Summary Notes

As a group, we are grateful for the opportunity to meet and work together as colleagues, proactively addressing our vision of an RTI model for Newark Valley. Whether it was learning about and implementing Socratic Seminars, learning to administer and interpret the Woodcock Test, modifying current approaches to writing, or exploring a new program such as SAS, all participants would agree that our time was well spent.

To date, Newark Valley's English department has conducted no fewer than twenty-five Socratic Seminars across the five grade levels at our facility. Through student interest and support from our administration, Lynn Moshen and Scott Stratton, two of the eight member team, conducted two after school sessions with the Social Studies department, exposing and training them to be facilitators in the practice. Five possible seminars were produced by the group, assessment tools were refined, and confidence in the practice was developed. We are hopeful that this best practice will become a standard for them as well.

We continue to seek out successful RTI programs, including visits by Lynn Moshen to Whitney Point schools. Our goal remains to provide appropriate, challenging, scaffolded instruction as the model for level one of RTI

March 17, 2010

At our final meeting, we introduced our newest member of the department to the work that has been done to date, adding time to review SAS Curriculum Pathways. We see this tool as having value to supplement classroom intruction as well as to provide materials for our AIS/RTI classes. Most time was spent learning how to guide students to the editing activities that are offered. Teachers agreed to to introduce students to the program in our 10th grade writing lab, an opportunity that is presently offered to all tenth graders.

February 24, 2010

This session was devoted to practicing the administratiion of the Woodcock Test. Our matierials, purchased through a grant written by member Jill Keeler, our AIS and Reading teacher at the high school, were now available so that all teachers could practice on one another, gaining familiarity that would add to the level of comfort for students. We still believe that the results from this test, administered at the beginning and end of the school year, will give us valuable data to assess our efforts with RTI.
Our group also looked at the district's ELA committee's suggestion to develop a common graphic organizer. We made suggestions that would be brought back via Stacy Mallery and Aaron Smith, both of whom represent the high school.
We also addressed the idea of supporting the Social Studies department by using readings more germaine to that discipline in our writing lab, allowing students to discuss and then write about topics that would support areas of concern voiced by the Social Studies Department.
The group also discussed our successes with Socratic Seminars. Students who have participated in the many that have been offered by the English department have commented on how enjoyable the classes have been, how much has been learned from peers, and how they wish that they had the opportunity to engage in these in other core classes.

January 13th meeting

On January 13, 2010, our group met for the third time with a goal of discussing our experiences with Socratic Seminars in our 8th-12 grade English classes. We covered those strategies and adaptations that we employed regarding time constraints, dealing with the rules, questioning techniques, and other unique approaches.
For younger students, having the rules and questions posted as well as clipboards for the outer circle seemed to work well. For other grade levels, it was agreed that having the students write the questions and then gather their thoughts in writing was useful, particularly when measuring how much their perspective was impacted by the group's discussion.
All group members agreed that the framing of the questions was the most crucial key to a successful seminar, making them open-ended, provocative, and based upon textual evidence to keep the ensuing discussion on task. We will continue to work as a group to refine our questioning technique.
We also discussed our use of a newly founded writing tutorial lab. The brainchild of Brittany Dougherty, this lab is manned by juniors and seniors who've demonstrated strong writing skills as well as a talent for dealing with younger students who come to them during their free periods and after school for support with writing assignments. This is an example of one of our Response to Intervention models that we are hoping will produce measurable results. Already, teachers are commenting upon how students are receiving the same kind of feedback normally offered by a teacher with better results because it is coming from a junior or senior. We continue to try whatever works.

Our Second Meeting

On December 16, 2009, Newark Valley's English department was involved in a professional development session led by Tom Beatty of Owego Free Academy. Tom worked with the English department, sharing his expertise on the use of Socratic Seminars to improve comprehension, student writing and speaking, and, most importantly, to improve the climate and culture of our building. It is his belief, and ours, too, that a building where students believe that their ideas are important and their voices are given a chance to be heard is one in which students will take more pride.
Tom worked with us for four hours, involving us in practice seminars to inform our practice as well as to refine our skills. We found the hands-on portion of his presentation to be extremely powerful, and many of us were up and running with our own seminars within a few days of his visit.
As a department, we will continue to focus on our questioning techniques as well as other approaches that involve students in higher order thinking skills (HOTS), also our building's literacy initiative.

Our First Meeting

Our first meeting had two agendas. First, we met with the school psychologists from the elementary, middle, and high schools to gain a comprehensive picture of our current efforts and concerns. Our English department has already been quite proactive, developing new courses to reach a variety of student needs. These range from a looping-style ninth and tenth grade classroom taught by an English teacher and a Special Education teacher, focusing on basics from decoding to the implementation of reading comprehension strategies in a non-traditional setting. We also have a section of eighth grade for students who are repeating that grade and/or who have shown signs of struggling after our first marking period. This class is also team taught, this time with a Reading Specialist and an English teacher. That same combination is offered in ninth and tenth grade as well. Ninth graders in this section are all required to be in AIS, too.
We acknowledge that we are working hard at RTI, but we were up against formidable obstacles, including student attendance problems as well as motivation. This was not unique to the high school.
In response to our concerns, a group of couselors went to visit Chenango Forks School district to observe their program. The visit reveled some promising interventions, and a follow-up visit by the high school Literacy Coach, guidance counselors, and principal of Newark Valley is pending.
The second goal for the meeting was for all English teachers to become familiar and proficient at administering the Woodcock Test so that we may begin to create data against which to measure the effectiveness of our interventions. We have information from the middle school that we will add as we create Data Central, allowing us to better follow all students, marking their progress, as well as designated students for RTI.

Our Action Plan

Newark Valley continues to strive to avoid student involvement at the lower levels of RTI by addressing classroom instruction and our present English Academic Intervention Services, AIS.