Envelope Activity

The best advice I received during my first-year teaching was from the Mentor of New Teachers, Myra Dietz.  She suggested for all of us to create a "Nice Stuff" file, as a collection of items of appreciation.  She stressed, "You may not realize it now, but being able to look back at this material will make a huge difference in your careers."

I followed her advice and continue to add to my "Nice Stuff" file as an Assistant Principal.  It contains thank you's from students, notes from parents, emails from colleagues, etc.  More than just a collection of sentimental tokens of appreciation, this file serves a much larger role.

Biology Intervention Strategy

The Biology PLC at my school created a Strategic Intervention Plan for the material covered in the first "Benchmark", a district-wide assessment for every six-weeks of material.  The three teachers examined student data and organized their students into three groups.  Those groups, created from their common assessment data, were: "successful (level III,IV)", "low performing (level II)", and "lowest performing (level I).  Biology in an End of Course exam provided by the state of North Carolina.  Here was the summary of the three-day intervention, followed by the resulting data:

	November 16, 2011			November 17, 2011			November 18, 2011
	Teacher A	Teacher B	Teacher C	Teacher A	Teacher B	Teacher C	Teacher A	Teacher B	Teacher C
Period 1	Lowest performing students – review 1st 4 weeks of Bio Info	Low performing students – review 1st 4 weeks of Bio info	½ successful students do lab with Teacher C	Lowest performing students – review wks 5 & 6 of Bio Info	Low performing students – review wks 5 & 6 of Bio Info	½ successful students with Academic Coach  and tutor review 1st 6 weeks of Bio	Students retake Benchmark I	Students retake benchmark I	Students view GATTACA w/ Enrichment activity
			½ successful students with Academic Coach  and tutor review 1st 6 weeks of Bio			½ successful students do lab with Teacher C
Period 2	Lowest performing students – review 1st 4 weeks of Bio Info	Low performing students – review 1st 4 weeks of Bio info	½ successful students do lab with Teacher C	Lowest performing students – review wks 5 & 6 of Bio Info	Low performing students – review wks 5 & 6 of Bio Info	½ successful students with Academic Coach and tutor review 1st 6 weeks of Bio	Students retake Benchmark I	Students retake Benchmark I	Students view GATTACA w/ Enrichment activity
			½ successful students with Academic Coach and tutor review 1st 6 weeks of Bio			½ successful students do lab with Teacher C
Period 4	Team teach all low performing students 1st 4 weeks of Bio info		Successful students do lab with Teacher C	Team teach all low performing students wks 5 & 6 of Bio info		Successful students review 1st 6 weeks with Teacher C	Students retake Benchmark I		Students view GATTACA w/ enrichment activity

Biology Intervention Results

Overall Growth	+425 points
Average Growth per student	+6.54 points
Level I à Level II	6 students
Level II à Level III	22 students
Positive Growth	50 students
Negative Growth	13 students
No change in growth	2 students

67 students took both benchmark 1 and the retest. Numbers in table above will be based on these 67 students. (waiting on bubble sheets from 2 students – finished in academic support class, therefore based on 65 students as of 11/18/11)

2 students took the benchmark for the first time and made a level III.

1 student took the benchmark for the first time and made a level II.

2 students took the benchmark for the first time and made a level I. Note: 1 student missed 1 of the two remediation days before the retest. 1 student missed both of the remediation days before the retest.

I just wanted to share an example of a very effective intervention initiated by my staff (which I am extremely proud of).

Thanks for reading and please follow me via Twitter @CSmithGoBlue

CS


The opinions shared in this blog belong to Craig Smith and do not represent the school or district in which he works.