The Source

In this issue:

• Election Results - Iowa ASCD Board of Directors for 2021-2022
  
• Summer Leadership Academy with Jimmy Casas - June 17
• Curriculum Leadership Academy - Save the Date: July 28-29, 2021
• Function 1 of Curriculum Leads - Leaders of Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment
  
• Personalizing Learning = UDL and SDI + MTSS by Andrea Stewart
  
• Coming Out of COVID-19: Preparing to Return to In-Person School and Activities by Howard Adelman (UCLA)
  
• United Front: Preparing to Return - October 27, 2021
  
• Resources
  
• Mark Your Calendars - October 27, 2021 Fall Leadership Academy with Danielle Theis

We would like to take this opportunity to recognize the election results for 2021-2022. Diane Campbell of Mississippi Bend AEA is the Iowa ASCD President-Elect. She is joined by Directors for Members at Large: David Keane, high school principal at Burlington High School, and Kim Jones, curriculum and instruction coordinator of the Lewis Central Community School District. Tamela Johnson was also re-elected as secretary of Iowa ASCD; she presently serves as principal of St. Paul’s Lutheran School in Waverly, IA.

A special thank you to all those who ran for positions on the board.

Join us for an upbeat and inspiring day. June 17, 2021

Learning will focus on creating a culture that supports an
environment where

all staff and students feel supported and thrive.

Get ready to Energize! Exactly What we Need!

Walk away inspired and equipped to:

· Create a culture of excellence by shifting mindsets and beliefs

· Disrupt average and establish a new norm of excellence

· Implement processes & frameworks to ensure desired results & equitable outcomes for all students

· Recognize the undercurrents that are impacting culture

· Engage and increase a sense of belonging for all

This Iowa ASCD Virtual Academy is designed for teachers, counselors, coaches, school and district administrators, AEA staff, Grad students, All educators!

*** Special Deal: Everyone Receives the book “Live Your Excellence” by Jimmy Casas with registration! The book will be shipped to the address used at registration.

Register by June 1 to receive book by the academy. Register later and will receive book later.

A book study will be offered for one relicensure credit at the Leadership Academy.

Iowa ASCD Events Tab and Detailed information

You are invited to join us in a face-to-face network of leaders of learning on July 28-29 at the FFA Enrichment Center on the DMACC campus in Ankeny.

This first annual event will highlight the eight functions of highly effective curriculum leads in developing the collective capacity of your organization to assure that all students are successful.

The breakout sessions will provide curriculum leaders in the state sharing their expertise and experiences in the following areas:

• Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment
  
• Professional Learning and Relationship Building
  
• Operations and Processes to Make It Happen
  

Registration details to follow soon.

The primary responsibility of curriculum leaders is to develop the collective capacity of the organization to assure that all students are successful. One of the functions of these individuals’ work to assure the capacity of the system and the success of the students is their collaborative leadership in curriculum, instruction, and assessment.

Effective curriculum leaders must assure that there is a laser-like focus on the alignment of curriculum, instruction, and assessment with identified district-wide standards and benchmarks at every grade level. This, of course, means having a deep, conceptual understanding of the Iowa Core and assuring that what is learned is tightly aligned with how it is learned – and how well it is learned. And just as important is being able to make the Iowa Core alive in all buildings and with each and every student in a systems-wide approach. Curriculum leaders are constantly painting the picture of this shared vision for learning and for teaching to achieve the intended success of the students – always providing evidence for movement toward the vision. (Iowa Teaching Standard 1)

Their leadership in leading curriculum teams requires a thorough understanding of learning and teaching within the content areas, including a picture of what instruction and assessment for learning look like.

