 |
Greetings!
We are enjoying the new school year and all the promise that comes with it. It is exciting to see so many moving determinedly in the direction of increased student achievement even in this challenging environment of severe budget cuts. In this newsletter we provide you with some links to resources that are excellent, timely, and free. Don't forget to call on any of us for help with your EBISS related tasks or activities. Just a friendly reminder that your District Systems Support Plan (DSSP) deliverable is now DUE. We understand that it has come up quickly for many of you and would just like to encourage you to complete it during your next EBISS meeting. You will find a pdf of the DSSP under "Tools" on our EBISS website. Please fill it out and send it via fax, email, or regular mail to your EBISS State Coordinator. Thank you for your help with this. We look forward to visiting with you soon. - Your EBISS State Coordinators PS Need a chuckle in your day? Click to hear a fun little ditty about dirty data messing up your school. Thank you to Kathleen Jackson for bringing this to our attention, and to Scott Perry and Patty Parnell for their combined talents.
|
 |
Moving Research Into Classrooms - a big success!
On October 26th & 27th over 500 educators from Connecticut to Hawaii to Qatar attended the Center on Teaching and Learning's annual conference in Portland, Oregon. This year's offerings included strands on adolescent literacy, positive behavior supports, RTI for K-8 math, interventions for struggling writers, and strategies for increasing vocabulary and comprehension skills. All topics were presented with credible evidence to support the use of the suggested programs, interventions, and practices.
Particularly cutting-edge are the soon to be released follow up activities for each strand. These are designed to continue the learning beyond the scope of the formal conference. Conference presentations with audio will be posted, as well as activities that draw upon concepts learned in the strands. Initial release of this material for attendees is expected on November 4th and 11th. Go to the CTL Conference home page for more information.
Here is a short selection of excellent resources recommended during the conference:
The Center on Instruction has some wonderful online tools for educators working with adolescent literacy. For example they have an adolescent literacy walk-through guide for principals. It is printable, and comes with a free online webinar which covers the suggestions that are in the guide. You will also find a guide that covers interventions for adolescent struggling readers and other related topics.
The IES Practice Guides are always a great place to find practical and accessible information about many different topics in education.
In the spring, we will let you know about the upcoming 2011 CTL Fall Conference via the EBISS newsletter, giving you plenty of time to make your plans and submit an early registration.
Back to Top
|
EBISS Highlights From the North West PBIS Conference
This year we had a lot of fun putting together our EBISS strand, and from the initial feedback we've received, attendees report that they are already using the information back in their districts.
Dr. Erin Chaparro kicked off the session with an informative overview of Implementation Science and Implementation Drivers.
After leading the group through some hands-on activities involving implementation drivers, Kathleen Jackson and Kim Hosford then posed the question; Does your data have integrity? After listening to the Dirty Data song, participants engaged in thoughtful conversations as they reflected on their own practices with data collection.
Participants also engaged in an activity to examine districts' use of resources as related to the features of the implementation drivers. Participants left with tools to help their district team identify the drivers that must be in place for large scale implementation of evidence based practices (the next step in the EBISS process).
Dr. Louise Bronaugh ran the afternoon session with assistance from some very accomplished women: Sally Helton who is the EBISS Systems Coach in Tigard-Tualatin, Stephanie Smith, the EBISS Systems Coach from Oakridge, and Dr. Natalie Hanson from the University of Oregon's Center on Teaching and Learning.
Sally gave us some ideas for what it's like to use data to effect change in a large district. She also modeled the Tigard meeting format using the T.I.P.S. forms and procedures. It was clear from her presentation that follow-through and holding attendees accountable, are key components of successful meetings.
Stephanie showed us graphs that she created for data meetings in the Oakridge School District. These graphs epitomized the expression; A picture is worth a thousand words. Through Stephanie's work, we were able to understand the power of first identifying the point you want to make, and then gathering and presenting the relevant data in a way that makes your argument. For example when the Oakridge School District was notified that all day Kindergarten would be ending, Stephanie realized that if she could show the reading data in a way that would paint a picture of positive student results with all day Kinder versus half day Kinder, then she might have a chance of stopping the program cuts. She was able to do this so effectively that her superintendent took it to the state and received approval to keep all day Kindergarten. That is a great example of the power of data when you convert it to a picture instead of just lists of numbers.
Last but certainly not least, Natalie helped by creating many of the graphing templates that were demonstrated in the session and are now available on the EBISS website.
Examples of the above, and graphing templates that you can use with your own data can be found under "tools" on the EBISS website. Enjoy!
Back to Top
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
