Asha Riley, Director of Learning
October Update
November 9, 2011
TO: Michael Green, Superintendent
FROM: Asha Riley
RE: Instruction, Curriculum, Assessment, and Professional Development Monthly Update
High School Math Collaboration: The HS math department spent October 26th developing their Moodle website for Unit 2 of Integrated One and Integrated Two courses. You can visit their website at the following address, http://courses.woodlandschools.org/course/view.php?id=198. This website is meant to be a resource for students and parents to access when they need help completing homework assignments.
The team also finished revising the end of unit 2 assessments for each course and plan administer the test and enter that data into SIPs at the end of the unit. We will collect this student achievement data and compare it to student achievement of standards on the mid-year final and student achievement of standards on the EOC.
Middle School CMP Math Implementation: This year we have included several Connected Math Units into our 7th and 8th grade math instruction. In preparation for the implementation of this curriculum the middle school math department reviewed the upcoming CMP unit and identified key lessons and objectives of the unit. They then observed some of these lessons as they were being taught in classrooms at Shahala Middle School. We learned from these observations that it is critical to dedicate the last 15 minutes of the lesson to connect the learning target back to the activity in the lesson in order for the intended lesson design to be effective.
Elementary Focus on Problem Solving: The past several Mondays we have spent time with teachers of grades K-6 identifying the elements/strategies of a highly effective problem solving math lessons.
Admin Math Work: In order to maintain a steady focus on improving math instruction the principals and I have been working together to observe and discuss how to best support improved math instruction. Cari and John have joined me in observations of math classrooms in other classrooms using our curriculum. We also continue to meet weekly to discuss fidelity of curriculum implementation, and monitor student achievement data.