Learning-Focused Connections Newsletter

Issue 40: Week of March 16, 2009

The LEARNING-FOCUSED Connections Newsletter is a weekly link to exemplary practice and ideas that will help you as an educator to increase achievement in your classroom and school. Some weeks there will be a mix of articles in the mailer; other weeks we will follow a theme. We are all working with the same goal in mind, continuous improvement in student achievement.

In This Issue

Is your budget keeping you from getting the LEARNING-FOCUSED professional development and products that you need?

Structured Unit Review for State Standardized Tests and End-of Course Exams

Benchmark Assessments Connections

The Writing Continuum

Past Connections Articles

Is your budget keeping you from getting LEARNING-FOCUSED professional development and products that you need?

We understand that many of you are experiencing budget difficulties as states slash their educational dollars. During this short term budget crisis, LEARNING-FOCUSED is going to do everything possible to help you continue getting the training and products so necessary for increasing achievement and teacher collaboration.

Here are four ways LEARNING-FOCUSED is increasing our support to you during these difficult times!

1. Now through May 1st we are offering 15% off on all materials purchased with a credit card or check (not purchase orders) on orders over $100. This offer does not include the sale of discontinued item #800 which is already on sale for 50% off. Download our order form and complete the credit card information or include a check and either fax the form (with credit card info) or mail us the form and check. Be sure to deduct the 15% on your order form!

2. If you are a Florida administrator or teacher leader, you can attend our Updating Florida Educational Leaders Seminar on May 7th and 8th in Orlando for FREE!
See the seminar advertisement below for details.

3. Attend 2 days of our Summer Institute (July 13 - 17 in Greensboro, NC) for FREE!
See the Summer Institute advertisement below for details.

4. We have a new FREE service called Focus on Funding that we have created to help you locate funds for LEARNING-FOCUSED Professional Development and products. We have an easy-to-use database of over 600 specially selected grants available for you to select from to apply for funding. Most of the grants include example applications completed so all you have to do is change the information to your school/district and submit. We also have a full time Focus on Funding staff available to help you write grant applications and review grant applications to ensure the highest probability of your grant getting accepted! Visit www.LEARNINGFOCUSED.com and click on Products and Solutions and then Focus on Funding.

Thank you for allowing us to work with you and your fellow teachers and administrators. We do what we do because of your support and dedication to increasing achievement for all students.

Updating Florida Educational Leaders Seminar

Read below to find out how to attend for FREE!

May 7-8, 2009
Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress
Orlando, FL

This seminar is for educational leaders (administrators and teacher leaders) who are experienced and for educational leaders new to LEARNING-FOCUSED.

Registration Fee: $50.00 per day or Free**
Visit www.LEARNINGFOCUSED.com for additional seminar information and to register.

May 7th: Leadership, Balanced Achievement and Accountability and our new Starting and Sustaining Exemplary Practices

Have you received your dose of Max lately? Have you developed an achievement game plan with our new Starting and Sustaining Exemplary Practices solution? Have you learned how other schools and districts are getting (and keep getting!) results?

May 8th: Unlocking the Secrets of the new LEARNING-FOCUSED Strategies v.7 Model

Have you discovered the power of teachers collaboratively planning common assessments? How to plan standards driven assessment prompts? The secrets of distributing assessment prompts throughout lessons? The characteristics of quality lessons? The many uses of Student Learning Maps? Learn why the latest version of LEARNING-FOCUSED Strategies is the most powerful and highest regarded solution we have ever developed!

**Want to attend for free? We are offering 2 different ways to attend for free!:

1. Submit a 3+ minute video describing why your school/district chose LEARNING-FOCUSED, the impact of LEARNING-FOCUSED in your school/district, success stories, highlights of implementing Learning-Focused, and what it is like to work with LEARNING-FOCUSED. Videos can be submitted on VHS tape, Mini-DV tape, CD, or DVD. To qualify for free registration, videos must be received by April 27th (you have plenty of time!).

Ship video to:
LEARNING-FOCUSED
Attn: Video for Florida Registration
132 Laurel Chase Drive
Blowing Rock, NC 28605

2. A second way of attending for free is to bring a leader with you from a school or district that has not implemented LEARNING-FOCUSED as your guest. The leader must be a Superintendent, Assistant or Associate Superintendent, Director of Title 1, Director of Curriculum and/or Instruction, Director Professional Development, or Principal. Both you and your guest will be free.

Register today! The first 20 registrations we receive will all get a free copy of The Amazing Book of Connections for Learning!

Visit www.LEARNINGFOCUSED.com for additional seminar information and to register.

LEARNING-FOCUSED Summer Institute on
Sustaining Exemplary Practices

Read below to find out how to attend for FREE!

