The Balcony View

I couldn't be more excited for next week's PD on Visible Learning Feedback with John Almarode and to welcome back "Welcoming Schools" (pun intended) for Session 2. If you needed a quick refresher on Hattie's research (and some corresponding strategies), click HERE for the balcony view on feedback.

Our next session with Welcoming Schools will focus on identifying and preventing bias-based bullying. There are a few items that our presenters, Nick and Toni, would like us to review prior to the 17th...but don't worry! In keeping with my balcony view theme of bite-sized PD, this will only take a few minutes of your time.

Please take a moment to watch the video that is aligned to the grade level you teach, and to review our pretraining materials via the links below.

• The Data Speaks for Itself: Click HERE to review national data complied by Welcoming Schools, and HERE to review the Trevor Project's 2021 National Survey on LGBTQ Youth Mental Health.
• Checklist for Preventing Bias-Based Bullying
• Bullying Intervention: What to do When You Witness Bullying
• What Do You Say to ‘That’s So Gay’ & Other Anti-LGBTQ* Comments? (secondary)

Once you have reviewed everything, click HERE to sign-off!

The overarching theme throughout Visible Learning in Early Childhood is to developing practices that provide developmentally appropriate instruction and feedback (hitting the "just-right" space with the "just-right" challenge) through language-based interactions. In order to help students connect their experiences with school-based learning, growth their language and deepen their knowledge, the strategies and feedback we provide must match their level of learning. As Hattie and his team states, we can do this by recognizing and supporting learners' movement through the three phased on learning: surface, deep and transfer learning.

Surface Learning is when learners are just starting to use prior knowledge to understand new concepts. This phase of learning is essential if students are expected to master content. This is the beginning of learning and consists of what students must "know."

• High Impact Teaching Strategies (HITS): explicit instruction (0.59), vocabulary instruction (0.63), guided questioning (0.48), imagery (0.51) and manipulatives (0.39).
• Verbs for Feedback/Tasks: name, identify, recall, find, label, list

Deep Learning is when learners use their understandings from surface learning to make connections among concepts. This is when students move from "knowing what" to "knowing how."

• High Impact Teaching Strategies (HITS): concept mapping (0.64), self-questioning (0.59) and classroom discussion (0.82)

• Verbs for Feedback/Tasks: describe, list, classify, continue, complete, compare, contrast, explain

Transfer Learning is when learners are able to take their knowledge of "what" and "how", and apply this in new contexts and situations.

• High Impact Teaching Strategies (HITS): cooperative learning (0.46), meta-cognitive strategies (0.60), strategy monitoring (0.58), transfer strategies (0.68) and problem-solving (0.67)

• Verbs for Feedback/Tasks: create, generate, design, construct, predict, invent

When considering each phase of learning it is important to remember that learners will move at different paces and their "phase" will differ depending on the skill/concept that is being taught. As you plan lessons, rather than focusing on mapping out activities, consider what verbs you will use to guide language-based interactions and play. To see what this looks like in action, checkout the latter half of Chapter 1 as Hattie and his team share lesson narratives from various early childhood classrooms in a variety of settings (p27-32). You can also view the videos below!

• Balancing Surface, Deep and Transfer Learning
• Surface, Deep, and Transfer Learning: Kindergarten

Are you looking to go even further with your professional growth and development? Bite-sized best practices are just a CLICK away!

• Let's Build Some "Welcoming" Libraries: If you're looking for some books to support the prevention of bias-based bullying, click HERE for an elementary list and HERE for a middle school/secondary list.
• Engage Your Students: Click HERE for some "welcoming" lessons you can do with your students to help prevent bias-based bullying.

You're the BEST! Quotes from the staff...

• BOOM! to Shannon Sams for helping me label everything in my classroom and helping me prepare for state observations! She's the best master teacher ever!

• BOOM! to Zach Wakeley for all of his behind the scenes work for our book challenge and helping to foster a love of reading in our students.

• BOOM! to Ms. An for a great Math SIP presentation.

• BOOM! to Kathleen McCarthy, Cynthia McAdams, and Kelli Reader for presenting our feedback PLC to our Burke staff. Excellent Job!

• We love Bell Oaks Reading Challenge – BOOM! Way to go Carol and Zach.
• BOOM! to Brian Reilly - Thank you for being so creative and finding ways to provide donations to our families. (The students are going to love the Bike Giveaway)
• BOOM! to all the staff that provided coverage so we can show support to our colleagues during challenging times.
• BOOM! to Lisa Corsey - Thank you for your work with the wellness grant and for promoting healthy options for us.
• BOOM! to the Winter Sports Coaches - Great job instilling sportsmanship and teamwork with our boys/girls basketball and cheerleading.

Updates, reminders & bite-sized best practices for the Bellmawr community!

Email: rtaibi@bellmawrschools.org
Website: https://theprincipalspov.com/
Location: Bell Oaks Elementary School, Anderson Avenue, Bellmawr, NJ, USA
Phone: (856) 931-9326
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/richtaibi/
Twitter: @RichTaibi