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My SMART goal is to make sure 80% of student in my class are reading by level K (using Fountas and Pinnell) by December. Anchor charts could definitely help this by having strategies for comprehending texts and how to be an active reader up around the classroom. Students could refer to them while reading to make sure they are being active readers and taking in what they are reading about. I would rate this 4 for student engagement and high impact on learning.

This video about anchor charts would work great with my SMART goal- "Given 2 months of guided reading instruction, students in below grade-level reading groups will increase their reading level by at least two levels." Anchor charts are a really important tool for students to use as they're reading texts and after reading texts. For example, I have an anchor chart in my classroom that explains the rate of speed for reading. Students can refer to this as they're reading so they can monitor themselves as they're reading to make sure they're reading at a fluent rate of speed. Another anchor chart in my room that students can refer to is the asking questions anchor chart. This anchor chart explains to students how to stop and ask themselves questions throughout the reading. This supports my SMART learning goal because some of my students were held back from moving forward in reading because of their reading comprehension. When referring to the planning protocol rubric, I would rate this a 4 for impact on learning category.

This would be good for my fellow teacher on my team for their SMART learning goal of "by the end of quarter 1, 60% of students will score a 70% or higher on the Quarter 1 Literacy Assessment on Theme." This will allow students to review/ use different anchor charts to review theme. If the teacher wanted to take it to an another level, students could create their own anchor charts in groups that helped them identify the theme in ways so that they would remember them.

Dimension: Student Engagement Rating: 4 My partner's SMART goal is, "By the end of the numbers unit, 60% of students in the Special Education program in MS Spanish 1A - Period 2 will achieve 80% or higher on each formative assessment including listening, speaking and writing assessments." Anchor charts could be useful in the Spanish classroom because they could help prompt students about the use of expressions and structures they would need to master the vocabulary in the numbers unit, which would help more students achieve an 80% or higher. While many of those expressions and structures involve common, everyday vocabulary and concepts that also exist in English, the syntax is different enough from English that having something up in the classroom that helps scaffold the students' learning of the syntax would help them communicate with more ease. These would be charts that every student would refer to, and they could change for future units of study.

This video describes anchor charts. Anchor charts are a visual learning tool that helps students work through any type of process. I could see this as being beneficial to my my SMART goal because I could use this with my Biology I students to help them identify learning gaps and work through those.

Dimension: Student Engagement Rating: 3 SMART Goal: Given 1 month of guided reading instruction, students in below grade-level reading groups will increase their reading level by at least one level. In order to promote achievement of their SMART goal, my groupmate could use an anchor chart to remind students of strategies to apply when reading unknown words. Anchor charts are designed to encourage students to apply a process when solving problems. While guided and direct reading instruction are beneficial to student reading development, it is not realistic for teachers to work with every student every minute of instruction. My groupmate could use an anchor chart to display strategies for sounding out words (ex. "Stretchy Snake" or "Chunky Monkey"). Within the anchor chart the teacher could use colorful pictures and words to remind students of previously learned strategies. This system will allow students to continue their reading development even while they are not working with a teacher. This will ultimately enhance their engagement when reading independently.

Dimension: Impact on Learning Rating: 3 SMART Goal: By the end of the third quarter, 80% of first grade students will score 16-20 points (80%-100%) on the next Unit Test which covers all reading skills. Throughout this video, the teacher discusses the importance of anchor charts in a classroom. She expresses how anchor charts guide students through a process in their learning where they rely on the anchor charts to remember what they learned, what their task is, and where they should go next. Anchor charts are written with different colors to grab student's attention and to make the information visibly pleasing to look at/easy to follow along with. The SMART goal that I have for my class is that 80% of my students will score 16-20 points on their next Unit Test which covers all of the reading skills that they have learned so far in first grade. Most of these reading skills are about the long and short vowel sounds, dipgraphs/blends, and comprehension skills. I have posted multiple anchor charts around my classroom that covers these skills. I use different colors, words, and pictures to teach the information on the charts. I constantly remind my class to use these anchor charts to help assist in their learning and when they have questions. This is why I rated anchor charts a 3 on "Impact on Learning". They have a medium-high impact because students can refer to them anytime they need to in the classroom. They also remind students what they have learned so far in the school year. However, in first grade, they sometimes have trouble reading the anchor charts because they are still learning how to read. This is why I did not rate the anchor charts a 4.

