Grant Recipients 2008 - 2009
Area / School / Exemplary Grant Focus / Staff Development Components / Funds AwardedA / Hall / In accordance with IFL Framework for Learning and the POL, teachers will increase their ability to access, examine, and analyze data and use it to inform their instruction through best practices in the area of literacy AND continue to learn about intervention strategies for students who are struggling in the area of literacy. / Teachers will participate in half day extended data clusters.Teachers will examine student data, and develop strategies and focused instruction that will help drive achievement in the area of literacy for each student. / $7,98240
C / Burroughs / To increase teacher knowledge of different reading and writing strategies and assessments to measure student growth. / Focus group members will enrich their professional knowledge of the writing workshop model in connection with the research based Primary Literacy Standards. Teachers will plan, apply, reflect and evaluate writing lessons. / $4,830.00
C / Anwatin / Developing the capacity of students to think, support their thinking, and communicate the central belief of how staff development at Anwatin impacts student achievement. / Work with consultant Dr. Jane Kise to improve proposed model of intense work. Will be done through classroom observation, team meetings to analyze student work and other strategies. / $5,930.00
C / Hale / Support literacy instruction through the implementation of IFL and CFC. Reader/Writer Workshop model design in grade-level PLCs, with a focus on Fountas and Pinnell assessments, three levels of comprehension, Questioning the Author and written response to questions. / Staff will research, write and implement, "Model Read Aloud/Think Aloud Lessons," to use during the Reader/Writer Workshop Block. These lessons will be designed to meet and exceed the New Primary Literacy Standards for Reading and Writing for Comprehension and Informational Reading and Writing. / $8,000.00
C / Wenonah / Teachers will participate in IFL training that supports POL to add rigor to the thinking curriculum in the area of math to imporce academic achievement. / Develop a better understanding of the Investigations series by looking at student work/assessments. Also want to make use of Promethean boards/use technology. / $4,450.00
C / Bryn Mawr / Staff will meet monthly to support their learning in the POL framework. In addition, they will meet another time each month to work on reading. The reading PD will occur in the POLs, which is by grade level. The PD during this time may include book study, looking at student work, understanding the Readers and Writers Workshop model, and understanding the Primary Literacy Standards, and assessments. / This grant will give us the time to put more effort into studying the readers workshop components, preparing our leveled books for use, and actually visiting a classroom where a readers and writers workshop is being implemented. / $7,907.00
C / Barton / Our broad learning goal is to deepen student learning in both curriculum areas (writing and mathematics) by engaging students in purposeful, knowledge-based discourse. Using the lens of Accountable Talk, we want to increase teacher understanding of how to structure, guide, and model appropriate forms of learning conversations in whole class situations, in small group work, and in peer and student-teacher conferences in order to maximize student learning. / We will use whole staff meetings as well as grade level professional learning communities to deepen our knowledge of the POLs. Will focus specifically on Accountable Talk and Socializing Intelligence. Grant will pay for extended time. / $8,000.00
C / Armatage / PLCs (to meet weekly) will study researched based instructional strategies, and engage in planning, teaching and pre-lesson-post conferring cycles, both in small groups and individually with the CFC. The PLCs will focus on using the MN and Primary Literacy Standards as a basis for instruction, administering and interpreting info. from reading assessments, studying Questioning the Author, and other research based strategies and providing instruction to support POL. / Staff will study several books to help improve implementing POLs in study groups. Also want to start to build a small professional learning library. Funds will be used to purchase books for study groups and reserve teachers so teachers can meet during the day. / $4,871.70
C / Windom / By the end of the school year, all staff will demonstrate proficiency implementing comprehension strategies derived from IFL, DL and CFC trainings and supported by PLC (clusters), coaching (coaches, mentor, peers and principal) and observations (TAP Instructional Rubric) / This grant will pay for reserve teachers so participating teachers can go on at least one "learning walk" and one "peer observation." Staff will also develop a high quality professional collection of "Comprehension" oriented texts to be used in conjunction with clusters, and will reflect upon learned knowledge. / $6,375.00
B / Sanford / Develop reading comprehension in all content areas including math with emphasis on written answers to demonstrate understanding.
Analyze student work and standards requirements to create rubrics and checklists to guide student work. / Exemplary grant will give teachers time to put key units into the Instructional Design format. Will write rubrics for higher level thinking tasks and using them with students for extended writing assignments and end of unit assessments. / $8,000.00
A / Henry H.S. / Engage in "role alike" collaboration whenever possible, participate in opportunities to look at student work and other formative data, engage in teacher driven PD and curriculum development that draws on teacher expertise and focuses on student learning and that aligns to our work to our school improvement goals in reading, writing, math, student engagement, and graduation. / Staff will meet in content-areas to create and use common formative assessments, examine data and use data to inform instruction. Teachers will design new, data-based instructional responses to students' learning needs. / $7,899.60