How to Maximize Your Classroom Space for Student Engagement

The new school year will be here before we know it! Teachers are heading back into school to ready their classrooms for the new crop of students who will be walking through their door. There are so many considerations when it comes to classroom arrangement: available furniture, class size, room size and shape, and more. Ultimately, however, teachers must consider how to arrange their rooms in order to maximize student engagement.

Student engagement can be defined in many ways, including attention, sustained connection to content, and interest. What does all this mean when it comes to classroom arrangement? Consider student work space, access to materials, and possible distractions in the room, in order to arrange your classroom in a manner that maximizes student engagement.

Questions to Consider:

1. Are the most important teaching spaces visible from each seat in the room? This may include an interactive white board, relevant anchor charts, or a classroom word wall. If a student has to turn 180 degrees in his chair in order to see these teaching spaces, the student might have trouble engaging. If students are placed in groups, consider placing groups at angles to the front of the room to ensure each student can see the most important teaching spaces. Don’t forget to consider other possible work spaces like small group tables or carpet space.
2. Is the teacher able to maintain proximity to each student without squeezing through narrow spaces or tripping over items on the floor? No matter what the arrangement in the room, the students who are farthest from the teacher or out of the direct sight line of the teacher are the ones who are least likely to be engaged. This means that the teacher must be on the move in the classroom, so that students are kept on their toes. Each desk or table space must be accessible. Consider desk chair pockets to move students’ items off the floor, and consider arranging desks in a way that you create an inner circle to walk around.
3. Which desks are likely to provide the most distractions? There are so many possible distractions in a classroom: a seat that is closest to the hallway (and the noise and visuals that accompany it), or provides an outside view of the playground, or is closest to a printer used by multiple classrooms. There is no way to eliminate these distractions, but it is important to identify these spaces and be mindful of placing students who won’t be easily distracted in these seats.
4. Is my seating flexible? Sometimes you want students to work independently, sometimes in pairs, sometimes in different size groups. Do you have the ability to move your seating area to accommodate these different work conditions? If you have tables or pods, the answer the probably no. In that case, privacy dividers or alternate working space in the room may be desired. If you have desks, it is easier to rearrange the room depending on the needs of the lesson or activity.
5. Are students able to access materials easily and independently? Nothing creates a bigger distraction in the room than students who don’t have what they need to complete a lesson or activity. Whether students are moving throughout the room to get art supplies, paper, a folder, or reading material, an organized, easily accessible space will minimize distractions. Ideally, all these materials should be in the same space in the room, and there should be a practiced procedure in place for accessing them.

By carefully considering the impact classroom arrangement can have on student engagement, teachers can begin the year with a classroom that is set up for success. Then the focus can be on what’s most important: lessons and experiences that continue to engage students in the rigorous work of the classroom.

 

Are Books Pertinent?

This holiday weekend, I spent a considerable amount of time organizing our children’s books. We have five children, ages four to thirty; and we have early reader books to high school novels. By my estimate, we have over two hundred children’s books.

As an educator, and even as a parent, I am always trying to use the tools of the day, the latest software and hardware, social media (full disclosure, I hate Twitter), and the newest technological approaches to life and learning. So as I organized the books, I wondered, are books still pertinent?

Last week, I worked with a district to begin the process of writing their English, mathematics, science, and social studies curricula. Each core had to adopt new text source materials. And similar to my parent quandary regarding books, the curriculum committees struggled with the same concerns. They wondered if they should purchase textbooks or if they should go with online access.

We now live in Florida with our school-aged children. I was concerned at first because I heard rumors of Flori’duh.’ However, that has not been our experience. We love our children’s schools. They are filled with caring educators and have well-organized curricula and instruction. Plus, my daughter does not carry home heavy textbooks. Every night she logs into stimulating websites where she can communicate directly with her instructor, complete assignments, watch videos, and receive immediate assistance if she does not understand a concept. The new online texts and systems really transform the relationship between home and school.

In the end, the curriculum committees decided to buy online texts for all their students, but they also purchased a class set of texts. The reason for this is that school networks are not foolproof. They are often down or very slow. And not every student has online access at home. By purchasing one class set (plus a couple extra) students can be assured access to the text in class (without worrying about the network), and also have a few texts to give to students that do not have online access at home.

In my home, I am still not sure about books. I was a professional organizer at one time. According to professional organizer associations, unless you read the book recently, the book should be donated and not take space and collect dust in your home. However, I thought about what the books could mean to our children. If our young children see a lot of books, then they know that we value reading. That was a good enough reason to keep them. Yes, they could read the book online, but there is something wonderful about having the boys seated on either side as we read Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, or Oh, the Places You’ll Go! or the Berenstain Bears.

