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Southern Nevada Regional Professional Development Program

2015-2016 Self EvaluationFinal Draft

Chelli Smith, Director

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Executive Summary.................................................................................................................................................................. iii

I. Introduction and Background...........................................................................................................................................1

II. Evaluation Plan.......................................................................................................................................................................3

III. Evaluation Results...............................................................................................................................................................5

1. How is the SNRPDP/NELIP Program Organized?...............................................................................................5

1.1 The SNRPDP Board...................................................................................................................................................9

1.2 Conducting Needs Assessments.......................................................................................................................10

1.3 Long-range (5-year) Planning and Review.................................................................................................10

1.4 Effectiveness of Regional Structure, Including Perspective of Rural Districts............................16

1.5 Efficient Use of NELIP Funds and the Distribution of PD Funds by District.................................16

1.6 SNRPDP Staffing Pattern and Roles................................................................................................................17

1.7 SNRPDP Trainer Qualifications........................................................................................................................18

1.8 Collaboration among RPDPs and with Other Programs........................................................................20

2. What is the Nature and Extent of SNRPDP/NELIP Training?.....................................................................21

2.1 Unduplicated Counts of Teachers, Administrators, and Others Who Participated in SNRPDP/NELIP Training............................................................................................................................................44

2.2 Delivery of Services.............................................................................................................................................. 46

2.3 Revision of SNRPDP Services Based on Needs Assessments and Previous Evaluations......47

2.4 Collaborative Planning and Implementation of PD services with other RPDPs, Other Service Providers, and Higher Education Institutions...................................................................................48

3. What is the Quality of SNRPDP Training?............................................................................................................49

3.1 Teacher and Administrator Ratings...............................................................................................................49

SNRPDP Self Evaluation Report 2015-2016 i

3.2 Quality Assurance Procedures..........................................................................................................................50

3.3 Administrator and Teacher Assessments and Reviews.........................................................................50

4. Are Teachers and Administrators Learning New Skills and Content to Improve Instruction?.. .55

4.1 Administrative Team Impact Statement......................................................................................................56

4.2 Science Team Impact Statement......................................................................................................................58

4.3 Elementary Mathematics Team Impact Statement..................................................................................74

4.4 Secondary Mathematics Team Impact Statement....................................................................................78

4.5 Elementary Literacy Team Impact Statement...........................................................................................84

4.6 Secondary Literacy Team Impact Statement..............................................................................................86

5. Do SNRPDP Activities Result in Student Achievement Gains?...................................................................91

5.1 Analysis Summary and Implications..............................................................................................................91

5.2 Analysis Background and Framework..........................................................................................................92

5.3 Quantitative Analysis Design and Results....................................................................................................94

5.4 Qualitative Analysis............................................................................................................................................ 100

References................................................................................................................................................................................ 123

Appendices............................................................................................................................................................................... 125

Appendix A: Sample Newsletter................................................................................................................................127

Appendix B: Participant Letter...................................................................................................................................131

Appendix C: Sample Board Meeting Agenda........................................................................................................135

SNRPDP Self Evaluation Report 2015-2016 ii

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The Southern Nevada Regional Professional Development Program (SNRPDP) contributes appreciably to increased student achievement by providing high quality professional development to teachers and administrators. In 2015-2016, SNRPDP assisted teachers, administrators, students, and parents throughout the state in understanding and effectively integrating the Nevada Academic Content Standards for English Language Arts and Mathematics, and Science. SNRPDP synergistically collaborates with Nevada Department of Education, the other two RPDPs, the state’s school districts, and Nevada’s institutions of higher learning in these professional development efforts.

SNRPDP provides professional development on content-related topics through university for-credit courses, workshops, in service sessions, professional presentations, classroom observations, and one-on-one mentoring of teachers and administrators. SNRPDP targets these wide-ranging professional development services toward the needs of teachers and administrators, as well as parents, with a focus on increasing student achievement.

Throughout its history, SNRPDP has provided comprehensive services to rural counties, while at the same time, has maintained a high level of support to Clark County School District. Furthermore, SNRPDP is continually looking for ways to increase its efficiency and effectiveness. Therefore, SNRPDP stays at the forefront of providing professional development services using the latest technologies supported by research-based best educational practices.

Thousands of pages of materials, including site facilitator’s guides, which SNRPDP developed for the Nevada State Academic Content Standards, are available on the Nevada’s Department of Education website, as well as each of the RPDPs websites. SNRPDP’s website also has an abundance of video clips that provide professional development on the Nevada State Academic Content Standards and other content-related topics.

SNRPDP Self Evaluation Report 2015-2016 iii

Because of the tremendous volume of high quality resources that are available on SNRPDP’s website, about 471,600 unique visitors came to www.rpdp.net in 2015-2016. This translated to just under 7.9 million hits and 615 gigabytes of data downloaded by teachers, administrators, students, and parents.

http://www.rpdp.net/

Educational program evaluations typically rely heavily on gauging participant perceptions about the quality of the training, including implementation and logistical factors. However, a far more challenging task is to delve deeper by examining how professional development activities influence student achievement. For the past decade, SNRPDP has met this challenge by conducting research-based analyses gauging the extent to which the program has affected student achievement. The entire SNRPDP staff participated in this effort by collecting significant amounts of data from training sessions and statewide assessments. For the past several years, the results of these analyses have yielded the following conclusions.

Conclusion 1. SNRPDP professional development activities result in increased student achievement in mathematics and reading.

Comparisons show that greater gains occur when a school has a high number of SNRPRP-trained teachers, with both quantitative and qualitative data sources providing compelling evidence for this conclusion. Specifically, the following ideas emerge from these various data sources:

a) Sustained and long-term professional development that focuses on the content teachers teach results in greater student achievement gains.

b) Content training supported at the school, region, and district level leads to greater student achievement gains.

c) Teachers and administrators who reflect on their practice while undergoing sustained professional development show stronger change toward research-based methods, which in turn results in greater student achievement.

d) Teachers and administrators working together in sustained professional development activities results in greater student achievement compared to teachers working alone.

Conclusion 2. Pre and posttest data show that teachers who have participated in our classes make appreciable gains in content knowledge.

SNRPDP Self Evaluation Report 2015-2016 iv

The SNRPDP website (www.rpdp.net) contains a huge amount of educational materials for teachers, administrators, students, and parents. These resources include instructional videos, lesson plans, student notes, practice tests, and content in mathematics, English-language arts and literacy, and science.


Additionally, the rural districts in Esmeralda, Lincoln, Mineral, and Nye Counties rely almost exclusively on SNRPDP to provide teacher and administrator professional development services. Therefore, SNRPDP is steadfast in providing comprehensive training and resources to these districts. Clark County School District has its own Curriculum and Professional Development Division (CPDD) and other professional development departments; however, these divisions and departments also are responsible for curriculum design, procurement, and implementation, as well as professional development. Therefore, SNRPDP works synergistically with CPDD and all CCSD professional development entities. Through mutual collaboration, SNRPDP and CCSD maximize training opportunities and avoid duplication of efforts.

The breath of SNRPDP services and the measurable impact on student achievement gains result from a dedicated staff, as well as beneficial partnerships with Clark, Esmeralda, Lincoln, Mineral, and Nye County School Districts, the Legislative Council Bureau, other RPDPs, the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, the Nevada Department of Education, Nevada Association of School Administrators, and a host of other high-quality organizations. As we consistently strive for improvement in providing superior quality professional development services and for gains in student achievement, SNRPDP will continue to work closely with these organizations. SNRPDP relies on this philosophy of continual improvement and productive partnerships to optimize the investment made by Nevada citizens for high-quality education.

SNRPDP Self Evaluation Report 2015-2016 v


SNRPDP Self Evaluation Report 2015-2016 vi

I. INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND

The Nevada Legislature formed the Regional Development Professional Development Programs (RPDPs) in 1999 to offer professional development to teachers and administrators. The law specifies that all professional development services align with state academic standards. The state has three service regions: the Northeastern RPDP, Northwest RPDP, and Southern Nevada RPDP (SNRPDP). The SNRPDP provides services to teachers and administrators in Clark, Esmeralda, Lincoln, Mineral, and Nye Counties. SNRPDP was also responsible for statewide professional development of administrators. The overall goal of the SNRPDP is

Offering professional development focused on the content teachers teach,

how they teach it, student performance, and changes in instructional and

assessment strategies that result in increased student achievement.

To gauge progress toward this goal, SNRPDP evaluates the impacts of its activities on deepening teacher and administrator content knowledge, strengthening the implementation of effective pedagogical techniques and instructional strategies to teach this content, and ultimately, increasing student achievement through better teaching. SNRPDP’s evaluation effort is consistent with that mandated by the State Legislature, which requires each RPDP—by law—to conduct an ongoing self-evaluation and submit an annual evaluation report to the Legislative Committee on Education through the Legislative Council Bureau. This report satisfies that legislative requirement.

For the past decade, SNRPDP has conducted a thorough, research-based self-evaluation. The program uses the results of each year’s evaluation to improve the quality of its professional development services. Ongoing evaluation and reflection is an integral part of SNRPDP, and the program uses evaluation in planning, implementation, and redesign. Reflecting on the quality of our services and the level of impact that SNRPDP provides to the teachers and administrators in Clark, Esmeralda, Lincoln, Mineral, and Nye Counties, and always striving for increased student achievement in these districts, ensures that the program is optimizing the public investment in teacher and administrator professional development.

SNRPDP Self Evaluation Report 2015-2016 1

II. EVALUATION PLAN

Five questions guide SNRPDP’s self-evaluation. The statewide RPDP Coordinating Council developed these questions in collaboration and the three programs have agreed to consider all these questions on an annual basis.

In general, there are four modes of educational program evaluation: (1) planning, (2) implementation, (3) formative, and (4) summative (Rossi, Lispey, & Freeman, 2004). To answer these questions, SNRPDP uses all four modes, and because of the variety of evaluation modes required by these questions, this report discusses specific methods with each question—in the section in which results are presented—to increase readability and understanding. However, below is a general description of the questions and the applicable evaluation modes.

1. How is the SNRPDP/NELIP program organized?This first question focuses on the first two modes: planning and implementation. When evaluation is involved in program planning, the intent is to align the overall program goal to the large range of professional development activity objectives. This alignment focuses the activities of the program and increases the chances for success. Implementation evaluation assesses whether the program is being conducted as planned, and is commonly thought of as accountability. In answering this question, the evaluation looks specifically at the SNRPDP’s planning processes, program structure, and operational procedures to gauge the extent to which the program is complying with the spirit and letter of the Nevada statutes that govern the RPDPs. Section 1 of this report discusses this evaluation question in detail.

2. What is the nature and extent of SNRPDP/NELIP training?This question also focuses on evaluating how the SNRPDP is implementing its program. Nevada law mandates SNRPDP to train teachers and administrators, with the intent to increase their understanding of subject matter content, as well as the pedagogical techniques and instructional strategies to teach subject matter content effectively. This question examines the extent to which SNRPDP meets by the types of training offered, the number of teachers and administrators that participate in SNRPDP activities, and the different ways the program offers training. Section 2 of this report discusses this evaluation question in detail.

3. What is the quality of SNRPDP Training?With this question, the evaluation switches to looking at the formative and summative modes. Formative evaluation assesses activities as they occur and this program uses this information to provide adjustments that will continually improve the quality of the


program. Generally, formative modes require modest and nimble adjustments to ensure that SNRPDP is meeting activity objectives. Summative evaluation looks at all the program elements in synthesis, and at specific milestones, to rate the overall effectiveness of the program. Therefore, in evaluating this question, SNRPDP examines the extent to which the program is providing training that meets or exceeds its goal, as well as other professional development standards.Section 3 of this report discusses this evaluation question in detail.

4. Are teachers and administrators learning new skills and content to improve instruction?This question also embodies the formative and summative evaluation modes. SNRPDP provides a wide range of professional development activities and this question looks at the specific impact of these activities on what teachers and administrators are learning, and how teachers translate this learning into classroom practice that increases student achievement. Section 4 of this report discusses this evaluation question in detail. This question is also critical to the discussion presented in Section 5, which looks at connections between what teachers and administrators are learning and how they are implementing this new knowledge in the classroom to student achievement gains.

5. Do SNRPD activities result in student achievement gains? This question gets at the heart of SNRPDP’s goal: increasing student achievement. Answering this question requires appreciable data collection efforts and robust analyses. SNRPDP does both of these, with the details of the plan and analysis included in this report. The information gleaned from this analysis has both formative and summative elements and are critical to deepening student understanding of fundamental concepts and increasing their achievement as measured by state benchmarks.Section 5 of this report discusses this evaluation question in detail.


III. EVALUATION RESULTS

1. HOW IS THE SNRPDP/NELIP PROGRAM ORGANIZED?

The Southern Nevada Regional Professional Development Program (SNRPDP) represents Clark, Esmeralda, Lincoln, Mineral, and Nye County School Districts. The program provides services to approximately 70% of the state’s K-12 classroom teachers, as well as all (100%) of Nevada’s administrators. The mission of the Southern Nevada Regional Professional Development Program is to provide high quality professional development, based on Nevada’s academic standards that will result in increased student achievement. The Nevada Legislature’s foresight to offer professional development through regional programs has allowed all teachers in the state the opportunity to receive professional development. If the state did not allocate funds through the regional programs, teachers and administrators in smaller districts might not have the resources or the focused content expertise to provide such training.

The SNRPDP has hired regional trainers by specific content areas and grade clusters. Each content area cluster represents a project responsible for providing training in that subject at specific grade levels. Specifically the SNRPDP has a math team, a science team, an elementary literacy team, and a secondary English-language arts team. SNRPDP also has a team dedicated to on-line/distance/technology education. Furthermore, SNRPDP has team of retired administrators to serve the needs of superintendents, principals, and other school leadership officials. SNRPDP provides services to administrators throughout the entire state. The program has also hired regional trainers in the rural districts to serve the needs of outlying areas more readily. However, all trainers, no matter where they are based, are responsible for providing training in all geographic areas of southern Nevada, as well as statewide for certain services (e.g., administrative professional development). Because of the shortage of substitutes, the SNRPDP has hired additional trainers who work in a part-time capacity in place of some full time staff.

The smaller rural school districts within the SNRPDP, received training in greater proportion than would have been indicated by the number of staff in each school district and all trainers fully understand the need to provide assistance to the rural districts whenever asked.

Whereas the training sessions are content-specific, regional trainers embed pedagogy and instructional strategies into each professional development activity. In this way, SNRPDP provides teachers the skills and strategies to meet the needs of all students.


Trainings by Content Area

The distribution of training sessions (e.g., workshops, in service professional development, presentations, and classes) by content area—literacy/English-language arts, mathematics, science, technology and multiple content areas, administration, and NEPF-specific—was as follows:

Literacy, English-Language Arts

120

Mathematics 235

Science 60

Technology & Multiple Content Areas

59

Administration 15

NEPF-specific Training Sessions

287

Total Number 776

To maximize the state funding provided by the legislature, the SNRPDP has coordinated activities with each of the local school districts, the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Clark County Community Foundation, the Clark County Public Education Foundation, Nevada Association of School Superintendents, and Nevada Association of School Administrators.

The SNRPDP continues to refine its method and delivery of professional development. Rather than the ineffective model of a series of one-time, unconnected presentations, SNRPDP’s designs its professional development activities to be an integral and essential part of teachers’ work. Professional development activities are (a) sustained and regularly scheduled, (b) located on site, (c) focused on the disciplines teachers’ teach (i.e., and include both content and pedagogy), and (d) actively involve classroom teachers and administrators to construct instruction that will increase student achievement for their specific context and setting.


The SNRPDP’s 5 Point K-12 Professional Development Plan is used as the guiding philosophy to support classroom teachers and administrators and increase student achievement.

5-PointK-12 Professional Development Plan

1. Content

It is recognized that student achievement increases when students are enrolled in appropriate coursework, and also, when the course is more rigorous and requires higher order thinking skills.

2. Teacher Knowledge

Addressed in the plan is the recognition of the importance of the role of the classroom teacher. Research has suggested that nothing is more important to students’ success than their classroom teachers. Therefore, training in content and pedagogy are offered to teachers in the disciplines they teach. Teachers are also provided with guides and resources that act as blueprints for successful teaching. BAM is the training model adopted in southern


On-Line

Conferences

Model / Mentoring

Programs of Study

Distance Learning

Expectancies

Teacher

WorkshopsTrainings

In-servicesContent Classes

Seminars

BAM

Components of an Effective Lesson

Nevada. Embedded in BAM are the Teacher Expectancies and the Components of an Effective Lesson.

3. Linkage

While linkage is a part of the teacher expectancies, the K-12 plan highlights connecting what students already know from real world experiences or from previous learning to what are currently being taught in the classroom. By seeing the relationships that exist between the classroom and prior, sometimes informal, knowledge, it is expected that students will be more comfortable in their understanding and application of that knowledge.

4. Mastery

Students must be taught and learn to the point of mastery. Understanding and critical thought can only be built on a base of knowledge and fact. The more sophisticated mental operations of analysis, synthesis, and evaluation are impossible without rapid and accurate recall of bodies of specific knowledge. To assist in recall and mastery, two review periods are included in the Components of an Effective Lesson. Also stressed is memorization, which simplifies the process of recalling information, and allows its use to be automatic.

5. Interpersonal Relationships

The plan recognizes the need to build increasingly positive relationships between classroom teachers and their students. Research suggests that if students perceive that their classroom teachers know and care for them, they will work harder for that teacher for no other reason than loyalty. That sense of caring translates to a sense of belonging that encourages students to not only stay in school, but to perform to higher expectations and academic standards.

SNRPDP also uses a limited “trainer of trainers” model, as well as mentoring and modeling lessons for classroom teachers. The program collaborates with the University of Nevada, Las Vegas to offer for-credit class to teachers and administrators. SNRPDP has designed the courses to have an immediate impact on classroom instruction by focusing on the content and curriculum teachers teach in their subject or grade level. For example, course offerings include such courses as Primary Writing for Elementary Teachers and Algebra for the Middle School Classroom Teacher. Section 2 of this report contains a complete listing of classes and professional development provided by SNRPDP.

The SNRPDP publishes and distributes through the Internet and by mail timely lessons and information in literacy, English-language arts, reading, science, and mathematics. “Got Math?” is a newsletter to address major concepts in mathematics. Distributed to middle and high school science teachers, “Science Dissected” covers current content and innovative instructional strategies. “Literacy Connects” focuses on classroom teachers’ attention on strategies to improve reading and writing in the content areas. “Kindergarten Chronicles” covers a breadth of information targeted directly at the Kindergarten teacher. “Shop TALK” is a quarterly magazine published and


distributed as just one more way to engage teachers and administrators to think more deeply about what they do and how they do their jobs.

The Nevada Legislature created the Nevada Early Literacy Intervention Program (NELIP) in southern Nevada. The purpose of this program includes “training for teachers who teach kindergarten and grades 1, 2, and 3 in methods to teach fundamental reading skills that have been identified in research that follow the National Reading Panel’s recommendations.” The main components of the program include training in, without limitation: phonological awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, comprehension, motivation, and writing. The ultimate goal of early literacy training is to have all students reading at or above grade level by grade three. This stance reflects the following quote from the National Reading Panel:

Reading is essential to success in our society. The ability to read is highly valued and important for social and economic advancement. Of course, most children learn to read fairly well. In this report, we are most concerned with the large numbers of children in America whose educational careers are imperiled because they do not read well enough to ensure understanding and to meet the demands of an increasingly competitive economy. Current difficulties in reading largely originate from rising demands for literacy, not from declining absolute levels of literacy. In a technological society, the demands for higher literacy are ever increasing, creating more grievous consequences for those who fall short.

-Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children, 1998

1.1 THE SNRPDP BOARD

The Southern Nevada Regional Professional Development Program’s governing board is made up of eleven members. Included is a superintendent or designee from each of the five districts, five classroom teachers, and a university representative.

The chairperson of the governing board and the director schedule the meetings and set the agenda. It is the board’s responsibility to approve the plan, direction, and budget of the program. The board generally meets three to four times per year during the months of September/October, January/February, May, and August (see Appendix C for a sample Board Meeting agenda). The governing board has complied with all the requirements of Sec. 6 of Senate Bill 210. The SNRPDP is steadily progressing toward meeting the goals of the ongoing 5-Year Plan approved by the SNRPDP governing board.


1.2 CONDUCTING NEEDS ASSESSMENTS

SNRPDP has conducted informal needs assessments; both internally and externally. Informal needs assessments include teacher and administrator interviews, requests made on evaluations for more services, and by analyzing school district test scores in all subject areas. The program also asks teachers to fill out a survey on the use of professional development time at the end of each year, with the results compared to what educational research calls best practices. Using the survey results, SNRPDP refines and modifies its professional development offerings. Additionally, each trainer assumes responsibility for assessing the needs in specific areas, which they ascertain through surveys, school contacts, and test data analyses.

There are oftentimes conflicts in needs assessments. When teachers are surveyed using cold calls, emails, and the Internet, they often report very few, if any needs. Teachers who attend trainings provided by the SNRPDP often request more training of the type they just received and are more specific about what types of training will best help them increase student achievement.

This contradiction leads to the conclusion that a good number of teachers “don’t know what they don’t know,” and therefore, cannot ask for assistance because they think everything is all right. However, after they attend training, they can clearly see the benefit to themselves and their students, and also, more precisely define their professional development needs.

The SNRPDP also examines test data provided by the local school districts and uses that information to provide training in areas of deficiency. Furthermore, the results of our in-depth evaluation yields critical data that point to areas that require emphasis and attention.

1.3 LONG-RANGE (5-YEAR) PLANNING AND REVIEW

The SNRPDP Governing Board reviewed the previous 5-year plan, made some general observations, suggestions, and recommendations to the subcommittee of the board that developed the five-year plan with the director. The governing board reviews the activity evaluations as well as testimonials from their own district employees to determine the value and effectiveness of the SNRPDP trainings attended. At the last meeting of the school year, the governing board reviews the five-year plan to determine if the SNRPDP is following the plan and if the program is reaching its goal to increase student achievement. At this same meeting, the board reviews the state’s professional development standards with respect to the training provided for southern Nevada classroom teachers and administrators. The following represents the 5-year plan.


5 – Year Directional Blueprint to Increase Student Achievement

One goal

Increase student achievement

Year One: 2012-2013

Continue implementation of BAM, Teacher Expectancies, and Components of an Effective Lesson.

Continue implementation of the 5-Point Professional Development Plan. Continue classroom observations by invitation for the purposes of coaching within various

content areas. Examine the performance of students at the end of 6th grade and algebra based on the

results of the previous end-of-year testing. Offer a free summer class to prepare teachers to support students taking algebra in the fall. Offer courses to teachers to gain expertise in fields other than their primary teaching

assignment by offering introductory classes in such areas as testing & assessment, special populations, reading, school improvement planning, classroom discipline, etc.

Continue to increase the number of on-line and videotape classes. Continue the distribution of publications to address concerns. Revise the success of the 5-Year Plan and K-12 professional Development Plan based on

level of teacher satisfaction, increased level of teacher knowledge, actual implementation of new strategies and increased student achievement through the following: tracer studies, evaluations, anecdotal records from observations, action research, and local, state, and national tests.

Self-analyze alignment with the Professional Development Standards for each course, class, and training offered.

Schedule classes, workshops, and in-services to work with school administrators on school improvement plans and accreditation (Other topics: instructional strategies, using data for decision making, and leadership)

Provide technical assistance to schools on school improvement efforts. Provide assistance to needs improvement schools and schools on the bubble in all content

areas. Continue the implementation of classes in how to teach reading for kindergarten and grades

one through three. Provide follow-up to reading classes to help participants fully implement the six

components of reading in their classes. Continue to offer extension classes in areas of the six components Continue to offer credit offerings in mathematics, science, and social studies. Develop and implement teacher certificate programs for high needs content areas as

established by the state. Continue to build partnerships with institutes of higher education and other grant

recipients. Strengthen statewide offerings of the RPDPs through mutual assistance. Expand and enhance collaborative efforts with programs that have the same mission as the

RPDPs locally and statewide. Continue to offer and broaden summer institute programs within our region and statewide. Seek outside grants that match the goals of the SNRPDP.


Year Two: 2013-2014



content areas Provide assistance to schools in creating a plan for Remediating Along the Way. Examine the performance of students at the end of 6th grade and algebra based on the

results of the previous end-of-year testing. Offer a free summer class to prepare teachers to support students taking algebra in the fall. Continue to offer courses to teachers to gain expertise in fields other than their primary

teaching assignment by offering introductory classes in such areas as testing & assessment, special populations, reading, school improvement planning, classroom discipline, etc.

Continue to increase the number of on-line and videotape classes. Continue the distribution of publications to address concerns. Revise the success of the 5-Year Plan and K-12 professional Development Plan based on


Self-analyze our alignment with the Professional Development Standards for each course, class, and training offered.

Schedule classes, workshops, and in-services to work with school administrators on school improvement plans and accreditation (Other topics: instructional strategies, using data for decision making, and leadership)

Provide technical assistance to school on school improvement efforts. Provide assistance to needs improvement schools and schools on the bubble in all content



components of reading in their classes. Continue to offer extension classes in areas of the six components. Continue to offer credit offering in mathematics, science, and social studies. Develop and implement teacher certificate programs for high needs content areas as

established by the state Continue to build partnerships with institutes of higher education and other grant


RPDPs locally and statewide. Continue to offer and broaden summer institute programs within our region and statewide. Seek outside grants that match the goals of the SNRPDP. Become familiar with action research as a strategy to later assist schools with

implementation for further school improvement efforts. Become familiar with the change process in an effort to support schools as they go through

SAGE/school improvement process.


Year Three: 2014–2015



content areas. Provide assistance to schools in creating a plan for Remediating Along the Way. Examine the performance of students at the end of 6th grade and algebra based on the



Continue to increase the number of on-line and videotape classes. Continue the distribution of publications to address concerns. Revisit the success of the 5-Year Plan and K-12 professional Development Plan based on


Analyze alignment with the Professional Development Standards for each course, class, and training offered.

Continue providing classes, workshops, and in-services to work with school administrators on school improvement plans and accreditation (Other topics: instructional strategies, using data for decision making, and leadership)

Expand opportunities for administrators to collaborate through books study courses locally and statewide

Provide technical assistance to schools in the area of school improvement. Provide assistance to needs improvement schools and schools on the bubble in all content



components of reading in their classes. Continue to offer extension classes in areas of the six components. Continue to offer credit offering in mathematics, science, and social studies. Develop and implement teacher certificate programs for other content areas assisting

efforts in meeting the requirements of Highly Qualified Teacher Standards Continue to build partnerships with institutes of higher education and other grant

recipients Strengthen statewide offerings of the RPDPs through mutual assistance Expand and enhance collaborative efforts with programs that have the same mission as the

RPDPs locally and statewide. Continue to offer and broaden summer institute programs within our region and statewide. Seek outside grants that match the goals of the SNRPDP. Assist schools with the implementation of action research as a strategy for further school

improvement efforts.


Offer courses in root-cause analysis to assist school teams. Assist schools with the change process as they go through the SAGE/school improvement

process.

Year Four: 2015–2016



content areas. Provide assistance to schools in creating a plan for Remediating Along the Way. Examine the performance of students at the end of 6th grade and algebra based on the






Continue providing classes, workshops, and in-services to work with school administrators on school improvement plans and accreditation (Other topics: instructional strategies, using data for decision-making, and leadership).

