CURRICULUM COMPACTING AT PIEDMONT

​Who?

• Individual or group.

All students who Need a Challenge beyond the regular classwork. (This means Gifted, High Flyers, Disaffected but Talented and even bright but underachieving school-haters who need a motivational push.) 

What?

Piedmont's new Makerspace Classroom/workroom staffed by Ms. Gurthie is available for compacting gifted students and for special projects, PBLs, Love of Learnings, Independent study and more. 

When?

• During class, During 6th block, or on their own

This is up to you and the student.  Students can pre-test out of the class, leave based on map scores or other standardized work, prove mastery through a project that is alternative to the class assignment but takes place at the same time or other. 

Where?

• In the Makerspace Workroom or in your room

Why? 
We are doing better than most schools at serving our gifted and unidentified gifted students, but there is room to grow.

Why not just the "high fliers?" who are responsible to do twice the work. If we only allow teacher-pleasing responsible, quick-finishing students to compact, we will only get a certain narrow slice of the entire demographic. My students today named two boys who they said were very smart but teachers did not know it.


How?

email me with your suggestions of  who what when and where  and if you have any preferences for below:​

• Threading in and out of the full class daily, depending on your daily activities or just check-ins with you when you ask.
• Continuing to do the work of the class as well, or this replacing the work of the class
• With a teacher-chosen product determined before compacting,  a student-chosen product determined by the end, or just email updates from the student or me.

Tools:
These are some of the tools at your disposal. Use the ones that work for your situation or students

• Compcting Contract for Students
• Compacting Contract and PD for Teachers
• Compacting Exit Interview/Evaluation bit.ly/compactingexit
• Compacting Website for Students (made by a student while compacting) 

How it works IRL:

. Here are some real-life examples this school year:

"A" comes alone to work every day for the unit.  I suggested some ideas but she chose to work on  9th grade level materials even though she is in 6th grade. We decided she could start and 9th grade and move down if it iwas too hard. She did not have to move down. She is self motivated and needs no redirecting.  She sought out compacting on her own after trying it for another class.

"B" has worked with a classmate and alone. She is advanced but also scattered and impatient. This is called asynchonous development but, despite immaturity in some areas,  she is still in the correct placement. Not all gifted students are precocious in all areas and some even lag behind. When she compacts with the classmate she is kept on task by the classmate who is much more mature. 

"C" came to me only two times to flesh out what he would do as an independent project for a few weeks of a unit. He chose a narrow subset of a subject being broadly covered in class.  During the unit time alloted, he created a slideshow of what he knew on his own after the inital consultation and did not come in regulary for compating. 

"D" comes in during flex time to learn more about a subject he finds fascinating. He comes a few days a week. His teacher gave him full freedom to study but not create a final project or report. We watch videos together. He tells me what's fascinating about black holes and I find him more infomation about that. Sometimes he loves what I find him, sometimes he doesn't and tells me so. The other day I couldn't work with him and I noticed he was on a website I showed him the previous day. 

AIG certificationBest Practices and Why in 2 minutes:
Edpuzzle - email me for the link to view.

Related Posts:

http://piedmontpd.weebly.com/celebrating-piedmont/piedmont-challenges-us
http://piedmontpd.weebly.com/piedmont-pd/compacting-for-personalized-learning
​

A seed of pessimism can grow to cast a shadow across your whole year. I've been there. About 15 years ago when I was midway through my teaching career, I asked a fellow longtime Piedmont teacher, "The kids have changed, right?" I wanted so badly for him to say "yes" to validate my pessismism. But he didn't fall for it. "They haven't changed, you have." Ouch. 

I know  what it is to feel like the kids have changed, I've been teaching since 1988. They haven't. Not substantively. Sure, the classroom challenges we face are different year to year. Students are more stressed than they used to be (One Piedmont teacher told me she heard that average student  stress levels now were considered pathological in the 50s.)  Stakes are higher now and a pathway to success seems more daunting in a world where this generation is the first to be less financially stable than their parents.

​ Students may face different challenges and temptations than you had BUT this generation is not going to heck in a handbasket, despite how it may look on your bleakest moment. The good news from social science research is that each generation of humanity is actually  less violent and more tolerant than it used to be. 

That doesn't mean that we teachers aren't facing difficult challenges today in the classroom but it does mean that your students are not as disaffected as they may seem.

Here are three things the best educational research says to do to reach students and reinvigorate your teaching.