July 13-17, 2009
Greensboro, NC

Sessions include: Training of Trainers and regular workshops at the Institute:

LEARNING-FOCUSED Strategies version 7 (regular sessions and Training of Trainers sessions)
Reading Comprehension Strategies and Assignments (regular sessions and Training of Trainers sessions)
LEARNING-FOCUSED Math (regular sessions and Training of Trainers sessions)
Differentiated Assignments (regular sessions and Training of Trainers sessions)
Vocabulary Instruction (regular sessions and Training of Trainers sessions)
Catching Kids Up with Acceleration (regular sessions and Training of Trainers sessions)
Scaffolding Grade Level Learning (regular sessions and Training of Trainers sessions)
Leadership, Balanced Achievement, and Accountability with Max Thompson
Starting and Sustaining Exemplary Practices with Max Thompson
Toolbox Training
Toolbox Administrator Training
Actualizing your Power Curriculum
Unlocking the Secrets of LEARNING-FOCUSED version 7 - a new book and 1-day workshop to get those trained in version 5 or 6 the latest information and exemplary practices in version 7!

Early Registration Fee: $140.00 per person/day
Includes all session materials except Training of Trainers Redelivery Kits and Support which are purchased separately.
Registrations after May 1, 2009: $160.00 per day

Session and registration information now available at www.LEARNINGFOCUSED.com

Summer Institute Opportunities to Attend for Free!
We now offer all participants an opportunity to attend two days of the LEARNING-FOCUSED Summer Institute for free!

All you have to do to attend 2 days of the Summer Institute for free is to submit a 3+ minute video describing why your school/district chose LEARNING-FOCUSED, the impact of LEARNING-FOCUSED in your school/district, success stories, highlights of implementing LEARNING-FOCUSED, and what it is like to work with LEARNING-FOCUSED. Videos can be submitted on VHS tape, Mini-DV tape, CD, or DVD. To qualify for free registration, videos must be received by June 1st (you have plenty of time!).

Ship video to:
LEARNING-FOCUSED
Attn: Video for Summer Institute Registration
132 Laurel Chase Drive
Blowing Rock, NC 28605

Offer does not include Training of Trainers Kits and Trainer Support.
Just the Institute registration fee is free.

School and District Leaders: We have a second opportunity for you to attend two days for free! Bring a leader with you from a school or district that has not implemented LEARNING-FOCUSED as your guest to the Leadership, Balanced Achievement and Accountability session and/or the Starting and Sustaining Exemplary Practices Session and you both attend for free. The leader must be a Superintendent, Assistant or Associate Superintendent, Director of Title 1, Director of Curriculum and/or Instruction, Director Professional Development, or Principal.

Session and registration information now available at www.LEARNINGFOCUSED.com

Structured Unit Review for State Standardized Tests and End-of Course Exams

by Debbie Willingham

We have all done it. We knew the big test was coming and kept procrastinating, until, finally, it loomed ahead of us, and we had no other choice - we had to cram! Students now have even more pressure, because the stakes are high, not only for them, but also for their teacher, school, district, and state. Teachers are now much more stressed out, because the accountability for their students' achievement hovers as the result of the pressure trickling down from the state superintendent to the district superintendent to the principal to them.

So, does cramming for a test work? Even when it is used to study for a final exam in a specific course, and when we know exactly what content to review, studying a large amount of material in a short period of time (usually including late at night just before the exam) is not the most effective way to retain information. With today's state standardized tests students and teachers only know the general range of information that may be tested, which makes cramming to memorize unrealistic. Cramming for a test can lead to confusion of facts the student has already learned, which can be especially true for students with specific learning disabilities. It is also difficult at this late date to connect "new" facts to prior learning, which is necessary to commit ideas to memory. Cramming just does not allow time for the brain to process the content and make important connections in concepts.

In many classrooms, the teacher version of "cramming" is seen as the state test draws near. They use the weeks leading up to the test to teach test-taking strategies and to review content from the entire year. Part of the problem with the effectiveness of this approach is that students have so much thrown at them in such a short amount of time that they have "information overload." When they complete practice items over and over, they become tired of doing them and become less and less motivated as they get closer to test time. So, what should we do instead?

We learn about using a Learning Based Review Schedule in LEARNING-FOCUSED training. The premise here is that teachers should set aside one or two class periods each month to review the content taught the previous month, periodically also including a review of the most essential content from earlier in the year, as well. An option for middle and high school teachers is to set aside review days at the end of each learning unit, since that is a natural break.