Expand opportunities for administrators to collaborate through books study courses locally and statewide.




components of reading in their classes. Continue to offer extension classes in areas of the six components identified as weak by

testing or by teachers. Continue to offer credit offering in mathematics, science, and social studies. Develop and implement teacher certificate programs for other content areas assisting

efforts in meeting the requirements of Highly Qualified Teacher Standards. Continue to build partnerships with institutes of higher education and other grant


RPDPs locally and statewide.


Continue to offer and broaden summer institute programs within our region and statewide. Seek outside grants that match the goals of the SNRPDP. Assist schools with the implementation of action research as a strategy for further school

improvement efforts. Offer courses in root-cause analysis to assist school teams. Assisting schools with the change process as they go through the SAGE/school

improvement process

Year Five: 2016–2017


content areas. Continue to offer courses to teachers to gain expertise in fields other than their primary





Continue providing classes, workshops, and in-services to work with school administrators on school improvement plans and accreditation (Other topics: instructional strategies, using data for decision-making, and leadership).

Expand opportunities for administrators to collaborate through books study courses locally and statewide.


areas. Continue the implementation of classes in how to teach reading for kindergarten and

elementary school teachers. Provide follow-up to reading classes to help participants fully implement the six

components of reading in their classrooms. Continue to offer credit classes in mathematics, science, and social studies. Continue to build partnerships with institutes of higher education and other grant

recipients. Strengthen statewide offerings of the RPDPs through mutual assistance. Continue to offer and broaden summer institute programs within our region and statewide. Seek outside grants that match the goals of the SNRPDP. Continue work with the MSP grant and cadre to support teachers in the area of mathematics

and science. Support teachers in creating student learning goals within the NEPF.


1.4 EFFECTIVENESS OF REGIONAL STRUCTURE, INCLUDING PERSPECTIVE OF RURAL DISTRICTS

The SNRPDP’s structure ensures smaller school districts receive the same or similar services available in the larger school districts, depending upon need. The SNRPDP Director works for the board, not for an individual school district. The philosophy of the SNRPDP is to fulfill almost any request of the smaller school districts as well as provide services at their own school sites. The superintendents from Esmeralda, Lincoln, Mineral, and Nye County School Districts have been very positive about the support they receive from the program. (Likewise, the superintendent from Clark County School District has also been supportive of services provided by SNRPDP.) If the Nevada did not fund professional development through the RPDPs, teachers and administrators in smaller school districts probably would not have the resources or specific content expertise to provide the training they are currently receiving.

Regional trainers provide training for teachers and administrators in the five counties. However, the SNRPDP has hired trainers who live and provide services in the smaller school districts. Whereas, their primary responsibility lies within that geographic area, these trainers also provide training in the Las Vegas area just as trainers in Las Vegas provide training in the rural areas of the region.

There is a regularly scheduled regional trainer meeting once per month to discuss issues, needs, cooperative training, direction, future goals, and roles of the SNRPDP.

1.5 EFFICIENT USE OF NELIP FUNDS AND THE DISTRIBUTION OF PD FUNDS BY DISTRICT

To ensure students are reading at the earliest possible grade level, the program assigns one regional trainer to provide professional development specifically for kindergarten teachers. The reason for this allocation was to establish an expectation that teachers provide reading instruction to students at the earliest possible moment in students’ formal education. Two additional literacy trainers worked with schools in need of improvement and in the area of writing. This infusion of writing stems from the premise that writing is the reciprocal process of reading and therefore will directly impact the development of reading. The trainers offered all classifications of professional development - presentations, in-services, workshops, study groups, mentoring, classes, seminars, conferences, distance education, on-line, etc. Based on agreements with the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, the program offered courses at reduced rates to participants in the reading program, which in turn reduces the rates of reimbursement by the SNRPDP.


1.6 SNRPDP STAFFING PATTERN AND ROLES

The staffing pattern for elementary literacy trainers was described in Section 1.5. In addition to these trainers, the math department had three full-time trainers, science had one full-time trainers, secondary English-Language Arts had one full-time trainers, and technology/online/distance education had two full-time trainers. SNRPDP also had four administrative trainers that provided services statewide. For the rural counties, SNRPDP had one data and instructional strategist.

The SNRPDP employed over 20 part-time trainers who offered coursework and in service professional development in all subject areas. That number varied, depending on interest, time of year, and most importantly need. Because of the size of the southern region, both geographically and by population, it is not possible to offer professional development by individual school; therefore, SNRPDP offers most of the professional development so that classroom teachers and administrators can readily avail themselves of the myriad of services offered.


1.7 SNRPDP TRAINER QUALIFICATIONS

Summary of SNRPDP Trainer Qualifications

TrainerTotal

Years in Education

Yearsas a Teacher

and / or Admin.

YearsAs PD

TrainerMasters Doctorate Special

Certifications

Graduate Credits in Literacy Courses

Cheryl Barnson

4231 (includes counseling)

11Guidance & Counseling

Secondary Mathematics, Earth Science,Counselor

Nathalie Brugman

18 14 4

Reading, Educational Administration and Leadership

Early Childhood Literacy, Administration

44

Shan Cannon

17 4 13Curriculum & Instruction

Reading 25

Kris Carroll

15 6 9

Curriculum & Instruction, Secondary Science

Physical Science, Life Science, General Science

Stacy Cohen

12 9 3Science in Education

General K-8 12

Kathy Dees

22 7 15Curriculum & Instruction: Math Focus

Mathematics

SueDeFrancesco

40 33 7

Professional DevelopmentEducational Leadership

Educational Leadership

English,Administration

David Janssen

19 4 15

Curriculum & Instruction, Elementary Mathematics

Elementary Education

Bill Hanlon 41 20 21 Administration Mathematics

Glenn Krieger

22 11 11Principal Administration

Technology

Saralyn Lasley

24 10 14Secondary Curriculum: Literacy Focus

SpanishEnglish

54

Carol Long 39 23 16Educational Systems

Mathematics

Robyn Markovic

20 7 13Curriculum & Instruction: Literacy Focus

Early Childhood,Reading

72

Frank Mathews

37 16 21Education:Mathematics & Science

Technology, Mathematics: Calculus, Physical Science


Summary of SNRPDP Trainer Qualifications

TrainerTotal

Years in Education

Yearsas a Teacher

and / or Admin.

YearsAs PD

TrainerMasters Doctorate Special

Certifications

Graduate Credits in Literacy Courses

Cindy Ortiz

25 22 3

Curriculum & Instruction, Secondary Mathematics

Mathematics, 6-12

Tia Price 23 21 2Educational Leadership

Mathematics with Calculus, General Science, Administration

Pam Salazar

41 30 11Curriculum & Instruction, Physics


Physics, Mathematics, Computer Science, Administration

Valerie Seals

10 8 2

Advanced Teaching & Leadership, Teaching English as a Second Language

Early Childhood, K-8 TESL

Bret Sibley 21 13 8Educational Leadership

Physical Science

Margaret Smith

26 6 20

Curriculum & Instruction: Reading & Language Arts

Literacy, Teacher Education

Reading,English,Early Childhood, Administration

84

Karl Spendlove

45 30 15Physical Science, Ed.S. Admin

Mathematics, Calculus, Computers, Physical Science

Karen Stanley

32 29 3Administration & Supervision

Secondary English

Sylvia Tegano

40 29 11Administration in Education


Teaching & Administration

The SNRPDP Director trains the regional trainers in the best practices for professional development of teachers and administrators. The regional trainers also receive training during the course of the year to increase their knowledge base and hone their delivery skills.


1.8 COLLABORATION AMONG RPDPS AND WITH OTHER PROGRAMS

The SNRPDP has forged partnerships with UNLV, Clark County Public Education Foundation, Nevada Association of School Superintendents, Nevada Association of School Administrators, CCSD’s Curriculum & Professional Development Division, the National Association of State Boards of Education, and the SNRPDP has developed a mutual aid and assistance program among the three regional programs.

The collaboration between CCSD and SNRPDP allowed for development of programs that reinforce each other without duplication. This working relationship often results in a shared professional development activity that meets the needs of classroom teachers and administrators as well as fulfilling the requirements of state statutes or of a grant.

Our university collaboration allows the SNRPDP to develop its own coursework based on needs assessments and test scores within the region; universities then offer these courses at the graduate level. The University of Nevada, Las Vegas accepts all sixteen credits offered through the Middle School Certificate Programs in mathematics, science, and technology towards a Master’s degree. All of the courses designed and implemented by SNRPDP have a reduced rate for tuition.

SNRPDP has continued its collaboration with the Clark County Education Association (CCEA) and CCSD as a provider for eighteen-credit programs in specific content areas. These programs are subject specific and designed to enhance teacher’s knowledge in their specific teaching areas.

SNRPDP programs include Elementary Literacy, Elementary Generalist, Secondary ELA, Technology, High School Math, Middle School Math, High School Science, and Middle School Science.


2. WHAT IS THE NATURE AND EXTENT OF SNRPDP/NELIP TRAINING?

SNRPDP bases its professional development offering on both educational research and common sense approaches to teaching. For example, professional development activities are (a) sustained and regularly scheduled, (b) located on site, (c) focused on the disciplines teachers’ teach (i.e., and include both content and pedagogy), and (d) actively involve classroom teachers and administrators to construct instruction that will increase student achievement for their specific context and setting.

In addition to applying research in best professional development practices, the program appeals to teachers’ and administrators’ common sense and experiences, so they more readily accept and try to implement these best practices. For example, the program’s training sessions asks teachers and administrators to treat students in the same way they would like to have their own sons and daughters treated by other classroom teachers and administrators.

Well over 90% of the professional development offered through the SNRPDP is based on the content teachers teach at specific grade clusters for specific subjects. Embedded in the training is best instructional practices and effective lesson/unit planning, including effective instruction to educate special populations and examining assessment that leads to deeper learning.

SNRDP expects that the professional development will have both an immediate and long-term impact on either content knowledge and/or instructional practices of classroom teachers and site administrators.

Student-teacher relationships are an important component of the SNRPDP. Teachers are encouraged to treat the students in their classroom the same way they would like to have their own children treated by other teachers.

With so many schools located in southern Nevada and the large geographic area in the region, it is impossible to provide individual training for each school—SNRPDP must operate regionally to provide services to the maximum extent possible. The following is a detailed list of the professional development activities offered by SNRPDP.


List of SNRPDP Classes and Other PD Sessions Available During 2015-2016 School Year

Course/ Training Title

Credits(if

applicable)Description

Grade Levels

Elementary Literacy

CCSS Informational Writing

1Discusses the shifts in the writing standards and how these shifts affect instruction.

K-5

K-1 Literacy Stations 1An exploration of the preparation, management and value of literacy centers in emergent classrooms.

K-2

Literacy Stations, Gr. 3-5

1An exploration of the preparation, management and value of literacy stations in intermediate classrooms.

3-5

Nonfiction in Focus 1

An in-depth look at the Nevada Academic Content Standards for Reading Informational Texts and Informative/Explanatory Writing.

K-5

Reading Instruction in the CCSS

1

Provides essential knowledge about the Nevada Academic Content Standards for Reading in grades K-5, and the literacy practices needed to achieve them.

K-5

CCSS Reading: TDQs 1

Focuses on helping teachers learn the best ways to use text-dependent questions as scaffolds during close reading and addresses the phases of close reading beginning with establishing the literal meaning of a text and ending with an exploration into its deeper meaning.

K-5

Words Their Way 1

Focuses on implementation and assessment of word study and demonstrates how an exploration of orthographic knowledge can lead to lengthening and strengthening the literacy content areas of phonics, spelling and vocabulary.

K-5

CCSS Oral Language Development Grade K

1

Focuses on the implementation of the Nevada Academic Content Standards in oral language development, connecting to reading and writing, with a focus on the speaking and listening standards. It will provide instruction to the standards as well as the resources and research needed for successful classroom application. The goal is to demonstrate how these standards can be easily integrated into existing best practices in the kindergarten classroom.

K




Credits(if


Grade Levels

Writing Assessment & Instruction* 1

Provides methods and strategies that are appropriate for any writing instruction context or curriculum. Teachers will explore instructional tools to support continuous assessment, provide timely feedback, and identify clear goals tied to learning progressions that are aligned to the Nevada Academic Content Standards for Writing.

K-5

NEPF in Literacy Instruction* 1

Designed to help K-5 teachers increase their knowledge and understanding of the NEPF Instructional Standards as they relate to elementary literacy instruction. Sessions focus on a specific instructional standard and provide research, methodology, and classroom strategies to support literacy instruction.

K-5

Rigorous Reading 1

Focuses on helping teachers provide purposeful and rigorous reading instruction aligned to the CCR Reading Anchor Standards. Addresses complex text selection and analysis; close reading, collaborative conversations and discourse, and the gradual release of responsibility.

K-5

Secondary Literacy

Literacy in the Content Areas (online)

1

This course focuses on expository reading and writing, vocabulary, note-taking, and other literacy learning strategies across the content areas.

4-12

Effective Strategies to Teach Vocabulary (online)

1

This course focuses on using the findings of vocabulary research to design and implement effective, authentic approaches to vocabulary instruction, usage, and assessment.

4-12

Teacher Action Research(online)

3

This course guides educators through the teacher action research process. Learners will examine their own instructional practices and/or student social or academic behavior to develop and implement a research project.

4-12




Credits(if


Grade Levels

Rigorous Reading (blended)

1

This course focuses on helping teachers provide purposeful and rigorous reading instruction aligned to the CCR Reading Anchor Standards.

K-12

Understanding the CCSS – Writing 6-12 3

This course focuses on developing the ELA 6-12 NVACS for writing using the three text types-narrative, argumentative, and expository/informational.

6-12

Brain Compatible Learning Strategies

2

The course focuses on using the findings of current brain research to design and implement cross-curricular teaching strategies.

K-12

Emergent Reading and Writing Strategies (blended)

2

This course focuses on adapting the reading and writing curriculum to facilitate instruction for emergent learners, including but not exclusive to CC and ELL students.

4-12

Understanding the CCSS-Integrating Technology in the ELA Classroom(online)

1

This course focuses on integrating NVACS and technology with a focus on video –streaming, blogging, wikis and web quests in a 21st century classroom.

4-12

Reading Comprehension (online)

1This course focuses on addressing current research and best practices in the instruction of reading comprehension

4-12

Understanding the CCSS-NF Reading and Writing(blended)

3

This course focuses on blending the NVACS ELA Standards and building a workshop environment with the four modes of writing.

4-12

Secondary Literacy Specialist/Learning Strategist Workshops

N/A

These are quarterly learning strategist workshops focusing on school-wide change, research, and data collection, new teacher induction, SIP, and related school-wide initiatives.

6-12




Credits(if


Grade Levels

Comprehension, Collaboration, and Communication(online)

1

This course focuses on developing the Speaking and Listening Strand of the NVACS. Educators will learn how to teach collaborative discussions, integrate multiple sources of information into presentations, design presentations that strategically use digital media, adapt presentations to a variety of contexts and tasks, and evaluate a speaker’s point of view.

4-12

Conventions and Usage of Standard English(online)

1

This course focuses on developing the Language Standards 6-12 and the corresponding CCR Anchor Standards for Language. Educators will gain a deeper understanding of strategies to teach conventions of standard English grammar and usage, capitalization, punctuation, spelling, and style analysis in reading, writing, speaking and listening

6-12

Secondary Curriculum Mapping(blended)

1

This course is intended for secondary English and reading teachers. Participants will focus on the NVACS grade level expectations and how the NVACS impact instruction.

6-12

Aligning Instructional Practices with the NEPF

1

This course is designed to assist secondary ELA teachers with designing and implementing instructional and professional practices that reflect the NEPF Instructional and Professional Standards.

6-12

Methods in Critical Literacy(blended learning)

2

This course addresses current research and best practices in the area of critical literacy. Activities will include applying critical reading skills to various texts, researching current topics in critical literacy, evaluating various sources of text for bias, evaluating information from the Internet, and developing critical literacy techniques for classroom use.

4-12




Credits(if


Grade Levels

Southern Nevada Teacher Leadership Symposium(blended learning)

1

This course was developed collaboratively with CCEA (Teachers Union), CCSD, and other educational stakeholders to promote a deeper understanding of teacher leadership and the resources and support available for teacher leaders.

K-12

SNWP Institute: Transforming the Teaching of Writing

3

This class is designed to allow participants to learn about and practice the teaching of writing through discussion, modeling, mentoring and coaching. Participants will have the opportunity to participate in a grade level writing class at the SNWP Summer Writing Camp. Participants will be individually mentored as they observe, discuss, practice and reflect on effective writing practices.

K - 12

Managing Writing in the Secondary Classroom

1

This course is designed to help participants gain an in-depth understanding of NVACS writing strand and best practices in writing as they work collaboratively to develop lessons which shift writing instruction to better prepare students for upcoming assessments.

4-12

NEPF Workshop Series

NA

This series of 5 2-hour workshops focus on the NEPF Teacher Instructional Standards. Participants explore the standards, discuss instructional impact, identify evidence to support all standards, and reflect on practice.

6-12

Science

Introduction to Science Notebooks K-5

1

This class is designed as an introductory class for teachers who would like to begin incorporating science notebooks in their classrooms.

K-5

Science and Children’s Literature for K-8 Teachers

3

This class is designed to integrate science and literacy; both reading and writing by evaluating children’s literature for science content. The Nevada State Science Standards provide the framework to create integrated lessons combining children’s literature and major science concepts.

K-8




Credits(if


Grade Levels

K-2 Science / 3-5 Science

3

Both of these three credit classes give participants the opportunities to engage in activities that focus on science content knowledge (Nevada State Standards) by exploring fundamental scientific phenomena through inquiry, explore new methods and tools to facilitate inquiry-based learning, engage in reflective practice by sharing ideas and interacting professionally with a network of classroom teachers, and explore the use of assessment to facilitate learning in the classroom.

K-2

3-5

Grade level specific content trainings

These trainings meld appropriate grade-level content and pedagogy, examine a variety of assessments that meet the needs of science teaching, correlate science with reading, writing, and vocabulary, and model the effective use of science notebooks in the elementary classroom.

K-5

Engineering with a focus in K-5

1This class is designed as an introduction to the engineering design cycle.

K-5

Physical Science for Elementary Teachers

1

This class is designed to focus on content in physical science for elementary classrooms. Teachers gain an understanding of physical science through a variety of hands-on curriculum based activities.

K-5

Earth Science for Elementary Teachers

1

This class is designed to focus on content in earth science for elementary classrooms. Teachers gain an understanding of earth science through a variety of hands-on curriculum based activities.

K-5

Life Science for Elementary Teachers

1

This class is designed to focus on content in life science for elementary classrooms. Teachers gain an understanding of life science through a variety of hands-on curriculum based activities.

K-5

Science Integration for Elementary Teachers

2

This class is designed to focus on science content integration for elementary classrooms. Teachers gain an understanding of how to seamlessly integrate science with ELA and mathematics.

K-5




Credits(if


Grade Levels

Science Inquiry 2This class is designed to focus on inquiry-based science curriculum through a variety of hands-on lessons and activities.

K-5

FOSS for Rural Counties

1

This class is designed for the rural elementary school teachers who received FOSS kits and initial training. This class focuses on further supporting FOSS implementation in rural county classrooms.

K-5

MSSCP Laboratory and Process Skills

1

Using scientific inquiry, prepare lab reports, using science equipment, observation vs. inference, safety in the lab, managing materials

K-8

MSSCP Life Science for MS Teachers (Sem 1)

3Foundations of science, living things, cell theory, ecology, animals, and taxonomy.

K-8

MSSCP Life Science for MS Teachers (Sem 2)

3Cells, genetics, classification, environment, and evolution.

K-8

MSSCP Earth Science for Middle School Teachers (Sem 1)

3 Geology, hydrology, and natural resources. K-8

MSSCP Earth Science for MS Teachers (Sem 2)

3Hydrology, atmosphere, meteorology, and astronomy.

K-8

MSSCP Physical Science for MS Teachers (Sem 1)

3

Measurement, scientific inquiry, chemical and physical properties of matter, atoms, elements and compounds, periodic table and energy.

K-8

MSSCP Physical Science for MS Teachers (Sem 2)

3Atomic structure, matter, energy, waves – light and sound.

K-8

Secondary Math and Science Workshops

1-4Content area workshops that focus on key concepts in either mathematics or science on the middle or high school level.

6-12

Technology in the Science Lab: Part I

1

A variety of handheld data collection devices, along with sensors and probes are used to perform a range of traditional science experiments in Physics, Chemistry, Earth Science, and Biology, using current technology.

K-12




Credits(if


Grade Levels

Technology in the Science Lab: Part II

1

A wide range of data collection devices are used, along with online simulations to conduct science experiments in Physics, Chemistry, Earth Science and Biology. Emphasis is placed on technology-based data analysis and reporting.

K-12

HSSCP AP Biology Mini Course 2

1

In-depth examination of the College Board Advanced Placement Biology curriculum from both content and pedagogical perspectives.

7-12

HSSCP AP Chemistry Mini Course 2

1

In-depth examination of the College Board Advanced Placement Chemistry curriculum from both content and pedagogical perspectives.

7-12

HSSCP AP Physics Mini Course 2

1

In-depth examination of the College Board Advanced Placement Physics curriculum from both content and pedagogical perspectives.

7-12

HSSCP Biology I for HS Teachers (Sem 1)

3Fundamentals of biology and the nature of science, chemistry of life, cell biology, and cell homeostasis.

7-12

HSSCP Biology I for HS Teachers (Sem 2)

3

Fundamentals of biology, molecular genetics/DNA, cell division, genetics, origins of life and evolution, taxonomy and phylogeny.

7-12

HSSCP Chemistry I for HS Teachers (Sem 1)

3

Mathematics of chemistry, safety, laboratory procedures, elements-compounds-mixtures, atomic theory and structure, structure and organization of the periodic table, mole concept, chemical bonding, nomenclature, and chemical equations.

7-12

HSSCP Chemistry I for HS Teachers (Sem 2)

3

Stoichiometry, gases, liquids and solids, solutions, acids, bases, and salts, thermodynamics, kinetics, equilibrium, electrochemistry, organic chemistry, nuclear chemistry, chemistry and the environment.

7-12

HSSCP Earth Science for HS Teachers (Sem 1)

3

Matter and energy, earth chemistry, earth history, earth resources and environment, weathering and soil, and erosion and depositional systems.

7-12




Credits(if


Grade Levels

HSSCP Earth Science for HS Teachers (Sem 2)

3Topography, structural forces, astronomy, meteorology, and oceanography.

7-12

HSSCP Physics I for HS Teachers (Sem 1)

3Laboratory procedures, mathematics applications in physics, safety, kinematics, dynamics, and energy.

7-12

HSSCP Physics I for HS Teachers (Sem 2)

3Thermodynamics, waves, electricity, and magnetism.

7-12

HSSCP Literacy and Assessment

2

Integrate the literacy practices of reading and writing within the science content area. Both formative and summative assessments are explored to help guide instruction and measure student achievement.

7-12

HSSCP Laboratory Safety and Science Process

1

This course addresses the Nevada Science Scientific Inquiry 9 12 Standards, as well as‐ the skills, safety concerns, and processes for organizing and maintaining an effective and safe laboratory environment and for teaching students to collect, record, and evaluate data obtained in laboratory investigations.

7-12

Constructed Response Preparation for Criterion Reference Tests

This training is designed to prepare teachers to understand and incorporate constructed response and free response instruction and assessment techniques.

6-8

Test Taking Strategies for High Stakes Tests

Training in test-taking strategies provides a model for teachers and students to learn to develop appropriate problem solving skills for grade-level specific objectives and constructed response items on the CRT.

6-8

Nevada High School Proficiency

Many schools conduct on-site Math Proficiency Camps for non-proficient students prior to each NHSPE. These sessions provide training, materials, and organizational assistance for math teachers to prepare to conduct the math camps.

10-12




Credits(if


Grade Levels

SBAC (Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium)

Nevada is a member of the SBAC state-led consortium. These sessions reviewed the released sample assessment items that go beyond the questions teachers are familiar with on the CRT and NHSPE. Extended-response, technology-enhanced items and performance tasks were included.

6-12

Science and the Nevada Educator Performance Framework (NEPF)

Three-phased science professional development were created and deployed in both online and face-to-face environments to support all educators throughout Nevada. These modules support professionals as they progress from awareness, through implementation, and into implementation.

K-12

Elementary Mathematics

Fractions and Decimals

How can we support students in NVACS Number and Operations-Fractions Domain? These site based sessions will examine the use of multiple models to understand fractions and strategies for teaching operations with fractions. Activities will be based on a progression through the three stages of learning-concrete, pictorial, and abstract- and focus on students making sense of math.

3-5

5th Grade Fractions & Decimals Staff Development Day

The purpose of these sessions is to develop the conceptual understandings of operations of fractions and decimals and to connect models and representations to symbols.

5

Mathematics Projects to Increase Student Achievement

1

Are changes in math content and practice with the Nevada Academic Content Standards leaving you wondering how to engage and develop understanding with your students? Then this class is the place for you. Participants will learn about high leverage strategies and their application to the classroom. As a culmination of the class, teachers will work independently or in collaborative groups to complete a meaningful project that participants can use in their classrooms.

K-5




Credits(if


Grade Levels

Place Value 1

How can we support students in developing understanding of place value in grades K-3? This class will use the NVACS Progressions for Number and Operations in Base Ten and Mathematical Practices to provide effective strategies for teaching the concepts and skills of addition and subtraction. Expectations will include using class materials to reflect on practice, develop lessons, and assess student understanding.

K-3

Math Camp - Smarter Balanced

1

In this class, participants will learn strategies you can use in your classroom to help students achieve on the 5 different types of Smarter Balanced test items. During the class, time will be given to learn about the item specifications at each grade level and how those connect to the NVACS in content and mathematical practices. Focus will be given to long range planning on how to imbed these different test items into instruction that is meaningful.

3-5

SBAC

In this ½-day class, participants will learn strategies you can use in your classroom to help students achieve on the 5 different types of Smarter Balanced test items.

3-5

Unpacking the NEPF Standards

2

This course will take an in-depth look at each of the five standards of the NEPF, providing pedagogy and strategies that illustrate the NEPF in the classroom.

K-5


1

This course will take an in-depth look at each of the five standards of the NEPF, providing pedagogy and strategies that illustrate the NEPF in the classroom.

K-5

NEPF 2: Standard Study

This after school session will take an in-depth look at NEPF standard 2, providing pedagogy and strategies that illustrate learning tasks that have high cognitive demand for all learners.

K-5


This after school session will take an in-depth look at NEPF standard 3, providing pedagogy and strategies that engage students in mathematical discourse.

K-5




Credits(if


Grade Levels


This after school session will take an in-depth look at NEPF standard 5, providing pedagogy and strategies that help teachers plan instruction based on assessment.

K-5

Elementary K-5 Curriculum Alignment

Purpose: In order to address increasing student achievement teachers will: align the current mathematics program with the Nevada State Mathematics Standards to plan for effective instruction. Vertical alignment will also be examined in order to ensure best practices.

K-5

Articulation

Purpose: Mathematics Articulation K-5 will address increasing student achievement through vertical alignment, identifying common threads, maintaining consistent instruction, examining the standards, and planning for effective instruction.

K-5

Linking Assessment and Instruction

Purpose: Assessment is an integral part of instruction and is essential for improving the effectiveness of instruction. This ½ or full day session provides modeling of assessments and opportunities for teachers to practice with students. Teachers use the information to determine instructional needs of the students assessed.