Once you have a good relationship with your students, you're one third of the way there, but relationship is not enough.

​Students should NOT do work because they like you or respect you or, sadly, fear you. Students should work because they want to grow their own skills. I've learned from working with online students that the physical presence of a teacher is important to making students want to work. Your job as a motivator is essential. The best way to motivate is to keep reminding students how this work will help them.

CMSPDL (Personalized Digital Learning department) recommends that students set their own learning goals with your help. Pretest each unit and share their scores with them. Knowing their strengths and weaknesses and keeping track of their own skills growth is essentail to feeling ownership. Without that they are just grade-chasing or teacher pleasing.

Of course, as children and all of us do, temptation to goof off is always there and that's why this third piece is essential, so read on...

Seymour Papert termed it "hard fun:" work that is engaging yet challenging.

Some folks call this rigor, but "rigor" should not be a synonym for drudgery. The work should be just a bit harder than students are used to but interesting enough that they also WANT to do it. That's your sweet spot.

The best way to find this kind of work and not be up all night planning is to use activities other teachers have created and found successful and then tweak them to make it your own. Get with your PLC and challenge each other to write your most engaging unit. Each of you take one standard and give it your all.

Be responsive to your students needs and interests. Make sure students who already know the topic can move ahead or compact out. Shout out to Ms. Winegardner for compacting her advanced orchestra students. See Ms. Gurthie if you'd like to learn more.

Related Posts. 

Curriculum Compacting
​http://piedmontpd.weebly.com/piedmont-pd/compacting-for-personalized-learning

Learning from Elementary School
http://piedmontpd.weebly.com/piedmont-pd/learning-from-elementary-school

JV Washam PL Visit Takeaways
http://piedmontpd.weebly.com/piedmont-pd/pdl-classroom-tour-washam

What a Personalized Classroom looks like
http://piedmontpd.weebly.com/piedmont-pd/classroomingredients

This morning I had the honor of being led on a PDL (personalized digital learning) tour by wonderful students at JV Washam who showed me their own classroom routines. (I can't recommend student-led tours enough!)

Each teacher I saw personalizes for their students according to their own teaching strengths as well as the needs of their students at that time. They model growth mindset for their students. One student pointed to the wall and said "my teacher hung those posters in the wrong order, but then when she realized her mistake we fixed it." I loved that the teacher modeled for her class that mistakes are part of learning and growing and involved them in fixing the mistake together.

To begin making the most of our digital devices to personalize learning at Piedmont, here is a procedure to follow, based on what I saw and learned:

1. Set the stage: create an inviting atmosphere in your classroom with comfortable lighting and seating and focus on students’ social and emotional needs first. (see "Setting the Stage" images below)
2. Practice working with flexibility and student choice. Create and explain rules for each new thing, then practice frequently for short times (quick activities).
3. Choose a unit of curriculum to personalize.
4. Gather ready-made high interest resources accoridng to skill. Place them as hyperlinks in 3 columns on a Google doc. Each skill gets its own doc. The doc can contain links to TES (blendspaces) lists of videos, activities, etc. This will be the hardest work. Use files and tools others have made. Get help from PLC partners if possible. Do one unit a year so you don't overtax yourself.
5. Have students pretest. Share the results of the pretest with each student. Have them write their score down and know what score is needed for mastery.
6. If a student achieves mastery level scores on each skill pretested, they can compact out. Others will work either from column one, two or three. Based on how they do, they now know which skills they need to work on . They only need to do the work for the column or doc they are deficient in.
7. Have students complete a goal setting worksheet for that unit based on their pretest scores.
8. Students work while you circulate and help one on one. When you get more comfortable that students will be on task, you can teach a mini lesson during this time to students who need it.
9. Go easy on yourself. It will not go as smoothly as a teacher controlled classroom at first but don't give up.
10. When students mess up, reteach and create buy in. Spend time on the relationship and helping them see the big picture.

Social and emotional learning is essential and continuous. If students are to be trusted they must first be taught what to do and not do and agree to that.  Students want more control and choice so it's an easy bargain for them.

Click on any image to expand it 
​
Included are images of brain breaks, "morning meeting" requests, emotional self regulation, rules for sitting in a PL Choice classroom, etc. 
Any time you spend on this you will get back in greater buy-in and more efficient class the rest of the year.

