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Candidates and Mentors, read each of your Induction peers posts from top to bottom.

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Create a separate post under your name for each of the following topic areas.  Please use the same titles below for each post. *MENTORS only need to complete the "Background" post.*

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Candidates and Mentors, for each of your peers, provide the following:
- At least two appreciations
(What do you appreciate about your peer's growth or the growth their students made this year?)
- At least one connection (What about your peer's learning experience in Induction, reminds you of your own?)
- At least one question (What question might push your peer's thinking and reflection on their growth or students growth this year?)

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Candidates and Mentors, share your content, grade level, years of experience, pertinent information about your school or teaching assignment, and one fun fact about yourself. Upload a photo of yourself or bitmoji to this post.

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Describe your inquiry focus question, CSTP focus indicators, and what factors (e.g. student area of need, professional learning goals, teaching context) led you to pursue this area of focus.

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Reflect on your ILP, mentor observations, choice activities and/or any other professional learning activities.  Identify at least  two major ah-hahs or turning points that shaped your growth this school year.

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Select at least one artifact or data point to share that highlights a celebration, milestone or significant growth area for you and/or your students.  Examples may include:

Formative Assessment Data (e.g. quiz, project, assignment)

Summative Assessment Data (e.g. NWEA, iReady)

Student Work Samples (e.g. pre/post focus student data, student work analysis)

Short video clip of instruction or student interaction, <5 minutes (e.g. Mentor observation recording)

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Choose one of the following reflection questions to respond to:

How did induction impact your growth as a teacher and/or your students this school year?

What successes or celebrations are you most proud of this school year? What conditions or assets made this success possible?

Which processes from Induction will you use again?  Explain how you plan to build on this work next year.

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Hello! My name is Roy Seo and I am currently a 2nd grade teacher (Gen-Ed) at Equitas Academy #3! This is my 4th year teaching; I taught 5th grade at Endeavor College Preparatory Charter School for two years, and transitioned to EQ3 in my third year. I'm grateful that I had to teach in both lower and upper elementary; I believe that gaining perspective in both worlds made me improve as an educator. My current school maintains a safe atmosphere and a wonderful and friendly culture amongst coworkers; the administration team is extremely accommodating and understanding of its staff. I love to rock climb indoors and outdoors. In fact, I love it so much that I work part-time at a climbing gym in Culver City.

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Hi! I am Alison Staffieri and I am a first grade homeroom teacher at EQ3 in Pico-Union. I have been teaching for 9 years. Six years ago my coworkers Ana, Arapaie, and I helped found first grade at EQ3. Prior to that I taught elementary school science in Chicago for three years.  I am left-handed, but was told once that isn't a fun fact 😂, so, I love to take road trips and have been to 44/50 states!

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Hi! My name is Sara Lev and I teach Transitional Kindergarten at Larchmont Charter School. This is my 17th year as a teacher - I've always taught early childhood, so TK-2. I am passionate about Project Based Learning, and also work with PBLWorks as a National Faculty member. We support teachers TK-12 in PBL implementation. One fun fact about myself is that I am the co-author of a book all about Project Based Learning in early childhood! Here's a picture of me with my class' final project of the year - we planted a TK garden.

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I teach 3rd grade at Larchmont Charter School, Hollygrove. This is my first year in a traditional classroom setting, but I have worked at my school for many years. For four years, I primarily taught an enrichment class we call Garden. It is based off of the Edible School Yard model, bringing outdoor educational experiences to all students. It was through running that program at my school that I became interested in obtaining a teaching credential. In my work as an outdoor educator I strove to incorporate standards from across content areas, and used a variety of instructional methods to reach students. I also learned a ton about behavior management! I did my student teaching virtually (also at my current school) and, obtained my Secondary Credential in Foundational Science in addition to the Multi-Subject Credential. I was then hired as a full time lead teacher at the school when we went to a hybrid model last spring. In my free time I take dance classes!

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My Inquiry Question was: If I utilize graphic organizers, sentence starters, words banks and sentence frames, will students move from Emerging to Bridging in regards to information writing (ELD.3.P1.10), as measured by student work samples such as writer's workshop texts and writing on-demands?

My CTSP Focus Indicators were:
1. Engaging and Supporting all Students in Learning
3. Understanding and Organizing Subject Matter for Student Learning
4. Planning Instruction and Designing Learning Experiences for All Students
5. Assessing Students for Learning

I was drawn to the goal, because my favorite course in my credentialing program was learning to teach Writer's Workshop. I also took a supplemental ELD class in my credentialing program. In that class, I become interested in the ways that the Writer's Workshop model is geared towards white, affluent students, and leaves EL students behind. I used that concern as a jumping off point for a presentation on how to use bilingual texts to inform a Writer's Workshop model. Since I found that work very rewarding, I wanted to continue it this year. Additionally, I was aware of the number of EL students in my class, and how difficult it was for them during virtual instruction. These factors combined to help me choose this topic as my focus for Induction.