K-3

Math Misconceptions

1

What do we do when students have misconceptions about mathematics? This class will provide instructional strategies and activities teachers can use to undo these misconceptions. Time will be provided for participants to use class resources to develop instructional ideas and engaging activities in any classroom.

K-23-5

Math Strands Exploration

1

During this class, teachers will examine the use of math workstations to provide meaningful practice for their students that meet the NVACS. They will work with stations that are intended to meet the needs of a range of learners.

K-2




Credits(if


Grade Levels

Assessing and Developing Number Concepts K-3: Place Value/Two Digit Computation

1

In K-3, students are developing foundations of place value and using place value understanding and properties of operations to do computation. Participants in this class will learn how to use Ten Frames Assessment, Grouping 10s Assessment, and Two Digit Addition and Subtraction to assess student levels of proficiency with these concepts and to identify and meet student needs through independent practice and small group instruction.

K-3

Elementary Math Discourse K-5

1

Trying to figure out ways to take math discourse in your classroom to the next level? Intentional Talk by Kazemi & Hintz provides teachers and instructional leaders with a framework for planning and facilitating purposeful mathematical discussions that enrich and deepen student learning. During this class, teachers learn 6 different discourse structures.

K-5

Math Discourse

Half -day workshop focused on helping students develop computational fluency through intentional problem sequences and math discourse.

K-5

Lesson Study

These site based sessions focus on improving instruction and student achievement by collaborating with colleagues to plan, teach and observe, analyze and reflect, and revise lessons.

K-5

Site Based Work and Best Practices

Purpose: To meet with individual teachers and/or grade levels to ensure best practices are being met within the classroom. Observation took place, lessons were modeled, and lesson plans were completed collaboratively.

K-5

Academic Content Standards and Mathematical Practices - Elementary

10 UNLVcourses

(1 or 2 credits each)

Elementary mathematics facilitators offered fifteen classes, through UNLV, focusing on Nevada Academic Content Standards and Mathematical Practices. Teachers examined content through best practices, assessment, problem types, discourse, and progression of standards across grade levels within each domain.

K-5




Credits(if


Grade Levels

Secondary Mathematics

Introduction to Probability, Statistics, and Geometry Concepts (MS certificate program)

3

This three-credit course has been updated and is designed to make teachers more comfortable in their knowledge, understanding, and application of middle school mathematics. Topics covered included simple and multi-stage probability, odds, counting methods, expected value, measures of central tendency, measures of dispersion, and graphing.

K-12

Algebra for the Classroom Teacher (MS certificate program)

3

This three-credit course has been updated to NVACS and emphasizes linking the concepts and skills taught in a first year algebra class to previously learned material and outside experiences. The main topics in this course include: Evaluating Algebraic Expressions, Solving Linear Equations & Inequalities, Word Problems; One & Two variable Equations, Relations & Functions, Polynomials, Solving Quadratic Equations, Simplifying Rational Expressions, Graphing Linear Equations, Solving Systems of Linear-Quadratic Equations, and Solving Higher Degree Equations; Rational Root Theorem.

K-12

Problem Solving (MS certificate program)

3

This three credit course has been updated with 8 mandatory class meetings with the instructor as well as outside assignments. The required assignments involve participants in solving a variety of problems that would be appropriate for the middle level student. The problems require use of 10 problem solving strategies including: going back to the definition, looking for a pattern, drawing a picture, examining a simpler problem, examining a related problem, guessing and checking, making a chart, identifying a sub-goal, writing an equation, and working backwards. This class does not have to be taken sequentially, but must be completed by the end of the geometry class.

K-12




Credits(if


Grade Levels

Euclidean and Non-Euclidean Geometry (MS certificate program)

3

This three-credit course has been updated to NVACS. It follows the curriculum taught in a high school geometry class with an emphasis on transformations, similarity and congruence. Topics covered include the study of angles, polygons, circles, areas and volumes, congruence, similarity, constructions, and transformations.

K-12

Practicum (MS certificate program)

2

This two-credit class is a culminating, reflective paper which emphasizes the Components of an Effective Lesson, Teacher Expectancies, and NEPF based on the teacher’s experiences in the classroom. Classroom observations may be made to determine the level of implementation, principals are asked to make observations and comment.

K-12

Intermediate TI-84+ and Nspire (MS certificate program)

1

This course is designed to train teachers in the use of graphing calculators. Participants focus on the appropriate use of technology to solve problems using a variety of calculator functions such as tables, graphs and the home screen. This course is a sequel to the introductory course. In this course, participants write some low level programs along with exploring functions under different menu items.

K-12

TI Nspire 1

This course is designed to train teachers in the use of TI Nspire graphing calculators. This course is only for beginning users. Participants focus on the appropriate use of technology to solve problems using a variety of calculator functions such as tables, graphs and the home screen.

K-12

TI 89 1

This course is designed to train teachers in the use of TI 89 graphing calculators. This course is only for beginning users. Participants focus on the appropriate use of technology to solve problems using a variety of calculator functions such as tables, graphs and the home screen.

K-12




Credits(if


Grade Levels

Introduction to TI-84+ (MS certificate program)

1

This course is designed to train teachers in the use of graphing calculators. This course is only for beginning users. Participants focus on the appropriate use of technology to solve problems using a variety of calculator functions such as tables, graphs and the home screen.

K-12

Algebra 1 Seminars 1

This one credit course offered each semester supported teachers by providing teaching materials and by demonstrating teaching strategies to help bring success to their schools and classrooms. The twelve Algebra 1 seminars included an overview of Algebra I topics including, solving linear equations and inequalities, absolute value equations and inequalities, functions and function notation, arithmetic sequences, graphing linear equations and inequalities in two variables, inverse and piecewise functions, systems of linear equations and inequalities and linear programming.

8-12

Geometry Seminars 1

This one credit course offered each semester supported teachers by providing teaching materials and by demonstrating teaching strategies to help bring success to their schools and classrooms. The twelve Geometry seminars included an overview of Geometry topics including, basic vocabulary and constructions, transformations in the plane, congruence, triangles and quadrilaterals, similarity, right triangles and trigonometry.

8-12




Credits(if


Grade Levels

Algebra 2 Seminars 1

This one credit course offered each semester supported teachers by providing teaching materials and by demonstrating teaching strategies to help bring success to their schools and classrooms. The twelve Algebra II seminars included an overview of Algebra II topics including, transformations, inverse and piecewise functions, curve fitting with linear functions, solving, graphing and applying quadratic functions, solving, graphing and applying polynomial functions, and solving, graphing, and applying radical functions.

8-12

College Preparatory Math Seminars

1

This one credit course offered each semester supported teachers by providing teaching materials and by demonstrating teaching strategies to help bring success to their schools and classrooms. The twelve College Prep seminars included an overview of CPM topics including, solving and graphing quadratic functions, polynomial functions, simplifying, solving and graphing rational and radical functions, triangle trigonometry and vectors, radians and circle trigonometry and identities and trigonometric equations.

9-12

Pre-Calculus Seminars

1

This one credit course offered each semester supported teachers by providing teaching materials and by demonstrating teaching strategies to help bring success to their schools and classrooms. The twelve Pre-Calculus seminars included an overview of Pre-Calculus topics including, relations and functions, inverses and composition of functions, parametric equations, graphs of polynomial, radical and rational functions, transformations of functions, conic sections, systems of equations and matrices, and trigonometric functions and their graphs.

9-12




Credits(if


Grade Levels

Calculus Seminars 1

This one credit course offered each semester supported teachers by providing teaching materials and by demonstrating teaching strategies to help bring success to their schools and classrooms. The twelve Calculus seminars included an overview of Calculus topics including, limits and continuity, derivatives of functions, implicit differentiation, application of derivatives, and numerical integration - Riemann Sums and the Trapezoidal Rule.

9-12

AP Calculus and AP Statistics Seminars

1

Each seminar is comprised of four content sessions (15 hours) and each session addresses major topics in the AP curriculum for that corresponding quarter. The sessions build teacher content knowledge while incorporating pedagogical material. Participants received content knowledge, shared ideas and activities for implementation in the classroom, collaborated with other AP teachers in the district and got valuable information to help prepare their students for the AP Exam.

9-12


2

This content specific two credit course is comprised of five face-to-face sessions in addition to 15 outside class hours with submitted work required. The course takes an in-depth look at each of the five standards of the NEPF in addition to providing pedagogy and strategies that illustrate the NEPF in the secondary mathematics classroom. Participants shared ideas & activities for implementation in the classroom, collaborated with other secondary math teachers in the district and got valuable information to help prepare them for the full implementation of the NEPF.

6-12




Credits(if


Grade Levels

SBAC (Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium)

Nevada is a member of the SBAC state-led consortium. These sessions emphasized the need for rigor in the classroom through review of the released sample assessment items that go beyond the questions teachers are familiar with on the CRT and NHSPE. Extended-response, technology-enhanced items and performance tasks were included.

6-12

Nevada Educator Performance Framework (NEPF) Training

This series of trainings provides a breakdown of the 5 NEPF standards and their 19 indicators. Recommended strategies are modeled, highlighted and discussed specific to mathematics instruction. These strategies and materials emphasize ways to connect to prior knowledge, provide for high cognitive demand, and require discourse and metacognition, while assessing learning.

K-12

End of Course

These training sessions were designed to provide available information to schools regarding standards tested, question types, and rigor of instruction needed to develop student readiness.

8-12

In-service Staff Development (Site specific)

Specific school requests were provided to support specific needs. Examples of the more than 15 in-service sessions included effective questioning, higher level questioning, formative assessment, metacognitive learning strategies, implementing standards-based instruction, Geometry and Algebra II planning and mentoring sessions.

9-12

Higher level Questioning in the Mathematics Classroom

The adoption of NVACS and implementation of NEPF requires an increase in rigor, focus and fluency. These in-services allow teachers the opportunity to examine their questioning skills and develop strategies and techniques for using higher-level questions to increase student achievement and understanding.

9-12




Credits(if


Grade Levels

Administrative

NEPF – Observations and Feedback – Instructional Standards1 - 5

Administrators will practice gathering evidence via observation, aligning to the specified Instructional Standard and Indicators as well as the follow-up feedback conversation based on both the observation evidence and the confirmatory evidence. Samples of language for the Observation/Evidence/Feedback form and the Summative form will be provided. Each workshop breaks down one Standard at a time with a culminating workshop on writing the summative evaluation for all Standards. (Repeated throughout the year)

K-12

NEPF – Supporting High-Quality Self-Assessment and Goal Setting

Administrators will learn how to engage teachers in a comprehensive self-assessment in alignment with NEPF criteria and how this process prepares the teacher to strategically identify a student-learning goal and professional practice goal. Specific focus will be to develop S.M.A.R.T. goals and educator plans so that goals are needs driven, specific, and action-oriented, and educator plans have clear benchmarks for success and provisions for professional development and support designed to help teachers meet their goals. (Repeated throughout the year)

K-12




Credits(if


Grade Levels

NEPF Administrator Leadership and Professional Responsibilities - (PR) Standards: Session 1 - Beginning the NEPF Evaluation Cycle

Administrators will engage in a deeper review of the NEPF Professional Responsibilities Standards to become more effective in supporting teachers to determine an area of focus for their professional responsibilities goal(s) during the self-assessment cycle. In order for educators to grow their professional responsibilities practices, participants will focus on gathering the best evidence to reflect the desired performance levels using the Professional Responsibilities rubrics. Through use of selected group protocols and activities, participants will practice using the rubric to build a strong connection between student learning and their professional development goals. (Repeated throughout the year)

K-12

NEPF - Maximizing Rater Reliability Series 1 - 4

Additional practice will be provided to administrators on how to use the NEPF protocol to effectively rate the level of performance of teacher practice in order to maximize rater accuracy. Opportunities will be provided for participants to examine expectations and key practices for gathering evidence through classroom observations and pre/post conferences. Strategies for avoiding common rating errors will be discussed. A total of 3 trainings are offered within each series. (12 Total Training Sessions - Repeated throughout the year)

K-12

NEPF – Leadership Standard 1 - Leading the Change – Developing a Roadmap for Every Student College and Career Successful

Every student must have an opportunity to be college and career successful. It’s our promise. Is your school’s culture all about every student College and Career Successful? How do you know? How do you measure? How have you defined College and Career Success in your school? Is the definition school wide? This session will help administrators learn how you focus everyone on College and Career Success for Every Student. (Repeated throughout the year)

K-12




Credits(if


Grade Levels

NEPF –Leadership Standard 2 - Providing High-Quality Feedback for Continuous Professional Growth and Development

This session will focus on examples and protocols to help administrators improve student learning by supporting analytical conversations (based on evidence) about teaching. Participants will learn how to 1) provide feedback to teachers so they continue to grow and improve in their practice; 2) engage educators in these conversations; and 3) connect professional development planning with evaluation outcomes. (Repeated throughout the year)

K-12

NEPF –Leadership Standard 3 - Unleashing the Power of Collaborative Spirit: Creating and Sustaining Productive Relationships

Teachers are the key to student success in the classroom. Administrators are responsible for inspiring, working side by side with, and helping teachers to be their best. This session will focus on the leadership keys to building and sustaining a community of learners, one that provides a safe setting for teachers to lead and continue to learn. Participants will learn about research-based instructional strategies to improve student learning, use skills of collaboration, and strengthen teacher performance. Participants will leave this session with renewed passion about how to make adult learning a priority to support student achievement. (Repeated throughout the year)

K-12




Credits(if


Grade Levels

NEPF –Leadership Standard 4 – Making Schools Smarter: The Actions that Matter Most

Practices and structures are the key to whether schools can truly contribute to student learning. But organizational conditions sometimes blunt or wear down educators’ good intentions and actually prevent school success. How can you ensure that the work of the school is leading towards high-quality performance? How can you develop a deeper understanding of how the school does business to better understand the impact of school processes? Administrators will learn how to assess their own school’s organizational effectiveness in supporting teaching and learning. Opportunities will be provided for discussion and reflection. (Repeated throughout the year)

K-12

NEPF – Leading the Development of a High-quality Student Learning Goal

Administrators will understand the SLG cycle, learn how to support the development of a high-quality SLG, and utilize a rubric to identify and score the SLG as a new Student Outcome component in the NEPF Teacher Evaluation for 2016-2017 school year. Administrators will discuss the critical role of training, guidance, scoring and monitoring in ensuring fidelity in the implementation of SLGs. Opportunities will be provided for participants to develop action plans to launch SLGs at the end of this year. (Repeated throughout the year)

K-12

2.1 UNDUPLICATED COUNTS OF TEACHERS, ADMINISTRATORS, AND OTHERS WHO PARTICIPATED IN SNRPDP/NELIP TRAINING

During the 2015-2016 School Year, SNRPDP trainers contacted just under 30,000 teachers, administrators, parents, and students (see precise numbers in the table below). Of these, about 17,200 attended professional development offerings, including in-service sessions, presentations, and workshops. Of these, just fewer than 43% of the total participants were unduplicated. In addition, about 1,500 teachers and administrators had trainers visit their classrooms, where SNRPDP trainers were either modeling specific lessons, giving feedback after observing a lesson,


and/or providing one-on-one mentoring. Trainers gathered this information on professional development participation via contact logs that they kept on a monthly basis.

29,412 teachers, administrators, parents, and students were impacted by the Southern Nevada RPDP trainers

17,196 participants attended professional development offerings (classes, in service sessions, presentations, and workshops at a specific site), of which, about 43% are unique (unduplicated) participants.

Regional trainers met with 1,924 teachers and administrators in planning sessions at the school, region, and district level to support planning to increase student achievement.

1,526 teachers and administrators had trainers model lessons in their classrooms, were observed by trainers to receive feedback on use of specific strategies, and/or experienced mentoring by SNRPDP trainers.

Our trainers contacted and provided professional development for 6,871 administrators.

Over 500 teachers were assisted by regional trainers through e-mail. This support ranged from answering planning and strategy questions to finding materials and strategies to support specific struggling students within the classroom.

2,863 contacts were made in rural counties (Douglas, Esmeralda, Lincoln, Mineral, Nye, and Washoe). These contacts included staff in service sessions, individual teacher assists, and planning both at the site and district level.

379 contacts were made during parental engagement sessions.


The following table shows the number of participants in all of SNRPDP’s professional development offerings (classes, in service sessions, presentations, and workshops at a specific site) by content area during 2015-2016. NEPF specific sessions, mathematics, and literacy and English-language arts, had the largest number, serving 35%, 26%, and 19% of participants, respectively.

Content Area Number of Participants

Percent of Total

Literacy-ELA 3,181 19%

Mathematics 4,470 26%

Science 2,100 12%

Technology/Online/Distance/Multiple Content Areas

1,154 7%

Administrative (not NEPF specific) 231 1%

NEPF Specific Training Sessions 6,060 35%

TOTAL 17,196

2.2 DELIVERY OF SERVICES

SNRPDP delivers professional development training sessions in a myriad of ways: presentations, in service professional development, workshops, classroom modeling and teacher mentor sessions, coursework, summer institutes, on-line and distance education, interventions, and through programs.

In keeping with our philosophy to provided sustained professional development, many SNRPDP training sessions are long in duration, as shown in the table below. In fact, when weighing the duration of training with the total number of classes, in service professional development, presentations, and workshops (see table below), 30% of our professional development impact occurs with sessions that are 2 days or greater, and 29% occurs with our full day sessions. This is a very positive aspect of SNRPDP’s commitment to quality and useful professional development where a longer time spent in a specific content allows the participant to receive richer instruction and more in-depth strategies. In addition, literacy, English-language arts, mathematics, and science all offer benchmark workshops that last three hours. These three hour workshops may be combined and participants may receive one graduate level credit for attending five of these workshops within the same content area; therefore, many of the participants who attend these shorter sessions, attend multiple workshops and receive many more hours of sustained training.


Professional Development Duration

Number of Sessions

Weighted Impact Factor

(no. of session × hours)

Percent of Total Weighted

Impact Factors

Less than 1 hour 14 14 0.3%

1 to 3 hours 216 648 15%

Half day (4 hours) 285 1,140 26%

Full day (6-8 hours) 159 1,272 29%

2 days or greater, including 1, 2, and 3

credit classes (15 hours or greater)

82 1,312 30%

SNRPDP designs coursework to increase teachers’ content knowledge in a particular subject, with best pedagogical practices embedded within the context of content. Often, 1-, 2-, or 3-credit courses designed by the SNRPDP and offered through the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, are an effective mode for providing this professional development. Teachers can use these graduate level credits for re-licensure and salary advancement, and in some cases can be part of a master’s degree program. Programs of study provide discipline-specific training, at specific grade clusters. In general, SNRPDP designs professional development opportunities to increase knowledge and induce change toward use of best instructional practices in the classroom (see the qualitative analysis relating SNRPDP courses to student achievement in Section 5). A few introductory courses help participants understand what may be missing in instruction in order to move them forward to the knowledge and implementation levels. This is particularly important if, for instance, participants are unaware of the components necessary to provide a balanced literacy instruction.

SNRPDP trainers teach the majority of these classes, who have been hired for their expertise in specific content areas. SNRPDP also has selected a large contingent of part-time trainers based upon recommendations and observations. The work by these regional trainers and part-time trainers helps to insure that teachers can impact the students in their classrooms and in so doing increase student achievement.

2.3 REVISION OF SNRPDP SERVICES BASED ON NEEDS ASSESSMENTS AND PREVIOUS EVALUATIONS

SNRPDP bases professional development needs on numerous pieces of information: student performance, informal discussions with teachers and administrators, and suggestions on evaluations. The delivery of services has remained consistent in the SNRPDP. We use the best


practice in professional development when designing professional development offerings. Furthermore, SNRPDP changes in the topics and modes of professional development offerings based upon teacher need and student achievement gains. More information about what we are learning from our analysis linking SNRPDP PD activities to student achievement is found in Section 5.

The commitment of the SNRPDP is to do as much as possible on or close to the school site. However, the large geographic area that is served by SNRPDP makes this very difficult with the limited personnel and resources, so we also provide regional and district-wide training. In addition, with the availability of new media we offer on-line training and training to rural participants via videoconferencing and online course management systems. Finally, the SNRPDP offers publications in all content areas in order to reach as many teachers as possible.

2.4 COLLABORATIVE PLANNING AND IMPLEMENTATION OF PD SERVICES WITH OTHER RPDPS, OTHER SERVICE PROVIDERS, AND HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS

The SNRPDP collaborates regularly to plan coursework, classes, seminars, and workshops with other K-12 providers. the science and mathematics teams worked in conjunction with Curriculum Professional Development of CCSD to offer joint summer institutes. Additionally, SNRPDP coordinates with the University of Nevada, Las Vegas to ensure that course descriptions and syllabi are acceptable to scholarly requirement of the university. Trainers also hold regular monthly meetings with local school district personnel to coordinate trainings in different subject areas so we are reinforcing each other and not duplicating efforts needlessly. Similarly, SNRPDP and the school districts meet monthly to coordinate training for building level administrators.

In 2015-2016, SNRPDP used the Pathlore system to schedule and track professional development activities in concert with the Clark County School District. The SNRPDP also shared in the cost of the program. For professional development, which receives university credit, participants used the University of Nevada, Las Vegas online registration system.

Nye County provides office space for the trainers working in the rural counties (i.e., Esmeralda, Lincoln, Mineral, and Nye). The rural counties work collaboratively with the SNRPDP to design and implement professional development that meets their particular needs.


3. WHAT IS THE QUALITY OF SNRPDP TRAINING?

3.1 TEACHER AND ADMINISTRATOR RATINGS

A critical component in evaluating professional development activities is obtaining data from participants that rate their reactions to the training (Guskey, 2000). To assess participant reactions, RPDP Activity Evaluation Forms are used at all professional development activities. These forms provide immediate formative feedback on the quality of the professional development, with questions being uniform among all the Nevada RPDPs. These questions were designed to ascertain the quality of training as defined by: the extent to which the activity meets participants needs, the effectiveness of the presenter, the quality of the presentation, whether the activity adds to participant knowledge and skills in teaching, and whether the knowledge and skills will be used to improve teaching, particularly for students with special needs. The table below summarizes reaction data for the past three years.

RPDP Activity Evaluation Questions Average2013-2014

Average2014-2015

Average2015-2016

#1: The activity matched my needs. 4.6 4.6 4.7

#2: The activity provided opportunities for interactions and reflections.

4.7 4.8 4.8

#3: The presenter/facilitator’s experience and expertise enhanced the quality of the activity.

4.8 4.8 4.8

#4: The presenter/facilitator efficiently managed time and pacing of activities.

4.7 4.8 4.8

#5: The presenter/facilitator modeled effective teaching strategies.

4.7 4.7 4.8

#6: This activity added to my knowledge of standards and subject matter content.

4.6 4.7 4.7

#7: This activity will improve my teaching skills. 4.6 4.7 4.7

#8: I will use the knowledge and skills from this activity in my classroom or professional duties. 4.7 4.7 4.8

#9: This activity will help me meet the needs of diverse student populations.

4.6 4.6 4.7

Range:Score of 1 = Not at All Score of 3 = To Some Extent Score of 5 = To A Great Extent


Teachers and administrators who have taken part in SNRPDP training have given the program very favorable ratings along all dimensions. On a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 the highest, all ratings have clustered between 4.7 and 4.8. As shown in the table, teacher and administrator’s evaluations have remained static over the last three years. The evaluation numbers given indicate a high level of satisfaction by those teachers and administrators participating in the SNRPDP’s professional development opportunities.

3.2 QUALITY ASSURANCE PROCEDURES

The SNRPDP director and trainers review the program’s offerings at the beginning of each year to ensure they meet the professional development standards adopted by the Statewide Coordinating Council of the RPDPs. Every regional trainer has a copy of these standards to facilitate implementation, as appropriate. The part time trainers also review professional development standards upon hiring to ensure implementation in the trainings they provide. Each content team correlated existing courses to the standards to insure their activities meet these professional development standards.

SNRPDP trainers use the reaction data (listed in the table above) as a measure of participant satisfaction. However, these data are not enough to fully evaluate the effectiveness of the program’s professional development activities. Each class uses participant comments in conjunction with the scale. This two-fold process assures more quality; however, actual in-class follow-up would allow a true triangulation. The SNRPDP conducts a sample of these in-class follow up sessions, with the results summarized in Section 5.3.

3.3 ADMINISTRATOR AND TEACHER ASSESSMENTS AND REVIEWS

Generally, the evaluation and reviews of the trainings provided by the SNRPDP are very positive as illustrated by the following emails and cited activity evaluations. However, the SNRPDP’s philosophy is and has been that professional development should result in increased student achievement (see Section 5 for more details). The trainings provided by the SNRPDP are intended to generally have an immediate impact on teacher knowledge (content, instruction, and assessment) as well as having a long term impact on how they perform their jobs (see Section 5 for more details).


Examples of Unsolicited Email Messages

Hi Tia,Just wanted to tell you again how appreciative I am of all your help. Not only have you saved me countless wasteful hours, but you have allowed me to zero in on the instruction that will be most beneficial to my students.Have a great break!

Thanks,Tara CrouchPalo Verde High SchoolMathematics Teacher

I wanted to thank both of you very much for helping us yesterday. The way we did everything yesterday was perfect and we were able to plan the first half of quarter 3 with no CONFLICTS.... YEAH!! Tia, you are absolutely awesome at what you do and we really appreciate all your hard work. We will be able to finish planning quarter 3 at our next after school PLC. Yippee!

Have a great weekend!

Tawanna ErvinMath Department SWCTA

Ladies,

Thank you again!! I feel like I am a much better teacher than I was when the class started. I know I have a long way to go, but of all my education classes, this last group was the most beneficial I have had in years! Thank you again for being master teachers.

Sincerely,MaryAnna BillingsCimarron-Memorial High School

P.S. If you would like me to attach the lesson material from the triangle congruency, I would be more than happy to. I did my graphs on desmos so I am also going to send you the website for the graphs. I added the line of best fit in red just for fun. Thanks again.



Hello,

The Clark County School District (CCSD) Instruction Unit wants to thank you for your time and dedication to supporting the Great Teacher Great Leaders Grant that was awarded to CCSD last fall. Without your support, time and expertise, we would have not been able to accomplish our goals. Your workshops and classes have reached many teachers and undoubtedly, will impact student achievement.

Class Statistics104 Classes/Workshops were facilitated by RPDP Staff123 Schools participatedApproximately 2000 teachers attended

Thank you for your focus on student outcomes and the Nevada Educator Performance Framework.

We could not have accomplished this task without your help and time.

Thank you very much.

"Buy the ticket. Take the ride."

"Yankee Baseball...It just does not get any better."

Rosanne RichardsInstruction Unit



Dear Saralyn,

I thank you so much for the resources you sent. Over all of the years, your name is one that always stands out above the rest. You always have posts for abundant resources and opportunities for teachers. It's a name I know I can go to and can count on for support. I can't even imagine how busy you must be because I'm sure many other educators have come to rely on your expertise as well. Again, I thank you so much.

Sincerely,Cindy BergDoral Academy

P.S. I'm also interested in taking one of your classes on the "brain" and learning. I think I've seen your name attached to several classes in that area. Please let me know if you'll be teaching a class soon. :)

Hi there...happy Friday...

Just wanted to say thank you for the great workshop on Tuesday and to let you know that I am using the foldable idea we used in class with my AP kiddos today (see pic) to record critical lens information for the short story we are reading...THIS is why I love those workshops so much: great networking, new ideas, and your sharing so much that is practical and relevant...

