Rounds Momentum Plan Round Visit #3

Campus __A.V. Cato_____________________

Analysis
Questioning:
*60% of question were at the understand level of Blooms Taxonomy
* 27% were at the higher level of Blooms Taxonomy

Responses:
*Over three quarters of students discourse was at level 2.

Talk Time:
*Teacher talk was at 53%
* Student talk was at 47%

Task:
*60% were of tasks were small group, whole 40% of tasks were whole group.

Next Level of Work

1. Learn more collaboration strategies to add variety to the lessons, during student talk.
2. Continue collaborating about and study the Blooms levels for questioning extensions
during lessons.

Targets
1. Increase questions that fall in the higher level of Blooms (Apply, Analyze, and
Evaluate) by 3%.
2. Increase student talk rated at the level 3 verbal discourse by 15%.

Rounds Momentum Plan Round Visit #3

Campus __A.V. Cato_____________________

Professional Development
Short Term Goal #1: Increase questions that fall in the higher level of Blooms by 3%
Next Level of Work: Continue collaborating about and study the Blooms levels for
questioning extensions during lessons.
1. Grade Levels Plan:
Kindergarten: For the remainder of the 4th six weeks (until end of February) whoever is in charge of
different subjects will plan a question for the week to build off of. Then each individual teacher will plan the
other H.O. T. questions for each subject on their own. This will make a total of at least 2 questions per
subject per week. We will have posters by our teacher chairs and at our teacher table with question stems
and verbs for the level of questioning we are working on.
Beginning Feb. 2 we will work on the higher levels for 4 weeks each.
~ Apply- 4 weeks (February 2 - 27)
~ Analyze- 4 weeks (March 2 - April 3)
~ Evaluate- 4 weeks (April 6- May 1)
~ Create- 4 weeks (May 4 - May 29)
Beginning the 5th 6 weeks each teacher will plan their own questions for each subject. We will come up
with different questions, during planning, as a team depending on the level we are working on. Teachers
can choose to use or come up with their own depending on level of their students.
First Grade: Teachers write open ended, higher level questions on index cards or sticky notes to have
available during small group time/lesson.
Second Grade: We will make sure we are asking every student to justify their answers with every
question. We will create a cheat sheet that we can use for any subject with higher level question stems.
Third Grade: When prompting students with new questions or questions on the fly, use question stems
that are readily available at teachers reference. Students will then respond using 5 star answers or ask
questions from their reference card thats in their journal/desk/folder.
Fourth Grade: We will have color-coded questioning stems easily accessible in classroom for us to read
spontaneously. (Mr. Moran already has posted in his room) We will have five Star Answer prompts each
student (small handout) to guide them as they answer. Chart paper will be created with students modeling
what is expected for higher level of answering. (Ms. Almy has examples in her room we will use to help
create in our room)
Fifth Grade: a. If they give a Level 1 answer, ask Why do you think that? Bump up their answers to a
higher level. Have anchor charts available with specific answer stems that will guide them into higher level
answers.
b. During planning, work on coming up with higher level Blooms questions for your lessons (make sure to
include on lesson plans.) Write out questions on notecards to have with you.

Rounds Momentum Plan Round Visit #3

Campus __A.V. Cato_____________________
Encore: We are planning to work in a series of 2-3 questions that are tiered to push discussion into areas
of higher levels of thinking and discourse. These will lead into the project or performance that utilize the
highest levels of thinking.
For example, in art, I asked today what the differences were between making a painting and making a
collage, then followed it with, Which of these do you think is more difficult to make and tell me why? This
took a simple understanding question and pushed it into the level of analyzing and evaluating. Then the
students create using those techniques producing and constructing their own collage. Similar patterns of
lower level question leading to a higher level question, then a high level of producing or generating can be
used in all of the encore classes.

2. Continue to pre-plan and use questions that lead to higher level questions per lesson cycle
based on Blooms and Kilgo. Bring to team lesson planning on Thursday (Quality not Quantity).

3. Focus walkthrough feedback on the use of questioning and wait time used in the
classroom.

Short Term Goal #2: Increase student talk rated at the level 3 verbal discourse rubric by 10% .
Next Level of Work: Learn more collaboration strategies to add variety to the lessons,
during student talk.

1. Grade Levels Plan:

Kindergarten: I have a list of collaboration strategies I found on TPT. We are going to choose a new
strategy to become experts at every 2 weeks. One team member will be in charge every 2 weeks to pick
the collaboration strategy for the team and teach everyone how to do it within their classrooms. As the year
goes on this will give use many different collaboration strategies to use throughout the day/week.
First Grade: Working whole group as well as small group teachers will guide students in connecting their
learning by modeling the answer. Also, teachers will have students apply what they already know to an
experience and share with each other. Using our 5 Star Answers.
Second Grade: We will implement new collaboration strategies every two weeks.
The first week will implement think share- with groups of 4. Week 3 we will implement timed pair share.
Week 5 numbered heads together.
Third Grade: Teacher will introduce Exit Cards (they are a quick way of assessing the students) and
telling the partner what they heard (whether they disagree or agree and why), and not always having the
same partner.
Fourth Grade: We will actively seek different collaboration strategies to use instead of just
think/pair/share. Amanda Gilbert will be bringing a book that is full of collaborating ideas to our planning
next week. We will also implement a best of four answer response that Chrisann will share with team
early next week. It was found on Pintrest. It is a collaborative technique where four students must
participate.
Fifth Grade: a. Think/pair/share/repair.

Rounds Momentum Plan Round Visit #3

Campus __A.V. Cato_____________________
b. Use new collaboration strategies that go beyond think/pair/share. Try a new collaboration strategy each
week. Discuss during Thursday planning. Next week we are trying a strategy that involves a group of 4,
each has a sticky note. Each group member writes an answer to a question on their sticky note, and then
they collaborate to come up with one answer that is the best answer using input from all 4 sticky notes and
they write it in the middle.
Encore: To add variety in our collaboration strategies, Ms. Ramirez is going to bring a Kagan book about
Cooperative Learning Strategies that we can share to get some new ideas for structuring that collaboration
and rotate those with the small groups and pair activities we have tried already.

2. Focus on a 5 seconds Think Time for students to answer questions before prompting a
response, scaffolding the response, or moving to another student with the intention of
coming back to that initial questioned student

3. Walkthrough feedback on the use of verbal discourse level 3

Peer Coaching:
By February 25th
Focus: Blooms Question level and Student Discourse Level 3
1. Observe peers instruction
2. Using the Peer Coaching feedback form to give feedback on the focus
3. We will meet on February 25th to debrief before district planning.