Dimension: Student Engagement Rating: 3 Smart Goal: By the middle of the fourth trimester, 80% of 3rd grade students will score a 3 or 4 on their reading and math assessments. By the middle of the fourth trimester, 80% of 3rd grade students will increase at least 40% on STAR reading. By the middle of the fourth trimester, 80% of 3rd grade students will increase at least 40% on STAR math. Integrating anchor charts into a classroom is a wonderful way to maintain student engagement. Anchor charts are a great tool for teachers to use to help explain content to students. Anchor charts can be interactive in a classroom. A teacher can write a topic on an anchor chart and students can join in the conversation by adding content to the chart. As a third grade teacher, I use anchor charts on a weekly basis. Anchor charts can be used to teach a lesson, to explain rules, or as an exit ticket. Posting anchor charts around a room can help students as they learn a lesson. The best part about anchor charts is how they are more engaging than a poster. Typically, students do not read a poster in a classroom. However, when students are involved in creating an anchor chart, students are more likely to refer back to the chart and it can also help students remember content better. Anchor charts can be used in class to help students reach their SMART goal. In my classroom, I have the students STAR goal for reading and math on an anchor chart. When the students reach their STAR goal, students can put a star by their name on the anchor chart. Also, I have another anchor chart in my classroom listing different strategies to remember when taking STAR reading and math. I rated anchor charts a 3 on student engagement, because anchor charts are wonderful tools to use to keep a student motivated in their learning. I did not rate anchor charts a 4 because technology is a tad more engaging than anchor charts. However, my students sill love anchor charts! EDTC 615

Dimension: Impact on Learning Rating: 3 SMART Goals: Given 1 month of guided reading instruction, students in below grade-level reading groups will increase their reading level by at least one level. Anchor charts are a great way for the students to reference important skills and strategies during lessons. As the teacher is teaching the strategies during guided reading, they could make a anchor chart to reference during the lesson in order for the students to use. As the students are reading and they are stuck on a word they can reference the anchor chart in order to find a strategy that would work for them. For example, a student may be struggling with a sentence, then they look at the chart and find the strategy that says "Look at the picture". After they find the strategy, then they are able to apply that strategy in order to help them to read the story. These strategies must be explicitly taught in order for these anchor charts to be effective in the classroom, but it is a great tool to use. EDTC 615 Spring2018

SMART Goals: By the end of the marking, 80% or higher of students will score a 90% or higher on a base ten assessment. I believe that anchor charts are a great strategy for students to use in the classroom. When my students are working independently they can use an anchor chart in order to help them answer a question they may have instead of asking their teacher. It is also helpful when these are really colorful and organized for students. I think that these are a way that teachers can really support student learning because as they say in the video these anchor charts can be based on the curriculum where they are taken down or they can be left up all year long. For example, in my own classroom I have a place value anchor chart on my wall. Now we do not cover this concept in this quarter but since some of my students still struggle with the concept it is important I keep it up. I would say based on the protocol I would be looking at this in the impact of learning dimension. I would say that this would rate as a 4 because students would be able to use this to impact their learning in a positive way either independently or in small groups. EDTC615 Spring2018

Dimension: Student Engagement Level: 4 SMART Goal, "By the end of module 3, students will be able to use various manipulatives to effectively solve measuring equations." Anchor charts are a great way for students to gather information and strategies during lessons. As the teacher is going through the various parts of the lesson, both the students and teachers can write down or draw pictures to explain their thought process and clear up any confusion. When it comes to measuring, teachers can create an anchor chart by putting longer than on one side and shorter than on the other. Students can use linking cubes of different quantities to measure each other sticks. Another activity that will be helpful when it comes to measuring is using print outs of objects with different lengths. Using a string, students will be asked to measure their objects using their string, place it on the correct side, and explain their choice using the sentence frame, 'My object is longer than or shorter than my string.' Using the anchor chart gives each student an opportunity to participate in the group discussion and serves as an process monitoring mechanism for teachers. EDTC615 Spring2018

An appropriate use of Anchor Charts could greatly improve student learning. The visual aids allow students guide their own learning. I think that I can instill confidence and improve engagement, since they do not have to ask the teacher for assistance as often. This would help those students bridge their learning gap, because they have continually reinforcement posted at times to reference and retain. I think that Anchor Charts could be used in multiple contents areas including Biology.

