Issue 2.2 January-February 2017

Madison-Plains Local Schools

Curriculum Connection

Connecting Students, Staff, and Parents The Curriculum Connection serves as a quarterly publication designed to

keep the Madison-Plains community connected and informed of important

information and events managed by the Curriculum Department.

Student Data Management System in Place

Madison-Plains staff began the school year with a renewed focus on student mastery through a new data tracking program called MasteryConnect. The program allows teachers to identify levels of student understanding, target interventions, and improve overall learning and instruction. Through online testing and data tracking software, teachers can assess and track student mastery of course and grade-level standards. This program allows our teachers to use real-time data to intervene more quickly with students. The use of MasteryConnect is not simply limited to “tests.” Teachers can record student marks on any type of assignment. Analysis reports support teachers in gaining a deeper understanding of student learning and therefore, better inform their instruction.

The program is being rolled out over a three-year time period. This year, the focus is on teacher proficiency with the system. All MP teachers have accounts and are using the system to track data as well as utilize many of the additional functions of the program. Much like Pinterest, MasteryConnect allows teachers to pin and upload resources aligned to the courses they teach. Teachers are also able to share resources with each other through the curriculum mapping feature. MasteryConnect is a global professional community allowing our teachers to connect, share, and discover common resources with teachers across the country.

Many teachers are administering assessments online to students

to give them the experience of 21st century testing that they will

experience through state tests and again in college. Next year,

students will gain additional experience with the system when

the district opens student accounts for every child to track their

own mastery of learning. In year 3, parents will gain access to the

system through parent accounts.

The pictures to the right are just a few example reports our teachers

use in MasteryConnect. From top to bottom: classview of student

mastery by standard; individual student report of mastery by standard;

class item analysis report. (These are samples provided by the company

and do not represent actual student data.)

Issue 2.2

January-February 2017

Collaborative Coaching Community Brings Teachers Together to Learn About Improving Vocabulary Instruction

By Allison Cummons and Melanie Moss-Lenz

Across the board, our data indicates a strong need for improved instructional practices with vocabulary. Many teachers are frustrated when commonly used practices are proving to be ineffective and disliked by their students. Isabel Beck, Margaret McKeown, and Linda Kucan have led the charge with vocabulary research for many years. Their popular book Bringing Words to Life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction shares valuable information, resources and strategies to improve vocabulary instruction in our schools, with explicit instruction and engaging vocabulary building routines. The purpose of establishing this Collaborative Coaching Community is to bring together a group of teachers who are interested in learning more about best practices in vocabulary instruction and putting strategies into practice. This will be done with support from the instructional coaches, through facilitation of the face-to-face group sessions and follow-up coaching in classrooms.

The first session, held on January 10th, was well attended with eighteen participants. This included K-6 teachers and both building administrators. Initial feedback was positive and comments indicate teachers feel this opportunity will give them a better understanding of how to improve vocabulary lessons for our students.

Since humans walked the earth, activists have impacted the world. These courageous people not only spoke and acted out on what they believed was right, but they inspired others to make a difference too. It is hard to be brave enough to act out as an adult, but even harder to act out at a young age. Our class talked about Malala Yousafzai who fought for women’s rights, more specifically women's right to go school. Malala risked her life for the cause. The sixth grade teachers gave students an opportunity to write about young activists. We had the choice to write about activists helping abused animals, children being bullied, girls who didn’t have the right to go to school, or child labor. In our informational essays, we chose at least three articles and structured our essays with five paragraphs, one for an introduction paragraph, three body paragraphs (one for each article), and a conclusion paragraph. I chose to write about the activists helping abused animals because I was most interested in that topic. I found articles that were as different as possible but were still about teenage activists helping abused animals. From this research unit, I learned a lot about how much animals are abused every year and why they are abused, I also learned how to take information and put it into my own words. Finally, I learned the importance of activists. After we wrote our essays, we became activists

ourselves. We made tie blankets for the animals at the

Humane Society of Madison County. This project was

funded by London Walmart. To make the tie blankets, we

got paired with someone (most likely a friend) and each

group got a pair of scissors and two pieces of fabric. We

made sure the fabric was the same size and then lined

them up. We made three-inch incisions along the sides,

which were one inch apart. Then, we would tie the lined up

strips together. As a sixth grade class, we made 73

blankets! This project gave us all a sense of responsibility

and it allowed us to give back to our community. It was a

small act, but it gave us a taste of what it would be like to

be an activist.

Sixth-grade guest writer Emma Wethington describes her

experience with a curriculum unit about research-based

writing. The unit led students to support the Humane

Society of Madison County in partnership with London

Wal-Mart. Emma is a student in Morgan Gaus’ ELA class.