Thanks again and enjoy the weekend! :)

Lola MossSunrise Mountain High School



Cindy,

Thank you for letting me know it is now available. My school does not take for granted the time it takes to prepare resources. It's all we seem to do now that the Common Core has entered our lives. We have relied heavily on the rpdp to provide items we can use and allow our PLC time to focus on teaching techniques, using technology, and developing ways to have students collaborate.

Thank you,NancyMath TeacherSpring Valley HS


4. ARE TEACHERS AND ADMINISTRATORS LEARNING NEW SKILLS AND CONTENT TO IMPROVE INSTRUCTION?

Teachers and administrators are constantly trying to improve instruction and provide a balance in the delivery of instruction and assessment in their schools. Teachers and administrators often must examine their own teaching practices so that they can then tailor instruction to match their students’ needs. The SNRPDP provides opportunities for teachers in all content areas to look closely at their content and explore teaching techniques and skills to optimize and increase student learning and achievement. In so doing, they are assessing and teaching in a variety of ways including traditional paper and pencil activities and performance and application projects. This influences teaching because assessment matches instruction.

For the past five years, SNRPDP has examined participant learning in detail. As part of the program’s tiered evaluation to examine the connection between SNRPDP activities and student achievement, most participants in 3-credit classes were given a pre- and post-test, assessing content understanding, as well as understanding of the Components of an Effective Lesson and Teacher Expectancies (CEL-TE). As discussed in detail in Section 5, participant gains in understanding were moderate to high in all content areas and levels.

Another method used to evaluate teachers’ implementation of these new skills is analyzing the written comments on the RPDP Activity Evaluation Form about the presented content material. Trainers follow up with teachers and administrators after professional development activities to determine the actual implementation within individual classrooms and entire schools. However, due to a high trainer to school ratio, SNRPDP conducts such follow ups on a limited basis only.

The credits earned with our certificate (science and mathematics) count towards a Master’s degree and upon passing the PRAXIS, participating teachers will be licensed middle school teachers in mathematics or science.

With respect to administrative training, the SNRPDP’s philosophy is site administrators are very important to a school’s success. We, therefore, have emphasized administrative training. By hiring a cadre of administrators, the SNRPDP has provided training, especially in interpreting data, to help administrators understand the needs of their own student populations. These administrative trainers have worked with individual building principals assisting them with their school improvement plans. The SNRPDP has collaborated with groups like NASA and CCSD to plan and implement administrative training appropriate for novice and veteran administrators.

Site administrators are encouraged to attend teacher-training sessions so they know first-hand what is being recommended by the SNRPDP. In this way, principals can look for those recommendations being implemented in the classroom to maximize the benefit to the students.


4.1 ADMINISTRATIVE TEAM IMPACT STATEMENT

The Southern Nevada Regional Professional Development Program consisted of two full and five part time administrative trainers: Pam Salazar, Karen Stanley, Kelly Bucherie, Marjorie Conner, Sue DeFrancesco, Bart Mangino, and Sylvia Tegano. The team continued to focus on developing capabilities and resources to support administrators and teachers in implementing the Nevada Educator Performance Framework (NEPF).

One of the continued priorities outlined for the 2015 - 2016 school year was to train supervisors of site-based administrators and school-level administrators who evaluated classroom teachers. SNRPDP administrative training sessions included a focus on conducting observations and pre- and post feedback conferences so that participants would deepen their understanding of the evaluation cycle as defined in the NEPF. The materials developed and the differentiated levels of professional development offered continued to utilize the resources from Dr. Margaret Heritage’s work with the Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing (CRESST) and WestEd. SNRPDP administrative trainers developed additional materials for the administrator, teacher, teacher leader and central office personnel trainings. Additionally, professional development sessions were created to deepen administrators’ understanding of the Professional Responsibilities Standards and Indicators. All training sessions were designed as a lesson plan to include resources and tools so that administrators could replicate the training as part of staff development activities. These tools assisted administrators for planning next steps to strategically implement the NEPF at their individual schools.

Another priority included training designed to assist administrators in writing the summative evaluation. As SNRPDP staff assisted administrators in the evaluation cycle, administrators were provided with examples of evidence that might be included in the summative evaluation.

Phase II of inter-rater reliability training sessions were offered to principals and supervisors of principals throughout the state. Dr. Heritage and Dr. Barbara Jones provided training to Regional Professional Development Program administrator trainers.

During the spring of 2016, another priority focus for SNRPDP administrative trainers was to provide training that specifically addressed goal setting and assessment literacy. Workshops were designed to deepen administrators’ knowledge and capacity in leading teachers in the Development of High-quality Student Learning Goals (SLG). Workshop components included understanding the SLG cycle, learning how to support the development of a high-quality SLG, and utilizing a rubric to identify and score the SLG as the new Student Outcome component in the NEPF Teacher Evaluation for 2016-2017 school year. Administrators discussed the critical role of training, guidance, scoring and monitoring to ensure fidelity in the implementation of SLGs. Opportunities were provided for participants to develop action plans to launch SLGs at the end of this year. The Clark County School District required all site-based administrators to attend this SLG initial training session.

Realizing that supporting personnel continue to have a direct impact on NEPF implementation, training sessions were conducted with the Clark County School District Peer Assistant Review


Teacher Consultants and the Instructional Design Professional Learning Division. Sessions focused on how those entities supporting schools might align their work with schools to the NEPF so that there is one continued goal, which is to increase competency in the instructional principles outlined in the NEPF. Specifically in the Clark County School District, administrative trainers worked with District personnel in developing training sessions aligning the NEPF Student Learning Goal to the CCSD Teacher Professional Growth Plan System.

SNRPDP administrative trainers continued to offer NEPF calibration walkthrough sessions to administrators to further ground the site-based administrators’ knowledge in identifying evidence aligned to the NEPF Standards. Members of the administrative team facilitated NEPF calibration walks at schools to work with administrators in identifying evidence of the Standards in classrooms. The focus was on establishing inter-rater reliability so that there was greater consistency in observation ratings as well as working with administrators on effective conferencing and feedback strategies.

The administrative team worked collaboratively with representatives of other Regional Professional Development Programs, all assigned Districts, and the Nevada Department of Education. An assigned SNRPDP administrative team member served as a liaison to the Nevada Department of Education to provide input on ongoing implementation of the NEPF as well as to disseminate information to SNRPDP personnel.

The resources developed for the 2015-2016 school year was accomplished in various contexts and formats as outlined below in Clark, Esmeralda, Lincoln, Mineral, and Nye Counties:

Site-based work with school staff to provide educators with a training designed to deepen understanding of the NEPF

Professional Development sessions on the High-leverage Instructional Standards to deepen administrators’ understanding of identifying evidence in classroom observations

Professional Development sessions on the High-leverage Leadership Standards to deepen administrators’ understanding of the Leadership and Professional Responsibilities Standards

Professional Development sessions on the development of Student Learning Goals as part of the student outcome component in the NEPF Evaluation for the 2016 – 2017 school year

Performance Zone sessions with Principals to provide administrators with opportunities to deepen understanding of writing the NEPF summative evaluation

Assistant Chiefs/Assistant Superintendents’ training on increasing Inter-rater Reliability among supervisors of principals and on supporting administrators and teachers in the development of Student Learning Goals as part of the student outcome component in the NEPF Evaluation for the 2016 – 2017 school year

Monthly training sessions in Mineral, Lincoln, and Nye County School District to provide administrators and teachers with activities and resources to deepen their understanding of the NEPF

Professional Development sessions during targeted Clark County School District Staff Development Days and at specific schools throughout the year


Classroom observations with administrators in the Clark County School District to identify instructional practices in action

Professional Development Sessions to Clark County School District divisions and departments to increase understanding of the NEPF and to align the NEPF with the roles and responsibilities of divisions/departments

Inter-rater Reliability Sessions for all school principals, assistant principals, and deans to promote consistency in observation ratings

Professional Development sessions at the SNRPDP Summer Administrator Institute held on June 20, 2016, to provide a deeper understanding Student Learning Goals and Assessment Literacy

4.2 SCIENCE TEAM IMPACT STATEMENT

The K-12 Science Team consists of three full-time trainers: Bret Sibley, Kristoffer Carroll, and Stacy Cohen, and one part-time trainer Carl Jarvinen. The primary responsibilities and impact for this year are:

1. Developing science content-specific online and face-to-face professional development modules for awareness, understanding, and implementation of the Nevada Educator Performance Framework (NEPF).

2. Providing leadership, guidance, networking, and building capacity in Nevada for understanding the vision presented in the Framework for K-12 Science Education and the Next Generation Science Standards.

3. Collaborating with district partners to advance district initiatives and offer guidance in development of wide-scale projects targeted at increasing student achievement in science.

4. Networking and leadership, in partnership with the Nevada Department of Education and stakeholders throughout Nevada, in the development of a strategic Nevada Academic Content Standards for Science Implementation Guide.

5. Working in partnership with the Nevada Department of Education and Nevada universities to impact teacher content knowledge and instructional strategies that lead to increased student achievement.

6. Developing online resources including the High School Science Targeted Interventions for Proficiency in Science (HS TIPS) website and the Middle School Science Targeted Interventions for Proficiency in Science (MS TIPS) website to assist with student success on the High School Science Proficiency Exam, 8th grade CRT, and upcoming End of Course exams.

7. Offering graduate credit classes through the High School Science Certificate Program (HSSCP), Middle School Science Certificate Program (MSSCP), Elementary School Science Certificate Program (ESSCP), Nevada GEAR UP 2016 STEM Summer Institute, and Silver State Advanced Placement Summer Institute (SSAPSI) to teachers within Nevada.

8. Collaborating with the Department of Education, informal science educator groups, and community partnerships.


9. Supporting local, state, and national science organizations.

The following provides a brief description of these areas of focus.

1. Developing science content-specific online and face-to-face professional development modules for awareness, understanding, and implementation of the Nevada Educator Performance Framework (NEPF).

NEPF Science Professional Development Modules

As the Nevada Department of Education released plans for a Nevada Educators Performance Framework, SNRPDP was tasked with professional development for teachers and administrators. SNRPDP Science Team, to support this initiative, developed a three-phased professional development framework to support professionals as they progress from awareness, through understanding, and into implementation. The three Phases of the NEPF Professional Development Framework were developed and deployed in both an online and face-to-face environment to support all educators throughout Nevada. This highly targeted science teacher and administrator professional development is hosted on the SNRPDP Website for easy access by science departments from across the state of Nevada (http://rpdp.net/nepf.php?action=show&type=Secondary+Science).

Each of the three Phases were developed based upon the literature of learning progressions with respect to professional growth and implementation, and the guidance from the literature review from the Department of Education. These professional development sessions were deployed and showcased during several professional development trainings this year, integrated into science graduate credit class offerings, and will be a focus of the Middle School and High School Science Department Chair meetings for all Clark County School District science teachers.

NEPF Science Training Modules

The science team developed five (5) four-hour sessions for teachers in southern Nevada focused around the NEPF through the lens of science instruction. Each session was developed for K-12 teachers and highlighted teaching strategies and classroom practices for science that were designed to assist teachers in understanding and implementing the NEPF with fidelity. Sessions were broken down into whole group activities and breakout sessions that were grade level banded. Each session focused on an individual NEPF standard and its associated indicators for the highlighted standard. Participants were given tools and resources at each session to empower them to become teacher leaders and disseminate information at their individual school sites. Resources that the science team developed for the trainings were made readily available online to all Nevada teachers via two website: www.rpdp.net and www.nevadangse.net. These face-to-face training sessions reached well over 300 Southern Nevada science teachers over a five month time frame, as well as hundreds more as these teachers took the information back to their school sites and used them during grade level and department teacher structured planning time.


http://www.nevadangse.net/


http://rpdp.net/nepf.php?action=show&type=Secondary+Science

http://rpdp.net/nepf.php?action=show&type=Secondary+Science

2. Providing leadership, guidance, networking, and building capacity in Nevada for understanding the vision presented in the Framework for K-12 Science Education and the Next Generation Science Standards.

NSTA Curator Project

SNRPDP Science Team was selected among several hundred submitting applicants (650 applications and 55 individuals were selected) to participate as a “National Science Teachers Association: Next Generation Science Standards Curator.” As such, SNRPDP Science Team is the sole representative from Nevada on a project that seeks to find, evaluate and curate curriculum to support the new Next Generation Science Standards (adopted as the Nevada Academic Content Standards in Science). Curators will work to identify and vet high-quality resources that will help K–12 teachers and school, district, and state leaders implement the NGSS.

Science Matters State Coordinator

SNRPDP Science Team was selected to be the State Coordinator (SC) for Nevada. The SC is responsible for the administration of the state Science Matters network. The SC identifies and works with Key Leaders and Super Key Leaders to establish the state Science Matters program. The SC is often responsible for generating and sending messages for professional development throughout the state. The SC works with agencies, foundations, and various programs to identify state partners. The SC seeks grants and funding opportunities to support the delivery of face-to-face professional development workshops for members of the Science Matters network.

Networking Work Group Lead for Nevada’s Next Generation Implementation Team

As one of five members of Nevada’s National Team, we are charged with developing a state plan for implementing a new vision for science education in Nevada guided by the Framework for K-12 Science Education (NAP, 2012) and the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). Through the team’s efforts, the Nevada Academic Content Standards for Science (NVACSS) were revised and adopted based upon the Framework and the NGSS. This team’s goals are to ensure proper communication of the NVACSS and assist with implementation of the new standards through targeted and sustained professional development. Additionally SNRPDP provides leadership within the state serving as the Networking Group committee chair to communicate pertinent and timely information to Nevada’s stakeholders as well as design and maintain a resource warehouse supporting these science education initiatives.

In order to build capacity and ensure equitable access to accurate and current information for Nevada’s science education initiatives, SNRPDP created and manages the Nevada Next Generation Science Education Website - www.NevadaNGSE.net. Included on this website are news stories organized into categories: Framework, NGSS, Professional Development, Science Matters, and STEM. All stories are posted with supporting resources and links to other reliable sites for additional support. Site users have the option to provide feedback to story posts as well as submit content for inclusion onto the NevadaNGSE site.


http://www.nevadangse.net/

One of the true powers of the site is the ability for visitors to sign up as a Nevada science education stakeholder and become a part of the database for receiving e-newsletters highlighting recent story posts and science items requiring action. The site currently has over 930 registered stakeholders, up from 720 one year ago, representing a network growth of 30% this year (August 14, 2015 - June 13, 2016). Over this past school year the NevadaNGSE Website has received over 3100 unique visitors accessing in excess of 8,000 site pages.

Image: Screenshot from the Google Analytics tracking of the complete website activity 08/14/15 - 06/13/16


In the map below, statistical data for Nevada is presented for the identified time period. The shaded map presents access data of varying size. The areas are shaded with different color intensity and size, representing website user access points throughout the state. As expected, the two population

centers (Las Vegas and Reno) have the highest frequency of website usage. However, it is important to note that access from Nevada’s rural areas has increased as the network continues to grow, supporting the goal of equitable access to essential information to all Nevada stakeholders.

Image: Screenshot from the Google Analytics tracking Nevada website activity 08/14/15 - 06/13/16

In an effort to embrace current technologies for providing increased access to opportunities, a social media campaign is also included on the NevadaNGSE Website. Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/NevadaNGSE) and Twitter (https://twitter.com/RPDPScience) are integrated into the website, offering stakeholders multiple ways to access current information impacting science education at local, state, and national levels. Facebook “likes” have increased and with nearly 100 posts to Facebook made during the year, on topics ranging from instructional resources focused on the Nevada Academic Content Standards for Science (NVACSS) from the Southern Nevada RPDP and Nevada Department of Education (NDE) to Nevada Academic Performance Framework (NEPF)online professional development modules to assist with promoting productive discourse in grade level and department teacher structured planning time, the dynamic social interactive nature of the outreach is having an impact. Further supporting that the social media campaign in reaching Nevada stakeholders is the sustained growth supported by data captured from Twitter “tweets”, “followers”, and “impressions” to @RPDPScience, which have grown this past year. Promising momentum in both of these social media efforts provide evidence that the efforts to unite Nevada and create a network of informed stakeholders is advancing sustained by the leadership of the SNRPDP Science Team.


https://twitter.com/

https://www.facebook.com/

3. Collaborating with district partners to advance district initiatives and offer guidance in development of wide-scale projects targeted at increasing student achievement in science.

Curriculum Development Support - CCSD

During the 2015-2016 school year, CCSD Instructional Design and Professional Learning Department (IDPL) developed new course work to support the new NVACSS. Lead by project facilitators and administration from IDPL and a group of geoscience, chemistry and Science 7 teachers from CCSD schools developed the first draft of several new curricula based upon the new NVACSS. SNRPDP Science Team members supported this monumental task throughout the development process, as content and professional learning experts, and the planning of professional development workshops for the new courses. The primary focus was to translate the new Performance Expectations into identified learning objectives and student outcomes. In conjunction with the development of this curriculum, a series of Summer Science Institutes were planned to introduce current teachers to the new curriculum. The Summer Science Institutes were held in June. The focus of this first institute was to help teachers become more familiar and comfortable in teaching the content concepts of the first unit of each of the new curricula. In addition, time was devoted to the planning of the first unit that will be taught throughout CCSD in the new courses this fall. The goal for the coming school year is to support teachers new to the NVACSS with further workshops to target each of the five units that comprise the new courses.

To further support this, SNRPDP Science Team redesigned our graduate course offerings and significantly revised our science credit courses to address the new shifts in content knowledge. These courses are developed to be offered fully online or in a blended learning environment to all Nevada educators. For more information about the courses please see section 7.

Project NEVADA-S – Networking Educators’ Visions Across Distances to Advance Science

SNRPDP Science Team worked collaboratively with administrators from Clark County School District, Lincoln County School District, Washoe County School District, and Storey County School District and University of Nevada, Las Vegas and Desert Research Institute faculty to develop a science teacher professional development cycle, Project NEVADA-S. As a co-director on the Mathematics and Science Partnership Grant, Project NEVADA, SNRPDP Science Team took a leadership role in the development, authoring, and planning for an intensive, content-based summer science institute (summer 2015), teacher best practices and reflection sessions (2015-2016), and a project for the development of teaching material that occur spring 2016. This large-scale MSP project directly supported over 130 teachers from SNRPDP supported counties, in addition to Washoe and Storey Counties, as Nevada transitions to the new Nevada Academic Content Standards for Science through practical, hands-on experiences that will directly link back to classroom pedagogy and content development. Goals for Project NEVADA-S were: (1) NEVADA-S will connect education professionals across Nevada to build communities of practice and collegial relationships. (2) NEVADA-S participants will show significant growth in content knowledge in their chosen subject areas. (3) NEVADA-S will create a virtual environment conducive to asynchronous distance education opportunities for teachers and a repository of lesson plans and


materials, leveraging the site previously developed for the FOCCUS project. Based on assessment data and qualitative observations, Project NEVADA-S was significantly impactful in shifting teacher content knowledge and classroom practice. Project NEVADA-S was developed chiefly by SNRPDP Science Team and CCSD and supported about 130 science educators with over 70 hours of contact time.

Project MANTA – Moving All Nevada Teachers through Awareness of the NVACSS

SNRPDP Science Team continued to work collaboratively with administrators from Clark County School District, Washoe County School District, fellow RPDPs, the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and the University of Nevada, Reno faculty in the development of Project MANTA, a Mathematics and Science Partnership Grant for the 2016-2017 school year. Growing from the success of Project FOCCUS and NEVADA-S, and the need for a state-wide awareness level professional development, Project MANTA was developed. Goals for Project MANTA include: (1) Develop science teacher leaders, including content knowledge represented in the NVACSS through a capacity building model and expertise in pedagogy and mentoring. (2) Support the significant need for statewide, large-scale science educator engagement with the NVACSS and their instructional shifts for effective integration into the classroom through online and face to face sessions delivered by participating teacher leaders, with online access available to all science teachers statewide.

4. Networking and leadership, in partnership with the Nevada Department of Education and stakeholders throughout Nevada, in the development of a strategic Nevada Academic Content Standards for Science Implementation Guide.

Stakeholders and Initiatives

During the 2015-2016 school year, SNRPDP Science Team members served as the steering committee leaders in partnership with Nevada Department of Education staff in the development of the Nevada Academic Content Standards for Science (NVACSS) Implementation Guide. As leaders, SNRPDP Science Team members leveraged the expertise of national experts to organize stakeholders throughout Nevada to generate and frame eight strategic initiatives for the equitable implementation of the NVACSS for all districts in Nevada. Throughout the process, SNRPDP Science Team members served in several facilitative roles to drive high-level conversations and decision making to describe levels of implementation and strategic initiatives which all Nevada stakeholders can progress toward. SNRPDP Science Team was instrumental in the planning, development, monitoring, and completion of the initiatives and, more importantly, the collective stakeholder ownership of the initiatives to support all students.

Stakeholders Perspectives and Roles

During the 2015-2016 school year, SNRPDP Science Team members served as the steering committee leaders, in partnership with Nevada Department of Education staff, in the development of the stakeholder pages for the Nevada Academic Content Standards for Science (NVACSS) Implementation Guide. SNRPDP Science Team members continued to leveraged the expertise of national experts and intrastate networks of science education experts to organize stakeholders to


focus on initiatives relevant to their entities/organizations. This process led to the generation of Stakeholder Initiatives in the NVACSS Implementation Guide. These collective documents represent the multi-year plan for equitable implementation of the NVACSS for all students. Further, the Stakeholder Initiatives represent the collective impact of a strong network of organizations and entities toward a common goal of NVACSS implementation and equitable access for all Nevada students.

Resources and Models for Implementation

During the 2015-2016 school year, SNRPDP Science Team members served as the steering committee leaders, in partnership with Nevada Department of Education staff, in the development of the Nevada Academic Content Standards for Science (NVACSS) Implementation Guide Resources for Implementation. SNRPDP Science Team members worked with district leaders to develop different models for the implementation of the NVACSS through K-12 progressions. This role is essential as many districts, served by SNRPDP as well as other RPDPs, do not have the capacity to develop course progression models to fully implement the NVACSS. These models for implementation will be included in the NVACS Implementation Guide when the guide is posted for the 2016-2017 school year, pending Nevada State Board of Education approval.

5. Working in partnership with the Nevada Department of Education and Nevada universities to impact teacher content knowledge and instructional strategies that lead to increased student achievement.

State Leadership

During the 2014-2015 school year, SNRPDP Science Team served as leaders throughout the state, at the request of the Nevada Department of Education, with the Nevada Academic Content Standards in Science. Through supporting and guiding state leaders with implementation of the Next Generation Science Standards as the Nevada Academic Content Standards for Science, completing a gap analysis of our current state of science education and assessing needs for the future, representing our state on the national platform as members of the Network and Curriculum Leadership Teams. Further, SNRPDP Science Team was tasked with developing a plan for NVACS for Science Guides. SNRPDP Science Team was instrumental in the planning, development, monitoring, and completion of the guides. These Guides, developed by the RPDPs are hosted on the Nevada Department of Education site to support science educators throughout the state. Under the support and guidance of SNRPDP Science Team, the project was completed three weeks early and ready for public review. For more information about the NVACS Guides, please see below.

Project NEVADA-S

As described in section 3, Project NEVADA-S was a long-term science professional development cycle funded by the Mathematics and Science Partnership Grant. Collaboration partners are the SNRPDP Science Team Trainers, CCSD Curriculum and Professional Development Division science content Coordinators and Project Facilitators, Washoe County School District Curriculum and Professional Development staff, Storey County School District Administrators, the University of


Nevada, Las Vegas Colleges of Science, Engineering, and Education professors, and faculty members from the Desert Research Institute. This project was successful in meeting its defined goals, showed data to support a statistically significant project, and the partnership grew to develop a further MSP grant, Project MANTA, for continued science teacher professional development throughout the state.

GEAR UP

SNRPDP Science Team members were asked to support and serve on the leadership team of a long-term, professional development cycle for high school science, mathematics, and technology educators in a STEM Summer Institute. Nevada GEAR UP, funded as a grant through the U.S. Department of Education’s GEAR UP Program run through the Nevada Department of Education to the Nevada System of Higher Education. Nevada's GEAR UP program offers opportunities for students, parents, educators and schools. GEAR UP provides services to:

Significantly increase the number of low-income students who are prepared to enter and succeed in postsecondary education.

Significantly increase GEAR UP students' and families' knowledge of postsecondary education options, preparation and financing.

Increase recruitment and enrollment of GEAR UP students in postsecondary education. Raise the expectations of GEAR UP middle school personnel so as to create a college-going

culture that provides all students with the tools necessary to apply for and succeed in postsecondary education and future careers.

Improve GEAR UP schools through coordination with school improvement plans and to increase a common understanding of P-16 articulation issues among Nevada middle and high schools.

The University of Nevada, Las Vegas and SNRPDP Science Team collaborated to address many of the goals of GEAR UP through targeted high school teacher professional development in a GEAR UP STEM Institute run in June. SNRPDP Science Team worked closely with UNLV professors to develop a professional development framework for STEM Education, create standards-based curriculum, offer graduate credit, and plan a professional development institute that occurred during the summer of 2016. Teacher feedback showed that this Institute was tremendously impactful and caused them to rethink STEM programs and their understanding of System Dynamics and Computational Thinking (the focus of this year’s institute).

NVACS Guides

In addition to the strategic support and leadership in the development of the NVACSS Implementation Guide (Section 4 above), SNRPDP Science Team also developed a video walkthrough describing the design and structure of NVACSS Guides currently hosted on the Nevada Department of Education Website. The SNRPDP Science Team previously met with Nevada Department of Education staff, NNRPDP, and NWRPDP staff to discuss the design of a guide that could be used to support science educators as they transition to the new NVACSS. SNRPDP Science Team was chiefly responsible for the design and organizing the development of the current guides.


6. Developing online resources including the High School Science Targeted Interventions for Proficiency in Science (HS TIPS) website and the Middle School Science Targeted Interventions for Proficiency in Science (MS TIPS) website.

The recent adoption of revised Nevada Academic content Standards for Science (NVACSS) based upon the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) has created a need to continue to support the previous NVACSS during the transition time in order to support teachers with a targeted resource to assist students who still need to pass the High School Science Proficiency Exam. The Science TIPS (Targeted Intervention for Proficiency in Science) Website contains an extensive collection of instructional resources and newsletters that are available on the Southern Nevada RPDP website under the Science Tab for download. There are newsletters and lessons that are currently categorized under the Nature of Science, Physical, Life, and Earth strands appropriate for K-12 classrooms. Extensive resources for specific science benchmarks are housed within the Science TIPS tabs and these resources are explained below.

Important to note, as school districts across Nevada develop new curriculum for K-12 using the newly adopted Nevada Academic Content Standards for Science (NVACSS), this website will be revised to support science educators and their students as they implement new curriculum and courses of study in science. The HS TIPS (grades 9-12) and MS TIPS (grades 6-8) website will be updated to aid student achievement as the new End of Course exams (EOC) are developed for biology and potentially geoscience, in addition to the 5th grade and 8th grade Criterion Referenced Tests (CRTs). These updates are in the beginning stages of development, and SNRPDP will continue to host and maintain the TIPS website.

Targeted Interventions for Proficiency in Science (Grades 6-8, and 9-12)

The TIPS website is a resource specifically designed to assist educators throughout Nevada in preparing their students for success on the Science HSPE and 8th grade Science CRT. This site has a wealth of information directly focused on Nevada’s former 63 high and middle school science benchmarks covering Life, Earth, and Physical science content, as well as Nature of Science. Nevada science teachers looking for the following instructional support on any given benchmark will discover:

Easy to read background content information Common student misconceptions associated with the benchmark HSPE-style, and CRT-style Depth of Knowledge leveled sample questions Links to excellent classroom-ready intervention strategies and resources

The TIPS site can be accessed from the SNRPDP Homepage at www.rpdp.net by selecting the Science TIPS link within the Science tab, or directly at http://rpdp.net/sciencetips_v2/


http://rpdp.net/sciencetips_v2/


7. Offering graduate credit classes through the High School Science Certificate Program (HSSCP), Middle School Science Certificate Program (MSSCP), Elementary School Science Certificate Program (ESSCP), and Silver State Advanced Placement Summer Institute (SSAPSI) to teachers within Nevada.