I really enjoyed this video. It seems like anchor charts are a tool before students see a rubric. They are colorful, easy to read, and less intimidating than a rubric. I may use an anchor chart in a class in the future instead of a rubric and see if students have a better understanding of what is expected.

My Smart goal is that "By the end of the numbers unit, 60% of students in the Special Education program in MS Spanish 1A - Period 2 will achieve 80% or higher on each formative assessment including listening, speaking and writing assessments." During our meetings we have noticed a significant gap in my pd. 2 in my SPED students. By using exit tickets, I can continuously gauge how well these specific students are understanding the new material of the week before getting to the formal formative assessment on Fridays. These exit tickets can be modified to include speaking and listening skills depending on where the formative reveals the greatest need is. - Margarita

This video using exit tickets is a great resource for my classroom. My SMART goal is Given 2 months of guided reading instruction, students in below grade-level reading groups will increase their reading level by at least two levels." Using the planning protocol I rated this a 4 in the aligned to the standards category. I could create quick exit tickets based on the story my students are reading. The students could answer the question and I could quickly assess whether they were able to comprehend and understand the story which is a part of my smart goal. Reading comprehension is an important factor when testing students' reading level. I would love to use this in my classroom.

Smart Target Learning Goal is by the end of marking period 1, 70% of students will score 90% or higher on the EMATS/ performance matters. This will allow me to see where students are still needing understanding about the topic that is being taught. The dimension would be depth of knowledge with 1:recall. This is something that students need to be able to do short hand before they can recall later on.

SMART GOAL: At least 80% of students in grade two will be reading level K books or above by the end of 6 weeks. (Julie's goal) Dimension: Alignment to Standards Impact: 2 Reason: Exit tickets are self-assessment questions prepared by teachers, often based on learning goals, that are to be completed by students. Since Julie's Smart Goal is based on measurement (80% of students), I believe that Exit Tickets will give her insight on the percentage of her students that illustrate her students reading comprehension levels. For Julie's Exit Tickets, I think that questions she pose should require answers in the form of explanations from students because I believe it would be the most effective way to help her detect the students that may require extra support. If there is not a common theme to student responses, then it may be an instruction gap that is the issue; if so, Julie would need to ensure that the curriculum/lesson plans correlate with state standards.

Smart Target Learning Goal: By the of Unit 5, 80% of students will score at least 70% on the end of unit assessment. My biggest problem is getting students to retain the important information that will be tested upon. Exit tickets will give me an incite to how well students are retaining the class content by creating exit tickets that are similar to exam questions at the end of a lesson where they learned the content to which the question related. This not only allows me to see if they learned the content but also will allow me to see which types of mistakes the students are making in regards to the test. From here my I will be able to modify my lessons in order to insure that my students are in line with the exam.

Smart Target Learning Goal: By the of Unit 5, 80% of students will score at least 70% on the end of unit assessment. My biggest problem is getting students to retain the important information that will be tested upon. Exit tickets will give me an incite to how well students are retaining the class content by creating exit tickets that are similar to exam questions at the end of a lesson where they learned the content to which the question related. This not only allows me to see if they learned the content but also will allow me to see which types of mistakes the students are making in regards to the test. From here my I will be able to modify my lessons in order to insure that my students are in line with the exam.

