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Books:
Out of My Mind by Sharon Draper (girl in wheelchair and nonverbal. but she is a genius but people only see her disability)

Ideas and Quotes:
Representation all year long
The POWER of the Read Aloud...
Practice and use your character voices

Background:
Kindergarten teacher for 27 years
1 year of 4th grade adn little time with preschool

Assessment:
It is necessary. It is a tool to determine what my students know and what they need to know next.

Go to Assessments:
hands on - fast and easy
Kindergarten 2-3 minutes
Look up what standard is and then use a hands on
Tool kit that they keep in their desk

Believes in rules and routines. Spends the first month practicing what it is. Don't get grouchy and let mistakes be okay but just practice.

Work Smarter not Harder:
Didn't have a good home and work life balance - plans every tuesday for the following week. When I leave work at night I am ready for the next day.
Work a lot with my team. Find your best thing you do and take that and split up the load.

Greatest Advice for a new teacher:
Be extra nice to the secretary and custodian - the boss of the school
Listen to your coworkers.
Take  a risk - try something, but don't reinvent the wheel everyday.
Stay off your phone - your students need to know that you are there for them.
Don't take yourself too seriously. You are going to mess up, but it is okay. Laugh with your kids.
Leave your home problems at the door. Your kids don't need to know your problems.
My best day is when you are here, every single day. We know it is your best day, we are all here.
Safe space for your kids.
Turn mistakes into a teachable moment.

Representation is huge in your literature.
Read Aloud everyday. Use accents. Practice your voices.

It is a fun job. You are impacting the future.

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Books:
Thinking Fast...Slow by Daniel Kahneman - thinking of the long game
Learning Disabilities  - Jack Fletcher
When I am Little Again and The Child's Right to Respect (from a polish pediatrician) (a child's right to respect is huge. Children are not the people of tomorrow but the people today.)

Ideas and Quotes:
Kids are People

Respect Goes Both Ways...
Impact!

Background:
Coordinator for Special Services
15 years in education
5 years in this role
10 prior years in school psychology

Personal Definition of Assessment:
It is observation. Snapshot of a kid on that day. Assessment is a piece of the pie.
There are no valid assessments there are only valid interpretations. Wiliams

Go to assessments that guide your work:
MTSS or RTI assessments
monitoring progress with intervention
day to day exit tickets -

All students are gen ed students first.
- Good academic records - good partnering with our specialists
Smarter Not Harder
Have to have a process and a team that you are all on the same team with.
Have a framework and stick to it and make sure you are consistant with it.

Impact - kid presenting as 4-5 grades behind - got with the team and figured out he had a verbal deficit. He was ahead in some areas and worked as a team to get him where he needed to be. Worked with his new family. Saw huge progress working together with team and parents. Got the kid lightyears ahead. Assessment surprised a lot of us. Had to understand his trauma.

Greatest advice -
Respect your impact - students are going to look towards you to form relationships.
Assessment has it's place but all roads are what you are doing on the other end. Intervention side is important

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TJ Ulmer:
Background:
23rd year of teaching
5th grade, 8th and 9th grade Science
Taught Avid
Asst. Principal
Currently the Director of Blended Learning for Olathe - Instructional Technology
Helped orchestrate online learning for Olathe
Also teaches for a University

Books:
The Culture Code by Daniel Coyle
Deeper Learning by Eric Jensen & LeAnn Michelson

Ideas & Quotes:
"Find Your Compass"
"Every Student: Every Day!"
"Figure out their combination!" - build the relationship

Personal Definition of Assessment - very holistic - Can the students apply the knowledge? Can they tell me what I am trying to teach?

When doing assessments keep their options open, but had to show they have the knowledge

I never think of an assessment as final - it is a process - show that they are growing in that area - maybe you didn't do so great on this, but here on some opportunities for growth.

Started with a standard and break it apart - how if this was applied would it look like. I would break down to 5 essential questions, ideas or thoughts.  I never keep these a secret from my students. They knew exactly what I expected them to know and how it should look.

