Coaches' Corner

The winter is a time of unpredictability in the midwest. It can be challenging to gain any traction when mother nature has different plans, but our staff have done an admirable job, as always, of providing meaningful, productive learning opportunities for our students. With just 180 school days to work with, and dozens of standards to address, we can't afford to lose any instructional time.

That is why prioritizing our work is so critical, even in a year not impacted by a global pandemic. As we continue to rebound from from the past two years, it's more important than ever to identify the essential knowledge and skills our students will learn each year to be prepared for the next level. The next scheduled E-Learning day on Tuesday, February 22nd will provide our staff the time to meet with colleagues across the district to eliminate gaps and unnecessary redundancies in our curriculum, in order to be more efficient in our time with students. It also offers an opportunity to align curriculum and share content specific instructional practices.

With assessments like IREAD, ILEARN, and the SAT on the horizon, February is the time to focus on what's important and lean on both our colleagues and our community for support. It takes a village to raise a child, and we must continue, as our mission statement says, "Working together for student success."

Our primary teachers recently had the opportunity to work with Christy Moore, an Assistant Professor of Education at Taylor University. Ms. Moore has worked extensively with Matt Glover, a nationally renown author and literacy consultant. Teachers in grades PK-2 read and discussed Glover’s Book, Engaging Young Writers. At the same time, Ms. Moore came in to present data, model lessons, and collaborate with teachers on how to create engaging writing lessons.

Mrs. Degenkolb, along with the rest of the second grade team, dove head first into implementing the ideas presented by Ms. Moore. I was privileged to observe the writing instruction that took place in Mrs. Degenkolb’s classroom. After reading a picture book and teaching students that their pictures should match their text, her students were EXCITED to write. Before returning to their desks to write their own book, each student had to quickly tell Mrs. Degenkolb what they were planning to write about. This quick mini-meeting allowed Mrs. Degenkolb to ensure that students were on the right track. The students then had time to create a book about a topic of their choice. Mrs. Degenkolb used this time to go around the room and have short conferences with students to make sure they were remembering to match their pictures to their text.

Since implementing these strategies, Mrs. Degenkolb has reported that her students are highly motivated to write. In fact, they’ve written so many books they hardly have the time to share them all, which the students love to do! Additionally, she is seeing the creativity of her students abound. The pride and ownership they have in their books makes writing more meaningful to them. As a result, Mrs. Degenkolb has ensured that students are engaged in writing, and she has empowered her students to think of themselves as authors. It is truly exciting to see!

The hallmark of any good team is its ability to recognize challenges and adjust to rise to the occasion. Our TMS Special Education team made one such adjustment this school year when they recognized that many of their students were not able receive the academic support needed because of the distractions of disruptive behaviors. The team assessed the situation and strategically developed a new plan. The plan was implemented during the second quarter of the school year and has shown to be a beneficial change.

7th grade Special Education teacher Trent Welbaum volunteered to be in charge of a classroom that students can visit throughout the day as needed to help manage their behavioral needs as well as to attend to low level academic needs. 6th and 8th grade Special Education teachers Tamra Smelser and Sam Crouch attend various classes to provide academic support to students. Instructional aide Jodi Hettinger moves in as needed to help with specific students or pull out to support Mr. Welbaum. If a student is struggling with distractions or disruptive behavior and needs a break (for any reason), the classroom teacher can send them to Mr. Welbaum’s room. He will give the student a break, redirect the behavior, or diffuse the situation. Then, the student will either return to class or stay with Mr. Welbaum and work with him in his room. While this adjustment may seem small, the impact it is having on students is big, and we celebrate the efforts of our Special Education team to continually provide the best support possible to all of our students!

I had the pleasure of following a German lesson on comparative and superlative forms of adjectives. Frau Kim Warner made the lesson interesting and relevant by playing Äpfel zu Äpfeln (Apples to Apples). Students were allowed to use tools to translate the words, but used the rules provided to them to change the adjectives into the different forms as they ranked answers (Lesson Objective complete!).

For the follow up lesson, the students completed a Google Form (formative assessment) on the rules of comparative and superlative adjectives. They were allowed to ask questions of their peers and the teacher. he best part (for me as an instructional coach) was the follow up. Frau Warner immediately pulled up the scores and went back through the questions, leading discussion on why questions were correct or incorrect, allowing for questions and clarity. The actual best part (for the students) was the cookie taste test. They had a guided worksheet used to rank and then compose sentences about their preferences, using comparative and superlative adjectives. Wunderbar!

Curious what testing windows will look like across the district? Add the 2021-2022 TCSC Assessment Calendar to help plan around these instructional interruptions.