Dimension: Rigor and Relevance Impact: 4 SMART Goal:Given 1 month of guided reading instruction, students in below grade-level reading groups will increase their reading level by at least one level. Exit tickets are an excellent way for the students to show their ability to comprehend the text by answering a text dependent question about the story that they have read during guided reading. This will give the teacher an insight on the level of comprehension that they student has for that level book that is being read. This is much more rigorous than just asking and answering questions because students are applying the knowledge of the story into the writing that they are doing about the book.

Hi Elijah! I think the issue is sometimes students do have difficulty retaining the information. I think that the exit tickets will also give you insight into a few different dimensions from the protocol worksheet as well. My SMART goal is by the end of the marking, 80% or higher of students will score a 90% or higher on a base ten assessment. So I think looking at the exit tickets based on the dimensions you should look into student engagement. Since this is important when it comes to exit tickets. If students are not engaged during the lesson then the exit tickets is pretty much showing that the students retained nothing. I think that teachers should always shoot for a 3 or 4 based on the protocol. That way students retention of the information is greater therefore, exit tickets are hopefully higher.

Video: Exit Tickets Dimension Teacher Friendliness: Score: 3 I rate this strategy as a 3 in terms of teacher friendliness (3 = "low maintenance few materials and/or little prep work). With exit tickets, teachers can ask students to answer simple questions regarding the day's lesson in order to get a sense of students' understanding. This strategy involves little work to prepare for but provides a lot of insight into how to guide future instruction. There may be topics that many students misunderstood or areas that individual students need support in. The SMART goal I considered while watching this video is raising scores in AP Bio for select students who have not taken AP or advanced classes science classes before. I think exit tickets are a low maintenance way to guage which specific areas to focus on for these students.

Dimension: Impact on Learning Rating: 3- Medium-high impact SMART Goal: By the end of the marking, 80% or higher of students will score a 90% or higher on a base ten assessment. Exit tickets are a useful way to help both students and teachers recognize individual student mastery of a topic or skill. Since exit tickets informally assess student learning from that class period, there would be no impact on student learning as students are completing the task. However, teachers can use the information gathered from exit tickets to inform their instruction for the next days instruction. For instance, my groupmate could assign an exit card with 2-3 problems related to that day's lesson. After students complete the exit tickets, the teacher could evaluate to see who struggled and with what particular strategy. The teacher could then use that information to form small groups and provide re-teaching/alternate instruction as necessary. This ultimately will help students receive more personalized instruction thus enhancing impact on learning.

I agree that exit tickets are a useful way to evaluate mastery of a concept; however, I do feel they have an impact on student learning as they're completing the task. As students complete an exit card, it requires thought and skill to demonstrate your understanding. Sometimes students make mistakes on exit cards, which helps students learn and grow. This strategy would be helpful as I implement my plan to reach my SMART goal. My SMART goal is "by the end of Marking Period 3, ELL students identified will be able to explain how to solve for an unknown number in an equation with at least 80% accuracy ." Exit card would be extremely helpful in the process of determining necessary supports and areas of need as I complete my action plan. On the planning protocol rubric, I would rate this a four in the dimension of alignment to standards. Exit cards are directly related to what you have taught from the curriculum and therefore align with the standards. This is a great way to evaluate students quickly and frequently on the standards.

This article explains different types of reading strategies that are best to use when teaching comprehension across all grade levels. This article is very useful to my group because we are all focusing on reading skills/comprehension and determining learning gaps in each grade level when it comes to this topic. The author describes which type of strategy works best for which grade level and everyone in my group teaches a different grade.

Jigsaws are a great way to make sure that everyone does their share of the research. This allows students to really focus on one reading and gain as much information as they can. Then they have time to share what they found with others, while others share information about the topic that they read/researched about.

Smart Target Learning Goal: By the of Unit 5, 80% of students will score at least 70% on the end of unit assessment. Deciphering vocabulary is an important part of my AP Government curriculum. It is something that my students have had trouble with as it is many of their first AP class. Using a jigsaw for difficult readings would allow me to give my students a way to check their comprehension by working with a small group to complete readings. It would also build students confidence as they would go back to their groups to teach their classmates about their specific reading. This gives them a chance to show off and show their peers that they know the vocabulary.