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My focus question was, "If I provide differentiated phonics instruction, will 80% of students move up six reading levels, as measured by F&P scores?" Understanding that many scholars were not able to grow to their expected level last year, I chose to specifically focus on reading levels and phonics growth. Learning and mastering phonics concepts are essential to scholars' success in multiple subjects. Mastering phonics definitely leads scholars to increase in reading levels and succeed in reading comprehension. I consider 2nd grade to be the optimal year for scholars to master all phonics skills, which will then prepare them to maximize their learning in upper elementary.

CTSP Focus Indicators:
1. Engaging and Supporting all Students in Learning
4. Planning Instruction and Designing Learning Experiences
5. Assessing Students for Learning

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One turning point for me happened during a formal observation from my principal. One problem I had been having in Writer's Workshop was that students were too reliant on me, and struggled to work independently. Additionally, many students were not producing much writing at all. My school leader suggested having assigned writing partners to help solve these problems. I took her advice, and for the next unit made writing partners. This not only gave students a designated peer to ask for help, it also created more opportunities for students to talk to each other. I learned both in my ELD class and Writer's Workshop class, that many students (especially EL students) need to speak out loud what they are thinking, before they are prepared to write it down. Having homogenous writing partners, created more authentic opportunities for students to use a thinking buddy and verbalize their ideas, before they get bogged down in writing them on paper.

Another turning point happened during my unit on paragraphs. It was the first time I used a graphic organizer to help students structure their writing. To help students conceptualize a paragraph, I used a graphic of an umbrella. This gave them a visual to help them conceptualize, in addition, to the structure of a graphic organizer. I saw the biggest growth with one of my SPED students using the graphic organizer. Before that unit, his writing was all over the place, and lacked a clear beginning middle and end. When asked to add detail he would restate the same ideas over and over again. With the use of the umbrella graphic organizers he was able to organize his thoughts, and draw out more details. This lead to more writing production from him in general, as we was able to transfer his ideas from the graphic organizer into full sentences in his writing.

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Writing Assessment Data

My focus student (JaPa) started the year off at a 1.5 on the Lucy Caulkins scale. Throughout the year he has grown a full grade level, and his most recent formative assessment placed him at 2.5.  He demonstrated the most growth in Structure and Development (currently at grade level). His area of growth remains Language Conventions, specifically punctuation.

This growth is also reflective of my class overall. While we have yet to complete the final Summative Writing Assessment of the year, I did see growth from the beginning of the year to right before Spring Break (the most recent formative assessment), and expect to see the same level of growth next week when I grade their final formative assessments. Students went from an average Lucy Caulkins scaled score of 1.9 to 2.6, with the biggest improvements in Structure and Development. This also indicates that next year I should redouble my efforts to focus on Language Conventions, as it will benefit the whole class.

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Induction impacted my growth as a teacher by making me realize how under prepared I was to teach Writer's Workshop. I initially thought that Writer's Workshop would be one of the easier subject for me to teacher. I loved that class during my credentialing program and am a good, and prolific, writer myself. However, by focusing my attention through induction on Writer's Workshop, I became aware of just how inadequate the curriculum was, and how many students were being left behind. Induction lead me to make several changes in Writer's Workshop that have helped my students, and continues to motivate me to innovate until all students needs are met.

There are a few students who entered 3rd grade struggling to write even one grade below grade level. While not every students has made huge growth, several of them have surprised me by how much they learned this year. I had one SPED student at the beginning of the year who wrote in the middle of the page (like a poem) and used symbols instead of words when he didn't know how to spell something.  I used to have to sit next to this students to get him to write anything. Now, he is able to write independently and clearly, and his ideas are really shining through. On tough days, I always think about how much he has grown.

I plan on using everything I worked on in Induction next year. I loop with my students, so I will have all the same kids next year. I plan on continuing to use writing partners and writing conferences. I also want to continue, and increase, my use of graphic organizers in the pre-writing phase. I still see lots of space for improvement in my Writer's Workshop lessons, especially in regards to making them more accessible to my EL and SPED students. I will continue to make this a focus of my practice next year, as well.

