Purple Cow Standards Board of the Month

When you walk into our building, it's clear that we have a strong academic focus. Almost everywhere you look you see celebrations of student achievement, and unlike the holiday themed bulletin boards of yesteryear, our bulletin boards display student work samples with teacher commentary. Classroom instruction becomes transparent because of this visibility of student performance in reading, writing, math, science and social studies. Our only regret is that we've had no way of cataloging and keeping the boards for future reference, until now.

With nearly 50 bulletin boards at CCE, there is no feasible way to digitally warehouse all of them, so we've started by capturing two a month, one primary and one intermediate. After the new boards go up, teachers submit Purple Cow nominations for their colleagues' boards. A team gets together to read all nominated boards and selects one intermediate and one primary board that stands out above all the rest. The competition is steep because the boards are so creative and well done, but usually the Purple Cow is chosen because it presents a new idea that others may want to implement in their classroom or does an exceptional job capturing a moment of time in their classroom.

It's unlikely that every teacher will have the opportunity to read every board each month, but with the Purple Cow highlighted, we are hoping that every teacher will at least read the two Purple Cow Boards that can't be missed. So far, the idea has caught on and one teacher even teases that she's wearing her Purple Cow ribbon in her hair!

I'd love for you to visit our Standards Based Bulletin Board blog created and maintained by our Tech Coach, Melanie Holtsman, to read our highlighted boards. You'll see the start of what we hope will become a long tradition. Make sure you click on pictures to enlarge and print the items. I'd love to hear your comments. Stay tuned for more...

Virtual Boardwalk

In an earlier post, I described the standards-based bulletin board and Boardwalk. Yesterday, the 2nd grade team and I tried a new practice and held a Virtual Boardwalk. Why did I do this? On occasion, we've been strapped for time when physically walking the boards and not every teacher could get up close to the piece of student work we were discussing. The walk sometimes did not yield the deeper conversation and reflection I had hoped. So, I thought, why not try doing it differently.

Several of our coaches had developed a bulletin board focus walk form so teachers could preview the boards before taking the actual Boardwalk with the grade level. So, I stole their form and copied two forms for each 2nd grade ELA teacher. There task before our next meeting was to preview a colleagues board, fill out the questionnaire, and be ready to introduce the board during our Virtual Boardwalk. I also had each of them preview a 1st grade board to generate new ideas of where their work could go.

In the meantime, I snapped pictures of each of their boards. I took one overall picture and one picture of a piece of student's work. I pulled the student's work and commentary off the board to copy and create a packet. The packet would allow the teachers to have the work in front of them for discussion at the meeting. After making the packets and taking the pictures, I pasted the pictures in a Powerpoint in preparation.

For the Virtual Boardwalk held in the administrative conference room, I set up the computer and projector to display the pictures. We walked through each board with the visuals and the teachers introduced their colleagues board. Our dialogue was rich and focused on student work. We also talked about implications to our pacing guide for the next year, and several teachers walked away with new lesson ideas they were going to take immediately back to their classrooms.

In my opinion, this Virtual Boardwalk was a great success. The teachers now have a deeper understanding of the importance of the boards, and will be using the boards to analyze student work which is the main purpose of the board. And, can you get any better than directly impacting student instruction during a short teacher meeting?

Boardwalk: A Focus on Student Work

I caught a glimpse of the 4th grade Professional Learning Community doing their standards-based boardwalk today, and thought I’d give you a quick look into this best practice.

At the beginning of each month, excluding December, CCE teachers display a standards-based bulletin board. The boards are an avenue to exhibit student work. The boards specific elements include:
o Title
o Standards
o Task
o Circumstances of Performance
o Student Work
o Commentary.

As you stroll through the CCE hallways, it is not uncommon to see parents or students reading the work on the board. You may also catch a glimpse of an entire classroom of students sitting in front of the board as their teacher reads work to them. Coaches, adminstrators, and visitors read the work and have dialogue about the instruction that led to the production of the student work.

As importantly, teachers use the boards to read student work and benchmark their work against standard pieces. After a new board has been displayed, communities of teachers take a boardwalk. They explain to other teachers the purpose of working on the standard the board exhibits, the classroom assignment or task students were asked to complete, and the circumstances under which the piece was created (individually, in groups, after a teacher conference, during work period… etc…). Then, they read some of the student work and discuss how the work meets the standard (teacher’s commentary). In some instances, like on this board, students have compared their own work to the standard and written their own commentary. This allows for a self-assessment of the piece.

Boardwalks are a great way to bring student work to the table. Comparing student work across a grade level allows teachers to have professional dialogue about work that meets the standard. Boardwalks also allow teachers to see if the student work coming out of their room benchmarks against work from other rooms. Often, this comparing of student work leads to discussion about classroom practice and lessons. This gives entry into sharing ideas and improving instruction. Afterall, isn't that what it is all about?