Below a student is creating a Flipgrid video to teach her classmates. This student's tablemate admitted that her friend was very nervous before recording so she was writing out her script first to make sure she told all she knew. Others in the class chose to show mastery with a dfferent task from a choice board.

Math: Mystery Picture is a self correcting activity. Students access it via the teacher's google classroom and as they work the 20 problems, pieces of the picture appear with each correct answer. The teacher bought it on TPT. The teachers say that highly engaging tasks, whether they be practice or creation are essential.

Below are images of the tools used to personalize: choice boards, Google Classrom instructions, hyperlinked google docs, handouts, slideshows, and such. Each classroom used different tools. 

To relieve teacher stress, the admin did not do any walkthroughs first quarter, second quarter they ONLY gave compliments, and then third quarter they moved into coaching and feedback. That way teachers knew they had a whole quarter to make mistakes and tweak the experience.
One teacher said she felt a little bad like she was using the kids as guinea pigs but that she could not be happier with the results. 

What I think is important to learn about that is that all growth and improvement has an element of risk. If you want to improve the learning experience, experimentation is unavoidable. Refusing to do it because of fear ends up hurting the students more than trying and needing to regroup.
​

Related posts:
http://piedmontpd.weebly.com/piedmont-pd/learning-from-elementary-school
​http://piedmontpd.weebly.com/piedmont-pd/classroomingredients
http://piedmontpd.weebly.com/piedmont-pd/automated-personalization
http://piedmontpd.weebly.com/lesson-ideas/sites-for-your-students

A personalized classroom contains 3 main courses which can be achieved via various ingredients below-each one component of  how that can look in a classroom.

Which of these would you like try adding to YOUR classroom recipe? Check the bulleted list out below and try adding 1 at a time as you feel comfortable. (Don't try to add everything to your recipe at once!)
​​
Some of these you are already doing, some may seem intriguing (try those first!) some may seem daunting (don't try them yet) and some may seem impossible (they're not!)
ALL of them will increase student motivation and learning in your room. printable list below if you want to check a few off and see how it goes.

WHAT THIS LOOKS LIKE...

• respectful, positive student to student Interactions
• respectful student to teacher interactions
• implementation of high clear expectations for student behavior and routines
• arrangement of room supports student learning
• multiple learning modalities offered
• opportunities provided for global relevance and real world investigations that develop awareness of other languages and cultures
• evidence of flexible learning environment
• social and emotional well being of students is addressed
• Students are practicing  an IB Learner Profile skill sometime in the lesson

WHAT THIS  LOOKS LIKE... 

• Tasks require higher order thinking skills
• Curriculum Instruction demonstrates high expectations
• Teachers and/or students "triangulate qualitative and quantitative data (diagnostic, formative, and summative tasks) to monitor student progress
• Students get timely, authentic feedback and can make adjustments to teaching/learning activities that will help them progress
• Students reflect on feedback and value it as a way to further develop their skills and achieve growth
• Small group mini- lessons taught based on student pace
• Student learning at different levels
• Students have choice (task, seating, book, etc)
• Students working on different projects/products
• Appropriate supports in place to ensure student success
• Teacher is an active facilitator/coach of student work and progress
• Meaningful use of technology
• Students have choice boards by standard
• students utilize playlists, playways, or pathways
• students co-design expeditions
• students are engaged in close reading of  complex texts, academic conversations,  meaningful writing, etc)

LOOKS LIKE ...

• Students set goals for their own growth
• Students self-evaluate,self-regulate, and self-motivate
• Students take the lead in  conferring with the teacher
• Opportunities are provided for creativity and innovation
• Students assume responsibility for learning through effective decision making, goal setting, and time management
• Classroom management is evident
• Students can articulate what they are working on and why

Learn  more here sites.google.com/cms.k12.nc.us/cmspdl/inspire/pdl-framework?authuser=0

Global Maker Day is October 23rd

Why participate?
Fits with IB Design Cycle, design thinking, college and career readiness, builds student critical and creative thinking, and is very "Piedmont" in that you already do a lot of making in class via hands on projects (PBL)

How to celebrate?