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This year was definitely a learning experience for all scholars and educators. Virtual learning required many scholars to adjust mentally and physically when transitioning back to in-person learning in the classroom. Throughout the school-year, I learned that patience and preparation were essential for educators, in order to guide scholars to achieve academic success. I strongly focused on phonics, understanding that scholars are expected to master all skills and concepts by 2nd grade.

Many scholars were behind in their reading level, due to hectic virtual learning. In order for scholars to reach their expected reading level, implementing phonics lessons daily, while incorporating effective scaffolds and accommodations, was highly essential and a necessity. Reading levels indicate the scholars' strengths and weaknesses, ranging from fluency to reading comprehension. I primarily focused on differentiating my phonics lessons; I implemented scaffolds and accommodations for scholars, based on their needs regarding phonics concepts. Some differentiating strategies that I incorporated were homogenous grouping for small groups, providing manipulatives and visuals, precision partnering, anchor charts, and more. Differentiation has definitely enabled scholars to grow.

One of my a-ha moments was when my focus student became more confident throughout the year. I noticed that after several differentiated phonics instruction, he became eager to respond to my questions and to share his answers with his classmates. The scaffolds that were provided for him definitely encouraged him to succeed in each lesson and complete all assignments. His built confidence allowed to verbalize his thoughts, ask questions when he required assistance, and to help other scholars who needed it. Small group instruction was indeed effective; it allowed me to assist the scholar individually and to work on domains that needed to be worked on.

Another a-ha moment was when scholars' basic foundational skills, such as phonics, and reading level impacted their learning in other subjects. Their reading comprehension translates to their understanding of math stories, reading directions of a science experiment, and many other assignments. Differentiated phonics enabled scholars to build on their spelling and decoding & blending words, which enabled them to improve in reading fluency and reading comprehension. Teaching phonics, especially differentiated phonics, involves effective modeling from the teacher and chunking, which definitely helps them to acquire and learn the concept. Scholars who received scaffolds and differentiation were able to complete other assignments by individually implementing these strategies for themselves. I noticed that scholars genuinely enjoyed to read books that are at their reading level, after they learned and mastered several phonics concepts.

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Hello! I teach Kindergarten at Larchmont Charter School, Hollygrove. It’s my first year teaching Kindergarten, but my 5th year teaching overall. I’ve taught many different grade levels–1st, 4th, and even 6th–but Kindergarten has been my absolute favorite so far. I love the enthusiasm and joy that the kids bring to school every day, in addition to their ability to be completely and unapologetically themselves. For fun, I like to listen to music & make playlists. I’ve also been learning how to skateboard!

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My Inquiry Focus Question:

If I teach targeted weekly explicit SEL lessons for English Learners, will their communication during social conflicts be more effective, as measured by classroom observation data, conferring notes, and student surveys?

My CSTP Indicators:

2.1 Promoting social development and responsibility within a caring community where each student is treated fairly and respectfully

2.3 Establishing and maintaining learning environments that are physically, intellectually, and emotionally safe

I was drawn to this focus because, when the year started I realized that there were many social emotional skills that the students needed in order to access our other areas of learning. This was especially evident with this group of students, as many of them did not have the opportunity to attend preschool due to the Covid-19 Pandemic. For many of them, this was their first time in an environment where they were socializing with other children their age. I found that the students who were having the most difficulties navigating social interactions and resolving social conflicts were my EL students. The majority of them were EL 1s and this was their first exposure to English. Navigating resolving social conflicts requires a lot of scaffolding for this age group, but especially so when it’s not in the students’ home language. Because I do have a good amount of English learners in my class, I wanted to ensure that they all felt safe and respected in the community. I wanted to provide support for them to both learn the social emotional skills to resolve social conflicts while also supporting their English language skills.

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Through the inquiry process, I was able to fully explore my question and really understand the impact that the small group was having on the students and classroom community.

By being able to observe other teachers, especially at the Kindergarten & TK level, I was able to see how other teachers coached students through their social conflicts so that they could feel empowered. I was also able to get more of a handle on the language that could be used in those situations, both for the teacher who is coaching students and options for things the students can be coached to say in the moment. I had a lot of “ah-ha” moments, jotting notes down and often thinking, “Oh! That’s the perfect way to explain that!” Because my experience has primarily been with upper grade students, it’s been a bit of a learning curve for me to adjust my language to the Kindergarten developmental level when explaining things and coaching them through social issues. But I feel like, especially through the observations, I’ve been able to learn so much and continue to grow in this area!