Implementing the Jigsaw would be a great method to incorporate to help bridge the learning gap for students that took lower level Biology 1. The heavy use collaboration between students of varying skill or knowledge levels would be beneficial. I also think that since the lesson is broken up into small sections for each to examine and then discuss their findings students of all skill levels gain a better and unique understanding or the material. The students that need to improve their AP Biology knowledge will have the support of the students with a stronger grasp of the material within their small group learning environment.

Group 5 EDTC 615 Fall 2018 SMART Target Learning Goal: "Students will be able to solve an on level math task, that will require them to respond and defend their work to explain their reasoning 3 out of 5 times by the end of the first marking period." The Jigsaw Protocol: The Jigsaw Protocol is a great tool for promoting Depth of Knowledge by using "Extended reasoning" concepts within Elementary classrooms. Although this video targeted more reading skills, the concepts of research, extended thinking, and recall can all be used to further discuss math equations, math formulas and math projects. Students who are struggling to comprehend, demonstrate or explain mathematical concepts can strengthen their skills by conversing with peers about the written portion of the math work, where the student is asked to "explain" their thinking. #EDTC615 #Fall2018

This is FANTASTIC resource for teachers to use as a guide for addressing instructional gaps during a data cycle! Thank you for posting this!

I like the example assignments they gave from the grade 7 assignment to show that students can and will only perform to the level of the assignments they are given.

Great resource! I was part of the group who didn't realize the significance of the Instructional Gap. This presentation did a great job in showing the importance of understanding the Instructional Gap and how we can work in closing that gap.

This was a very interesting read. It reminded me of some of the changes we have put in place in my department as a result of the PARCC. We have definitely had to revisit how we teach and what we are teaching, as well as how it aligns to our standards. One issue we faced was that students could not make heads or tails of the grade level writing prompts. Our mentor teacher did a great series of professional developments for us that gave us some strategies for helping students unpack questions. It makes it much more manageable for the kids.

This resource is excellent for examining instructional gaps. In my program sometimes I feel as if there is no reason to the rhyme. I may use this method to determine exactly what I want to get out of each lesson. Since I am not the lesson planner (my curriculum specialist does it) It is hard to understand why some of the lessons are provided and what they need to know beforehand. This article provided a tool to use for that.

In this resource it states, "Students can do no better than the assignments they are given..and the instruction they receive." While analyzing my data, I found a instructional gap that I need to address in future lessons. This resource will be a great help to me.

This presentation is a great resource. I like how it gives specific examples on how to expand an assignment to help students become successful in the classroom. The graph showing the difference in a grade level assignment vs a grade level standard was very telling. If we fail to push our students inside the classroom, we are setting our students up to fail when they are given grade level material on a state assessment. It is important that material given in the classroom matches the standard they will be assessed on later.

The SMART Goal I will be using: "By the end of the four week close reading intervention, 80% of students will be able to demonstrate improvement in their writing ability by composing a paragraph with less then 5 grammatical, spelling, and structural errors. Students will meet with the teacher three times a week for a 30 min session". Planning Protocol: I would evaluate this video as a Rigor and Relevance of 4 as each student has an opportunity to engage with the content through differentiated activities suited to their individual learning needs. I feel this particular video was very useful in demonstrating various strategies for differentiating the lesson content to make it accessible to learners of various levels of proficiency. These methods could be extremely helpful in differentiating the content of my SMART Goal to ensure that every student has a opportunity to improve their writing skills according their level of skill.

Planning Protocol: Impact on Learning would be a good reflection on this video because the instructor is differentiating the lesson based on the data she has to make sure each student has some type of impact on his or hers learning. I think differentiating the lesson will have a huge impact on each students learning. The SMART Goal that I will be using is "Students will be able to solve an on-grade level math task, that will require them to respond and defend their work to explain their reasoning 3 out of 5 times by the end of the 1st marking period." I think this video will be a great instructional tactic because the lesson is differentiated based on the student. With the data the instructor has, the student will be able to receive more help that will help them respond and defend their work on grade level. With students that need more help with sentences.... a sentence starter can be used to help support them.