High expectations for learning require that all – students and educators - are students of learning. Assuring teachers have deep content knowledge is a top priority for quality instruction to achieve the intended learning. When teachers do not demonstrate conceptual understanding of their content, learning suffers; therefore, curriculum leaders must assure avenues to develop the teachers’ content expertise. (Iowa Teaching Standard 2)

Monitoring and evaluation for quality and consistency assure the implementation of standards-based approaches and result in evidence of building capacity in others. This requires that curriculum leaders build the capacity of others in the use of data: modeling and promoting their use and teaching the building leaders to collect, summarize, analyze, and communicate data as well as develop the capacity of classroom teachers in this area. Using real data with the staff creates the urgency for instructional improvement in individuals and in the staff as a whole. Frequent assessment of student progress and discussions around these data move the staff toward the shared vision of student results and help answer the real question, “What do students know and are able to do as a result of the teachers’ lessons?” Leadership by curriculum leaders in developing the capacity of teachers and administrators to frequently use various assessments – including screening, diagnostic, formative, and summative - is paramount in assuring systematic implementation and ongoing evaluation of teaching for learning. (Iowa Teaching Standard 5)

Learning requires that supervision is frequent, rigorous, and focused on the effectiveness of instruction. Therefore, the majority of efforts of effective leaders of learning must be on monitoring, coaching, and supporting teachers to do a first-rate job. Learning walks is one avenue to address effectiveness of instruction, but does require curriculum leaders’ clear definition of attributes of quality teaching for learning as well as training and feedback for administrators in learning walks to assure a district-wide and standards-based approach in achieving the shared vision of teaching for learning. (Iowa Teaching Standard 4)

In addition, these curriculum leads must work with others in the district to assure that resources (i.e., time, money, people, expertise) are allocated equitably and adequately to achieve the standards-based learning.

The bottom line of leadership in curriculum, instruction, and assessment is focused on creating a can-do culture in which all educators believe they are there to improve instruction so all kids can learn.

It really is all about student success and the instruction to achieve the learning!

Andrea Stewart, Iowa ASCD Member and Mississippi Bend AEA Consultant, shares this article.

Now more than ever, in nearly every school across Iowa, students are encountering teachers experimenting with personalized learning experiences that will more fully engage learners while maintaining a focus on learning, not just doing. A question that bubbles to the surface is how to ensure that the system creates both a culture and processes that ensure personalized learning with standards and competencies is leading to the kinds of students who will be future-ready with the necessary academic mindsets and dispositions, self-regulated learning strategies, and academic behaviors to be agents of their own learning and decision-making?

One piece of this puzzle is to ensure we are using an equity lens to examine our practices and to meet each student where they are, paying careful attention to how they best access new learning and ideas, how they engage with learning experiences and other learners, and how they express what they know, understand and can do. These are the tenets not only of our Multi-tiered Systems of Supports (MTSS), but also of both Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and Specially Designed Instruction (SDI).

Three steps to get started with personalizing experiences for all learners within our Universal Tier and MTSS structures (including those with IEPs or 504s) is to:

1. Define appropriate goals that allow for multiple means of attainment,
2. Assess diverse learner needs, and
3. Evaluate barriers that may exist within the current curriculum.

These steps lead to several key questions:

1. Where might there be a barrier to students achieving the goal in this lesson?
2. What is one tool, resource, or strategy I can include in my lesson to help reduce this barrier so that students can achieve the learning goal?
3. How can I make this strategy available to all students from the start of the lesson?

UDL and SDI are frameworks to support these steps and answer these questions so that learners’ experiences are personalized to best support their:

• readiness (particularly when thinking about meeting needs across Tiers 1, 2, and 3),
• cultural and personal identity,
• future aspirations,
• social-emotional learning needs, and
• motivations.

Both frameworks take educators through a process of diagnosing, designing, and delivering appropriate instructional experiences for each learner’s needs. In the past year, educators have battled the barriers of the pandemic and have added a new question to this mix: how might digital and analog delivery mechanisms (both synchronous and asynchronous) impact students’ engagement, motivation and acquisition of knowledge and skills? When designing learning using learner variability as the springboard, we must work to artfully blend digital tools, protocols, apps, videos, podcast, and other modalities with analog--or hard copy--resources that can be blended as needed to reach the range of learner needs that are in each classroom at any given point. But how?