The review can take place in the form of a game, such as Bingo, Jeopardy, or $10,000 Pyramid, using lesson essential questions from the unit(s) as the basis for the game questions. If students have created vocabulary or study cards during a unit, they may use those for partner card games. Another review option is to have students condense the most difficult to remember content to a 4" x 6" index card, trade cards with their partner, and ask each other questions from the cards. The teacher might want to keep students' cards until the next review day, when they go through the same process with the next unit and again go through previously created cards. By the end of the course they will have a synopsis of the condensed, most difficult content, which by that time will not seem so difficult after all. Websites for good review games and activities include http://teach.fcps.net/trt10/PowerPoint.htm, http://jc-schools.net/tutorials/PPT-games/, and http://www.educationworld.com/a_less...esson306.shtml.

Using these strategies throughout the year on a regular basis can help improve state test achievement and final exam performance much more effectively and efficiently than cramming.

Refer to Planning Units for Learning for more information and ideas on Structured Review.
Additional strategies for preparing for assessments all year can be found in our Strategies for Assessments notebook and flipchart.

Strategies for Assessments

Prepare students to confidently take state and local tests! Reading Strategies for Assessments connects the 7 testing strands on state tests with test taking strategies. Make connections from "Teaching to the Strategies" to "Teaching to the Strands". The testing strands reflect levels of student thinking, which strengthen comprehension. Develop awareness of states' testing strands which you use to develop test questions. Use data to direct instruction.

Your results of Reading Strategies for Assessments will be:

Increased achievement and test scores
Teachers are able to analyze questions and use them to deepen student's thinking
Students will have the skills to be successful, confident test takers

Strategies for Assessments
SKU: 640
Categories: Literacy Collection
Notebook and Flipchart: $40.00

Benchmark Assessments Connections

by Carol Brewer

Benchmark Assessments are a powerful tool for instruction. They are aligned to state standards, as well as state assessments. The questions from these assessments should be used as connections to all subject areas. For example, English Language Arts, Math, Science, Social Studies, Music, Art, PE, Health, etc. teachers should include these questions in their everyday instruction. They should have a copy of these assessments and use the "question stems" to create other questions. Remember these questions from the Benchmark Assessments are aligned to the state tests; it is like the state has given a preview of the questions that will be used for the end of grade tests. It is the schools' responsibility to take advantage of this preview.

The following chart is an example of how to make the connection from the Reading Comprehension Benchmark Assessment to a Social Studies lesson. Notice the question stem that is used in the Reading Assessment can be used to create a Social Studies question. The more the "stem" is used, the stronger the student understanding!

Question Examples

Refer to the Questioning Technique Chapter in the Reading Strategies for Assessments Book.

The Writing Continuum
by Brenda Hill

Writing is an expected form of communication and students are asked to write for many different reasons from many different perspectives throughout school and across all grade levels. The writing process is a most effective tool for helping students improve written products. Many states and districts have writing benchmarks or required writing products for each grading period. According to the research, instructional practices critical to raising student achievement are:

~ All types of writing are required with an emphasis on "writing to inform".

~ There is a consistent district (school-wide) teaching of writing.

~ There are consistent (school-wide) assignment patterns for writing.

High expectations should be established for students and a continuum (K-12) implemented, requiring more of students over time and building from one grade level to the next. There will be times when written products are brief statements (1-2 sentences-summary point writing) or paragraphs about new learning that will not need to go through the writing process. There will be other times when students are expected to write and take the written products through the steps in the writing process. During the process each student develops an understanding of the writer's craft. Steps in the writing process include:

Prewriting - generating and organizing thoughts and ideas
Drafting - the first attempt in putting ideas on paper
Revising - checking organization, flow, or quality
Editing - checking grammar and spelling
Publishing/sharing - creating a product that it is ready for its final destination or for publishing - sharing completed written product with an audience

Students should begin using the writing process in kindergarten, or, most definitely, by the beginning of first grade. Teachers must explicitly teach and model with think alouds before students are expected to understand, implement, and use this process independently. Multiple opportunities should be given across all grade levels for students to improve writing by consistently using the writing process. Good luck in your future endeavors of teaching writing so ALL students can be successful lifelong learners!!!

The LEARNING-FOCUSED Literacy Collection provides resources for helping students improve their writing.

We Want You to Make "Connections"!

Subscribers, feel free to share the information, tips and strategies that you receive in LEARNING-FOCUSED Connections with your colleagues. Administrators and coaches, pass them on to the teachers in your school; teachers, share them with your teammates and leadership team. The newsletter can be the basis for discussion in team meetings or provide ideas for further staff development. If individuals in your school/district do not receive LEARNING-FOCUSED Connections, encourage them to visit our website, www.LEARNINGFOCUSED.com, and subscribe through the link on our homepage.

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Past Connections Articles

Past Connections articles are available through the archive tool of this newsletter. Please click here to view the resources.

Have an Idea for a Connections Article?

If there are questions you want answered or strategies you want to know more about, please let us know by emailing info@LEARNINGFOCUSED.com. Insert "newsletter article request" in the subject line.

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