Sixth-grade Language Arts Project provides opportunity for students to become Humane Society activists

Sixth-graders in Morgan Gaus’ ELA classes

made tie-blankets for the animals at the

Madison County Humane Society.

K-12 Music Curriculum Gets Technology-Enhanced Updates With the adoption of new Quaver Music program for K-6 general Music and the SmartMusic program for vocal and

instrumental music in grades 6-12, students gain more opportunity for practice at home and immediate feedback.

Last year’s Fine Arts Adoption resulted in the purchase of two new music programs. In grades 6-12, Renee Perkins

Hostetler and Andrew Lawrence’s students have the opportunity to fine-tune their practice using SmartMusic.

SmartMusic is a web-based interactive practice tool that connects teachers and students online and provides

students with immediate feedback to help them improve. Students are able to practice and record their music and

the program gives them immediate feedback about their performance so they may avoid practicing incorrectly.

Teachers create individualized assignments for students and listen to the recordings later.

Gail Oravec’s K-6 general music classes are using Quaver Music. Quaver Music gives teachers an abundance of

resources for their music instruction. Students have their own accounts so they can explore the website at home. The

website includes games and activities built to develop a love of music and creativity. Students can write their own

songs and explore different styles of music all around the world.

OSU Honor Band Congratulations to seniors John Bollinger, Rebecca Breen, and Ben

Butz for being accepted in the Ohio State University Honor Band!

Allstate Orchestra Congratulations to John Bollinger for being accepted into the OMEA

Allstate Orchestra, which is a high honor for the State of Ohio! He

will be rehearsing and performing at the OMEA Music Educators

Convention in Cleveland February 2-4.

Karaoke The Junior High and High School choirs have

incorporated “Karaoke Fridays” as a way for

students to practice performing in front of

others while choosing their own music to sing.

How do you make it snow in math

class? Make snowflakes of course,

but with a twist. With winter upon us

(well some days), Mrs. Hiram’s 8th

grade math classes made snowflakes

using dilations.

A dilation is a type of transformation

that changes the size of an image or

object. Students made a

personalized, six-sided snowflake

because all natural snowflakes have

six sides. This activity required exact

folding, creasing, and cutting which

requires students to demonstrate

Mathematical Practice #6,

attending to precision.

After following several directions that

led to discussions about symmetry

and the fact that the cuts will

automatically be reflected and rotated

around the snowflake, then came the

twist. Then, students had to make an

exact replica of their snowflake, but

with a scale factor of one-half. The

original snowflakes with their dilations

were strung together to create a very

nice visual which is displayed in Mrs.

Hiram’s room.

Jerry Slagle took his dilations to a new

level and dilated by a scale factor of

one half, then one fourth, and

amazingly one eighth (pictured above

on left).

Kosta Xenikis decided to dilate big or

go home (pictured above on right).

Students truly enjoy this activity and it

creates a nice winter wonderland in

her classroom.

Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow...In Math Class?

Submitted by Christina Finney

Continuing Professional Growth

MP Junior High and High School teachers have been attending a

series of professional developments this school year led by Lisa

Campbell, an educational consultant for Hamilton County ESC. The

series has focused on creating clear learning targets for our students

and providing students with effective feedback. Teachers learned a

variety of teaching strategies to use in their classrooms. The BLT

(Building Leadership Team), shown below, continues to discuss and

plan the next steps in continuing to utilize these professional

development courses to serve our students.

Power of the Pen Teams earn 1st and 2nd Places Congratulations to our Jr. High Power of the Pen teams! Power of the Pen is Ohio's award-winning educational enhancement program devoted to excellence in creative writing at the middle school level. The completion provides students and schools with tournament experiences and classroom support to help achieve high academic goals. Teachers Tammy Pitstick and Geoff Stokes lead Madison-Plains student writers to develop their unique, creative voices. This year our 7th-grade team placed first in the Power of the Pen competition out of approximately thirty teams across three counties. The 8th-grade team placed second in their division. Pictured at right is the 8th-grade team: Jordan McPherson, Rachel Weis, Brooks Barber, Kenny Shafer, Brooke Edwards, Emily Wallner and teacher Tammy Pitstick. Individual award winners who qualified for the regional competition on March 4th included: 2nd place: 7th-grader Andrew Geyer who received superior ratings for round/room and quality; 11th place: 7th-grader Ayden McPherson who also received an honorable mention in round 2; 15th place: 7th-grader Kontessa Stevens 8th place: 8th-grader Rachel Weis

Spelling Bee Madison-Plains students in 4th-8th grade

participated in the annual Madison County

Spelling Bee in January. Students began

with a written test that narrowed the

competition down for the oral spelling

round. Several MP students made the oral

spelling bee.

