. We may not be able to do it from

kindergarten through eighth grade at the outset.

What we can do it from kindergarten through second.

So are our primary team.

Is has been organized in the great band, so they're

looking at each other's instructional practices the same for third

and 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th Further thing that we've

done in seventh and eighth grade and in fifth and

six are teachers are teaching of our math and reading.

Teachers are teaching to grade levels fifth and 67 Vanity

A CZ well as our science and social studies teachers.

Now the reason why that's important is because it allows

for the alignment of curriculum by design.

We're so right from the beginning, teachers are collaborating with

each other since they're working with both with both great

levels. We've also are working on refining our and developing

our PPL practices so that integrated units are the norm

and not the exception.

So you going forward, you're going to see a lot

more, uh, problem based learning units that have both of

math, component science, components of social status, informant and a

and a reading component.

And that's one of the areas where we're making some

dramatic shifts.

We're also looking at our diverse learners and our English

language learners.

We've switched from a pullout model to an inclusion model.

Uh, where students are getting the support that they need

in their classrooms were also emphasizing.

Are co teaching that as well

The Road Ahead - OA Thorp Academy 2019-20

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