High School Science Certificate Program (HSSCP)

One of the main purposes of the HSSCP is to strengthen the science knowledge base of perspective/current high school science teachers. The certificate program combines the science content and process standards from the Nevada Academic Content Standards for Science (NVACSS), as they relate to CCSD’s high school earth science, biology, chemistry, and physics science syllabi, with effective pedagogy imbedded throughout. The certificate program will emphasize the development of conceptual understanding through numerous classroom activities that are hands-on and laboratory oriented. The Components of an Effective Lesson and Nevada Educator Performance Framework (NEPF) are integrated into all aspects of the HSSCP.

The intent of the certificate program is to impact the quality and effectiveness of the science lessons being taught in the high schools immediately and positively. Current processes are underway to revise the courses to support educators throughout Nevada. The revision process, currently for Biology and Earth Science Courses will offer a fully aligned experience to the new NVACS for Science and two different models of deployment, online and blended learning environments. The fully online model will support educators that are geographically hindered from attending courses on a weekly basis. Courses will also be offered in a blended environment where teachers attend half of the sessions in a classroom setting and the other classes are hosted online. For both course environment options, online and blended, the learning management system, Moodle, affords quick and easy access to courses. These learning environment options will significantly increase equitable access to high-quality, richly-targeted, standards-based professional learning.

All credits earned through the HSSCP can be used for salary advancement and for re-licensure. All credits are university graduate level courses. The University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) has developed a Master of Education (M.Ed.) in Curriculum and Instruction, Emphasis Concentration in Science Education High School-RPDP (7-12), based on the RPDP High School Science Certificate Program. For complete details on the degree program visit, http://tl.unlv.edu/content/science/secondary/rpdp

Middle School Science Certificate Program (MSSCP)

The MSSCP has an intended target audience of K-8 certified teachers who currently teach elementary or middle school science. One of the main purposes of the certificate program is to strengthen the science knowledge base of perspective/current middle school science teachers. The certificate program combines the science content and process standards from the Nevada Academic Content Standards for Science (NVACSS), as they relate to CCSD’s middle school science syllabi with effective pedagogy imbedded throughout. The certificate program emphasizes the development of conceptual understanding through numerous classroom activities that are hands-on and laboratory


http://tl.unlv.edu/content/science/secondary/rpdp

oriented. The Components of an Effective Lesson, and Nevada Educator Performance Framework (NEPF) are integrated into all aspects of the MSSCP.

The intent of the certificate program is to have an immediate positive impact on the quality and effectiveness of the science lessons being taught in the middle schools. Current processes are underway to revise the courses to support educators throughout Nevada. The revision process, currently for Life Science and Earth and Space Science Courses will offer a fully aligned experience to the new NVACS for Science and two different models of deployment, online and blended learning environments. The fully online model will support educators that are geographically hindered from attending courses on a weekly basis. Courses will also be offered in a blended environment where teachers attend half of the sessions in a classroom setting and the other classes are hosted online. For both course environment options, online and blended, the learning management system, Moodle, affords quick and easy access to courses. These learning environment options will significantly increase equitable access to high-quality, richly-targeted, standards-based professional learning.

All credits earned through the MSSCP can be used for salary advancement and for re-licensure. All credits are graduate level science credits. The University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) has developed a Master of Education (M.Ed.) in Curriculum and Instruction, Emphasis Concentration in Science Education Middle School-RPDP (6-8), based on the RPDP Middle School Science Certificate Program. For complete details on the degree program visit, http://tl.unlv.edu/content/science/middle/rpdp

Elementary School Science Courses

SNRPDP offers a variety of courses designed for K-5th grade teachers. The Science and Literacy K-2 and Science and Literacy 3-5 grade classes model how science experiences serve as a core for the development of appropriate scientific vocabulary, integration of informational texts, and nonfiction writing for elementary children. The Introduction to Science Notebooks K-5 course is designed as an introductory class for teachers who would like to begin incorporating science notebooks in their classrooms. The 3-credit courses, K-2 Science and 3-5 Science, give participants the opportunity to engage in activities that focus on science content knowledge by exploring fundamental scientific phenomena through inquiry, explore new methods and tools to facilitate inquiry-based learning, engage in reflective practice by sharing ideas and interacting professionally with a network of classroom teachers, and explore the use of assessment to facilitate learning in the classroom. Four (4) one-credit classes have been added that focus on content for elementary teachers. These classes include engineering, life, physical, and earth science content. Teachers learn content and practical application that directly relate to their classrooms through the Nevada Academic Standards for Science. All credits earned are graduate level from UNLV and can be used for salary advancement and for re-licensure.

Current processes are underway to revise the elementary courses to support science educators throughout Nevada. The revision process, currently for Full Option Science System (FOSS) Courses will offer a fully aligned experience to the new NVACS for Science and two different models of


http://tl.unlv.edu/content/science/middle/rpdp

deployment, online and blended learning environments. The class will take teachers through the program resources that are available and will continue to provide assistance for teachers in using the FOSS program with fidelity. This fully online model will support educators that are geographically hindered from attending courses on a weekly basis. This course will also be offered in a blended environment where teachers attend half of the sessions in a classroom setting and the other classes are hosted online. For both course environment options, online and blended, the learning management system, Moodle, affords quick and easy access to courses and resources. These learning environment options will significantly increase equitable access to high-quality, richly-targeted, standards-based professional learning.

Elementary School Science Certificate Program (ESSCP)

In addition to the revision of the elementary science courses, development of an Elementary School Science Certificate Program (ESSCP) is currently under way. The certificate program will provide elementary teachers with an in depth look at the NVACSS through the lens of FOSS and focus to deepen teacher science content knowledge. The certificate program will consist of several credit classes that are centered around teacher content knowledge based off of FOSS kits and Disciplinary Core Ideas. Courses for the ESSCP will be broken down into Engineering, Physical Science, Life Science, Earth and Space Science, and elementary science curriculum planning.

Online Middle School, Biology, and Earth Science Professional Growth Plan Modules

With adoption of the new science standard (NVACSS), SNRPDP Science Team saw the need to continue to offer science teacher courses that move educators through significant shifts to address the Performance Expectation, and what they mean in terms of three-dimensional learning, within the scope of the new standards. To meet this challenge, SNRPDP Science Team worked to leverage the currently developed resources for credit courses in alternative ways to deliver teaching strategies and content to teachers. Traditionally, most courses are face-to-face, and because of logistics, mainly limited to teachers in Clark County. Our solution was to begin the development of online courses based upon the 5-DIE instructional design model. By switching to an online delivery of instruction we could have these courses available to all teachers in the state of Nevada.

While some our courses presently have online components, new courses in biology and earth science and middle school disciplines will be the first to be offered fully online. The reason necessitating this direction for development coincides with the new biology course being the first course to be taught with the new NVACSS, which was followed by Earth science (Geoscience) and middle school aligned content modules. The target for these new courses/modules is that each lesson will help teachers with the dimensions of each Performance Expectation and to support educators with content and teaching strategies related to teaching these expectations in the classroom.

GEAR UP STEM Institute

SNRPDP Science Team partnered with the University of Nevada, Las Vegas to support the 2016 GEAR UP STEM Institute. To support educators in achieving the goals of the GEAR UP Grant, UNLV


and SNRPDP developed and implemented the 2016 GEAR UP STEM Institute. Teachers from across Nevada attend this Institute to experience an in-depth, contextualized STEM learning experience to support content knowledge development and best-practice instructional strategies for STEM disciplines. SNRPDP Science Team coordinated and managed a graduate-level course to support the Institute.

Silver State Advanced Placement Summer Institute (SSAPSI)

SNRPDP, in partnership with the Clark County School District has developed and implemented the Silver State AP Institute for well over a decade. Over this time, teachers from across Nevada attend this institute to learn the in-depth content and best-practice instructional strategies that enable them to teach students who will achieve on advanced placement exams and compete in STEM majors in college. Before the Silver State AP Institute, Nevada ranked near the bottom nationally with respect to the number and percentage of students enrolling in AP, as well as being ranked as one of the lowest states in test performance. Because of our sustained efforts through the Silver State AP Institute, Nevada now ranks at the national average with the percentage of students taking AP courses and above the national average in scoring. Ultimately, successful AP students will contribute to Nevada’s prosperity as they transition to productive STEM careers. SNRPDP Science personnel coordinate laboratory equipment, purchase science supplies, and provide AP instructor support before, during, and after the institute.

8. Collaborating with the Department of Education, informal science educator groups, and community partnerships.

Connecting Hands: Offering Lifelong Learning Adventures (CHOLLA)

The CHOLLA group serves as a hub for many of the local agencies and organizations for community outreach and parental engagement at school sites in Southern Nevada. The members help teachers plan field trips, events, host community volunteer nights at different sites, and connect students with service learning projects. SNRPDP Science Team was present at regular CHOLLA meetings throughout the year, assisting with Nevada Academic Content Standards in Science alignments to ensure programs result in measurable student outcomes. During these meetings, the SNRPDP Science Team volunteered to guide a leadership team to develop a community symposium that took place in February, 2016. The symposium, CHOLLA Symposium – “Diversity and Inclusion in Education,” was developed for non-profit groups, informal educators, educators, agencies and organizations which serve the local community, and community leaders. We worked side-by-side with various organizations and community members to assist with defining an organization’s role in the community. The SNRPDP Science Team was central to the success of the symposium.

Further, based upon our work with the CHOLLA Group partners, there was an overwhelming concern to develop an action plan to create or modify existing lessons and experiences to support the new NVACSS. SNRPDP Science Team participated in the leadership steering committee and, in conjunction with support for CCSD Instructional Design and Professional Learning Department, developed a professional learning plan that ran throughout the 2015-2016 school year. To start the


cycle, a full day workshop to target implementation of the Science and Engineering Practices was provided in August 2015.

In addition to working with the CHOLLA group as a whole, the SNRPDP science team met with individual members to assist with transitioning field trip curriculum for sites into current NVACSS aligned curriculum. These supports were offered individually to each CHOLLA member that has a direct impact on student learning and family engagement. This cycle is iterative and will continue into the next school year.

DRI’s Green Box Institute

The Desert Research Institute of Nevada has a professional development team, the Green Power Program that is tasked with supporting teachers with curriculum to help students develop their understanding of sustainable and non-sustainable energy sources. Their mission statement is to support Nevada's preK-12 educators in science-based, environmental education by providing the tools, resources, and knowledge they need. This program receives funding from community members such as NV Energy and Southwest Gas. The Green Power program has developed curriculum, Green Boxes that function as science curriculum kits in a suitcase. These Green Boxes are available for check out and are shipped to teachers and returned after use.

The SNRPDP Science Team is currently assisting in planning a two-day workshop in August. We are working collaboratively to target science teachers in all SNRPDP supported counties. DRI is providing a travel stipend to assist rural teachers to attend. The SNRPDP Science Team is spreading the message to our supported counties that free science curriculum is available and accessible to all K-12 science teachers in southern Nevada. This workshop will highlight some of the Green Boxes that are available for teacher check out, the 5-E instructional design model, and science content connections aligned to the NVACS in Science from science content experts.

Lake Mead Partnership

Lake Mead National Recreational Area has an educational outreach program that assists Nevada teachers with their science curriculum. The SNRPDP science team has partnered with the Lake Mead education outreach program to provide training and credit classes for Nevada teachers K-12. These trainings include integrating inquiry into classroom curriculum, bringing teachers and students to Lake Mead whenever possible, and assisting teachers in creating outdoor classroom environments in their schools. Credit classes offered through this partnership include a two-credit climate change class and a Native American science writing class. SNRPDP elementary and middle school credit classes have also integrated Lake Mead science curriculum through a combined teacher field experience each semester.


9. Supporting local, state, and national science initiatives and organizations.

SNSTA Conference at Western High School, February 6, 2016

Southern Nevada Science Teachers Association (SNSTA) is an organization of science teachers and science enthusiasts throughout the community. A central goal of the organization is to provide networking opportunities and connections among community groups to support science instruction. SNSTA sponsors an annual science conference for educators, formal and informal. The SNRPDP Science Team assisted the SNSTA board members, over a six month period of time, in planning, chairing and preparing sessions for the over 200 attending science teachers. During that time, we assisted with logistics, speaker proposal acceptance, scheduling, and the conference program. At the conference, SNRPDP Science Team assisted in bringing CHOLLA community members and teachers together to collaborate and plan to bridge science in the classroom and community. CHOLLA also helped teachers set up field experiences for their students. SNRPDP Science Team hosted a networking table where we shared resources, information about new science standards in Nevada, connected teachers to a support network on the SNRPDP Science Web Site, “NevadaNGSE.net,” and offered current information about SNRPDP course offerings. Further, SNRPDP Science Team members ran sessions and formal presentations in support of the conference.

NSTA Regional Conference

The Nevada State Science Teachers Association (NSSTA) in conjunction with the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) held a regional conference in Reno, NV during October of 2015. The SNRPDP science team supported the regional conference through planning, implementing, and presenting at the event. Members of the science team were strand leaders and assisted with the review process of proposals as well as presented about current topics and lesson ideas that were based around the NVACSS. SNRPDP Science Team support was instrumental in making the NSTA Regional Conference a successful professional development opportunity serving over 2000 teachers in Nevada and neighboring states.

NV STEM Coalition

SNRPDP Science Team members were elected and serve on the NV STEM Coalition Board. As the new NVACS in Science include Engineering Design as a Disciplinary Core Idea, there needs to be a greater support network for science educators as they begin to incorporate engineering into current curriculum. The NV STEM Coalition serves as a non-profit aimed at supporting STEM initiatives throughout the state, including funding sources, connecting STEM professionals with classroom teachers, establishing student opportunities for scholarships and internships, and teacher professional development and advocacy. SNRPDP Science Team works collaboratively in planning and implementing STEM Education focused initiatives throughout Nevada to support science teachers.


Elementary Science Support for Lincoln, Nye, Mineral and Esmeralda Counties

The SNRPDP science team coordinated and delivered Full Option Science System (FOSS) kits to every elementary school in the rural districts that we service during the previous school year. These kits have science materials and curriculum that can be used in all classrooms to support the Nevada Academic Content Standards for Science. In addition to purchasing and delivering the kits, the SNRPDP science team provided professional development in the rural locations to assist teachers in understanding the program and implementation ideas for their classrooms. Further support was provided to teachers in rural districts over this school year through follow up FOSS sessions and continued teacher assistance and support. A follow up to these face-to-face trainings is a one-credit class option that is online and is available to every elementary teacher in the rural districts. This online class will take teachers through the program resources that are available and will continue to provide assistance for teachers in using the FOSS program with fidelity.

4.3 ELEMENTARY MATHEMATICS TEAM IMPACT STATEMENT

The Elementary Mathematics Team consisted of three full-time trainers - Kathy Dees, David Janssen, and Sue Dolphin, and two part-time trainers – Maria Dufek and Sheila Scarborough. Each trainer brought specific talents and abilities to the overall K-12 math professional development program.

The team’s primary activities for this year included the following tasks:

Workshops and classes for mathematics content and instructional strategieso Continued to implement workshops focusing on the Nevada Academic Content

Standards for Mathematicso Continued to develop and implement Smarter Balanced Assessment workshopso Provided Family Engagement workshops and events

Professional Development opportunities for teachers o Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) assessment questionso Nevada Educator Performance Framework (NEPF) trainingo In-service and support at sites requesting specific training

Professional Development focused on NEPFo NEPF for credit Classeso NEPF 2, 3, and 5 Sessions

Service to county school districts including individual schools/departments Best Practices training for teachers, departments, schools, and districts, including NVACS

content and mathematical practice Elementary Mathematics University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV) courses In-service and support at sites requesting specific training

o Resources for the Southern Nevada Regional Professional Development Program (SNRPDP) website including unit resources, substitute teacher resources


o Resources for implementation of Nevada Academic Content Standards (NVACS)o Resources for unpacking documents for NVACSo Resources for Nevada Educator Performance Frameworko Resources for Family Engagemento SBAC resourceso Assessment resources

Other Activitieso Clark County School District (CCSD) support

Documents for Nevada Academic Content Standards (NVACS) Committees and task forces Elementary Math Summer Institute

o Outlying County Support Elementary Math Summer Institute Staff development training Online resources through www.rpdp.net

The following sections provide more details on each of these activities.

Workshops and Classes

Two 2.5-hour face-to-face and follow up on-line workshops, aligned with Nevada Academic Content Standards, were offered for K-5 mathematics teachers: Math Vocabulary (NVACS), Basic Facts (NVACS), Discourse in Mathematics (NVACS), Number Sense, Mathematical Practices, Effective Questioning, Number Talks, Place Value, and Mini-Lessons for mathematical content.

For elementary teachers, NVACS trainings were formatted into full and half-day workshops, grade level meetings, and staff meetings. The purposes of the trainings were to define NVACS and to discuss the impact on instruction. The standards in the NVACS were unwrapped and investigated in detail. Teachers were given the opportunity to design activities and examine classroom activities that correlated with NVACS. Teachers were provided NVACS content, instructional strategies and activities to meet the grade level implementation; resources were also identified to allow for further research. Grade level specific lessons were modeled to support NVACS.

Training sessions on problem solving and higher order thinking at various school sites were formatted into full and half-day workshops, grade level meetings, and staff meetings. Teachers defined problem solving and experienced appropriate activities by grade level. Nevada Academic Content Standards were examined to ensure that problem solving was sufficiently and effectively taught in all classrooms. Content was provided to teachers in order to increase their knowledge base, instructional strategies were addressed and given, and resources were identified for further research.

Formative and summative assessment training sessions at various school sites across the district were formatted into full and half-day workshops, grade level meetings, and staff meetings. Smarter Balanced Assessment test items can assess higher-level thinking and should be a part of curricula.



One focus of the trainings was to identify Smarter Balanced response questions and determine what standards each problem assesses. A second focus was to instruct teachers on how to scaffold their instruction of Smarter Balanced problems so all students will be successful. The last major focus was to instruct teachers on resources for SBAC response questions. Considerable attention was dedicated to the critical areas of focus in NVACS at each grade level. Test taking strategies were addressed to increase achievement on the state assessment.

The Elementary Mathematics team facilitated ten UNLV classes that were offered throughout Clark County and Lincoln County School Districts. Content specific courses were offered to ensure that the needs of the individual regions were met.

Other Professional Development

Elementary math trainers worked at several elementary school sites delivering professional development to teachers during prep, using substitute release, or after school. During these workshops, teachers developed a deeper knowledge of the NVACS at their grade level by unpacking the standards. Best practices in the implementation of these standards were used throughout these workshops. The trainers modeled lessons for the participants in each grade level.

Trainers provided specific training on the NEPF to CCSD performance zones, individual schools, and school math departments. The professional develop included specific training on the five standards emphasize 1) connecting new learning to prior learning and experience, 2) learning tasks that have high cognitive demand for all learners, 3) engaging students in meaning making through discourse and other strategies, 4) engaging students in metacognitive activities, and 5) integrating assessment into instruction. In addition, every SNRPDP training involving academic standards and pedagogy was done through the lens of NEPF standards.

With the implementation of the Nevada Academic Content Standards for Mathematics, comes Smarter Balanced Assessments. Trainers provided professional development focused on released sample SBAC questions to target increased rigor in the classroom for improved student achievement.

Additional site-specific professional development was made available during or after school, as well as on CCSD staff development days. Specific school requests were provided to support specific needs. RPDP math trainers supported CCSD by offering multiple sessions at the district-wide, 5th grade fraction conference.

NEPF Course

The course took an in-depth look at each of the five standards of the NEPF in addition to providing pedagogy and strategies that illustrate the NEPF in the elementary mathematics classroom. Participants shared ideas and activities for implementation in the classroom, collaborated with other elementary math teachers in the district and got valuable information to help prepare them for the full implementation of the NEPF. This course was offered in CCSD during the fall semester and to CCSD and Lincoln County during the summer semester.


In-service and support at sites requesting specific training

Specific school requests were provided to support specific needs.

University of Nevada, Las Vegas Elementary Courses

Elementary mathematics facilitators offered nine one-credit classes and one two-credit class, through UNLV, focusing on Nevada Academic Content Standards and Mathematical Practices. Teachers examined content through best practices, assessment, problem types, discourse, and progression of standards across grade levels within each domain.

Elementary Math Trainers provided district-wide sessions focused on NEPF Standards 2, 3, and 5. Each session was offered multiple times in multiple zones. This session focused on pedagogy and strategies to assist teachers in incorporating these standards into their classrooms.

An MSP Grant was written collaboratively with CCSD and UNLV that was awarded and funded by the State of Nevada. The grant focused on Cognitively Guided Instruction for grade levels K-2. Twelve teachers from Lincoln County as well as eighty from Clark County School District attended a week long institute in the summer. Several follow up days were provided throughout the year with ongoing professional development. Teachers were responsible for implementation in their own classroom and submitting evidence to the grant facilitators.

Family Math

An Elementary Math Trainer, working in collaboration with CCSD’s Family and Community Engagement Services (F.A.C.E.S.), provided parent workshops focusing on understanding the Nevada Academic Content Standards, the Smarter Balance Assessment Consortium, and Operations and Algebraic Thinking for grades K-2 and 3-5. Training sessions for NVACS for F.A.C.E.S. facilitators were also held so they could continue to disseminate information at their assigned schools. Additionally, materials were made available for Title One school facilitators to use for Family Math Nights at their assigned schools.

Website (www.rpdp.net) Resources

Unit resources were developed and continually updated to assist teachers as they plan instruction and assessment for each unit.

Elementary NEPF mathematics resources are bundled with ELA and Science. These resources include videos for NEPF training and understanding of the standards.

Elementary Mathematics created additional resources available for teachers on www.rpdp.net. The resources included instructional video clips on various math concepts. NVACS math units are available on-line to help with content knowledge and instruction. Resources were also added to support the teachers’ use of models in math instruction. The family engagement section includes NVACS background, website and application to help parents assist their children at home.


The Elementary Math Workspace on Interact was used as a resource for all the Nevada Academic Content Standards for Mathematics facilitation materials. This has provided a resource for the teachers who attended the RPDP classes/workshops. The intent of this site was to make the facilitation process easier for teachers to share with each other and to provide workshops at their school.

Best Practices

At the request of administrators, regional trainers met with individual teachers and/or grade levels to ensure best practices were being met within the classroom at all grade levels. The regional trainers observed teachers, modeled lessons, and collaboratively wrote lesson plans. The focus of the individual trainings varied depending upon the needs of the schools and the individual teachers, but ranged from Components of an Effective Mathematics Lesson to incorporating writing in mathematics. Teachers were provided appropriate content for their area of need, instructional strategies, and time to explore resources available to increase effective instruction within the classroom, especially focusing on CCSS implementation.

Other Activities

K-12 Math Team members:

Served on the state NVACS committees in creating documents for the state website Supported implementation of the Nevada Academic Content Standards in mathematics with

appropriate professional development Consulted with specialists—English Language Learners, Special Education, etc.—to help

these populations be more successful Provided charter schools with observations, conferences, and training for test-taking

strategies Continued support for Lincoln County, Esmeralda County, Nye County, and Mineral County

through training sessions, teacher support, and summer institutes

4.4 SECONDARY MATHEMATICS TEAM IMPACT STATEMENT

The Secondary Mathematics Team consisted of four full-time trainers - Carol Long, Cindy Ortiz, Tia Price, and Karl Spendlove, and one part-time trainer - Cheryl Barnson. Each trainer brought specific talents and abilities to the overall K-12 math professional development program.

The team’s primary activities for this year included the following tasks:

Middle School Certificate Program Workshops and classes for mathematics content and instructional strategies

o Continued to implement workshops focusing on the Nevada Academic Content Standards for Mathematics

o Continued to develop and implement Smarter Balanced Assessment workshops


Professional Development opportunities for teachers o Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) assessment questionso Nevada Educator Performance Framework (NEPF) trainingo In-service and support at sites requesting specific training

Professional Development Seminarso Year-long seminars for Algebra I, Geometry, Algebra II, College Prep, PreCalculus

and Calculus contento Technology Courses on using the Graphing Calculator in the Classroomo AP Statistics and AP Calculus year-long instituteso NEPF Classes and Seminars

Service to county school districts including individual schools/departments Best Practices training for teachers, departments, schools, and districts, including NVACS

content and mathematical practice Resources for the Southern Nevada Regional Professional Development Program (SNRPDP)

website including unit resources, substitute teacher resources, proficiency resources, and instructional videos

o Resources for implementation of Nevada Academic Content Standards (NVACS)o Resources for unpacking documents for NVACSo Resources for Nevada Educator Performance Frameworko SBAC resourceso Assessment resources

Other Activitieso Clark County School District (CCSD) support

Documents for Nevada Academic Content Standards (NVACS) Committees and task forces Silver State AP Summer Institute CCSD Curriculum Engine revisions and implementation

o Outlying County Support Staff development training Online resources through www.rpdp.net

o Nevada Department of Education Support Worked on the Diagnostic Tools committee creating a formative assessment

to help remediate students for the EOC Math I and Math II exams Worked on the Remediation Lesson committee creating tasks and directed

lessons for the EOC Math I and Math II exams

The following sections provide more details on each of these activities.

Middle School Certificate Program

This program consisted of 16 credits in mathematics with instructional strategies. The impact for teachers included content and pedagogy along with the opportunity to earn graduate-level credits that may be applied to a Master’s Degree in Curriculum and Instruction through University of



Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV), and apply toward re-licensure and/or Clark County School District (CCSD) salary advancement. Each course included modeling of The Components of an Effective Lesson and Teacher Expectancies. Technology courses for TI-83/84/89 calculators were offered at two levels – introductory and intermediate. In addition, successful completion of the certificate program currently allows teachers with an elementary license (K-8) the option to teach Math 7 or Math 8, including Algebra I at the middle school level in Clark County School District.

Workshops and Classes

Formative and summative assessment training sessions at various school sites across the district were formatted into full and half-day workshops, grade level meetings, and staff meetings. Smarter Trainings focused on questions and standards, scaffolding questions for student success, and resources for SBAC response questions.

Other Professional Development

Trainers provided specific training relating to the NVACS and included strategies in all trainings, including manipulatives and literacy in math. Changes for 6th grade include number systems, expressions and equations. Training also focused on 7th grade number systems, expressions and equations, and geometry, and 8th grade functions, statistics and probability, and geometry, with more focus on the standards for mathematical practices.

Trainers provided specific training on the NEPF to CCSD performance zones, individual schools, and school math departments. The professional develop included specific training on the five standards emphasize 1) connecting new learning to prior learning and experience, 2) learning tasks that have high cognitive demand for all learners, 3) engaging students in meaning making through discourse and other strategies, 4) engaging students in metacognitive activities, and 5) integrating assessment into instruction. In addition, every SNRPDP training involving academic standards and pedagogy was done through the lens of NEPF standards.

Trainers provided training related to high-stakes testing and common district semester exams for middle school and high school teachers. Trainers provided staff development, discussed areas in which students traditionally experience difficulty, shared knowledge in content, experiences, resources, and materials to help students learn, shared successful teaching strategies that result in increased student achievement, and provided teachers specific recommendations for content and instructional strategies.