Madison-Plains is currently working on

plans to provide more students

opportunities to participate in Spelling Bee

competitions by hosting our own event

next year prior to the county contest. Plans

include starting in younger grade levels to

build our spelling power. Look for more

information to come next fall.

LEGO ROBOTICS This FIRST Lego League season was a year of change for our Eagle Robotics teams. From the outside it looked like more of the same, two teams working together out of Mr. Rhoads’ 4th Grade classroom… but looks can be a bit deceiving. This year our Intermediate School PTO stepped in and covered the cost of running both teams when The Ohio State University pulled their funding due to budget cuts in their Women In Engineering program. We had several 7th graders return this year for the first time, allowing us to finally bring Eagle Robotics to Madison-Plains Junior High. Madeline Rhoads was elevated from a mentor to a full time coach for both of the teams. The last, and biggest change, Eagle Robotics moved from the Dayton Region to the Columbus Region and competed for the first time at Columbus State Community College. All of those changes had little impact on how our teams behaved during practice and at the main event. The competition was fierce but both of our teams came up with amazing solutions based on this year’s theme, Animal Allies. Our younger fourth and fifth grade team, Team Minions, designed an innovative solution to reduce the stress on the backs of elephants being used as pack animals. Our older sixth and seventh grade team, Team Titanium, designed an underwater shark deterrent system that can be deployed near beaches to keep both sharks and humans safe. On top of the research project, both teams had to compete in the Robot Games, and present their Core Values. At the end of this year’s competition we did not move on to the District Level but we did bring home the Core Values trophy due to Team Titanium’s perfect scoring presentation before the panel of judges. Eagle Robotics showed what it means to represent our school district with pride, passion, and commitment and we could not be prouder of what these students have accomplished.

Submitted by Chris Rhoads, Advisor

STATE TESTS DISTRICT TESTS OTHER

OGT Retakes for the Class of 2017 March 13-17 June 12-16

MasteryConnect Science Benchmarks Grades 4,5,7,8; HS Biology & Phys. Sc. January 30-February 10

ACT Opportunity February 11 April 8 June 10

ACT for Juniors, Required by State March 21 Make-up date: May 3

MasteryConnect Social Studies Benchmarks, Grades 4,6,8,9; HS American Government January 30-February 10

SAT Opportunity March 11 May 6

K-2 Ohio Diagnostics Math Window: April 3-27 Writing (Grades 1 & 2 only): May 1-5

MasteryConnect Math Benchmarks Grades 2-12 February 13-24

AP Exams AP American History: May 5 AP Statistics: May 11

3rd- grade Ohio’s State Tests ELA: April 4-5 Math: May 2-3 Summer Opportunity for TGRG: July 10-14

Pre-ACT, Sophomores February 22 & 23 Terra Nova & Inview, Grade 2 & 6 March 6-10 ACT Aspire, Grade 8 April 10-14

4th-grade Ohio’s State Tests ELA: April 6-7 Social Studies: April 26-27 Math: May 4-5

All High School Exams & ACT QualityCore Exams in English III, English IV, Pre-Calculus, Chemistry, Physics Seniors Only: May 10-11 All Others: May 17-18

5th-grade Ohio’s State Tests ELA: April 4-5 Science: April 24-25 Math: May 2-3

6th- grade Ohio’s State Tests ELA: April 6-7 Social Studies: April 26-27 Math: May 4-5

7th-grade Ohio’s State Tests ELA: April 6-7 Math: May 1-2

8th-grade Ohio’s State Tests ELA: April 6-7 Science: April 24-25 Math: May 1-2 8th-grade Algebra I: May 1-2

Note: Ohio’s State Tests are administered in two parts. Part 1 is administered the first day and part 2 is administered the second day.

High School Ohio’s State Tests English I & II: March 23-24 Algebra I & Geometry: May 8-9 Biology: April 24-25 American History (Civics I): May 4-5 American Government: May 4-5

THIRD-GRADE READING GUARANTEE Third-grade students had their first opportunity to meet Ohio’s Third-Grade Reading Guarantee (TGRG) in November. Results were sent home in mid-January. Third-graders have two more opportunities to meet the TGRG. See dates below: Second opportunity to meet TGRG: April 6-7 Notification of state results by phone: June 16th Summer Tutoring for those who did not meet the guarantee: June 19-July 7 Third opportunity to meet TGRG: Please be aware that Ohio sets the dates for TGRG summer testing and we cannot assess outside this window. For questions, please contact Kim LeGault at 740-490-0613 or klegault@mplsd.org

Test Coordinators K-6: Kimberly LeGault

740-490-0613 klegault@mplsd.org

7-12: Jason Weese 740-490-0776 jweese@mplsd.org

District: Karen Grigsby 740-490-0639 kgrigsby@mplsd.org