Before October 23rd, register here (all peolpe who register get a free digital copy of  the book: Makers in Schools, Entering the 4th Industrial Revolution) then choose one or all of these three ways to take part:

1. Online PD - Schedule and topics on slides 3 and 4  ​  https://app.edu.buncee.com/buncee/b41d1aacfdbe44c3b8be0cd6015e7008   Teachers will share how they use making in class in hourly presentations you can log into.  The one at 4:30 pm teaches you how to use a makerspace for your class and we have a makerspace we'd love to see used more for classwork.
2. In Class - Student Challenges on Slides 5 and 6         https://app.edu.buncee.com/buncee/b41d1aacfdbe44c3b8be0cd6015e7008    Your students can take part in the hourly maker challenges during your class on that day. Challenges listed here by the hour and include all subject matter  (you can do this live or have students do whichever challenge you want regardless of the time.)  
3. Share On Social Media - Tweet or Instagram photos or links to your website with what you do already or what you try that day and use hashtag #globalmakerday and our school hashtag #PiedmontIB   Not on social media? Send it to Gurthie and I'll post it for you.

updated. originally published 2-7-2018 

Do you use any of these tools or another not mentioned here? If you are a Piedmont teacher, please add your name to our list  here

Nearpod

• Start at the Nearpod Login Screen  (at the bottom you'll see an option to login with GOOGLE (use your cms google account)Now you are  linked to our paid account where you can take and use the lessons. 
• Search For Ready Made Nearpods by topic, subject area, or grade level or Import your powerpoints/google slides and add interactive Nearpod features throughout the presentation whereever you want like quizzes, student response, student drawings, memory games, etc.
• More - Step by step directions from our live training here https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1UJJjsL5d48rVNhIrQuj6lAwNZkQHACGaAQBo_MCix24/edit?usp=sharing
• Once you are done, write the code on the board or your website, canvas, or google classroom, and  have students log in here in class, collaborative, or on their own or even from home.
•  Student Nearpod Login 

Edpuzzle

• What is EdPuzzle? http://www.edtechroundup.org/reviews/edpuzzle-make-any-video-your-lesson
•     Works alone or with Google Classroom, Canvas, Etc.​
• Take any video from YouTube, Khan Academy, etc. and personalize it: Shorten it, add your own narration, and even Pop in questions onto ready-made videos and the video will pause for that. ( and record their answers if you link it to your google classroom)
•  Can embed your edpuzzle videos into canvas, if so It will force a stop at your personalized parts in Canvas but it won’t save their work -whereas if you use google classroom it will save their work.

    
Flip Grid

•     Teacher makes a grid and name it (like Ms. So and So’s ELA class ) 
•     You can add unlimited topics under each grid but free version is only allows one grid
•     You can add new topics under your grid
• Record 90 second videos for free (limit for free version) and add a selfie at the end with stickers so students like it.
•     Use for book talks, topic summaries, sharing what you learned, posting group skits, etc.
•     Cute interface - looks like instagram
•     Teacher can approve the video beforehand

TES (Blendspace)

• Blendspace is now called TES
• Offer an easy visual choice board of lessons. Students do all, do some, or chose. Drag and Drop to add resources. Very easy.

Screencastify

• ​Create video from chromebooks
• Students can provide their own audio over YouTube videos or create their own video.

Trello 

• Like Padlet but better organized. Use for digital note-taking (research, book clubs), collaborative work. 

Canva 

• Students can make digital posters, advertising, infographics, etc. 

Google Maps 
Personalize a map for your class or have students do so. Here's how

1.   Go to Google Maps
2. Find the 3 bars icon
3. Open search box
4. then  “your Places”
5. then “Maps” at the top,
6. then “create map” at the bottom
7. Drop Pins in places covered in stories and then talk about what happened next. Once students (or you) drop pins you can add text and photos. 
   

Sample Uses:Track Elie Weisel’s journey through Night
Map different battles and put descriptions of each battle and find an image to represent it

​
More tools 

• Metaverse
• Even more Interactive Tools here- specific to formative assessment -several resources to try with a description and directions for how to access

Is your favorite tool missing? Add it in the comments or email me.

Related:
piedmontpd.weebly.com/piedmont-pd/global-maker-day

​

Update: easiest way to access-no log in required- is to go to the link below and click on your grade level
www.cms.k12.nc.us/cmsdepartments/ci/supportservices/Pages/FIND-OUT-WHAT'S-HAPPENING-IN-STUDENT-SERVICES.aspx

Follow these instructions to deliver the required lesson to your students:

First, Join course at link Course Name: Title IX Harassment and Bullying Lesson Training for Teachers
 https://cms.instructure.com/courses/138929
You will be prompted to sign in to Canvas
Use your NCEdCloud to log in to Canvas (its your 10 digit id) Click forgot password if you don't know the password

Next, Deliver the lesson to your class: 
Below are the Direct Lesson LINKS( for your convenience if you have any trouble logging into Canvas or navigating the course) These Lesson plans are a google drive link-To see them,  sign in to Google Drive using your cms email. Lesson slides are a link to the canvas course - sign in with NCedcloud)

Note that unlike some other grade levels, middle school lessons do not have any additional resources, you just use the slides and lesson plan.