By reading the text, “All Learning is Social and Emotional” I was able to see how these social and emotional learning skills played out in all areas of the curriculum and gather ideas for how to implement this across the curriculum for the following year. I was able to learn specific skills to target and which ones build upon each other, so that students feel fully empowered in their ability to take care of themselves and others. I hadn’t realized how social emotional learning was so integrally connected to all areas of learning, but this book really opened my eyes to how the integration can actually be even more beneficial than a completely separate social emotional curriculum.

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In the beginning of the year, the majority of the students (5 out of 6) in my EL Social Emotional Learning group struggled  to resolve conflicts with peers without significant teacher support. They had a particularly difficult time with explaining how they were feeling in English (ex. “I felt ___ when you ____.”) and with asking questions of the person who was also involved in the incident (ex. “Was it an accident?” “Why did you say that?”) to clarify what had happened. With the targeted implementation of the small group, in addition to the more general implementation of a social emotional learning curriculum in the classroom, the students were able to gain these skills and be able to apply them when navigating social conflicts. By the end of the year, these minority of these students struggle to resolve conflicts without teacher support (1 out of 6). The majority of them have grown more confident in expressing their thoughts and feelings during a social conflict and feel capable of doing this in English.

For example, in the beginning of the year two of the students in the EL group would often find themselves having misunderstandings about balancing time together and needing space from each other. They would struggle to describe their feelings in both their home language and English, and we often needed a Korean translator to help coach them through each phrase. At the end of the year, both students can now express themselves in English during these incidents and use their home language (Korean) to clarify particular thoughts they have already expressed in English. They are able to move through their conflicts and resolve them independently.

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The image above is a screenshot of my scholar's progress in reading level. I assessed him every month, using F&P, and he has shown significant growth in Trimester 2. His reading level in the beginning of the year was C; he struggled to decode and blend phonemes & graphemes. Throughout the year, my student was able to learn and practice certain phonics skills with differentiation. He has drastically improved in reading fluency and reading comprehension, which allowed him to advance several reading levels in a single trimester. In Trimester 1, he did indeed struggle with phonics at first, due to the fact that he had to relearn concepts from 1st grade. However, after many lessons, he has mastered most of the phonics concepts, learned all the graphemes of each alphabet, digraphs, diphthongs, and more, and spelling rules. This image shows that he grew 3 levels in a single trimester, which is amazing! The ideal goal for all scholars who received differentiation to move up 6 reading levels by the end of the year. In early April, he moved up to H, and he is scheduled to test again for reading levels in early June (scholars were not assessed every month in this trimester, due to scheduling conflicts of state testing and other school changes). I am extremely proud that he is determined to succeed, and that he constantly exhibits his enthusiasm for learning in the classroom.

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The induction impacted my growth as a teacher by allowing me to fully explore how social emotional learning impacted the growth of my EL students in all areas academically and socially. Because of the increased support, they were able to resolve conflicts more independently and were therefore able to feel more safe and secure in our classroom environment. I noticed many students grew in their confidence throughout the year as both their social and English skills improved. They felt like they had the language to express themselves and to stand up for themselves if they needed to. For next year, I’m planning to integrate this ELD learning into our main Literacy curriculum so that it’s embedded for all students, while also providing a weekly ELD small group for additional language support.

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Induction was definitely a learning and helpful experience. My mentor, Leslie, has helped me tremendously to become a better educator for my scholars. As mentioned above in the previous questions, I acknowledged the fact that every teacher, no matter the years of experience, always has room to grow in various aspects of their teaching career. I learned new and effective instructional strategies that I can incorporate in my lessons, data trackers that and formative assessments that can help me accurately track scholars' academic progress, and more. This is currently my 4th year teaching and I am amazed that I can still learn new things to improve my craft. Observing my peers and other teachers at my school was incredibly helpful; their style and instructional strategies that they utilized enabled their scholars to constantly stay determined and successful. I was able to have engaging conversations with the people I observed and learned new things that I can effectively implement in my future lessons.

Induction was definitely helpful and eye-opening. I learned that collecting and tracking important information/data is key for scholars' and educators' success. My goal for induction was heavily aligned with scholars' academic growth, which allowed me to constantly and aggressively monitor my scholars by implementing both informal and formal assessments. I believe that I will definitely do a better job of collecting data and implementing effective scaffolds and accommodations for my scholars. I am extremely proud of my focus student, for not only growing in reading level, but also becoming confident in trusting his own abilities to succeed in the classroom.

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I appreciate how you integrate standards across content areas - this speaks to authenticity in your teaching and your students' making meaning of their learning.

I appreciate the specificity of your inquiry question and your focus on EL students and Writer's Workshop and the use of visuals like the umbrella.