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Share your PLC's reflections about this topic.

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Reflection 2 - Share your PLC's thoughts about our student data about sense of belonging

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Reflection 2 - Share your PLC's thoughts about our student data about sense of belonging

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Reflection 2 - Share your PLC's thoughts about our student data about sense of belonging

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Reflection 2 - Share your PLC's thoughts about our student data about sense of belonging

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Focus on effort, not excellence. Differentiate tests, scaffolding, provide difficult but achievable tasks. Provide instruction based on student need. Always provide room for growth and space for students who want to be challenged. Give detailed feedback.

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It is important for educators to show students the big picture goal and break that down into smaller steps so they feel success along the way.  

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It is important for educators to show students the big picture goal and break that down into smaller steps so they feel success along the way.  

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We think peer collaboration is very helpful in meeting the needs of various learners. Giving kids roles and allowing them to help each other is very important.

Basic modifications help to support students: optional readalouds, etc.

Our reassessment policy also is very helpful in allowing students opportunities to relearn, repractice, and try to meet the high expectations again.

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English PLC: Clear expectations, giving and receiving feedback, awareness of where you are with students

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strategic grouping, individual expectations, celebrating their growth, meeting them where they are it, adjusting instruction, collaboration with other teachers;

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Students need to be challenged and you need to differentiate your assignments to meet the needs of all students. If students are being challenged then teachers need to make sure they are available to help at all times.

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Co-teaching is a big part of this meeting all needs in the Grade Level setting, Creating relationships outside of academics & carving out intentional time to make all students feel successful. Implementing the RTI model within an everyday lesson to meet students at their level within the grade level expectations.

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A teacher can meet students where they are at and then increase difficulty +1 (Krashen theory).  Specifically in language teaching, comprehensible input approaches require us to use language that is understandable to the student and slightly challenges them.  We can ensure all students get what they need by scaffolding and using GRRM to assist students.   This relates to the identity conversation because we need to know who our learners are -- do they have special plans, needs, etc.?  

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A teacher can meet students where they are at and then increase difficulty +1 (Krashen theory).  Specifically in language teaching, comprehensible input approaches require us to use language that is understandable to the student and slightly challenges them.  We can ensure all students get what they need by scaffolding and using GRRM to assist students.   This relates to the identity conversation because we need to know who our learners are -- do they have special plans, needs, etc.?  

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Would listen to the student, develop goals together & create an action plan together to achieve the goal.
Also, having visuals that the student can use to help visualize where they are at and their progress.

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Our student data was surprising to us at the 6-12 level. We thought the connectedness would be a lot higher because we do work on cultivating relationships. We do think that it might be more difficult for students to connect to teachers/other students as they get older because they have less time with their teachers. It takes a long time for students to respect/trust their teachers as they grow up and the survey was given early on in the school year. We hopefully will see different results at the end of the year.

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While it's important to challenge students, it's necessary to scaffold and progress toward more and more rigorous expectations. Start with something we KNOW kids can do and then add more and more challenging exercises.

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Provide the students the end goal, identify where they are at in terms of needs and what level of background knowledge/skill they are bringing, and mentor them from that point. Differentiation, providing choice, and gradual release will all support students at different levels while holding high expectations.

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We establish grade level expectations for all students and provide appropriate supports and accommodations for students who need them. Some supports may be location, language supports, images or physical activities. This relates to the identity conversation because we need to understand who our students are and build their trust through positive interactions.

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our students communicated that we support them very well which is great to see; our students as a group felt less sure that we understand them as a person and respect them compared to other areas; it is a higher percentage, but certainly is an area where we can work on as teachers and grow;

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We believe that all students need to be challenged in order to grow and we provide this during our Personalized Learning Time. Along with this, we have Flex Learner Coaches who need to make note of this as well. We want to make them aware that they also need to be resilient at home and work through challenging assignments with their students in order to model this for them.

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Coming off a year of virtual learning, we are not surprised by the results. It was more difficult to try to build connections with students last year when students were virtual. It will be interesting to see the results after more of the year has transpired.

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In our specialist areas we get to know their abilities very well. Therefore we can find a good balance between challenging them and making modifications.

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One thing to keep in mind is that, at the 3-5th grade levels, students have one teacher and one group of peers that they spend their entire day with. This inevitably allows them to feel a greater senes of belonging because they have more time to nurture those relationships.