What do you think? Are books still pertinent? Tell us what you think in the comments below.

Victoria Pagonis

Founder and President
Standards Solution

Preparing for PARCC - Blog Series Part XI

Preparing for PARCC

Building Comfort with the 

PARCC Math Equation Editors

This post is part of our blog series on PARCC. In this series, we offer tips and strategies you can use to ensure that your students perform at their very best on the PARCC tests.

Imagine you are a student taking the PARCC Summative Assessment for Math online. As you click, drag and drop, and make other answer selections, you encounter an item with a large text box that has selections that look much like calculator functions. Perhaps, it is a calculator (it is not). You have encountered one of the PARCC Equation Editors. If this is your first encounter with the editor, it may appear as a “BIG SCARY BOX.”

Many software programs provide equation editors that are useful for creating math expressions and equations. Most equation editors provide symbols for the mathematical operations (+, -, *, ÷). Other symbols are provided such as <, π, . Equation editors are not universal in design; each software program can have a unique editor. Because many students are beginners with keyboarding skills, they may have little to no experience with equation editors.

The PARCC online assessments are delivered on the TestNav8 software program and have unique equation editors.

The Basic Equation Editor is provided as the answer box with an item that requires the student to construct the math answer. The Basic Equation Editor is provided because the answer may require the use of special functions. For example, an item may have this instruction: “Enter only the fraction.” It is not possible to enter fractions in a simple text box using a standard keyboard on the TestNav8 software program. However the Basic Equation Editor has a special fraction function. Here is a screenshot of the Basic Equation Editor for various grade bands:

Notice how the functions are different for each grade band.

The Open Equation Editor is provided as the answer box for items that require the student to enter words and math. PARCC Type II and Type III items with hand-scored responses will include the Open Equation Editor. Here is a screenshot of the Open Equation Editor for each grade band:

PARCC has provided both equation editors at all grade bands for practice. On the PARCC Pearson.com website, select the “Test Preparations” drop-down menu. Then select “Tutorials.”

On the right-hand side of the page, there is a menu of selections for the Equation Editors:

The Equation Editor Guide is a PDF on how to use the editors to create responses. A separate guide is provided for each grade band.

Select the “Practice with the Equation Editor” drop-down menu for online practice with equation editors. Here are some suggestions for providing students with a practice experience:

• Allow students to practice entering sample answers. Create a document of sample math answers that make use of the various functions on the Basic Equation Editor. For example, for grade 3:

                     

• Allow students to respond on paper to a sample PARCC Type II or Type III practice item. Ask the student to enter the response in the Open Equation Editor online.
• Continue with practice experiences online using the PARCC practice tests. The equation editors are provided with the items, as needed. 
• Provide a poster of the editors in the classroom or a small printed image of the editors for each student to reference as needed. This allows the editors to be reviewed frequently. Students can identify the function keys that are needed to create specific answers. As a result, the functions are familiar and visible each day in the classroom, not just when practicing on the PARCC website.
• Use a screenshot of the editors on classroom paper items as the answer box. Ask the students to circle any functions they used in their responses.

The Equation Editor Tutorials provide helpful hints and practice. It highlights various features and operational techniques for entering responses.

Students have varying abilities with keyboarding. The same is true with the equation editors. Each student’s learning curve is unique. Experience with the online editors is necessary to build familiarity with the tool and ease of use. Building a level of comfort will allow students to be more confident with online assessment and to focus more on the content of the assessment items, instead of the software platform. There is no reason why the equation editor should be the “BIG SCARY BOX.”

Standards Solution and Inspired Instruction offer 540 PARCC lesson plans, online PARCC-like assessments with technology-enhanced items, PARCC workshops, and PARCC demonstration lessons. Please contact Judy Cataldi for more information. 

Judy.cataldi@standardssolution.com or call 908-223-7202.

Standards Solution Holding, LLC is not owned by or affiliated in any fashion with PARCC, Inc.

Preparing for PARCC - Blog Series Part X

Preparing for PARCC

 Gaining a Greater Understanding 

of 

PARCC’s Type I Math Items

This post is part of our blog series on PARCC. In this series, we offer tips and strategies you can use to ensure that your students perform at their very best on the PARCC tests.

When I was a classroom teacher, I often asked myself, “What can I do to provide my students with an authentic summative assessment-like experience that will enhance their learning and not interrupt the instruction?” For me, the answer was to understand the design of released summative assessment items and to incorporate similar items in the classroom.