Tests always open ended and students can test out early. If they test out early they would bring it back and teach it to the class.

Every kid is going to learn differently at different speeds. Kids keep track of their progress or standards and can tell me where they are and their parents where they are and can always work on it.

Smarter not Harder-
Really important to go slow - it might be hard to take it all in and swallow and make it happen. Take a little piece and work it through and then take another little piece, etc. Don't have to bite all of it right now.

What is something you can do tomorrow to make the biggest impact?

New Teacher Advice: Do you know and care about your kids - this is the number one thing a parent cares about - build the relationships - eat lunch with them.

Be intentional!

Why Teach? Having people in their life that are stable, loving, and caring are so important to students. Show students that even when life gets crazy, we've got this. You get to change people's stories.

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Resources:
Excellence in every classroom by John Wink
Learning by Doing by Dufour
Thing Again by Adam Grant
Podcasts: Brene Brown
Simon Sinek
Adam Grant - Cult of a Pedagogy

Background:
Instructional Coaching Coordinator
Started Teaching in 1992
ELA for 7 years
then Olathe
job is to mentor teachers 7-12

Assessment?
When you have a goal and how you are doing towards that goal or you have met it.

Educator Rubric - 6 standards
Like using rubrics - helps to keep you more objective

Smarter Not Harder:
Rubrics help you works smarter and not harder
You don't have to give homework - don't have to grade everything at home (can do thumbs up and thumbs down, exit tickets, etc)

Teach routines over and over in the beginning and it saves time in the end when they know the routine.

Do a little bit of research and see what grade you think you might want to be a part of.

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Resources:
Behavior Snap - on her phone

Background -
started teaching in 2007
K-12 certified - student taught in both elementary and secondary

Personal Definition of Assessment:
Look at it different than a classroom teacher as a special ed teacher:
- Social skills checklists
- curriculum
- behaviors
Uses both anecdotal vs. data driven
Really likes behavior checklists
- can make graphs from this to show parents where we are making improvements or where we need to work

Go to assessments:
- Running records, FMP's (benchmark assessment) for reading

Only resource teacher in the building. Groups in 30 minute increments
using the resources around you - look at your veteran teachers - no reason to reinvent the wheel

Having scores that help see students strengths, so we can hone in on his strengths and skills

Advice:
Be very careful on who you surround yourself with. Surround with positive not negative. Negative can bring you down really quick. Remember while you are doing this.

Resources:
Not so much the resources but filtering out the stuff. Filter out the opinions. Having time to myself to reflect.

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The books she believes that everyone should read is : How Do You Hug a Porcupine?
Brohm Elementary
21 years of teaching
Constant Assessment in Elementary School
Goal - Every kid grows in my classroom
What are your go to assessments that guide your teaching?
Learning Continuum - to group kids and see where they are
Start with standards and see where they need to go
Big on small groups, so can see kids and see where they can go, very fluid
everyone is moving at a different pace
How do you work smarter not harder - Collaborate - not about me it is about my team. I have learned so much from my team
We work better together.
Best Advice for a new teacher - Don't walk alone
Have someone read over your emails - there when you have to call a parent
walk the walls in other classrooms to see what you can learn
Resources:
Twitter - see what others post, a school in Olathe at done famous kansans post, get on and see what other people are doing
Look for new things - youtube, pinterest and see what others have tried
Core books that stay with you:
How do you hug a porcupine
Leader and Me School - Lighthouse Status last year
Helping your kids be goal orientated and let them know that their teachers don't always meet their goals, but that is ok
Everyone has genius wall - they can switch out what their genius each day or whenever they would like
Exit ticket - what they have learned that day
hearts things on their desk that they are proud of or that the teacher is proud of and even their parents wrote them notes at parent teacher conference
Write compliments to each other and then we put them on the wall
What makes you happy wall - Room is very student orientated

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Background -
-teaching for 6 years