On the other hand, at the secondary-level, teachers have much less time with students, and students also change peer groups with every class which undoubtedly makes it harder for them to feel like they "fit in."

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We need to understand where each student is starting from so we can better support their path to success. We discussed that to a degree, we don't want to just give students work they are completely comfortable with because we want them to stretch. Maybe the amount of "stretching" we're asking for can be carefully considered. We also have been talking about the psychology of flow and that students optimal performance level is achieved with a task that is something surprisingly low like between 5-7% challenging. So we probably don't have to push as hard as we think all the time to witness growth in students. And we can help build confidence initially by assigning work with a higher guaranteed success rate and then support as we increase our expectations.

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Each student should have their individual expectations and be an integral part of their data tracking to reflect on where they have been and how much progress they have made to increase confidence.
Differentiating assignments to meet each students needs and meeting them where they are at to build confidence but take them where they need to be...may be at a different pace, but the main goal would be to do whatever possible to help close that gap. Creating relationships is a powerful tool to help build trust and increase the intensity of the student/teacher interaction. Following the gradual release of responsibility model would be a great way to introduce and follow through with the lessons.

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We feel that with our CPM curriculum we are able to challenge students with big problems that require them to struggle and we are then able to provide support and address the specific needs of students and groups. We address the goal of each lesson at the start of the class period so that students are aware of what we expect of them. At the end of each lesson we have time for "closure" where we reflect on our learning from that day.

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When looking at this data we can't help but wonder at what age does this sense of belonging change? Flex data seems to be in the 80% range. Some of the factors that may help with this sense of belonging could include the community time we have built into our schedule, as well as, all school celebrations and events. Shared roles between our Learner Coaches and teachers can support student well-being too. In addition, we are implementing student SEL focuses each month to build students skills and strategies to build relationships and foster a sense of belonging.

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After assessment windows, we meet students where they are at, but we make sure to document strengths and set goals. These are continuously monitored, reviewed, and adjusted as students progress towards or master their goals.

We are also very cognizant of students' home lives, and therefore do not require students to do projects that require a lot of home support.

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We are the most concerned about the student survey results of connectedness and feeling that they matter to other students.  We wonder if there are some common demographics of students who are marking themselves as totally disconnected or not mattering to others.  Are they new here?  Were they virtual last year?  Are they from LC?  We are interested to find some focus areas within these questions.

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We are the most concerned about the student survey results of connectedness and feeling that they matter to other students.  We wonder if there are some common demographics of students who are marking themselves as totally disconnected or not mattering to others.  Are they new here?  Were they virtual last year?  Are they from LC?  We are interested to find some focus areas within these questions.

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Could we do a mid-year survey to see what the data looks like a few months in regarding sense of belonging? The fifth grade team thinks this would be interesting :)

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While the data illustrates some obvious areas for growth, it is also important to recognize the major growth and development happening at the 6-12 level (e.g. puberty). The perspective that students have may not always be the reality, which poses an even more unique challenge: how do we make kids see/believe/understand that they have people they are connected to and looking out for them? Sources of Strength, as an example.

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While the data illustrates some obvious areas for growth, it is also important to recognize the major growth and development happening at the 6-12 level (e.g. puberty). The perspective that students have may not always be the reality, which poses an even more unique challenge: how do we make kids see/believe/understand that they have people they are connected to and looking out for them? Sources of Strength, as an example.

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We talked about meeting students where they are at, and working in their Zone of Proximal Development. Being in the special education realm, we talked about not limiting students based on their disabilities.

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It comes down to knowing our students.  When you know your students well, you can adjust work as needed.... to be sure you still have high expectations for each student while being sensitive to individual needs.

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How do we become more comfortable ourselves discussing these different identities within literature, in our classes, when people are so critical of these topics?

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We have different high expectations for each of our students. our high expectations for johnny will differ from suzie

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This survey was given early in the school year which might reflect some of the results. Students at the elementary school are with one main teacher more so than at the higher grade levels.

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It is a double edged sword between differentiating and challenging them. We have WIN groups where we are teaching small groups to challenge some and also give more differentiated instruction to others. However, the challenge is that we currently have more students who need more support than we can place in a group. It comes down to people power and time. In order to make sure students have enough support, we need to have people available to support them and resources readily available.

