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Month: September 2014

National Board – DPS109 and Kipling Teachers Leading the Way

National Board Certification
One of the most challenging and rewarding things teachers can do to enhance their knowledge and demonstrate their skills is to pursue National Board Certification as a teacher. The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) is an organization that is dedicated to advancing student learning and achievement by defining clear standards upon which teachers demonstrate their expertise. Being a board certified teacher in many states including Illinois earns teachers the designation of “master teacher” on their professional educator license. However, nationwide only about 3% of teachers earn this honor. The main reason for this in my opinion is the rigorous nature of the certification process. Teachers do not become Nationally Board Certified by just saying they are doing specific things – they have to prove it.

National Board Architecture of Accomplished Teaching and Five Core Propositions
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A look at the process
Beginning this year the process to earn National Board Certification is at minimum a 3 year journey. It begins with the teacher choosing their certificate area. An elementary school art teacher would choose art while a 4th grade classroom teacher would likely choose reading or middle childhood generalist. In all there are 25 different certificate areas in which teachers can apply for certification. For each certificate area the candidate must complete a combination of portfolio entries and assessment center exercises demonstrating, with evidence, how they are meeting and applying the standards of National Board in specific components. Those components are: Differentiation in Instruction, Content Knowledge, Teaching Practice and Learning Environment, and Effective and Reflective Practitioner. The journey will begin this year with teachers focusing all of their efforts on Differentiation in Instruction and moving to a different component next year. The portfolio entries and assessment center exercises are scored in many cases by multiple scorers – all teachers and all familiar with the NBPTS and the process. Not everyone passes the entries and they need to retake them. In fact in some years the first time pass rate is less than 40%.

Leading the Way
I am happy to say that here in DPS109 teacher pursuit of NBPTS is another example of how we are raising the bar for education. This year we have over 40 of our roughly 290 teachers beginning their pursuit of National Board Certification. We already have 9 master teachers – so with 49 out of 290 holding or pursuing NBPTS we have nearly 1 in 5 teachers with or seeking this high professional honor! As a district, we have the 3rd highest number of teachers in the state of Illinois beginning their certification process this year. We are only behind Chicago Public Schools (400,000 students) and Elgin (56,000 students). Or to put it another way the Deerfield 109 cohort of National Board candidates represents 5% of all teachers in the state of Illinois pursuing National Board. Not bad for district with a little over 3,000 students. I am proud to say that 12 of those 40 teachers are from right here at Kipling.

Kipling Elementary National Board Candidates (not pictured: Lynn Surico and Erin Christopoulos)
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So what sets us apart in Deerfield? It’s simple. We have amazing people. Our teachers are dedicated professional educators who spend countless hours in the pursuit of what is in the best interests of their students. There are other districts – larger than Deerfield – that cannot find 1 teacher willing to take on this process. We have over 40!

Why Does This Matter?
The main reason this matters is because the body of research on the impact that National Board Certified teachers have on student outcomes is rock solid. In over 200 studies done on the effectiveness of National Board certified teachers nearly all of them show that their students have a significant increase in learning and achievement. In addition to this National Board teachers are also more likely to mentor teachers and take on leadership roles in the school. National Board teachers tend to raise everyone up along with them.

Join me in celebrating not only our Kipling teachers but all teachers that have the dedication to pursue this high honor!

A Question Waiting to Be Answered???

Every once in a while we all come across something that we feel encapsulates us or speaks to us. Something that gets at who we are and what we stand for. It may be a book or poem, possibly a song or a movie. I came across something this summer that I feel sums up how I feel as a teacher, educator, and parent and I am happy to share it with you here.

I first saw this quick video over the summer and it immediately struck a chord with me. It is just a quick little video from Google but it sums up in so many ways the way I feel about teaching and our obligation to the future – our students. It is such an exciting feeling to know that the great achievements of our future will be accomplished by the little ones in our classrooms right now.

I am beyond proud to be a part of a school district that has taken so many steps to give our students the opportunities this video talks about. I point to our new STEM and CMA labs at the middle schools. I also point to our 1:1 initiative that is integral to preparing our kids to be successful in the world of the future. To me this video sums up what we mean in our district mission when we say Provide educational experiences of the highest quality that engage, inspire and empower each student to excel and contribute in a changing world. At Kipling we want our students to realize that questions often are more important than the answers as they develop a love of problem solving that will last a lifetime. There is a future to be made amazing and I am reminded of that daily as I watch students in our classrooms learn and grow.

Growth vs Fixed Mindset

One of my favorite reads of the last few years is Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Dr. Carol Dweck. Like the work of John Hattie and his compilation of research in Visible Learning the work of Carol Dweck has been a professional subject of learning and study for me. Dr. Dweck is the Lewis and Virginia Eaton Professor of Psychology at Stanford University and is a leading researcher in the areas of developmental psychology, social psychology, and personality. What is fascinating to me about her research is that her findings on student achievement, growth, and motivation are contrary to what is commonly believed. In this post I will give a very basic explanation but more importantly share with you some excellent resources that speak with far more eloquence on this topic than I do.

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Carol Dweck and myself in Evanston earlier this year.

Dr. Dweck’s research shows that individuals have two possible mindsets. The first is a fixed mindset where you believe or are led to believe that your qualities such as intelligence are set or fixed. The second mindset is the growth mindset that is based on the belief that your qualities are able to be cultivated through effort. The idea that hard work and effort pay off is not ground breaking. But what is interesting is that for a long time we have thought of qualities like intelligence as fixed. Dr. Dweck’s research finds exactly the opposite. Intelligence is also a characteristic that can be developed with the proper mindset.

So how do we foster a growth mindset? It turns out the easiest way is in our everyday language and praise. Dweck’s research says to focus praise on the process and on qualities such as effort rather than outcomes. We often rush to tell students how “smart” they are when they get a good grade on a test yet we rarely think of what message that sends them when they come to something truly challenging and are not successful the first time. What we want is for the student to persevere in that moment and continue trying until they achieve success. The hard part is that many students have learned to see effort as something that reflects on their intelligence in a negative way. They think that if they have to put in a lot of effort then that must mean they are not smart. Nothing could be further from the truth. The more we can get students to focus on growth and embrace the process and challenge, rather than just the outcome, the more they will achieve. Here is a great cover story from New York Magazine that goes into this in much more depth. The Inverse Power of Praise

Another researcher that has done a lot of great work on mindset and effort is Angela Lee Duckworth from the University of Pennsylvania. Her research and findings on what she terms “grit” are very interesting. Here is her TED talk on GRIT.

We are passionate at Kipling school in trying to help students develop a growth mindset. We want our students to persevere when things get challenging and reach their full potential. The picture below is from our own Mr. Schwartz. This is a bulletin board he has put up in his music room that helps students see how to think with a growth mindset.

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MAP 101

This week all students at Kipling and across DPS109 will begin taking the MAP assessment. MAP stands for Measures of Academic Progress and is a computer adaptive assessment taken by millions of students across the country. I have made a video that explains the assessment, how it is scored, and how we use it here in DPS109. Hopefully, this video answers many questions you have about the assessment. If after watching you have additional questions please feel free to contact me.

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