6th grade:  

• Lesson Slides
• Lesson plan

7th Grade:

• Lesson Slides  Mr Ciambrone has created a condensed Powerpoint of these lessons for your use if desired. 
• Lesson Plan

8th Grade

• Lesson Slides
• Lesson Plan​

See Gurthie if you have any questions or problems. Notify a counselor if a child has an issue. Send Ms. Gurthie the names of any absent students so she can deliver the makeup lesson starting 9/12

Using NCwiseowl for instructional materials
Ebsco and 
Encyclopedia Britannica- Here is a short scavenger hunt of some resources we learned today


NCWISEOWL is automatically logged in from school. 

Can use elem
Science

Go to AZ list


Literary reference center

Gothic using twitter to explore characterization


Science reference center
    Quicksearch and look
    
Lesson plans
Science experiments even lexile level

support.ebsco.com
Help.ebsco.com



Novelist -Quicklinks- Extenders


Brittanca
http://school.eb.com/levels/middle

https://britannicalearn.com/state-access/welcome-north-carolina-educators/

Teacher tab
Copy and paste
Cite icon



​

This PD post was inspired by an example created by two students compacting out of Mr. Kollar's 6th grade math unit.  They chose the topic "Content Curator" from this Curriculum Compactin Contract and created a math EOG review website to help them and their fellow 6th graders prepare for end of grade testing. They chose to make this site because they did not know of one like it and they wished for it themselves. 

Their product can be used as a model for any teacher who wants to use digital tools to more effectively serve their students. Here is the workflow of a student visitor using their site.

1. Visitors navigate to the homepage https://piedmontstudyhelp.weebly.com/
2. From there, visitor opens placement test by clicking those words in the menu navigation. Placement test instructions are designed to facilitate collection of  quality data by specifying that visitors should NOT guess, and by giving an “I’m not sure” answer option. https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfgCPO7zL0VezmZm2AsQBsGV_BbDLraJRNdUs0Qd1H05rorFQ/viewform
3. The google form of the placement test autocorrects and upon submission visitors get feedback. If you get something right it praises them. If it is wrong, it sends visitor to a teaching page.
4. Visitor reads a spare yet complete and visually enhanced tutorials like this one https://piedmontstudyhelp.weebly.com/multiplyingdecimals.html
5. Visitor then checks to be sure they learned via the “Show What You Know” link with a two question check and a space to ask questions if they are embarrassed to ask in class.

(Take the test and submit your answers then view results to see for yourself.)

This sleek 5 step online, self-paced, self-correcting review system is a great way to  use Google Drive and Weebly, Google Sites, a Google Classroom, Canvas,  or whatever website you wish.

What is compacting?

Curriculum Compacting is one way to help your gifted high fliers. It can even help underperforming students who may be underperforming due to boredom.


Who should compact?

Students in your class who  have already mastered the material as determined by you via: 

• standardized test scores such as MAP and EOG
• teacher created pre test  (or give the test before the unit begins)
• verbal interview or demonstration
• portfolio work
• other.

Some students who do not know the material at the time of introduction are still good candidates for compacting if they are fast learners on their own.  Those students may wish to compact out of the practice and reinforcement lesssons their classmates do.

Additionally, students who have mastered some of your content can compact out of the parts they already know once they prove mastery. 

How do I determine mastery?

The easiest way to do this is to begin with the end in mind. List the skills you want all students to know at the end of your unit and how each can be assessed. Offer to test those whose test scores or performance (very high or oddly low) indicate they may be a match for compacting. 

Where can I find help?

Ms Gurthie in the makerspace can help with compacting independent studies! 

Students can come to my office to work on an assignment you chose , but the latest research says that gifted student should be allowed to work on the project they wish. To that end I wrote this  Compacting Contract.  Feel free to contact me if you would like to try this.
​

Related Posts: 

piedmontpd.weebly.com/lesson-ideas/turn-your-checklists-into-playlists