In our work with The Center, we are exploring structures and processes that make UDL, SDI, and MTSS part of how learners receive--and participate in!--personalized support. The research suggests that several key structures play a role:

1. Learner Profiles (LPs)
2. Personalized Learning Plans (PLPs)
3. Goal setting and advisory protocols for developing self-direction
4. Modularized learning structures for curating resources for just-in-time learning
5. Blended learning structures for digital, analog, synchronous, and asynchronous learning and support

Each of these structures must be supported with processes that help students work on their SEL competencies of self-awareness, self-advocacy, and self-management while they partner with their teachers to identify where they are in their learning, what they need next, and how they will get there. During each learning cycle and throughout the MTSS process, teachers can use the steps and key questions above to prepare a range of ways for students to access new learning and ideas, engage with learning experiences and other learners, and express what they know, understand and can do. As an example, Ann Craig, consultant at Mississippi Bend AEA, created this flow chart for teachers to make decisions such as these during their planning.

We think the pandemic positioned us to “think different” as Steve Jobs and Apple have challenged us to do. As such, we have curated additional resources that may be of use as you or the teachers you support continue to design learning that meets all students where they are to support their growth and development of key future ready skills and dispositions, including a sense of belonging, locus of control, self-management, preparation/organization, and academic self-efficacy.

• Personalized Learning Toolkit
• Personalized Learning Plans
• Adult Learning Module: Learner Variability (Partnership with MBAEA)
• UDL “Access” Adult Learning Module: Representation & Time (Partnership with MBAEA)
• UDL “Engage” Adult Learning Module: Engagement, Intrapersonal, & Interpersonal Routines (Partnership with MBAEA)
• UDL “Express” Adult Learning Module: Expression & Learner Agency (Partnership with MBAEA)
• BEST Self-Direction Toolkit
• Equity: Supporting Students with IEPs and 504s in a Learner-centered System

The Center is a coalition of educators from the IA ASCD, AEAs, SAI, LEAs, and higher education with a Leadership Council that supports local implementation of learner-centered, personalized, and competency-based practices. Members create tools/processes and offer free resources on the website to help make the shifts easier and more sustainable by using current research and innovative designs that model UDL/SDI and current practices in the field of personalized learning. Click here to find out who in your AEA can offer additional supports in these areas.

Sources

Askeland-Nagle, T., Craig, A., and Stewart, A., Selected modules from Personalized learning pathways: Empowering ownership, creating purpose, and realizing impact. Mississippi Bend AEA: Website. Retrieved from https://sites.google.com/aea9.k12.ia.us/mbaea/home?authuser=0

Bray, B., and McClaskey, K. (2017). How to Personalize Learning: A Practical Guide for Getting Started and Going Deeper. Thousand Oaks: Corwin.

Iowa Department of Education. Iowa's SDI Framework. Revised, August 2018. Retrieved from: https://educateiowa.gov/documents/specially-designed-instruction/2021/01/iowa-s-specially-designed-instruction-sdi-framework.

Jones, Lindsay E. Esq. “Competency-based education: Implications for students with learning and attention issues.” National Center for Learning Disabilities. Retrieved from: https://www.ncld.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/ncldcbeinfographicfinal.pdf

Lopez, N., Patrick, S. and Sturgis, C., Designing for Equity: Leveraging Competency-Based Education to Ensure All Students Succeed, 2018.

National Center for Learning Disabilities. “Personalized learning: Meeting the needs of students with disabilities roadmap for school & district leaders.” Retrieved from: https://www.ncld.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/PL-RoadmapForLeaders.Fin_.pdf.

Howard Adelman is professor of psychology and co-director (along with Linda Taylor) of the School Mental Health Project and its National Center for Mental Health in Schools at UCLA and shares the following information.

https://www.maginationpressfamily.org/stress-anxiety-in-kids/coming-out-of-covid-19-preparing-to-return-to-in-person-school-and-activities/

“Getting back to normal” is something most of us have been looking forward to. It sounds great in the abstract, but actually returning to in-person activities after experiencing a year of COVID-19 social distancing could be stressful.

As vaccines roll out across the world, children are preparing for the return to in-person activities,including school, extra-curriculars, large family gatherings, and play dates, among many others. For many kids, this will be a welcome change as a return to in-person activities means fun playing with friends, easier learning, and well-known routines and traditions. Yet the return to in-person activities - particularly mandatory school - also brings a host of worries and uncertainties for children and parents alike. In particular, many introverted or anxious kids have come to feel more comfortable staying home during the pandemic and have had few opportunities to practice getting out of their comfort zone.