From the Planning Protocol Rubric I choose to relate this video to the dimension "Rigor and Relevance": At the Highest level-Students think and work. All students in this video are being challenged in very different ways this leading them to think and work independently and collaboratively. This teacher does a phenomenal job at differentiating her material on all levels. All students are doing the same work on the reading assignment however the avenue in which they give there response are different. She is able to give each student the support they need ahead of time so that students don't feel singled out. By doing this the students often feel empowered to be able to complete the assignment because they know the supports they need will be available to them. This also allows the teacher to go directly to the students who need extra support because the higher students have the challenges they need as well to not become board with the lesson. The SMART Goal I am focusing on this is one of my team members "After three weeks of targeted instruction, students will increase their pre-assessment scores by 3 or more points, or 75 percent or higher on the post-assessment" Our team could defiantly translate the instructional tactic used in this video to the above SMART goal. The teacher in the video is targeting specific learning goals in her instruction by reaching students at their specific needs and helping guide them all in the same direction teaching the same topic just in different ways. The above SMART goal is all about targeting instruction for the PARCC assessment to improve students scores. All students will have to take the same assessment however the supports they need along the way will be different.

My groups (Group 4, ETDC615) SMART learning goal is "Given 1 month of supplemental biology instruction, students who are currently in AP Biology but took lower level Biology 1, will score at least a 3 on their next unit exam." This EL Education video focuses on using a tiering system of differentiation to make all the content available for all students to learn. Looking at this lesson in terms of impact on learning, it has a potential to have a high impact on student learning. By differentiated the material to different tiers based on students current skills the students are more likely to be successful, because the material will be the right level of engaging/challenging for each student. This lesson method could be used for my groups SMART goal, because I could do a better job to differentiate the material to make up for the learning gaps that students that came from low level biology one have.

Tiering a lesson is the act of differentiating content to create learning opportunities for all students and allow for the accessibility of content to all students. The learning goal for my group is that students will be able to analyze word problems to identify mathematical components needed to solve complex word problems and apply them to real-life problems and scenarios. Because many of my students struggle with extracting information from word problems, which in turn leads them to an incorrect solution, I believe that tiering would help students access problem-solving strategies in a way that is most helpful to them. While there is an emphasis on showing multiple strategies, it may help students to tier the content in a way that makes sense for the student. Having students circle all important numbers only helps if a student understands why those numbers are important. Tiering may be the way to help bring that understanding to them. Tiering is best evaluated using the impact on learning dimension because differentiation does have a high impact on learning. Allowing students better access to content in a way in which they understand, and puts them in control will impact their learning for years to come.

This is a great article for our start goal because it discusses how to help all learners and improve assessments which will help those students in need.

This video about differentiation in teaching provides the dimension of a high impact on learning. The ideal is to provide equivalent learning activities that cater to the students' strengths but bring all of the students to the same learning objective. On one end of the spectrum is the one-size-fits-all learning activity, while on the other end is the completely individualized learning plan for each student. Catering to different students learning styles can help achieve the SMART goal of : By the end of the month, give practice tests the day before exams with at least 75% scoring at least 75%.

Caryn, I like that this article not only realistically talks about the historic and growing achievement gap, but that it also provides potential solutions. Not surprisingly, most of the solutions whether they be standards, curriculum, or teacher-based are all easily manageable. The only trick is to actually get some forward momentum on this decade's old issue. Victoria

Caryn, I'm reminded of the old educational psychology experiment where teachers were given false information about student abilities. Teachers who were told that a class was full of 'high performing' pupils ended up doing more high end assignments and pushing the students to do better while teachers were told their pupils were 'low achieving' did remedial assignments and barely pushed them to improve. I teach in a very diverse and low SES school, but I always do my best to assume that all of my students are able to do the high level work I assign in Physics. I also agree whole heartedly when then article claimed that teachers have to give extra help to students who are already at a disadvantage. My students do quite well when they apply themselves, but often that means they have to see me during lunch, after school, or even on Saturdays (when I work at a Saturday school program). Many students have jobs to help out their families or need to be home right after school to babysit siblings or to cook supper, etc. I find that the more time I can devote to being available to students, the better my classes perform. I must say however I would like to see an update to this. When it was talking about the lack of progress of students in the 1990s and then discussed 'data in the last 5 years..' I had to scroll up to the date of the article. Being that it is almost 15 years old, I was sad to see how many of the gaps still exist in our schools...