PARCC has shown itself to be transparent. They’ve disclosed the summative assessment structure and focus, evidence statements, and released items from the 2014-2015 PBA and EOY assessments, and provided testing tutorials, practice tests, and other support materials. According to the PARCC Claims Structure (Grades 3-8, HS), more than 50% of the total points on the 2015-2016 summative assessment in math are from Type I items (Sub-Claims A and B). Making sure your students understand Type I items is essential to their success.

What Are PARCC Type I Items?

Type I Tasks assess concepts, skills, and procedures:

• Balance of conceptual understanding, fluency, and application
• Can involve any or all mathematical practice standards
• Machine-scored, including innovative, computer-based formats
• Sub-claims A and B, including fluencies

What Do Type I Items Look Like?

Before PARCC, most state summative assessments included mainly multiple choice and short-constructed response items that were used to measure concepts, skills, and procedures. The level of rigor was limited. In some previous assessments, the lack of quality distractors and/or the effective implementation of simple testing strategies could allow students to score well, but the scores were not a true reflection of the students’ understanding of the concepts. With the new styles of PARCC summative assessment items and the design of high quality distractors, the level of rigor is increased. Students need a deep level of understanding of the math concepts, and they need to apply reasoning and other critical thinking skills. There are two categories of PARCC items:

Constructed Response: The student constructs the answer. This could be a single number, an expression, equation or inequality, and/or a completed mathematical model.

Here’s an example of a PARCC machine-scored Type I item in which the student constructs the answer:

Selected Response: A selection of possible responses are provided; the student selects the correct response(s). There are at least seven different styles of these technology-enhanced items. Some of these styles include: Drag and Drop, Multiple Select, Multiple Choice, Drop-Down Menus, Sort by Category, Reorder the selections. 

Here’s an example of a PARCC machine-scored Type I in which the student selects the answer:

The best way to see the PARCC Type I items is to access the website: http://parcc.pearson.com/

In the menu, select Test Preparation. You will find tutorials and practice tests. I highly recommend engaging in the Student On-line Tutorial  for your grade band. Descriptions of the styles of items and sample items are provided. Also, I highly recommend taking the on-line EOY practice test  for the grade/course you teach. As you engage with the practice items, ask yourself, “What features within the items will be challenging for my students?” 

Consider these features:

• Imbedded Vocabulary
• “Teachers should use strategies for involving students in reading, writing, speaking, and listening as necessary to meet the mathematics standards — for example, to understand the meanings of specialized vocabulary, symbols, units and expressions to support students in attending to precision (MP.6)…”  
• Details in Directions
• Each item has its own specific directions that describe how to record the answer.  Students should highlight directions. Refer to: How to Respond to PARCC Math Items “Direction Detective”  blog.
• Technology Skills
• Notice the technology skills needed to provide the response.
• Design of Distractors
• When identifying distractors, consider how a student may solve the problem incorrectly. This incorrect response is usually one of the distractors. Notice that the distractors are not obvious; this increases the rigor.

Consider the features in this PARCC sample item:

What content is measured by the PARCC Type I Items?

PARCC has disclosed the Evidence Statements  used by the assessment designers.

“Evidence Statements describe the knowledge and skills that an assessment item or a task elicits from students. These are aligned directly to the Common Core State Standards, and highlight their advances especially around the coherent nature of the standards.” 

Evidence Statements include information on "Clarifications, Limits and Emphasis," related "Mathematical Practices" and "Calculator Designations." 

When examining the document, notice the first column on the left side of the table. It identifies the PARCC Sub-Claim. Type I items are Sub-Claims A and B.

A great way to connect the Evidence Statements to the practice test items is to:

• Print the answer key to the practice test. It provides the Evidence Statement Key aligned to the items. 
• Find the matching key in the Evidence Statement Table.
• Review the assessment item. 

This comparison will allow you to gain insights on how a standard is being measured on the summative assessment.

Standards Solution and Inspired Instruction offer 540 PARCC lesson plans, online PARCC-like assessments with technology-enhanced items, PARCC workshops, and PARCC demonstration lessons. Please contact Judy Cataldi for more information. 

Judy.cataldi@standardssolution.com or call 908-223-7202.

Standards Solution Holding, LLC is not owned by or affiliated in any fashion with PARCC, Inc.

Preparing for PARCC - Blog Series Part IX

Integrating PARCC Practice:

Rethinking Homework

This post is part of our blog series on PARCC. In this series, we offer tips and strategies you can use to ensure that your students perform at their very best on the PARCC tests.

Preparing for the PARCC assessment is not something that can be done overnight. It’s important to set a year-long plan of PARCC integration so that students are prepared for not only the content but also the format of the test. Many facets of the school day may need to be reexamined, including rethinking traditional homework.

           

What does homework currently look like?