It is crucial to help all kids prepare for the return to in-person activities, but it is particularly important for kids whose shy or anxious temperament may make this a particularly big shift. Luckily, parents and caretakers can do much to help prepare kids for the upcoming changes. Re-establish routines. Children thrive with predictable routines and feel empowered when they know what to expect. Several weeks before your child’s activity starts again in person, get them ready.

It’s also helpful to review your community’s safety policies with your child well in advance and practice the steps they may be less familiar with. For example, you can make a game at home of estimating how many feet of distance are between you and your child. It is also helpful to practice wearing masks for longer and longer periods so they are used to it before returning to activities if they will need to be masked full time.

Talk about it. Well intended parents often avoid bringing up topics that they worry will make their child anxious. However, an open conversation gives kids a chance to air their concerns and get answers to their questions, rather than letting their imaginations run wild (and often come up with worst case scenarios!). It also gives parents an opportunity to better understand their child’s concerns – as well as too often learn that their child is less anxious than the parent thought!

Make a plan to face fears. Once you know what your child is feeling anxious about, you can make a plan to help them prepare. The most effective way to approach a feared situation is to break it into smaller steps. For example, if your child is worried about going back into the school building, you can start with driving by the school. They can then work up to sitting in the parking lot, walking up to the front door, standing int he lobby for a few minutes, walking by their classroom, and so on.

No matter what your child is worried about, it is helpful to take advantage of opportunities to practice doing things in person ahead of formal activities re-starting. For example, you might schedule simple social gatherings with kids they will see at school and go to school events such as re-orientations and welcome back days. Encourage helpful "self talk." Teach your child to talk to themselves in ways that make them feel brave and empowered. It can be helpful to ask what they would say to a scared friend to help them feel better.

Be a courage coach. Watching your anxious child return to in-person activities can be even more nerve-wracking for parents than for the child themselves! Yet, no matter how you feel about the changes, project calm confidence in front of your child. Kids pick up on their parents’ emotions. You can do much to soothe their nerves by showing and expressing your confidence in their ability to handle the situation.

The last year has been a marathon for parents. Though the return to in-person activities brings a host of new uncertainties, it also represents an exciting transition towards normalcy for children. By taking these small steps, you can do much to support your child in navigating these upcoming changes.

Here’s another recent article: "How Schools Can Help Kids Heal After the Pandemic’s Uncertainty": https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2021-05-10/schools-can-help-kids-heal-after-the-covid-pandemic

Given that this is another of the many transitions involving students, their families, and staff, also take a look at "Transitions: Turning Risks into Opportunities for Student Support": http://smhp.psych.ucla.edu/pdfdocs/transitions/transitions.pdf

On Thursday, April 22, 2021, Danielle Theis (Trauma Responsive Schools expert) conducted a workshop with 75 participants focused on how to help adults return to a state where they are able to effectively transition students back into the pre-pandemic learning environment. With a lens on the trauma that everyone has experienced this past year, Danille provided context and strategies to equip administrators, counselors and other educators with tools for anticipating and responding to both adult and student needs.

SAVE THE DATE: Danielle will be returning to Iowa on October 27, 2021, for the Iowa ASCD Fall Leadership Academy. She will repeat the 2019 full-day, in-person workshop Trauma Responsive Schools: Foundation and Application. This event will focus on the impacts of trauma on the learning environment and will prepare school leaders to return to their buildings with a plan for addressing them. This is primarily targeted to district and building administrators, but we encourage schools to bring a team to do some planning.

With the generous support of the Iowa State Education Association and the Roland and Dorothy Ross Trust, school counselors who are members of ISEA were provided their registration for the April event at no charge. A huge thank you to Cindy Swanson with ISEA for coordinating the financial contribution. Stay tuned for more information from ISEA regarding how the Ross Trust can continue to support member school counselors with future professional learning opportunities.

Paul Hayes

Iowa ASCD Board of Directors - Fall Leadership Academy Chair

Future Ready Learning and School Counseling Lead

Cedar Rapids Community Schools

phayes@crschools.us

Email: LouHowell13@mediacombb.net
Website: http://iowaascd.org/
Location: 2555 Pine Circle, Urbandale, IA 50322
Phone: 515.229.4781
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/IOWA-ASCD-149097138496014/
Twitter: @IowaASCD