With the implementation of the Nevada Academic Content Standards for Mathematics, comes Smarter Balanced Assessments. Trainers provided professional development focused on released sample SBAC questions to target increased rigor in the classroom for improved student achievement.

Additional site-specific professional development was made available during or after school, as well as on CCSD staff development days. Changes in assessments based on sample SBAC questions, and NVACS documents were presented and discussed to promote awareness and implementation


strategies. Constructed response training was presented to schools to prepare teachers to understand and incorporate this type of instruction and assessment techniques. At other schools, training in test-taking strategies was modeled for teachers and students to learn to develop appropriate problem solving skills for grade-level specific objectives and constructed response items on high-stakes assessments. Specific school requests were provided to support specific needs.

Content Seminar Courses – Algebra 1, Geometry, Algebra 2, College Preparatory Mathematics, Pre-Calculus and Calculus

The secondary math team provided for credit, content-specific support to teachers throughout the year by providing teaching materials and by demonstrating teaching strategies to help bring success to their schools and classrooms. The twelve (12) Algebra 1 sessions/seminars covered year-long topics and content including solving linear equations and inequalities, absolute value ineThe twelve (12) Algebra 2 seminars included an overview of Algebra II Topics, Polynomial Functions, Radical and Rational Functions, Exponential and Log Functions, Trigonometry and Angles, and Statistical Inference. The twelve (12) Geometry sessions included Transformation, congruence, similarity, triangles and quadrilaterals, right triangles and trigonometry, circles, coordinate geometry, and probability.

High School Math AP Mini-Institute Courses

Two courses were provided for AP Statistics and AP Calculus teachers. Each course was comprised of four content sessions and each session addressed major topics in the AP curriculum for that corresponding quarter. The sessions build teacher content knowledge while incorporating pedagogical material. Participants were able to share ideas and activities for implementation in the classroom, collaborating with other AP teachers in their discipline and getting valuable information to help them prepare their students for the AP Exam.

Technology Courses

These one credit courses provided teachers with the training needed to become proficient in using technology in the classroom. We offered beginning and advanced courses in the TI-84 Calculator, TI-89 Calculator and the TI-Nspire calculator. The courses presented ways of incorporating graphing technology into their math lessons to enrich instruction and extend their students’ comprehension.

NEPF Course and Seminars

The course (first semester) and seminars (second semester) took an in-depth look at each of the five standards of the NEPF in addition to providing pedagogy and strategies that illustrate the NEPF in the secondary mathematics classroom. Participants shared ideas and activities for implementation in the classroom, collaborated with other secondary math teachers in the district and got valuable information to help prepare them for the full implementation of the NEPF.

In-service and support at sites requesting specific training


Specific school requests were provided to support specific needs. Examples of the more than 15 in-service sessions included effective questioning, higher level questioning, formative assessment, metacognitive learning strategies, implementing standards-based instruction, NEPF Strategies, Algebra II and Geometry planning and mentoring sessions.

Secondary Math Summer Institute – EOC Remediation Lesson Writing

This institute is designed to create lessons to help remediate students that have not passed the End of Course Exam in Algebra and Geometry. These lessons will be created during the institute and will become public documents for teachers across the state to utilize. Participants will become more familiar with the depth and rigor of the NVACS on the EOC exams and will collaborate with other teachers to help create materials that will be used by teachers across the state.

Website (www.rpdp.net) Resources

Unit resources were developed and continually updated to assist teachers as they plan instruction and assessment for each unit.

Teacher resources for each unit were updated and posted for units in 6th Grade Math, 7th Grade Math, Pre-Algebra, Algebra I, Geometry, Algebra II, Statistics, Precalculus, and Calculus. The resources are designed for the regular level of each of the above courses.

o The units are based upon math standards and appropriate benchmarks/pacing and have general correlation to current textbooks.

o Sample notes are provided for teacher reference; the material is designed to be presented to students using proper note-taking strategies and specific NVACS rollout changes.

o The unit tests incorporate vocabulary, short answer, open-ended, constructed response, modeling questions (SBAC), and review problems. Each unit’s Practice Test is parallel in structure and content to the corresponding Unit Test. This provides a great tool for teaching students how to study for tests using questions similar to those on high-stakes tests. It is recommended that the practice test be distributed to students early in the unit instruction and referred to frequently for review and discussion. Unit tests and practice tests may be used as provided or may be edited to fit individual needs.

o Teacher resource updates for grades 6-8 mathematics teachers specifically focused on the implementation of the NVACS.

For Secondary Mathematics, comprehensive resources have been prepared using videos and supporting activities to provide information and training on the Nevada Educator Performance Framework (NEPF). PowerPoints and videos for each standard provide support for other trainers, schools, departments or individuals to develop an understanding of the NEPF and how it applies to mathematics instruction in Nevada. Other resources for standards and indicators are provided and posted on rpdp.net. NEPF courses and seminars were provided in cooperation with RPDP and CCSD.

Long-Term Memory Review (LTMR) resources provide four reviews and a quiz for a given concept or related concepts. Teachers use the LTMR resources to review material that


students have had in previous instruction and to maintain linkage and continuity as students’ progress through the different math courses.

Best Practices

At the request of administrators, regional trainers met with individual teachers and/or grade levels to ensure best practices were being met within the classroom at all grade levels. The regional trainers observed teachers, modeled lessons, and collaboratively wrote lesson plans. The focus of the individual trainings varied depending upon the needs of the schools and the individual teachers, but ranged from Components of an Effective Mathematics Lesson to incorporating writing in mathematics. Teachers were provided appropriate content for their area of need, instructional strategies, and time to explore resources available to increase effective instruction within the classroom, especially focusing on NEPF and NVACS implementation.

Other Activities

Secondary Math Team members: Served on the state NVACS committees in creating documents for the state website Supported implementation of the Nevada Academic Content Standards in mathematics with

appropriate professional development Served on a Nevada Department of Education committee for providing input pertaining to

the implementation of end of course exams Served on a Nevada Department of Education committee to assist in the creation of

diagnostic tools for of end of course exams Served on a Nevada Department of Education committee for preparing lessons to support

end of course exams for remediation of students who do not pass the EoC Consulted with specialists—English Language Learners, Special Education, etc.—to help

these populations be more successful Provided charter schools with observations, conferences, and training for test-taking

strategies Performed an active role in writing/creating documents for Nevada Academic Content

Standards (NVACS) and rolling them out in southern Nevada Continued support for the Silver State AP Summer Institute by providing UNLV credit

opportunities for participants Continued support for Lincoln County, Esmeralda County, Nye County, and Mineral County

through training sessions, teacher support, and summer institutes Project facilitators attended and presented at the National Council of Teachers of

Mathematics (NCTM) national conference Supported Southern Nevada Mathematics Council and presented at general member

meetings

4.5 ELEMENTARY LITERACY TEAM IMPACT STATEMENT


The Elementary Literacy Team consists of four full-time trainers: Nathalie Brugman, Shan Cannon, Robyn Markovic, and Valerie Seals; and one part-time trainer, Kathryn Kinnaird. The team’s primary activities for this year included the following: (1) Creating and distributing publications. (2) Serving on district and state committees relative to the content area. (3) Providing school support. (4) Offering CCSS K-5 ELA professional development courses. (5) Developing resources and providing training for the Nevada Educator Performance Framework. (6) Planning and facilitating Summer Institute.

Publications

The Elementary Literacy Team continues to produce a newsletter entitled The Literacy LeafLIT (see Appendix A). This publication provides educators with instructional strategies that focus on best practices and can be used immediately in the classroom, as well as explanation, strategies, and resources pertaining to the Nevada Educator Performance Framework (NEPF). The LeafLIT is emailed to every elementary school and posted on SNRPDP’s website.

The Kindergarten Chronicles is a second publication that is targeted specifically for pre-K and kindergarten teachers. Lesson ideas and activities provide teachers with curriculum support and planning and are connected to the NVACS as well as the NEPF. Links to resources and video clips are imbedded within the newsletters. This year’s issues of The Kindergarten Chronicles are posted on the SNRPDP website along with the past ten years’ editions.

In addition to these publications, the RPDP Kindergarten Teacher Conference on Interact continued to offer a forum for kindergarten teachers to collaborate with special k and pre-k teachers. Teachers have access to different folders within the conference containing resources and ideas for different content areas, classroom management, upcoming SNRPDP classes, family engagement, etc.

District and State Committees

Literacy team members developed and presented a workshop for K-12 teachers at the Regional NSTA Conference. This workshop focused on teaching academic language in science.

Additionally, literacy team members supported the Nevada Department of Education in developing diagnostic and remediation tools for End-of-Course examinations. The resources and materials created by the members of the two workgroups will be provided to high-school teachers throughout the state of Nevada.

County and Charter Schools Support

The Elementary Literacy Team provided ongoing, face-to-face professional development to different counties (Clark, Esmeralda, Nye, Mineral, and Lincoln) on topics that included the Nevada Academic Content Standards, effective literacy instruction, and the Nevada Educator Performance Framework.

Team members also supported several charter schools by providing requested trainings during their regional staff development days.


School Support

Initial and follow-up literacy support was provided to individual schools, based on school-wide initiatives and specific needs. Trainings were offered school-wide, by grade level, and/or with individual teachers. Trainers offered teacher assistance in the following areas: lesson planning, model lessons, observations, post observation conferences and feedback, and resources. Areas of emphasis included: the Nevada Educator Performance Framework (NEPF), close reading, writing instruction, small-group differentiated reading instruction, literacy stations, phonemic awareness, word study, assessment, classroom management, components of an effective lesson, and the Backwards Assessment Model.

Nevada Educator Performance Framework

Literacy Team members collaborated with CCSD under the Great Teachers Great Leaders Grant to provide focused NEPF workshops for K-5 teachers. These workshops were designed to help elementary teachers increase their knowledge and understanding of the NEPF High-Yield Teacher Instructional Standards and Indicators as they relate to elementary literacy instruction.

Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL) Endorsement

Literacy Team members wrote blended (online and face-to-face sessions) learning courses for both elementary and secondary teachers to become endorsed in TESL. The courses included instruction in the following areas: second language acquisition and theory, methods and materials, curriculum, and assessment considerations for English learners. An informational meeting was held for over 100 K-12 teachers interested in taking the TESL courses during the 2016-17 school year.

Professional Growth Plan Modules

The Literacy Team created and designed the following Professional Growth Plan Modules:

Kindergarten Literacy PGP Module—created especially for kindergarten teachers. This module contains five different graduate level courses that teachers can take either for UNLV credit or as a workshop. Contact units can be earned through either option. More kindergarten specific classes will be added in the future.

Literacy Instruction PGP Module—created and designed to increase teachers’ knowledge and understanding of literacy instruction in the elementary classroom. Classes will provide research, methodology, and high leverage instructional strategies as they relate to the Nevada Academic Content Standards. Teachers may choose 6-9 classes from a menu of courses to complete the module. Each class within the module may be taken for either UNLV graduate credit or as a workshop; CUs may be earned through either option.

K-12 Reading Endorsement PGP Module—created and designed to provide the necessary courses required by the Nevada Department of Education for classroom teachers to obtain a reading endorsement. These classes can also be used toward a Master’s degree in Reading through UNLV. They are offered for UNLV graduate credit; CUs may also be earned.


Early Childhood Conference

This September, over 200 pre-K and kindergarten teachers from different counties and charter schools in southern Nevada attended the Active Learning Adventures Conference hosted by the RPDP Elementary Literacy Team. Dr. Jean Feldman was the keynote speaker and addressed ways to make the NVACS engaging and purposeful for our youngest learners. Participants also attended different break-out sessions covering a range of topics such as parent engagement, transitioning from half-day to full-day kindergarten, and working with English learners. Break-out sessions also covered different content areas such as ELA, math, and science. Teachers left the conference with strategies, materials, and resources that could be immediately implemented in their classrooms.

4.6 SECONDARY LITERACY TEAM IMPACT STATEMENT

The secondary literacy team consists of one trainer: Saralyn Lasley. The team’s primary activities for this year included:

Provide professional development through graduate level courses. Provide instructional assistance for increased student proficiency in reading and writing on

the End of the Course Assessments for high school. Provide assistance on implementation, assessment, and classroom instruction utilizing the

Nevada Academic Content Standards. Provide assistance on implementation, assessment, and classroom instruction utilizing the

NEPF Teacher Instructional Standards. Provide assistance with data interpretation and reflection to discover trends and create a

professional development model for individual sites. Provide reading, writing, and vocabulary instructional strategies across the curriculum and

support for increased student literacy development. Provide best instructional practices for increased student engagement, motivation, and

learning. Provide instructional assistance on formative assessment and progress monitoring in the

classroom. Provide site-based support and training for developing and sustaining professional learning

communities. Provide instructional and content specific support to meet the needs of the rural counties. Provide instructional and content specific support to meet the needs of district and state

charter schools. Provide assistance for rural teachers and administrators for the NEPF through site-based

observations, classroom modeling and mentoring. Provide support for the development of the High School End of Course Remediation Tools

as part of a NDE led state team.


Provide instructional practices for digital literacy implementation in ELA and content literacy.

Provide mentoring for new and struggling ELA and Content Literacy Teachers Provide and continually update online resources for ELA and Content Literacy Provide professional development and online resources for the Nevada Educators

Performance Framework Provide assistance for administrators and support for teachers through site-based NEPF

observations and teacher mentoring Provide professional development aligned with CCSD Professional Growth Plan for teacher

professional growth and salary advancement

The following sections provide more information on some of these activities:

Professional Development

Clark County School District:

1. During the 2015/2016 school year, Secondary Literacy offered 10 graduate credit classes through UNLV: 5 one-credit, 3 two-credits and 2 three-credits. All five of the one-credit and one of the three-credit classes were offered online or blended. This year, we added 1 new class, 501c—Aligning Instructional Practices with the NEPF, to better support teachers with the NEPF Standards. To accommodate teachers from all areas of CCSD, classes were offered at different locations throughout the district. Course topics ranged from literacy strategies for all content areas; lesson planning, reading, writing, speaking, listening, and vocabulary strategies for language arts teachers; computer literacy; formative and summative assessment, and brain compatible strategies. Curricula are based on UNLV course requirements, the Nevada Academic Content Standards and the NEPF.

2. This year, with the Great Teachers Great Leaders grant monies provided by the CCSD Instructional Unit, Secondary Literacy offered a series of five 2-hour NEPF Workshops for secondary ELA teachers. The instructional unit compensated the teachers $30 and hour to attend. The workshops were designed to help secondary (grades 6-12) ELA teachers increase their knowledge and understanding of the NEPF Instructional Standards as they relate to secondary literacy instruction. Each two-hour, stand-alone session focused on a specific instructional standard. Workshops were initially offered in January, and due to an overwhelming response, repeated again in April.

3. Whole school and department training were provided upon demand. Topics focused primarily on the Nevada Academic Content Standards, the CCR for non-ELA literacy support, the Nevada Education Performance Framework Instructional Standards, reading and writing assessment, differentiation, and engagement. Venues included the four scheduled staff development days, pull out substitute days, and after and before school mini-workshops.

4. Classroom observations and teacher mentoring and modeling was ongoing. This year all observations included the NEPF.


Nevada Academic Content Standards

The trainer continued to provide assistance at both the middle and high school levels on implementation and classroom instruction utilizing the NVACS for the secondary English classroom and across the various disciplines. The trainings addressed the 3 shifts in literacy, the progression of the standards, and how this translates to the classroom, as well as how to monitor student achievement (formative assessment) and how to create high-level text dependent questions. Teachers utilized a back-mapping technique to develop lesson plans based on the Backward Assessment Model, teacher expectancies and the Components of an Effective Lesson. Teachers spent time unwrapping the standards, creating learning targets and establishing a platform for instruction.

Literacy Instructional Support - Reading, Writing, Speaking & Listening, Questioning and Vocabulary across the Curriculum

The Secondary Literacy trainer provided ELA literacy support in numerous areas relevant to secondary English and reading: lesson planning with the NEPF, differentiated instruction, flexible grouping strategies and differentiated assessment techniques; designing and implementing reading and writing workshop; using writing portfolios in single classrooms or school-wide, guided-reading instruction, content area reading instruction and writing strategies for success on state assessments.

Additionally, the trainer observed in classrooms at Del Sol and Spring Valley High Schools and met with teachers for mentoring and coaching. The observations were followed by 1-3 hours of departmental professional development to address commonalities seen during observations.

Nevada Educators Performance Framework

The secondary literacy team provided numerous ELA trainings on the NEPF. Trainings included background on the NEPF, understanding the teacher instructional standards, lesson planning to align the CEL with the NEPF, and data collection. Multiple venues were used: one shot trainings during PD days, ongoing trainings during departmental PLC time, NEPF teacher workshops sponsored by the Instructional Unit, and a 1-credit UNLV course.

Secondary Literacy Learning Strategies Workshops

Secondary Literacy provided four all-day workshops designed to support secondary learning strategists and their individual schools. The focus of these workshops was to provide relevant professional development in the following areas: collecting and utilizing data; Literacy for the 21st Century and literacy across the curriculum; discourse and collaboration; cognitive coaching, mentoring and modeling; and new state assessments.


Southern Nevada Teacher Leadership Symposium

For the second year, Secondary Literacy worked collaboratively with CCEA, CCSD, UNLV, Nevada Succeeds, Nevada Department of Education, Public Education Foundation, and various other educational stakeholders to provide a one-day Teacher Leadership Symposium on January 23 at Western High School. The purpose of the symposium and corresponding PDE online class was to increase leadership opportunities for educators at their sites, Southern Nevada, and the greater community by supporting teachers who seek leadership roles and opportunities.

The symposium with attended by over 500 educators and educational stakeholders from Nevada where they focused on advancing student outcomes by expanding opportunities for teacher leadership, particularly those that allow teachers to stay in the classroom. Through keynote speakers, break-out sessions, and round table discussions with Nevada politicians, the symposium covered a broad range of educational topics from pre-K to college: equity and diversity, politics affecting education, global learning, technology and Nevada Academic Content Standards, the NEPF, to name only a few.

Additional resources, instruction and collaboration time was provided by a one-credit online course designed and facilitated by RPDP Secondary Literacy for those wanting to earn PDE credit while continuing to collaborate, network and learn more about teacher leadership.

Professional Growth Plan (PGP) Modules

Secondary Literacy addressed the CCSD change in how teachers earn professional development credits to earn a pay increase by creating Pathways for a Professional Growth Plan.

Pathways for a Professional Growth Plan rolled out during the 2016 Summer Institute. Secondary Literacy is offering three Professional Growth Modules where teachers can earn Content Units (CUs) and find the support needed to complete a Professional Growth Plan necessary for salary increase. CUs may be earned by taking UNLV graduate credit classes and/or PGP Workshops.

Module 1: 6-12 ELA Reading Focus Module 2: 6-12 ELA Writing Focus Module 3: 6-12 Content Literacy, Communication and Technology

Classes and workshops are offered using a variety of learning venues: face-to-face in schools around the Valley, blended with both face-to-face and online, and all online.

To support teachers in rural districts, and state and district charter schools, a variety of professional development venues were offered:

Lincoln County School District

1. A two-day summer institute was held at Panaca High School May 31 and June 1, 2016. Secondary Literacy offered 501c—Aligning Instructional Practices with the NEPF to


continue to support Lincoln County teachers and administrators with the NEPF Teacher Instructional Standards.

2. On October 14, secondary literacy observed 5 high school teachers and one middle school teacher in Panaca teach a literacy lesson while focusing on the NEPF Teacher Instructional Standards. On October 16, during their staff development day, the trainer worked with all the secondary teachers to debrief, reflect and build on their understanding and implementation of the NEPF Teacher Instructional Standards.

3. Secondary Literacy conducted a mock End of the Course writing assessment for all Lincoln County HS 9th and 10th graders in an attempt to identify, reflect on and respond to student reading and writing ability levels as measured by the new state EOC assessments. Students were administered the writing portion (EOC 2—created by NDE and the EOC State Remediation Team) the week of January 11. Most students took approximately an hour to complete the assessment. The student writing samples were scored and an annotated set of writing exemplars for scores 1 – 4 were created. On January 21, Secondary Literacy provided a day of professional development for all the MS and HS ELA teachers in Panaca (4 teachers) on effective instruction in academic reading and writing to prepare students for the EOC assessments and on using the state rubric to score student papers.

Coral Academies

Secondary Literacy worked with the dean of academics to provide professional development for secondary ELA and social studies teachers in differentiated instruction and flexible grouping.

Somerset Academies

On November 2, during the Somerset all-day professional development conference, Secondary Literacy provided professional develop in the area of engagement and motivation for all K-12 teachers in all content areas.

Provide Teacher Resources to Improve Instructional Planning and Student Engagement

Literacy Connects—a monthly newsletter that is sent to teachers and administrators electronically. Literacy Connects offers cross-curricular strategies in the areas of reading, writing, vocabulary, questioning, grouping, and process learning. There are currently 66 issues of this newsletter archived on the SNRPDP website. The last six issues of Literacy Connects were devoted to the teacher instructional standards of the NEPF.

RPDP Website Content and Development—Secondary Literacy has continued to focus on developing valuable literacy and NVACS resources for all secondary teachers, parents and students. Additionally, ELA content materials and video modules to support the Teacher Instructional Standards of the NEPF were developed and uploaded to the Website.


5. DO SNRPDP ACTIVITIES RESULT IN STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT GAINS?

5.1 ANALYSIS SUMMARY AND IMPLICATIONS

Traditionally, evaluating the impact of professional development on student achievement is challenging and requires substantial data collection efforts and a robust statistical analysis. Because of this, many professional development evaluations focus on participant perceptions about the quality of the training, including implementation and logistical factors, and do not specifically connect trainings to student achievement data (Guskey, 2000).

Since 2008, SNRPDP has undertaken the greater challenge by conducting a research-based and systematic evaluation to gauge the extent to which the program is impacting student achievement. This effort has required significant data collection efforts from the entire SNRPDP staff and a comprehensive statistical analysis to examine how our professional development activities are affecting student achievement gains in the school districts we service. The details of the analysis follow this summary, but the underlying conclusions are listed immediately below.

Conclusion 1. SNRPDP professional development activities result in increased student achievement in mathematics and reading. (see Table 5.4 in the results section below).

Past comparisons (i.e., from when student achievement data were made available) showed that greater increases in student growth and achievement occur when a school has a high number of SNRPRP-trained teachers. While these gains may not have been completely due to SNRPDP professional development offerings, other quantitative and qualitative sources discussed in this report provide compelling evidence that SNRPDP makes a substantial difference by increasing student growth and achievement. Specifically, the following conclusions emerge from these various data sources:

a) Sustained professional development that focuses on the content teachers teach results in greater student achievement.

b) Content training that is supported at the school, region, and district level leads to greater student achievement.

c) Teachers who reflect on their practice while undergoing sustained professional development show stronger change toward research-based methods, which in turn results in greater student achievement.

d) As suggested in the Backwards Assessment Model, teachers working together in sustained professional development activities results in greater student achievement compared to teachers working alone.

Conclusion 2. Pre and posttest data show that teachers who have participated in our classes make robust gains in content knowledge (see Figure 5.1 in the results section below).

SNRPDP will continue to improve the quality of its professional development activities by designing training environments that feature the elements listed above.


5.2 ANALYSIS BACKGROUND AND FRAMEWORK

In relating professional development activities with student achievement, SNRPDP’s evaluation follows a tiered approach suggested by Guskey (2000). In this approach, Guskey defines the following five levels critical to professional development evaluation.

Participant Reactions Organizational Support and Change Participant Learning Participant Use of New Knowledge and Skills Student Learning Outcomes

Participant reaction data are commonly collected in teacher and administrator professional development settings and SNRPDP is no exception. To assess participant reactions, RPDP Activity Evaluation Forms are used at all professional development activities. These online forms provide immediate formative feedback on the quality of the professional development, with questions being uniform among all the Nevada RPDPs. The reaction data from these forms are summarized in Section 3 of this report.

The organization support and change level concerns the impact of administrative decisions on professional development outcomes. SNRPDP has developed a systematic program designed to affect student achievement and reinforce what administrators can do to improve teaching in their schools. This program is called Profiles of Professional Practice (POPP) and is a school based professional development program for administrators to enhance efforts to increase student achievement. The components of each phase include a range of activities and strategies. POPP is designed to support administrators’ endeavors related to student achievement: effective classroom visitations, substantive coaching for teachers, and relevant feedback for improving instruction, progressive curriculum alignment, and continuous school improvement. POPP, which was instituted in 2008, has continued through 2015-2016. More details about the program’s effectiveness are found in Section 4 of this report.

The SNRPDP also works closely with administrators to ensure that our professional development activities are aligned with objectives at both the district and school levels. SNRPDP also encourages administrators to implement policies and procedures that support teachers. However, it is the preference of the administrators as to whether or not they engage in the activities, and in essence, SNRPDP has little control over the support administrators give their teachers. Therefore, measuring organization support and change with SNRPDP’s professional development activities is beyond the scope of this analysis.

From 2006-2011, SNRPDP had conducted teacher observations. However, since 2011, SNRPDP suspended observations to support Clark County School District as they developed and implemented their new School Performance Framework.


Therefore, to ascertain how SNRPDP activities are impacting student achievement, the analysis in this focuses on two critical levels of professional development (Guskey, 2000):

participant learning, and student learning outcomes (i.e., state-level student achievement results).

Specifically, SNRPDP’s self-evaluation uses both quantitative and qualitative measures to correlate its activities to student achievement.

The quantitative segment has the following tiers of analysis, which correspond to these two critical levels.

Tier 1 (Participant Learning)—evaluating changes in teachers’ content knowledge over each SNRPDP 3-credit course (pre/post content surveys), as well as changes in their understanding of the Components of an Effective Lesson and Teacher Expectancies (CEL-TE) (pre/post questions embedded within the pre/post survey) (see Table 5.4 for a listing of the CEL-TE).

Tier 2 (Student Learning Outcomes)—comparing student achievement changes using state criterion referenced tests (CRTs) and high school proficiency exams (HSPEs). Comparisons will be made between student achievement at schools with SNRPDP-trained and -observed teachers to schools who have not had SNRPDP-trained teachers.

The qualitative segment collects data to triangulate results with the quantitative segment. These data include written teacher reflections and summaries, as well as discussions of teacher action research conducted in concert with SNRPDP professional development activities.

A primary challenge in evaluating professional development is gathering enough evidence to determine if the organization is achieving its goal. SNRPDP’s strategy uses multiple measures with both quantitative and qualitative components, and is designed to provide sufficient understanding about the relationship between its professional development activities and student achievement levels in Southern Nevada.

For this analysis, quantitative data are thought of as “numerical” and qualitative are thought of as “non-numerical” (Trochim, 2006). The design and results for these analyses are discussed individually below.


5.3 QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS DESIGN AND RESULTS

As discussed earlier, quantitative data have being collected to examine two critical levels of professional development (1) participant learning and (2) student learning outcomes. Data are collected in tiers, with Tier 1 data related to participant learning and Tier 2 data related to student outcomes.

Table 5.1 is an evaluation matrix, which provides a compact representation of the objectives, activities, evaluation procedures (data collection and analysis strategies), and indicators of success that are being used in the quantitative segment.