- Quick assessment is the best assessment
- Taught summer school and did exit tickets every single day, but when they did it every day she learned so much and knew exactly where they were at
- empower the kids to check in to see where they are
- relationships - she gives nicknames - to create a connection, ask about lives, reach out to families and get to know them, in the classroom when working together, have a little something with each one of them, makes things go much better in the classroom
- go slow to go fast - go over procedure and practice over and over - make sure they know what you expect of them
- don't have to run a tight ship but run an orderly ship
- book or podcast that helps her: Stuff you should know,
- Why teach? the smiles
- uses flexible seating

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Background -
- Teaching 10 years
- math coordinator for Olathe Public Schools
- Assessment definition - simply I can ask you to do something observe that and make an inference based on that
-whatever my inference is - it can only go as far as assessment
-understanding the validity of my interpretation is important (the science behind it)
-Go to Assessments-
-white boards - pace the engagement of the class (everybody responses)
-
- when you are talking to a teacher it is different than when you are talking to a student - relational - time to talk
- scaffold - is the language of assessment in the classroom
- work smarter not harder - understand the inference that I am trying to make from the assessment
- Challenge - at risk and proficiency assessments - we assume that all kids will great scores on all assessment
- interpretation - can the child be flexible in their thinking
-validity and reliability -
- relational knowledge - whenever I learn something I learn one thing, then multiple things about it, car analogy
- teach to the test - so when a kid gets into an assessment I can see if they have a relational knowledge - tells me that my instruction needs to have flexibility for novel teaching
- teach with the end in mind
- Books
-Teacher Playbook
- IS practice guide - several different ones
- "A good teacher is a good coach"
- Why should you teach? You won't know until you meet your kids and then you will!

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Books:
Despite the Best Intentions by David Sadzin, a lot of data, focusing on ADD, learning disabilities, autism

The Morning Meeting Book K-8 by Roxanne Creat - written for an educator. focus, intentionality, etc. packed with ideas and suggested.

The Gift of Dyslexia by Ronald Davis (written very friendly for a teacher to read)

Ideas and Quotes:
Connections and Challenge
Create an Impact... It's Up to YOU!
The Coutage to try!
Teaching Matters!
The best you can EVERYDAY...For Every Child!
The Career that allows us to become part of their STORY! It is a gift!

Background:
3rd grade

Personal Definition of Assessment - make observations - not day to day

Go to assessments that guide teaching - small groups, so you can do one on one with other students, they need connection

*having the kids that are really bright challenge other students

design your day with small groups in mind

How do you work smarter not harder:
Be a team
Divide and Conquer
Compliment your team members
leaders in your classroom that you can use
- you might tell it differently than a student in the classroom

Dyslexia helps:
Some of the smartest kids have dyslexia just dont know it. their brain just works differently

colored strips that you can use to put over your words in the story to read better.

Sometimes you are assessing what the kid needs social and emotional. Story of the 2 students who shared they had dyslexia.

You need relationships with your students, students families and staff.

Take the time!!!
Hard to have hard conversations with parents - but they will respect it. Don't just send an email, make the call.

You don't have to love everyone on your staff but find a strength that everyone has. Make sure to tell them that.

Time, time time, relationships, relationships, relationships.

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Background:
- National Teacher of the Year - 2020
- teaching for 12 years
- teaching preschool
- coaching position supporting other teachers
- assessment (personal definition) - accurate picture of where my students are academically and can bring into the social emotional realm.
*Early Childhood Assessments
-  MyIGDI - norm referenced - gives an idea on where the preschooler is at - "a kid friendly way to figure out how I can tailor instruction to meet the needs of my students"
- DIAL-4- evaluate any preschooler that is coming in
- APES- working on an assessment that really involves the family and their perspective on their child
How do you work smarter not harder?
- all in the systems - think about routines, how you set up your environment, and the little things you can do to set up the children to work more independently
Advice
- lean on the support in your community
Books and Resources:
- "Don't Look Away"
- " Easy to Love, Difficulty to Discipline"
- "The Conscious Kid" on Instagram