This relates to the identity conversation because kids start to identify their academic strengths or weaknesses as they get older. It is becoming more accepted among kids that some kids leave the room at different times, and other kids don't. But, what we need to keep in mind is that whichever group they fall into they are taking this into their identity. Parents also have feelings about their own school-related identities that carry over into how their students identify themselves ("not good at writing" or "not a math person.)

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At the secondary level, students can get lost in the crowd as class sizes are bigger. At the elementary level, students may feel more of a sense of belonging since they are with their same smaller class and the same teacher all day long.

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You will get further with a student on anything if you have a connection/relationship.
In terms of intentionality, we would select and utilize relevant, interesting and motivating materials that are specific to that student.

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At the elementary level, it seems that students are feeling very supported by the staff in the building. Students clearly feel like they belong, and can share their identities, which leads to feelings of belonging. This can, in turn, lead to more positive views of school, as well as increase their overall social/emotional well-being.

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It makes sense that younger students in the elementary schedule would feel more connected as they are in a smaller group, and together all day, everyday. Older students may not be as easy to keep track of despite our best efforts to connect with them as they are coming and going in different directions, different classes, etc. We also felt that some high school or middle school students may not take the survey seriously.

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We think it would be a great idea to give the staff this survey at some point this year.

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OBSERVATIONS: Is some of this lack of belonging due to the time of the year, and changing from having a day full of same classmates & teachers (3-5) to seeing many classmates & teachers in a day (6-12). Pupil Service does a great job trying to meet ALL student needs, but there is not enough adults/staff in Pupil services to actually meet all students!
IDEAS: Allowing more diverse options and time frames (due to students that work etc) for clubs, extra-curriculars, and sports. More opportunities for relationship building and experiences outside of academics during the school day!!!

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I think the sense of belonging in the elementary school is very favorable

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We are wondering if someone from a different culture/racial or ethnic diversity could come and teach us about equity rather than white people teaching other white people about different cultures.

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We provide a challenging curriculum for our students. Our goal is to get kids to critically think about topics and issues. And sometimes, that requires pushing them beyond their comfort zone. How do kids know what they can achieve until they have been pushed beyond what they think they are capable of. However, we do acknowledge the fact that we have a wide range of learners and abilities in our class. We accommodate these students to meet them where they're at.

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We know we need to do more about sense of belonging with students, but we don't know how or when in the day.

We also feel that it's important to balance the sense of rigor with fun activities like watching the musical, service activities, etc. We're happy that middle schoolers have many more opportunities to do things like that this year. We enjoy that the middle school is distinct from the high school since we can develop a "middle school" identity and community.

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Difference between 3-5 & 6-12 - can some of the difference with favorable responses be due to adolescence and those changes? As well as the amount of time the students spend with each adult (same classroom most of the day vs changing for each class)? Reflecting on our own experiences, we found so much of our connectedness with the adults who were part of clubs/sports/activities outside of the classroom. Can we compare the data of students who are involved in at least one club/activity/sport/etc to see how many students aren't in at least 1 thing? Can there be follow up questions/focus groups where students are asked - What can the school do to help make you feel more respected? connected? like you matter? As adults we can try to come up with ideas but would be really great to hear ideas from the students themselves.

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The data seems to paint an accurate picture of what we see at the high school. We are wondering how much open enrollment affects the sense of belonging at our school. If students have longer commutes are they as willing to get involved with the school and in the community?

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It will be interesting, if we take the survey again this year, next year, etc...how will the numbers change now that we are back together at school? Over the past year and a half it was so very difficult to maintain and build connection and a sense of community when students lost many of their "celebrations" and school activities.

We also discussed that the fatigue and challenges that accompanied the way we were teaching might have prevented some teachers from building the kinds of connections they normally do.  It prevented students from engaging socially and academically the way they normally would have.

It might be a little more difficult to maintain the same level of belonging as students age because they are with so many different teachers throughout the day and might feel like they get "lost" in bigger classes. They might not have as much time with their friends anymore as responsibilities increase.

Maybe we can focus a little bit, (there's not much time to do this!), on celebrations in our individual classrooms, balancing work and fun, community building, etc.

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Because this survey covered such a wide range of ages, it was difficult to identify what we could do to improve as a district. One item that we did identify that we could improve for grades 6-12 is to establish and teach clear expectations on appropriate behavior and interactions between students and between students and staff. We also need to identify as a staff that students deserve a fresh start after a less positive interaction. We also feel we need to look at the scheduling process to try to prevent poor pairings in classes 5-8.