Table 5.1. Evaluation Matrix for the Quantitative Segment

Objective ActivityData collection

instrumentMeasurable outcome-indicator of

success

Tie

r 1

Increase teachers’ content knowledge

3-credit SNRPDP course

Pre/post content survey

Paired samples t-test shows statistically significant pre- to post-survey gains at the p < 0.05 level and normalized gains <g> ≥ 50%

Increase teachers’ understanding of pedagogy (CEL-TE)


Pre/post survey embedded in the content survey

Paired samples t-test shows statistically significant pre- to post-survey gains at the p < 0.05 level and normalized gains <g> ≥ 50%

Tie

r 2 Increased student growth

and achievement

Student standardized tests

Nevada Growth Model, CRTs and HSPEs

ANOVA shows statistically significant greater student growth and achievement scores compared to non-RPDP trained teacher classrooms at the p < 0.05 level

Abbreviations and symbols: ANOVA = analysis of variance, p = is probability level that the observed result is due to chance (p < 0.05 means that there is less than a 5% probability that the observed results are due to chance), <g> = average normalized gain (<g> ≥ 0.5 indicates at least a medium gain).

The evaluation method presented in this matrix is for 3-credit classes only. Additionally, 3-credit courses in the technology education department are not included in this quantitative analysis due to the unique nature of the department’s courses. Participants in an SNRPDP technology course may come from any and all content areas. Therefore, providing a meaningful link from the technology courses taught by SNRPDP to student achievement would be extremely difficult and data collection would require an unreasonable amount of resources.

Table 5.2 shows the 3-credit classes that administer pre/post content and pedagogy surveys. Each instructor is responsible for creating her (or his) own pre/post content survey with the criteria that survey data are both meaningful to the instructor for purposes of providing feedback on her (or his) class and to the evaluation to be used in the quantitative analysis.


Table 5.2. Three-credit Courses Included in the Quantitative Segment

Course Title ContentArea

Level

Methods in Critical Literacy Literacy MS/HSReading Literature and Information Text Literacy MS/HSMethods in Critical Literacy Literacy MS/HSWriting 6-12 Literacy MS/HSAlgebra for the Classroom Teacher Mathematics MSIntroduction to Probability, Statistics and Geometric Concepts Mathematics MS/HSEuclidean and Non Euclidean Geometry for the Classroom Teacher

Mathematics HS

Children’s Literature and Science Science ESEarth Science for Middle School Teachers Science MSEarth Science for High School Teachers Science HS

Overall, the pre/post surveys gauge both participant understanding of the primary class content and Components of an Effective Lesson-Teacher Expectancies (CEL-TE) pedagogical constructs. Trainers create, evaluate and revise these surveys and assessments prior to each class to reflect current trends in content.

Classes with multiple instructors are using a single pre/post survey. Pre/post surveys are multiple choice, short answer, essay, or a combination of these. Instructors administer the pre-surveys prior to instruction, either before the class meets or on the first class meetings. For surveys administered prior to the first class meeting, online survey providers, Zoomerang™ (http://info.zoomerang.com/) or Google Docs Forms (http://docs.google.com) are used. Some instructors are also using online surveys at the first class meeting, but most first class meeting surveys are traditional pencil and paper formats. Post-surveys are given at the end of instruction, either through traditional pencil and paper or online. Instructors score both the pre/post survey results using answer keys and quantitative rubrics and submit raw scores, pre and post, to the SNRPDP central office one week after the 3-credit class is completed.

To measure changes in participant knowledge of content and pedagogy, normalized gains are being calculated for every pre/post survey and mean pretest and posttest scores are analyzed using a statistical method called repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA). Average normalized gain is the percent actual average gain of the maximum possible average gain. This measure was developed by Hake (1998) and is commonly used to compare results between traditional instruction and interactive engagement instruction methods. For example, in comparing traditional instruction and interactive engagement in 62 physics classes throughout the country, Hake found that average normalized gains for traditional instruction were about 23% compared to 48% for interactive engagement. Furthermore, Hake suggest that low gains occur in courses with an average normalized gain less than 30%, medium gains occur between 30% and 70%, and high gains occur greater than 70%. For SNRPDP’s self-evaluation, average normalized gain is computed for all classes and content areas.


Table 5.3 shows the average normalized gain for each level (i.e., elementary, middle, and high) and content area (i.e., literacy, math, and science). As determined using a paired-samples t-test, differences between pretest and posttest scores are significantly different. Normalized gains range from 30% to 91%, indicating medium to high gain for all levels and content areas.

Table 5.3. Average Normalized Pre/Post Content Survey Results

Level and Content AreaMean

PreTest

Mean PostTest

Normalized Gain N

Middle School Literacy-English Language Arts 83% 98% 88% 8

High School Literacy-English Language Arts 42% 94% 90% 14

Middle School Mathematics 50% 98% 96% 35

High School Mathematics 53% 94% 87% 39

Elementary Science 44% 95% 91% 14

Middle School Science 70% 79% 30% 7

High School Science 63% 87% 65% 3

Note: All posttest scores are significantly different from pretest scores and have less than a 1% probability of being due to chance variations (p < 0.01).

Figure 5.1 shows these gains plotted versus pretest scores. Gains from Middle and High School Literacy-English Language Arts, Middle School and High School Mathematics, and Elementary Science met or exceeded the high gain threshold. Middle and High School Science exceeded the moderate gain threshold. This shows an appreciable level of content acquisition and understanding among the teachers taking SNRPDP courses.


0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

Middle School Literacy-ELA

High School Literacy-ELA

Middle School Mathematics

High School Mathematics

Elementary Science

Middle School Science

High School Science

% Correct Pretest

% G

ain

from

Pre

test

to P

ostt

est

Figure 5.1. Plot of normalized gain versus pretest scores. Values above the dashed line indicate high gains and values above the dash-dot line indicate at least moderate gains (Hake, 1998).Tier 2 of the quantitative segment examines student growth and achievement using date from the Nevada Growth Model (http://ngma.doe.nv.gov). Data from the Nevada Growth Model is derived from the CRTs and HSPEs. However, student achievement data has not been available in the State of Nevada since the 2012-2013 school year. In other words, no data are available from Fall 2013 to Spring 2016. Therefore, the Tier 2 discussion below is the same as published in the past two annual evaluation reports. These data are not available because Nevada has been installing (i.e., developing and testing) new achievement tests over this period.

In the past, student growth and achievement scores were compared at the school level. In this analysis, we compared student achievement of a school that has large numbers of SNRPDP-trained teachers to student achievement from a random sample of schools with little or no SNRPDP-trained teachers. To determine statistical significance, we conducted an analysis of variance (ANOVA) for each of the metrics.

As shown in Table 5.4, student growth and achievement in schools with a high number of SNRPDP-trained teachers is greater for all both mathematics and reading in comparison to schools with a low number of SNRPDP-trained teachers and the CCSD district average. Furthermore, schools with


a high number of SNRPDP-trained teachers are statistically greater in mathematics growth, mathematics achievement, reading growth, and reading achievement. In educational research, statistically significant differences are generally defined as those that have a 5% or fewer probability of being due to chance (p ≤ .05). Highly significant differences are those that have 1% or fewer probability of being due to chance (p ≤ .01).

Table 5.4. Comparison of Student Growth and Achievement Scores for Schools with a High Number of SNRPDP-trained Teachers (N = 30 schools) to Those with a Low Number of SNRPDP-trained teachers (N = 30 schools) to the CCSD Average

MeanMathematics Median Growth PercentileHigh Number of SNRPDP-Trained Teachers 55**

Low Number of SNRPDP-Trained Teachers 45District Average 51

Reading Median Growth PercentileA High Number of SNRPDP-Trained Teachers 54**

Low Number of SNRPDP-Trained Teachers 47District Average 50

Mathematics Achievement (Percent Proficient)A High Number of SNRPDP-Trained Teachers 68%*

Low Number of SNRPDP-Trained Teachers 56%District Average 56%

Reading Achievement (Percent Proficient)A High Number of SNRPDP-Trained Teachers 71%**

Low Number of SNRPDP-Trained Teachers 59%District Average 61%*Statistically greater, with p ≤ .05.**Statistically greater, with p ≤ .01.Note. These comparisons are based on date from 2012-2013, the latest year data are available on the Nevada Growth Model web site (http://ngma.doe.nv.gov/app/public/index.htm). No growth data are available for Fall 2013 to Spring 2016 because of installation of new achievement tests by the Nevada.

The remaining conclusions from this year’s analysis are summarized in the very beginning of this section and will not be repeated here. However, as an additional summary, Table 5.5 shows the evaluation matrix with the results.


http://ngma.doe.nv.gov/app/public/index.htm

Table 5.5. Evaluation Matrix for the Quantitative Segment with 2015-2016 Results

Objective ActivityData

collection instrument

Measurable outcome-indicator

of successActual outcome

Tie

r 1

Increase teachers’ content knowledge


Pre/post content survey

Paired samples t-test show statistically significant pre- to post-survey gains at the p < 0.05 level and normalized gains <g> ≥ 50%

With the exception of middle school science, <g> ≥ 50% for all courses. For middle school science, <g> = 30%. The overall pre to post p-value < 0.05.

Increase teachers’ understanding of pedagogy (CEL-TE)


Pre/post survey embedded in the content survey

Paired samples t-test show statistically significant pre- to post-survey gains at the p < 0.05 level and average normalized gains <g> ≥ 50%

With the exception of middle school science, <g> ≥ 50% for all courses. For middle school science, <g> = 30%. The overall pre to post p-value < 0.05.

Tie

r 2 Increased

student achievement

Student standard-ized tests

CRTs and HSPEs

ANOVA shows statistically significant greater gain in student growth and achievement scores compared to non-RPDP trained teacher classrooms at the p < 0.05 level

Comparisons based on date from 2012-2013, the latest year data are available on the Nevada Growth Model web site (http://ngma.doe.nv.gov/app/public/index.htm) show student growth and achievement in mathematics, and student growth achievement in reading, were greater for a high number of RPDP-trained teachers at p-values < .05. This trend was consistent with previous years and we anticipate that such trends will continue once new data are available.

Abbreviations and symbols: ANOVA = analysis of variance, CEL = Components of an Effective Lesson, TE = Teacher Expectancies, p = is probability level that the observed result is due to chance (p < 0.05 means that there is less than a 5% probability that the observed results are due to chance, p < 0.01 means that there is less than a 1% probability that the observed results are due to chance), <g> = average normalized gain (<g> ≥ 0.5 indicates at least a medium gain).




5.4 QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS

In 2015-2016, SNRPDP staff collected qualitative data as a means to triangulate the results from the quantitative segment. Trainers spent an appreciable amount of time with teachers, and through this work, gathered reflective case study information. An example of these reflective pieces is included below.

Understanding the Common Core State Standards, Nonfiction Reading and Writing

In SNRPDP’s, Understanding the Common Core State Standards, Nonfiction Reading and Writing course, participants engaged in reading and writing activities designed to reinforce strategies for reading and writing about nonfiction. The course focused specifically on blending the Nevada Academic Content Standards in English-language arts, with building a workshop environment with the four modes of writing. A major part of the class is the completion of a project-based learning unit. The following is an example of a teacher final project (i.e., a learning unit) that one participant developed in Fall 2015.

Fear and Control – A Quest into the Use of Fear by the MediaA. Main Theme and Central Generalizations:

a. Theme: Fear and Controlb. Central Generalizations:

i. Fearing the unknown is a human condition.ii. Fear is often used as a vessel to control others.iii. Knowledge is an apt way to control fear.

B. Grade and Ability Levela. ELA Block Period: Grade 7

C. Skill Focusa. This unit has the purpose of engaging my students in meaningful

conversations and analyses about how the media uses fear in order to control our populous. Ideally, this unit will encourage students to do their research and be critical readers/viewers that do not believe everything they hear carte blanche.

b. In order to achieve this goal, students will be exposed to various texts and visual media and will be asked to analyze its contents – particularly focusing on the power of fear and the use of it by the media in order to manipulate society.

c. In addition to creating analytical readers/viewers, this unit also has an overarching goal of preparing students for argument analysis and argumentative writing.

D. NVACS Addressed:


a. RL.7.1 – Cite several pieces of textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text

b. RL.7.2 – Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text; provide an objective summary of the text.

c. RL.7.3 – Analyze how particular elements of a story or drama interact (e.g., how setting shapes the characters or plot).

d. RI.7.1 – Cite several pieces of textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.

e. RI.7.9 – Analyze how two or more authors writing about the same topic shape their presentations of key information by emphasizing different evidence or advancing different interpretations of facts.

E. Learning Activities and Assessments:a. Activities

i. Stop and Jotsii. Vocabulary Mind Mapiii. Anticipation Guideiv. Text Dependent Questionsv. I-Searchvi. TWIST Analysisvii. Quick Drawviii. Constructed Responseix. Socratic Seminarx. Table Top Blogxi. Characterization Foldablexii. Written Responsexiii. Alert! Alert! Activityxiv. Online Flow Chart

b. Assessmentsi. Constructed Responseii. Body Biography Assignmentiii. Novel Pop Quiziv. Novel Examv. Novel Exam Essay

F. Independent reading:a. In order to build up stamina and provide students with practice for

upcoming standardized testing, students will routinely be asked to read texts (both fictional and informational) independently in class. Following their independent reading, students will be asked to complete various assignments to insure student understanding. These assignments will serve as formative assessments for not only the students’ understanding of the text but also their reading abilities.

G. Literature and Other Resources involved:a. Fiction:

i. Code Orange by Caroline Cooneyb. Poetry:

i. “Death Barged In” by Kathleen Sheeder Bonnano (https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/death-barged)

c. Non-Fiction:


https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/death-barged

i. CDC: Smallpox (http://www.bt.cdc.gov/agent/smallpox/)ii. CDC: Bioterrorism

(http://www.bt.cdc.gov/bioterrorism/overview.asp)iii. Ebola hits the US By Cook

(http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/data-mine/2014/09/30/ebola-hits-us)

iv. “Why Americans have Irrational Ebola Fears” By Kotz (https://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/health-wellness/2014/10/23/why-americans-have-irrational-ebola-ars/38DrvAtA5sF3KTUCQYPcPP/story.html)

v. If It Bleeds, It Leads by Serani (https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/two-takes-depression/201106/if-it-bleeds-it-leads-understanding-fear-based-media)

vi. The Psychology of Irrational Fear by Khazan (http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/10/the-psychology-of-irrational-fear/382080/)

d. Video Clips:i. Contagion Film Clip (https://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=LdedwD2ZziU) ii. Code Orange Book Trailer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=AKLbGwUyp-Y)iii. Beowulf Animated Summary (https://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=dpw3r229Vyc) iv. Ebola Coverage US versus UK (https://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=lAz-F1QnyCk)1. ONLY THE FIRST 45 SECONDS

e. Misc. Visual:i. 9/11 Timeline (http://www.history.com/topics/9-11-attacks)ii. Political Cartoons:

1. (http://www.wausaudailyherald.com/picture-gallery/opinion/2015/02/02/cartoonists-on-the-anti-vaccination-movement/22779927/)

2. (http://causescience.com/2014/10/16/ebola-vs-other-threats-politicalcartoon/)

3. (http://boingboing.net/2015/04/29/political-cartoon-skewers-bias.html)

4. (http://www.commonsenseevaluation.com/tag/fear/#sthash.KaoMAYnY.dpbs)

f. Miscellaneous Resources:i. I-Search Worksheet

(http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/printouts/I%20Search%20Chart.pdf)

ii. Online Flow Chart (https://www.draw.io/)Overview of Literary Instruction (19 Days)

Day 1:


https://www.draw.io/

http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/printouts/I%20Search%20Chart.pdf


http://www.commonsenseevaluation.com/tag/fear/#sthash.KaoMAYnY.dpbs


http://boingboing.net/2015/04/29/political-cartoon-skewers-bias.html


http://causescience.com/2014/10/16/ebola-vs-other-threats-politicalcartoon/


http://www.wausaudailyherald.com/picture-gallery/opinion/2015/02/02/cartoonists-on-the-anti-vaccination-movement/22779927/



http://www.history.com/topics/9-11-attacks

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAz-F1QnyCk


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpw3r229Vyc


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKLbGwUyp-Y


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdedwD2ZZiU


http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/10/the-psychology-of-irrational-fear/382080/


https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/two-takes-depression/201106/if-it-bleeds-it-leads-understanding-fear-based-media


https://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/health-wellness/2014/10/23/why-americans-have-irrational-ebola-ars/38DRvAtA5sF3KTUCQYPcPP/story.html



http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/data-mine/2014/09/30/ebola-hits-us


http://www.bt.cdc.gov/bioterrorism/overview.asp

http://www.bt.cdc.gov/agent/smallpox/

Do Now Activity (10 Minutes) Creative Writing Introduction: Contagion Film Clip (https://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=LdedwD2ZziU) (10 minutes)o Stop and Jot – What would you do similarly to the characters in the

clip? Differently? Explain. (10 minutes)o Whole Group Discussion (10 Minutes)

Paired Vocabulary Mind-Map (contagious, disease, vaccine, vaccination, fear, control, inoculation, sterile) (15 minutes)

Anticipation Guide and Corresponding Class Discussion (pprox.. 25 Minutes)o Activity may go longer than 25 minutes depending on student

conversation Anticipation Guide Written Response (15 Minutes)

o Students will pick one statement from the worksheet that they either agreed or disagreed with, and explain, in a well-written paragraph, their reasoning for the stance they chose.

4 Corners (8 Minutes) Clean-Up (5 Minutes)

Day 2:

Do Now Activity (10 Minutes) Political Cartoon on anti-vaccination movement

o (http://www.wausaudailyherald.com/picture-gallery/opinion/2015/02/02/cartoonists-on-the-anti-vaccination-movement/22779927/)

Introduction: Code Orange Book Trailer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKLbGwUyp-Y) (4 Minutes)

o Reactions? (6 minutes) Whole Group Reading – Chapter 1 (pgs. 1-14) (25 minutes) T/P/S – Initial Reactions, What do you think? Predictions? (10 minutes) 5 Text Dependent Questions (partially adapted from Novel Units #NU5745)

(30 minutes) Ticket out the Door: Pick 2 specific adjectives you would use to characterize

Mitty. Clean up (5 Minutes)

Day 3 (Computer Lab):

Do Now Activity (10 Minutes) Analogy Practice I-search – CDC Smallpox (Groups of 2-4) (45 minutes)

o Read/Write/Think Handout (http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/printouts/I%20Search%20Chart.pdf)

o Students will brainstorm a main question and 4 sub-questions they have about Smallpox.

o Students will then plan/brainstorm where to find the answers to these questions.

Teacher will guide students to CDC website.










o Students will try to answer their generated questions using the CDC website and other reliable internet sources.

Brief Review Discussion of Chapter 1 (5 minutes) Whole Group Reading – Chapter 2 (pgs. 15-32) (25 minutes) Edmodo – Classroom poll – Has Mitty contracted smallpox? (10 minutes) Clean Up (5minutes)

Day 4:

Do Now Activity (10 Minutes) Weekly Vocabulary Review Classroom Poll Discussion (7 minutes)

o Students will explain and justify their stance. Brief Review Discussion of Chapter 2 (5 minutes) Whole Group Reading – Chapter 3 (pgs. 33-42) (20 Minutes) Class Discussion (10 Minutes) Independent Reading – Chapter 4 (43-48) and 5 Text Dependent Questions

(partially adapted from Novel Units #NU5745) (45 minutes) Clean Up (5 Minutes)

Day 5:

Do Now Activity (5 Minutes) – Study for weekly vocabulary quiz Weekly Vocabulary Quiz (10 Minutes)

o Trade and Grade (8 minutes) Beowulf Animated Summary (https://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=dpw3r229Vyc) (5 minutes)o Stop and Jot – Why would the author include Beowulf in this novel?

What symbolic significance does it hold? (10 minutes)o Shoulder Partner Share (3 Minutes)o Whole Group Discussion (7 Minutes)

“Death Barged In” by Bonnano (https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/death-barged)

o Gradual Release – TWIST Analysis (30 Minutes)o Constructed Response (20 Minutes)

What is the tone of “Death Barged In,” and how does the personification of death help create the tone of this poem? Justify your answer using several pieces of evidence from the text.

Clean Up (5 Minutes)Day 6:

Do Now Activity (10 Minutes) Creative Writing QuickDraw! (8 Minutes)

o Draw a picture that depicts the contents of the poem “Death Barged In”

“Death Barged In” Shoulder Partner Response (22 Minutes):o How does the personification of death create a mood of fear for the

reader? What is Bioterrorism? (25 Minutes)






o CDC Information (http://www.bt.cdc.gov/bioterrorism/overview.asp)o Whole Group Discussion – Is this something we should be afraid of

now? How does this relate to Mitty’s experience? What responsibility does the government have in regards to bioterrorism? The media?

Whole Group Reading – Chapter 5 & 6 (pgs. 49-73) (30 Minutes) Ticket Out the Door (5 Minutes)

o How is fear affected Mitty’s perception of and interaction with smallpox?


Do Now Activity (10 Minutes) – Political Cartoon – Ebola

o (http://causescience.com/2014/10/16/ebola-vs-other-threats-politicalcartoon/) Clip – Ebola Coverage US versus UK (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAz-

F1QnyCk) (1 Minute)o Whole Group – Compare and Contrast the news coverage (8 Minutes)

Preparations for Socratic Seminar (30 Minutes)o Review of Socratic Seminar Expectations and assignment of roles o Sources:

Ebola hits the US By Cook (http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/data-mine/2014/09/30/ebola-hits-us)

“Why Americans have Irrational Ebola Fears” By Kotz (https://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/health-wellness/2014/10/23/why-americans-have-irrational-ebola-ars/38DrvAtA5sF3KTUCQYPcPP/story.html)

o Starting Questions: Did the American media handle Ebola news coverage objectively

and responsibly? How much responsibility should the media take for the American

public’s reaction to Ebola? Does fear control the general public? Why or why not? Was the reaction of the American public merited and

understandable? Why or Why not? Create your own.

Socratic Seminar (35 Minutes) Socratic Seminar Review and VIP Awards (10 Minutes) Clean-Up (5 Minutes)

Day 8:

Do Now Activity (10 Minutes) Analogy Practice











Stop and Jot (10 Minutes) – Yesterday we learned about the American response to the Ebola crisis. How could a similar situation occur in Code Orange? Would it be merited?

Whole Group Reading – Chapter 7 & 8 (74-93) (30 Minutes)o Class Discussion (10 Minutes)o 8 Text Dependent Questions (partially adapted from Novel Units

#NU5745) (35 Minutes)o Written Response Question: (20 Minutes)

Has Mitty contracted smallpox? Defend your claim using specific examples and evidence from the text.

Clean Up: (5 Minutes)Day 9:

Do Now Activity (10 Minutes) Weekly Vocabulary Practice Nonfiction: Whole Group Read – (8 Minutes)

o If It Bleeds, It Leads by Serani (https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/two-takes-depression/201106/if-it-bleeds-it-leads-understanding-fear-based-media)

Table Top Blog Responses (15 Minutes) Class Discussion: (15 Minutes)

Why is it important to recognize bias in media coverage? Brief Review Discussion of Chapters 7 & 8 (5 Minutes) Independent Reading – Chapter 9 (pgs. 94- 104) (15 Minutes) Constructed Response (25 Minutes)

o Mitty received a myriad of responses to his email. One of which involved the FBI. Was this a justified response? Why or why not? In addition to your own reasoning, use the text to justify your claim.



o Trade and Grade (8 minutes) Brief Review Discussion of Chapter 9 (5 Minutes) Whole Group Reading – Chapter 10 & 11 (pgs. 105 – 123) (25 Minutes) Characterization Foldable – Mitty (25 Minutes) Written Response (20 Minutes)

o How does Mitty’s choice letter further characterize Mitty? Use specific examples from the text to support your claim.

Smart Board Share (10 Minutes) Clean Up (5 Minutes)

Day 11:

Do Now Activity (10 Minutes) Creative Writing Think/Pair/Share – (15 Minutes)




o How did Mitty’s choices regarding Olivia at the end of chapter 11 characterize him? Did he do the right thing? Explain.

Whole Group Reading – Chapter 12 (pgs. 124 – 138) (20 Minutes)o Tone and Mood Close Read Assignment (20 Minutes)

Using an excerpt from page 136, students will have to determine the tone and mood and support it using textual evidence from the excerpt and well-reasoned explanations.

Novel Pop Quiz (30 Minutes)o 15 multiple choice questions (both plot based and text dependent)o Constructed Response – How does the letter Mitty writes to his parents

at the end of chapter 10 exemplify his growth? Support your answer with direct quotes and explanations from the text.

Day 12:

Do Now Activity (10 Minutes) – Political Cartoon – Media Bias

o (http://boingboing.net/2015/04/29/political-cartoon-skewers-bias.html) Whole Group Reading – Chapter 13 (pgs. 139 – 155) (20 Minutes) 8 Text Dependent Questions (partially adapted from Novel Units #NU5745)

(35 Minutes) Terrorism

o Timeline of 9/11 (http://www.history.com/topics/9-11-attacks) (10 Minutes)

o Class Discussion: (partially adapted from Novel Units #NU5745) (20 Minutes)

At the end of Chapter 13, terrorists kidnap Mitty. Although Mitty’s kidnapping is fictional, the attacks on 9/11 were very real. Both of these events occurred in New York City. Do you think New York City is the target for terrorists? Why or why not?

4 Corners Activity (5 Minutes) Clean Up (5 Minutes)

Day 13:

Do Now Activity (10 Minutes) Analogy Practice Stop and Jot – Terrorists?! (15 Minutes)

o Mitty technically knows little about his captors, yet he calls them terrorists. Is this accurate or is his assumption created by fear? What do you think?

Sharing is Caring (8 Minutes) Students will share their opinions and support their ideas

Whole Group Reading – Chapter 14 (156 – 173) (20 Minutes)


http://www.history.com/topics/9-11-attacks


Partner – Alert! Alert! (25 Minutes)o In groups of 3, students will be asked to prepare a radio news story

reporting Mitty’s disappearance. Have one partner be from a government agency, one be an acquaintance of Mitty’s, and one be a local, concerned citizen. Interview them in your radio report.

Students will be assigned randomly to either present their information objectively or using fear as a lens to increase listener’s interest.

o Presentations (20 Minutes) Clean Up (5 Minutes)

Day 14:

Do Now Activity (10 Minutes) Weekly Vocabulary Practice Should Partner Review (15 Minutes)

o Window Pane Summary Chapters 14 & 15 Independent Reading – Chapters 16 & 17 (pgs. 174 – 187) (20 Minutes) 8 Text Dependent Questions (partially adapted from Novel Units #NU5745)

(35 Minutes) Ticket Out the Door (5 Minutes)

o Mitty was faking it?! What do you think? Clean Up (5 Minutes)

Day 15:


o Trade and Grade (8 minutes) Whole Group Reading – Chapters 18 & 19 (pgs. 191 – 195) (10 Minutes_ Socratic Seminar – End of Novel

o Preparation (20 Minutes) Students need to generate questions and gather necessary

evidence.o Socratic Seminar (35 Minutes)

Socratic Seminar Review and VIP Awards (10 Minutes) Clean-Up (5 Minutes)

Day 16:

Do Now Activity (10 Minutes) Creative Writing Amazon Review of Code Orange (20 Minutes)

o Thoughts? Reactions? Reviews? Body Biography Assignment (Groups of 3 or 4) (55 Minutes) (adapted from

Regina Johnnson RPDP 537i)o Students will create a body biography for the protagonist of Code

Orange, Mitty, his love interest Olivia, or his friend Derek. This is a visual and written portrait illustrating several aspects of the character’s life within a literary work. Students will begin by drawing the outline of the body. All inclusions on the body biography must be creative, analytical, accurate, and textually supported.


