As a building, Roosevelt used the four PLC questions to drive our Wednesday work: What do we want our students to learn? How will we know if each student has acquired targeted standards and benchmarks? How will we respond when students do not learn? How will we extend and enrich learning for students who have mastered the standards and benchmarks? A lot of work was done by grade level teams writing learning targets in student-friendly language so each teacher knew what they wanted their students to learn.  Learning targets were posted in each classroom for each lesson. These student-friendly learning targets helped students understand what they should be learning from each lesson. The learning targets also helped staff focus on the standards and benchmarks as they developed and implemented their lessons.  

Each grade level also spent time collaboratively grading the constructed responses from the weekly Treasures assessments. Student data was then collected and discussed to see if there were any trends over the course of a Unit. Along with tracking grade-level trends, teachers also spent time tracking individual student trends. Having student data helped staff share effective teaching strategies and develop intervention and enrichment activities for students.

During our building Wednesday’s the BLT focused the building professional development on the district initiative of writing. The BLT did a great job at disseminating the information learned from Joan LoPresti as it related to the District writing assessments. This was a very valuable part of the year because staff was calibrated on how to use the agreed upon scoring rubrics. During second semester, staff used the information to commonly score the constructed responses on the weekly Treasures assessment and have closer student scores. 

The focus for Roosevelt’s professional development for the 2011-12 school year is going to be using the DesCartes information to improve student learning. The BLT along with the District Teacher Leader will be helping with this endeavor.