Combining standards, high standards for all learners and highly qualified teachers helps to close the learning gap.

I was very interested in this article because I teach at a title 1 school in MCPS. Majority of my students are minorities or low income students. Our FARMS percentage is extremely high. I do not mean to repeat what Caryn had posted earlier but I mean to piggyback on her comment "To increase the achievement levels of minority and low-income students, we need to focus on what really matters: high standards, a challenging curriculum, and good teachers." I know this to be true in my classroom. For my students I have to high expectations and structure. I have to present them with a challenging curriculum. I need to devote myself and give them all I can. But, progress has come to a halt, which happened around 1988, and since that time, the gaps have widened. To me that is frightening and it makes me want to act immediately. "Because if we don't get the numbers out on the table and talk about them, we're never going to close the gap once and for all." People need to not be afraid of talking about the data, addressing the data, conquering the data. But in order for none to take offense everyone needs to know the correct data. Before speaking, people need to be educated. There simply cannot be "downright wrong-notions about the whys beneath the achievement gap." This article is great and goes on to give us proper data. It informs us of what needs to happen in order to close the gap: standards are key, all students must have challenging curriculum, students need extra help, and teachers MATTER A LOT.

Looks into why the instructional gap has widened after 1988 after having been narrowed the previous 18 years.  Offers patterns and key concepts to look at when trying to understand how to close these gaps.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this article as it relates to the student achievement gap. I currently teach at a Title 1 school in Prince George's County where majority of my students are working at a level below their perspective grade. This article does a great job breaking down the statistics and providing steps to move forward in solving this major issue. Lesson 1 spoke to me directly because the teaching and comprehension of standards are the building blocks of students growth. I reinforce the focus standard(s) of the week by way of intervention, homework, informal, and formal assessment. This article is very VALUABLE!!!

I love the lessons outlined in this resource. I especially like how Lesson 4 places a focus on the teachers and how they matter. In impoverished schools, many times the most qualified and effective teachers do not want to be there, therefore limiting the quality of teachers present. It is unfortunate that this happens but it is very common.

Helpful article on closing the gap with low income and minority students.

While this article came out too long ago to have up to date technological solutions, it still offers a brief, helpful framework for looking to improve classroom outcomes.

Excellent resource laying out the achievement gap problem (with data) and valuable solutions to close the gap.

This resource does an excellent job of breaking down and making sense of the achievement gap. When the numbers are presented in this way, it makes it clear just how wide that gap is and how worrying it is that the gap is once again increasing. The most interesting piece of the article was the stark contrast in the reasons for the gap between adult stakeholders and student stakeholders. The adults appear to place blame on factors beyond the classroom that are difficult to control, while the students highlight the growing concerns within the walls of the schools that are much more actionable.

The points in this article are personal to me as I teach adults at a Community College. In every cohort that I have 50% of my students have difficulty writing a cogent paragraph and 90% of them have never heard of an academic journal. While this is not part of my curriculum, I also teach these things. My students need to be sent into the workforce being able to participate in conversations in the workplace.

The article really breaks down what happens to students during high school where they fall behind to move forward in attending college. One thing they mention is test scores. To attend college students have to take and pass a standardized test that determines of they will get into college and what college they can get into. I believe community college is a great way to bridge the gap between high school and a university. There they can determine a major and may attend school part time while still working. This gives them the time to determine what they want to do in life while still being able to survive.

We should understand how race, poverty and the environment influences a child's potential in education before they even start Kindergarten. But like a disabilites or inequities there is diversity in the factors that cause these disparities and our solutions to remedies these gaps must offer a multifaceted approach. An approach that offers rigors instruction in the classrooms, access and guidance for continued learning at home and within our communities.