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Are the kids who are identifying as not feeling a sense of belonging being identified? How is the problem going to be addressed? Where kids are developmentally related to social awareness probably has an effect on the results of this data. Younger students may not fully grasp the concepts being asked. It would also be interesting to see how the data would look different if it was broken down into smaller groups. (6-8, 9-12)

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With regards to acknowledging identity and how it affects students' perception of belonging, we discussed that there is a stigma around identity where acceptance of others' identities begets an element of punshiment or discrimination against others for expressing their identity, which then creates a cyclical system of hurt feelings and lowered tolerance.  This playing out on the national level can perhaps factor into the student data in that perceptions of belonging are affected by how open we are to checking our own identities and to accepting others.

We also discussed how teachers/students may, even with positive intentions to acknowledge a student's identity, may have unintended consequences on how a student feels respected or seen.  Despite this, we are obligated to address students by the identity that they advocate for themselves.

This begets the question how do we open conversations about who people want to be known as in unobtrusive ways that invites understanding.

Also, how do we avoid swinging the pendulum too far the opposite way by trying to emphasize how important it is to acknowledge the inclusive parts of an individual's identity to the point where we don't put them in a silo where that identity label becomes the only label of who they are.  People are more than the socio-ethnic-sexual identities they identify with, but also their interests, hobbies, skills, dreams, goals, fears, etc.

We also asked the question: how many kids genuinely care that they connect with a teacher? This is voiced following a separate conversation in which we discussed how many students are trapped in the typical teenage mindset that school is just another thing they have to do and get through, but their real life is outside these four walls.

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We are looking at this data through the lens of 3rd & 4th graders.

How did students understand the questions?  Did they understand them as intended?  For example, how was "understanding me as a person" interpreted?
How do students from the IS affect the data for the elementary?  Looking at the data broken down by grade will be very interesting.
We like that 84% of 3-5th graders feel at least "quite a bit" of support.
About 70% of 3-5th graders feel that they are shown respect by peers at least "quite a bit" of the time.
The majority (80%) of 3-5th graders feel that they belong.

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DITTO on the outside training and staff survey!

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Differentiated learning
- reteaching
- reframing
- small groups
- knowing learning styles (assess to learn what learning style the student is)

Validate and affirm what they know

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We would love to have more conversations about diversity, equity, inclusion and identity, but in the current climate, it seems like we have to tiptoe around these conversations for the fear of being accused that we are teaching "critical race theory" or some other bit of fear-mongering. How assured can we feel that the administration will support these conversations.

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Perhaps access to social media has had an impact on student's perception of belonging?  Social comparison seems to take on greater importance as a kid transitions from middle school to high school. Furthermore, bullying is prevalent online, which is often out of sight of teachers and likely occurs more among high school students than 3rd graders.

The covid pandemic created a situation where students and teachers were not connected for an entire year. Perhaps some of the feeling of disconnectedness has developed as a residual effect of the pandemic.

The class sizes in the high school sometimes do not lend themselves to making significant connections with students. When classes are beyond 30 students, it becomes much more difficult to make consistent and significant connections.

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It is interesting how the buildings differ in connectedness. We talked about how the culture from Elementary to Middle/High differs significantly. In Middle/High, students are more expected to start to form independence skills and advocate for themselves. In Elementary, staff are likely to guide students more often. This could inadvertently affect connectedness.

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Can we have additional training on gender identity?

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Staff would like to take survey, is this a possibility?

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Really good discussion. Complex issue. Any chance we could see data broken down into categories reflecting different cultures, and socio-economic status.

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Are we doing a good enough job of implementing ZPD, learning targets, and differentiation into our instruction and assessment? How flexible is our grading system to give students a feeling of success despite their work, although it may have been their best effort, may not match up to what the standards require or what their peers are capable of? What kinds of messages does the limited array of scores give a student who tries but still cannot succeed? How do we reconcile the cultural expectation of what grades mean and what rewards/consequences that good/bad effort should earn between the grading system parents went through school with and what we are currently applying to education (SBG)? Is even SBG providing too many options--many aspects in life boil down to if a person can do something or not? How much of earning grades/rank is meaningful or how much about it is intrinsic motivation for students to feel superior in a certain way?