Suggestions for students to think about: Placement – carefully choose the placement of your text

and artwork. For example, the area where your character’s heart would be might be appropriate for illustrating the important relationships within his life.

Spine – Actors often discuss a character’s “spine.” This is his/her objective within the work. What is the most important goal for the character? What drives their actions?

Virtues and Vices – What are your character’s most admirable qualities? Their worst? How can this be visualized?

Color – Colors are often symbolic. What color(s) do you most associate with your character? Why? How can you effectively weave these colors into your presentation?

Symbols – What objects can you associate with your character that illustrates their essence? Are their symbols or objects mentioned within the work that you could use?

Mirror, Mirror – Consider both how your character appears to others on the surface and what you know about the characters inner self. Do these images clash or correspond? What does this tell you about the character? How can you illustrate this mirror image?

Changes – How has your character changed within the work? Trace these changes within your text and/or artwork.

o Create Rough Draft Sharing is Caring (5 Minutes)

o Share a portion of your Body Assignment with the class Clean Up ( 5 Minutes)

Day 17:

Do Now Activity (10 Minutes) – Political Cartoon – Media/Entertainment Coverage

o (http://www.commonsenseevaluation.com/tag/fear/#sthash.KaoMAYnY.dpbs) Rough Draft Check In (15 Minutes) Body Assignment Final Draft (35 Minutes) Body Assignment Group Presentations (30 Minutes)

o Students will participate in a “showing” where they will present their “masterpiece” to the class. This “showing” will accomplish the following objectives:

A Brief review of the novel



Communication of the full essence of the character by emphasizing the traits that make the character unique

A discussion of both the direct and indirect characterization of the character

The 5 most important quotes relating to the character House Keeping (5 Minutes) Clean Up (5 Minutes)

Day 18 (Computer Lab):

Do Now Activity (10 Minutes) Analogy Practice Nonfiction: Whole Group Read (15 Minutes) The Psychology of Irrational Fear

by Khazan (http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/10/the-psychology-of-irrational-fear/382080/)

o T/P/S (15 Minutes) How did fear affect Mitty’s trajectory in Code Orange?

Fear Flow Chart (https://www.draw.io/) (45 Minutes)o In groups of 2, Students will create a flow chart to show fear and its

effects throughout the plot of Code Orange. o Students will be asked to include a minimum of 6 important moments

depicting fear and its effects. For each moment, students must list 2 quotations that they

believe illustrates this particular example. All quotations must be citing properly using in-text or parenthetical citations.

Students will also be asked to briefly explain the significance of each moment to the effect of fear as a whole in the novel.

Day 19:

Do Now Activity (10 Minutes) Weekly Vocabulary Practice Novel Exam (45 Minutes) (partially adapted from Novel Units #NU5745)

o A combination of true/false, multiple choice, and matching questions. Essay Response (45 Minutes)

o How does fear affect one’s choices and perception? Can it be manipulated? Use specific examples and direct quotes from Code Orange by Caroline Cooney to support your thesis.

5 Consecutive Lesson Plans

Day 2Standards Addressed: RL.7.1, RL.7.3, W.7.10, SL.7.1, L.7.2Materials Needed: DNA Folder, Novel, TDQ Handouts, TOD PaperDo Now Activity: Political Cartoon Analysis

(http://www.wausaudailyherald.com/picture-gallery/opinion/2015/02/02/cartoonists-on-the-anti-vaccination-movement/22779927/)




https://www.draw.io/



Introduction: Code Orange book Trailer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKLbGwUyp-Y)Students will watch a student created book trailer to pique their interests. Following the video, students will discuss their initial thoughts, reactions, and predictions using the think/pair/share methodActivities:

Whole Group: Reading- Chapter 1 (1-14) Small Group/Pairs: Independent Work: Text Dependent Questions

o Students will complete the following 5 text dependent questions: Describe Mitty. Is he as lazy as he claims to be? Is his laziness

representative of his intelligence? Explain. On page 3, Mr. Lynch states, “Remember, class, that I too know

how to use Amazon.com. I too can pull up a title that looks useful and stick it in a bibliography without actually reading it. I too can open up the free first chapter and find something to put in my notes. I will know if you actually read a book or if you are cheating.” How does this quote characterize Mr. Lynch? Use a specific adjective and provide 3 specific examples from the text that support your answer.

Use a graphic organizer to compare and contrast the protagonist, Mitty, and his love interest, Olivia. Focus on the academic abilities and choices. You must have at least 3 similarities and 4 corresponding differences.

On page 4, it states, “As soon as Mr. Lynch finished ranting, Mitty slumped down in his seat. He had perfected the technique of listening to music on his iPOD while a teacher talked. It was easy if he wore long sleeves. He kept the iPOD in its armband and ran the cord down this arm and into his hand. Cupping the earpiece in his palm, he would rest his head on the same hand and listen to music. His eyes stayed fixed on his teachers, who tended to be fond of him because he seemed so interested.” How does this excerpt characterize Mitty? Use 3 direct quotes from the chapter to support your claim.

The chapter ends with the words, “it was the shelf life of Mitchell John Blake that was uncertain.” To what is this quote referring to? What is this quote foreshadowing? Explain.

Closure: Ticket Out the Door: Pick 2 specific adjectives you would use to describe Mitty.Assessments: TDQs will serve as a formative assessment of student understanding; TOD will serve as a formative understanding of the characterization of the protagonist.

Day 3Standards Addressed: W.7.7, SL.7.1, RL.7.10Materials Needed: Computer Lab, I-Search Handout, Novel, Edmodo Accounts




Do Now Activity: Analogy PracticeIntroduction:Activities:

Small Group/Pairs: o Students will work in groups of 2-4 (determined by teacher) to

complete an I-Search Activity about Smallpox. Students will use the I-Search handout found on

ReadWriteThink.org (http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/printouts/I%20Search%20Chart.pdf )

As a group, students will come up with a main or general question about Smallpox (ex: What exactly is smallpox?). Students will then collaborate to generate 4 specific sub-questions that are related to their main question about smallpox (ex: What are symptoms? How can you get it? Can you get rid of it? Is it fatal?).

Students will then complete the rest of the chart prior to using the computers to focus and prepare the students for research.

Teacher will then instruct students to use the CDC website and other reliable internet resources to answer their generated questions.

Whole Group: o Brief Class Discussion of Chapter 1 Guided by Teachero Whole Group Reading Chapter 2 (15-32)

Independent Work:

Closure: Edmodo Classroom Poll – Do you think Mitty contracted smallpox?Assessments: I-Search will serve as a formative assessment

Day 4Standards Addressed: RL.7.1, RL.7.3, RL.7.10Materials Needed: DNA Folder, Novel, TDQ HandoutDo Now Activity: Weekly Vocabulary ReviewIntroduction: Classroom Edmodo Poll Results and Discussion – Students will explain and justify their stanceActivities:

Whole Group: o Whole Group Reading – Chapter 3 (pgs. 33-42)o Teacher-Guided Class Discussion

Independent Work: o Independent Reading – Chapter 4 (pgs. 43 – 48)o Text Dependent Questions

Students will complete the following 5 text dependent questions:




1. On page 41, Mitty wonders if the “trick to maturity” is to drop one’s nickname. Does Mitty’s use of a nickname influence his immaturity? Explain.

2. On page 54, Mitty states that “[smallpox] got under [his] skin.” This quote serves as a double-entendre or play on words. Explain both meanings of this quote and while the author was clever to use it.

3. On page 44-45, Mitty explains how vaccines came about. Using your own words, summarize this process. Include an explanation of how the word vaccine came about.

4. On page 48, Mitty reads a line from Beowulf. “Greedy an grim, he grabbed thirty men from their resting places and rushed to his lair, flushed up and inflamed from the raid, blundering back with the butchered corpses.” What was the author’s purpose for including this quote in the text?

5. How does the aforementioned quote from Beowulf act as further explanation of small pox? Explain.

Assessments: TDQs and Independent reading will serve as formative assessments.

“Death Barged In” by Bonnano (https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/death-barged)

o Gradual Release – TWIST Analysis (30 Minutes)o Partner Response (20 Minutes)

What is the tone created in this poem? Justify your answer using several pieces of evidence from the text.

Clean Up (5 Minutes)

Day 5Standards Addressed: RL.7.1, RL.7.7, RL.7.5Materials Needed: Weekly Vocabulary, Writer’s Notebook, “Death Barged In,” TWIST Handout, Constructed Response Handout, Ticket Out the DoorDo Now Activity:

Study for weekly vocabulary quiz (5 minutes) Complete weekly vocabulary quiz (10 minutes) Trade and Grade weekly vocabulary quiz

Introduction: Beowulf Animated Summary (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpw3r229Vyc)

Students will watch the animated summary of Beowulf Students will complete a Stop and Jot in the Writer’s Notebooks.






o Why would the author include Beowulf in this novel? What symbolic significance does it hold?

Whole Group Discussiono Students add to or adjust their stop and jots during the discussion for

future reference.Activities:

Whole Group: “Death Barged In” by Bonnano (https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/death-barged)o TWIST ANALYSIS

Tone – teacher will model Word Choice – will be completed as a whole group Imagery – will be completed with a shoulder partner and reviewed

as a whole group Style – will be completed with a shoulder partner and reviewed as a

whole group Theme – will be completed individually and reviewed with their

shoulder partner Independent Work: Constructed Response

o Students will complete the following constructed response using their TWIST chart.

What is the tone of “Death Barged In,” and how does the personification of death help create the tone of this poem? Justify your answer using several pieces of evidence from the text.

Closure: Ticket out the Door – In the poem, how is death personified as frightening?Assessments: Stop and Jot and TWIST will be formative assessments. Constructed response will be a summative assessment of tone, figurative language, and textual evidence.

Day 6Standards Addressed: RL.7.1, RL.7.7, RL.7.5, SL.7.1, Materials Needed: DNA Folder, Novel, Quick Draw Handout, “Death Barges In,” TWIST Chart, Bioterrorism Handout, Ticket out the DoorDo Now Activity: Creative Writing – POV Sentence StartersIntroduction: Quick Draw! Students will draw a picture that depicts the contents of “Death Barged In”Activities:

Pairs: Shoulder Partner Responseo With their shoulder partner, students may use the poem and TWIST

charts from Friday to answer the following question in a well-written paragraph supported with textual evidence.

How does the personification of death create a mood of fear for the reader?

Whole Group: What is Bioterrorism?



o Students will received a copy of the information found on (http://www.bt.cdc.gov/bioterrorism/overview.asp) researched and presented by the CDC. (It will also be projected).

o Students will engage in a teacher lead whole group discussion about bioterrorism

What are examples of this that America has faced? Is this something we should be afraid of now? How does this relate to Mitty’s experience? What responsibility does the government have in regards to

bioterrorism? The media?o Whole Group Reading – Chapters 5&6 (pgs. 49-73)

Closure: Ticket out the Door: How has fear affected Mitty’s perception of and interaction with smallpox?Assessments: Classroom discussion and TOD will be formative assessments checking for student understanding.



Middle School Mathematics Certificate Program

At the end of the 16-credit middle school mathematics certificate program, teachers are required to reflect and write a paper on Components of an Effective Lesson-Teacher Expectancies (CEL-TE) and the content taught in the program, in order to determine the level of implementation in their classrooms.

The course instructor asks the participating teachers to write about their reflections on how they have implemented CEL-TE in the classroom. The following is an exemplar of these reflections.

I am currently working as a part time mathematics instructor for Great Basin College. I am working on my MEd in Middle School Mathematics. I am hoping to begin working in a middle school classroom when I complete my master’s degree.

1. Introduction: “Unit rates are used in many places such as currency exchange. I have a short video for you, from Who Wants to be a Millionaire. Let’s look at how knowing unit rates can be worth $25,000.” (Play Video from 50 sec to 1:40 sec (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtrZ4Dec6eo) “Maybe some of you have already started to solve this question and maybe you even have an answer. Don’t ruin the surprise for the rest of us. Save the answer for now because we are going to come back to this video at the end of class and see the outcome. If you solved this question using a proportion or unit rate, then you are headed in the right direction. Can anyone tell me where else we see rates or proportions in real life in addition to currency exchange? (Make a list on the white/smart board for this, ie.. comparing prices of items, predicting cost, halving recipe). This is a pretty long list. Obviously this is a skill that we can use so today we are going to focus on proportions, specifically direct proportions, to predict possible outcomes or solutions.”

2. Daily Review: “For today’s warm up, we will review unit rate problems from yesterday’s lesson and homework. For each situation, calculate the unit rate that correlates with the situation. Record your work and answers in your notebook. “After students have been given 5 minutes to calculate each question, review the procedure and give the correct answer for each question.

3. Daily Objective: With this picture on the smartboard, Read the quote and highlight the words directly proportional.


“I always knew Charlie Brown was a smart guy. Too bad He isn’t here to help us with today’s lesson because we will be focusing on two uses of proportions. Please get out your notebooks to record today’s objective. “(Write the following information on the board, or bring it up on the smartboard)

By the end of lesson everyone should be able to: 1. Use the direct variation equation y = kx to find the constant “k” when given the x and y value2. Find the slope of the line given two points.

4. Concept Development: “Patterns are everywhere in our world and these patterns are used to calculate and predict outcomes. We have been simplifying algebraic expressions, but today we are going to write our own algebraic expressions. We will be analyzing different tile patterns and trying to describe these patterns with an algebraic expression. We will then use this expression to calculate and predict various outcomes and pattern sizes.” (Put students into groups and pass out the handout “Tile Patterns” attached). “You will have five minutes to discuss and answer the first two questions. Get started.” After students have been given five minutes, discuss what students have answered, and the patterns that they used to formulate their answers. Then continue to the next portion where students will need to explain the tile pattern with an expression. “We have been working on the concepts of expressions and for this next part you will get to see the idea that an expression is a pattern in action. Using this same tile pattern, try to describe it mathematically with an expression or expressions. After you have come up with an expression that you think will work, then test it by finding the 20th term (from question 2). http://myplace.frontier.com/~paulgriffith2/mathmodels/tile_patt.html

5. Skill Development: Separate the class into teams of 4 students and prepare the floor beforehand. Make an x and y axis on the classroom or multipurpose room floor. “Today we will be graphing linear equations with our bodies. On the floor there are two lines representing the x and y axis. Each team will be given a linear equation and will need to form the correct line as a team. One person will need to be the y-intercept and the other members will need to be points that are the correct distance from the starting point. Let’s start! Which team wants to go first?” Start with the equation y = 3x -2. Challenge the team by modifying their equation to y = 3x+2. Continue to challenge each subsequent team with different modifications. If there is additional time teams can compete in a speed race.

6. Concept Linkage with Discipline: “During this lesson we will use the direct variation formula that we learned yesterday to calculate the correlation between miles and gallons of gas. You will have 10 minutes to complete the chart at the top of the handout. (See attached “direct variation” worksheet) ” While students are completing the chart, I circulate around the room to check for student understanding. After 10 minutes, we discuss the correct values so that the correct points are plotted for the next step. “We have been practicing the direct variation formula for a couple of days, but we haven’t investigated what it looks like on a graph. We are going to use the graph on the handout to plot all the values that we just calculated using the direct variation equation.” After plotting the points, students have a visual to reference during our discussion. “This is our first time graphing a direct variation problem. What are some things that you notice about this graph?”

7. Concept Linkage outside Discipline: “For a couple of lessons, we have been working on linear equations in the form y = mx +b. Today we will look at how you have been using this equation in your daily life without realizing it. These examples vary from towing a car to paying a cell phone


http://myplace.frontier.com/~paulgriffith2/mathmodels/tile_patt.html

bill. Your challenge is to describe these scenarios with the values given using the linear equation y = mx + b. (See Word Doc “Real World Linkage Linear Equations”)

8. Guided Practice: Distinguish between combining like terms and moving terms.“There seems to be a little confusion between when to combine like terms on the left and right side of the equal sign and when to move variables across sides so we are going to look at some examples to help distinguish between the two operations. We have three examples that we are going to look at, but before we start solving I want to give a little reminder. Always, always, always combine like terms FIRST on each side of the equal sign before using an inverse operation to move terms. Who can tell me what we use as a reminder of this important order for solving? “The wall” Yes, we need to add our walls to all of these problems. Remember, nothing can cross the wall until all terms are combined on each side.

a . 4 x+2=7 x−5b .3 x+3=4 x−5+3x c .5 x2+4−3 x+2=3 x+2

So let’s work through each of these. For the first problem, can I take down my wall? Are all the terms combined on each side of the wall? (Call on a student) Yes they are so I can move the 4x by using the inverse operation and subtracting it from both sides. Then I will move the -5 by adding it to both sides. (Add these steps to the board as you walk students through them.) Let’s look at the next example; Can I take down the wall? (Call on a student) What needs to be combined before I can take down the wall?” Continue the same type of questioning until the end of the third example. Then have students look at the following problem and find the error:

9. Group Practice: “Today we will be forming linear graphs with our bodies! We are going to practice graphing using slope intercept form. On the floor you can see an x and y numbered axis (use painters tape for easy removal). Each group will be given an equation to graph and one person in the group will be the y intercept, while the remaining group members will be the slope. Do I have a group that wants to start first?” (See Worksheet) Extensions:

1. After each group has a turn, have them graph another equation and modify the slope or the y-intercept.


6r– 12 + 4r = r + 6 -6 -6

6r – 18 + 4r = r -4r -4r 2r - 18 = r -2r -2r -18 = -r r = 18

2. Have a speed challenge, timing each group. 3. Have two groups graph their equation to determine a solution of a system.

10. Independent Practice: “Today’s activity will provide additional practice with slope intercept form. This exercise has four stations, each with a sheet of questions related to linear equations. Station #1 is at my desk, #2 is the back wall, #3 and #4 are the two side walls (pointing to stations as you are naming them). Before you can move onto each station, you must get your answers checked by the trainmaster (pointing to me). Each student will pick up an answer sheet at station #1 when you pick up your first worksheet. Remember do not advance to station #2, #3, or #4 without having your answers checked. Alright let’s get started” (See Slope Intercept Stations Activity)

11. Long-Term Memory Review: For several days, we have been working on understanding and graphing linear equations. I have posted an online cumulative review over this material that. After it is completed and corrected, you will each need to pick two questions that you missed and that are still confusing and/or that you need additional practice with. We will use these questions to do a class review playing “Math Baseball” for additional practice. Math Baseball Directions (http://www.wou.edu/~burtonl/courses/math395/Math%20Baseball.pdf)

12. Closure: “Now that we have learned how to solve using a direct proportion equation, let’s go back to the Millionaire video. (Put the screen back up with the question on it. https://www.youtube.com/watc h?v=YtrZ4Dec6eo) Many of you solved this question right away, but maybe you didn’t use the method that we learned today. You are now going to be the audience and I want everyone to solve this question using direct variation. You will have 30 seconds on the clock. (after 30 seconds) Now we are going to do an “Ask the Audience.” Write down what you think is the correct answer on your whiteboards and hold it up.”

13. Homework Assignment: “The homework for today is posted on MyMathLab. As always, if you get stuck you can watch a video, view a sample problem, or ask your instructor. The homework consists of vocabulary terms, graphing several systems and determining their solution, and explaining what the solution means.” Note: This is an online assignment so there is a screen shot below of the part of the assignment, but see attached file “Solving Systems of Linear Equations” for complete assignment.

14. Over Teach and Over Learn: “We recently began learning about the three solution types that can occur when solving an equation with one variable; One Solution, No Solution, or Infinite Solutions. We will be adding a foldable to the notebooks today and we will use the foldable to continue to practice solving these.” Give each student a Solving Equations Foldableand have students glue/staple the blank foldable into their notebook. Complete the three examples with the whole class, reinforcing the differences between each system.

15. Student/Teacher Relationships: “Hi Caitlyn, How are things going with your new job?” One of the most impactful ways that I build relationships with my students is to show that I care about them as people. I greet students by name when they enter the classroom and I ask them about things going on in their life. I know where most of my students work, how much they work, what degree they are pursuing and what challenges they are facing. On the first day of class, I have students complete a survey that provides me with a good understanding of who they are.


https://www.youtube.com/watc

http://www.wou.edu/~burtonl/courses/math395/Math%20Baseball.pdf

16. Use Simple Examples: “When looking at the picture of the truck ramp; How high is it from the ground? (3ft) How far is it from the edge of the ramp to the edge of the truck? (5ft) We would describe the slope of this ramp

as 35 .

Slope is a slant, steepness, or change that can be represented with a fraction. The top number is always the up and down value (point to 3 ft) and the bottom number is always the left to right value (point to 5ft). Let’s look at another example. Assuming this graph has a scale of 1 (write in the values) what is the slope of the line

segment? ( 32 ) Let’s look at another example. This example has the

points listed on it. How many does it go up from one point to another? (6)

How about across from left to right? (4) We can write that as 64 since

we rightup or down on top and the left to right on the bottom. Can the fraction 64 be reduced? (Yes to 3/2) Since the fraction can be reduced we must

write it as ( 32 ). Slope is always written as a fraction in simplest form.

17. Assessment: “For your ‘Ticket Out the Door’ today you will need to solve a system of linear equations using substitution. Your system is on the smartboard. Please solve the system on your index card, and make sure you put your name on your card.”


5 Ft

3 Ft

18. Student Note-taking: “Today’s lesson will cover section 8.2. Your objective is on the board, we will read it together and then it needs to be recorded in your notes. ‘At the end of this lesson, I will be able to identify and graph three different nonlinear graphs’” After students have recorded the objective, ask “Can anyone tell me what the term non-linear graph means?” Discuss the definition and have students record it in their notebook. “We will be making a chart for the three different nonlinear graphs that we will be learning about today. You will need to divide your paper into three sections, either by folding it or by drawing lines to separate it.” (demonstrate on the smartboard). “Let’s title each section; Squared Variable, Absolute Value, Radicals. Under the title add the following shapes: U,V, . Finally under these shapes write the equations: f ( x )=x2 , f ( x )=|x|, f ( x )=√ x Now we are going to graph each of these equations using an ordered pair table.” After the graphs are complete, ask students to help find memory aids that will help them remember the relationship between the equations and the graphs. Have them highlight this information or add it to the chart. Some examples are Absolute Value makes a V shape or U are SQUARE.

19. Vocabulary is Stressed: “Today’s ‘Word of the Day’ is found in the objective that we just read.

Objective: Students should be able to solve one variable equations and identify the solution as one solution, no solution, or infinite solutions. (8.EE.7a)

The word of the day is ‘one variable equation’. Let’s talk about what that means. Let’s start with the word equation, how do we define an equation?” After bringing students to consensus on the definition of an equation (a math statement with an equal sign), we move on to the next part of the word. “How about variable, how can we define variable?” Students will answer, a letter, an x, an unknown. Bring them to the understanding that it is an unknown that can have a changing value and is represented with a non-numeric symbol such as a letter. Then write out the entire definition for them to record in their notes. Word of the DayONE VARIALBE EQUATION: an equation or mathematical statement with an equal sign that uses only one non numeric symbol that can have different/changing values

20. Reading and Writing: “We have been learning about using data to formulate linear equations. For this assignment, each person will be researching the salary of their current field of study. Let’s look at the handout and discuss the data that will need to be collected.” (see attached Salary) After discussing each item with students I explain how the data will be used. “After the data has been collected I will look over the information and check for accuracy. Each student will then use their data to make two equations; one equation for their projected lifetime earnings in their career field and one equation for their projected lifetime earnings without their degree. These equations will be graphed and explained with an “explanation of findings” paragraph.”

21. Facts and Procedures: “Your warm up for the day is on the smartboard. You will have 5 minutes to solve these two equations with substitution:


22. Technology Implementation: “Working in groups, we will practice graphing stories. What do I mean by stories? Each group will watch an online video on their phone that demonstrates a story that can be graphed. Each group will go to http://graphingstories.com/ and watch the following 4 video stories: Weight of Cups, Height of Stack, Water Volume, and Time. Graph these onto the worksheet that you have been given. (This worksheet can be printed from the website).

23. Problem Solving Process: “For this first word problem, I will walk use CUBES to help me solve it.”

24. Memory Aids: “For today’s lesson we need to fold the blank sheet of paper that you have been given into 4 sections. First fold it in half (demonstrate). Then fold it in half again (demonstrate). Then open it up (demonstrate). I am going to tell you a story about a skiing experience and you will need to follow along closely as I write and tell the story. As I am telling the story, I am going to be drawing and writing about it on my folded sheet (it will be on the smartboard). Make sure you are recording the information with me, but only use the top half of your paper. My first skiing experience was full of ups and downs. First I was very excited and had a POSITIVE attitude as I ventured up the hill on the lift (write in positive and draw the uphill). It didn’t take long for the


experience to turn NEGATIVE as I traveled down the mountain crashing numerous times (write in negative and draw the downhill). When I reached the bottom of the hill, I was so exhausted and having “zero fun” and was just enjoying the straight and level ground (add next picture and write no slope). I got a little too comfortable and closed my eyes and didn’t see the large drop off. The cliff was undefined and so was I as I fell straight down and splat was no more (add last picture and undefined).

Check with your neighbor and look at the drawing that is on the board. Make sure you have all the information correct. As you are doing that I will be passing out 4 graphs with equations that we will be adding to our notes (see attached: foldableslope).

25. Questioning Strategies: Instructor: “Let’s look at the results of our equation sort and see if we can identify some patterns or features for each of the solution types. Starting with equations that were sorted under “No Solution”, can anyone share a feature or pattern that all these equations shared?” Student 1: “Yes, every time I was solved one of these equations, the variable was the same on the left and right side.” Instructor: “Explain what you mean by that”Student 1: “Like on B. there was a 3x on the left and a 3x on the right and on H. there was a 4w on the left and right”Instructor: “Good observation! I am wondering when both sides of the equal sign have the same variable value, what happens to the variable when we use the inverse operation?”Student 2: “It should cancel out and then we don’t have a variable at all.”Instructor: “Exactly, so when we are solving an equation with no solution a pattern that we have noticed is that both sides of the equal sign have the same exact variable and when we use the inverse operation to move it, the variable actually cancels out. Record that in your own words on your sort sheet.”Instructor: “I think there are some additional features that we can record regarding the no solution equations, what is another pattern that is evident after our variable cancels out?”Student 3: “We are left with a number value on each side but they are not equal.” Instructor: “So the only values that we have left are two numbers, such as 3 = 5 on problem B.”Student 3: “Yes”Instructor: “Well does 3 = 5?”Student 4: “No”Instructor: “So 3 doesn’t equal 5, it is an untrue statement. How can we explain that pattern?”Student 5: “We could say that equations with no solutions always end in an untrue statement.”Instructor: “Very good. Let’s look at some more features and patterns for our other two solution types.”


REFERENCES

Guskey, T. R. (2000). Evaluating professional development. Thousand Oaks, California: Corwin Press, Inc.

Hake, R. R. (1998). Interactive-engagement versus traditional methods: A six-thousand-student survey of mechanics test data for introductory physics courses. American Journal of Physics, 66(1), 64-74.

Rossi, P.H., Lipsey, M.W., & Freeman, H.E. (2004). Evaluation: A systematic approach, ed. 7. Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, CA.

Trochim, W. M. (2006, October 20, 2006). The Research Methods Knowledge Base. 2nd. from http://www.socialresearchmethods.net/kb/


APPENDICES


APPENDIX A: SAMPLE NEWSLETTER


APPENDIX B: PARTICIPANT LETTER


APPENDIX C: SAMPLE BOARD MEETING AGENDA
