Another Brick in “The Wall”
by Jonathan VanderEls • • 0 Comments
This article was co-authored by Jonathan Vander Els and his colleague Ellen Hume-Howard, the Director of Curriculum at the Sanborn Regional School District.
Looking closely together at student work can unveil a treasure trove of insights to guide a school as they reflect on their purpose, assess their progress, and plan strategies for reaching all students more successfully. Their experiences are enhanced when teachers develop an awareness of where a student falls along a continuum of learning. Writing for instance is a content area that lends itself well to studying student work within a continuum, and has been the focal point in guiding our teachers at Memorial School as we align our work not only within each grade level, but vertically within all grade levels in our school. However, getting to this point was a three-year journey that continues to evolve as we learn more about not only our students’ skills and needs, but also our own needs as a staff related to instruction and aligning our assessment of student work.
A visitor checking out classrooms at the Memorial Elementary School might be surprised at how traditional everything looks. But it’s the little things that might catch your eye: the charts and graphs on the walls depicting student learning targets, the student work displayed with the standards identifying the learning outcomes, and the conversations students have identifying precisely what they are working on. But one artifact stands out. It’s what we like to refer to as “The Wall.” The Wall is actually a writing wall that represents the writing analysis that the entire faculty engaged in and has been reviewing over the course of the school year. The writing wall is an example of blending working with the standards and reviewing students’ work.
The Wall was a way that we have found success not only analyzing writing, but also developing a greater understanding as a staff, K-5, about our vertical alignment. This was the next “step” in our journey as a Professional Learning