In many cases, homework looks a lot like it has always looked. For math, it may be a series of short answer items, designed to give students practice with the skill that was taught in class that day. It may conclude with a word problem which requires students to practice that same skill. For English, it may be reading a passage and answering questions or looking up definitions for the weekly vocabulary list. This is the way homework has always looked. But now students are taking a new type of assessment, based on a new set of high-expectation standards. It’s time to rethink homework.

Homework, PARCC Preparation-Style

“Teaching to the test” is a negative term that is often tossed around when talking about preparing for any assessment, especially PARCC. But consider that PARCC is the assessment of the Common Core State Standards, and these standards set the expectations for our students. Therefore if classroom (and homework) experiences are aligned to these standards, then PARCC preparation is already taking place to some degree. It’s important to examine all facets of the students’ learning to ensure this!

Rethinking Homework in the Mathematics Classroom

The mathematics portions of the PARCC assessment include three types of items:

• Type I items assess concepts, skills, and procedures. These items are all machine-scorable and include multiple select, category sorts, drop down menus, drop and drag items, and other technology enhanced items.
• Type II items assess expressing mathematical reasoning. These items may require students to critique the mathematical process used to solve a particular problem or to describe their own process in solving a problem.
• Type III items assess modeling and applications. These items require students to apply mathematical models to real-world contexts or scenarios. 

So what does this mean when it comes to mathematics homework? Consider how to incorporate PARCC-like items alongside or in place of the more traditional homework. For example, instead of asking students to solve a list of expressions such as 5 x 75 + 3, provide students with a Type I multiple-select item, such as:

With this Type I item they are practicing the same skill they would have with the traditional homework, but now they have also practiced answering a PARCC-like Type I item.

What about the more challenging Type II and Type III items, in which students may be asked to critique a process or apply a mathematical model? In this case, students may not be ready to attempt these items as homework until they have had ample classroom practice. This is a perfect opportunity to implement a flipped classroom model. The “homework” is actually the lesson, delivered through a digital media format such as an existing YouTube video or a teacher-made Powtoon. Students learn the skill or new concept at home, and then practice with the Type II or III items comes during class, when students can collaborate with each other and receive guidance and feedback from the teacher. 

Rethinking Homework in the English Classroom

Parts of the ELA portion of the test are performance-based assessments, where students have to read one to three passages, answer questions, and write a prose constructed response (PCR). Other parts of the ELA portion require students to read a single passage and answer questions. For both the performance-based assessments as well as the stand-along reading passages, there are two types of questions:

1. Evidence-Based Selected Response (EBSR): An EBSR is a two-part question (Part A and Part B). “The term refers to a type of ELA/literacy test item that asks students to show the evidence in a text that led them to a previous answer.” (parcconline.org). An EBSR item assesses vocabulary knowledge, elements of literature, main ideas, key details, structure, or integration of ideas.
2. Technology-Enhanced Constructed Response (TECR): “This ELA/Literacy item uses technology to capture student comprehension of texts in authentic ways that have been historically difficult to capture using current assessments. Examples include using drag and drop, cut and paste, and highlight text features.” (parcconline.org). A TECR item also assesses elements of literature, main ideas, key details, structure, and integration of ideas.

Many times students are assigned “reading comprehension” packets which require them to read one or more texts and respond to questions about those texts. Creating EBSR and TECR questions to accompany these reading comprehension packets will familiarize students with these types of questions, providing them with a comfort level when it comes to answering questions in this format.

A typical vocabulary assignment for students will find them looking up definitions for a specific list of words, perhaps using those words in a sentence, and possibly finding a synonym and antonym for each word. The standards require students to go beyond this, however, and on PARCC, students may be asked to reflect on author’s choices when it comes to vocabulary. Consider this alternative to the traditional vocabulary assignment: instead of just looking up definitions, students first identify three to five words in a reading passage. They then consider possible synonyms that the author could have used in place of the identified word (looking up the definitions and synonyms as needed.) Finally, students write a description of how the meaning or tone of the passage would have changed had the author used one of the alternative words instead. This combines the development of vocabulary (in looking up the definitions) with consideration for an author’s choices and the impact of words in a text.

By making changes to homework such as those suggested above, students will have experiences applying their knowledge and skills in a variety of formats, including those that will prepare them PARCC.

Standards Solution and Inspired Instruction offer 540 PARCC lesson plans, online PARCC-like assessments with technology-enhanced items, PARCC workshops, and PARCC demonstration lessons. Please contact Judy Cataldi for more information: 

judy.cataldi@standardssolution.com or call 908-223-7202

Standards Solution Holding, LLC is not owned by or affiliated in any fashion with PARCC, Inc.