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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, focus CSTP 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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Hi Everyone! My name is Alexandra Micklethwaite and I am currently teaching 2nd grade at Equitas Academy #5. This is my third full year of teaching and one fun fact about myself is that I am a vegetarian and have been since I was a child!

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If I utilize an adapted centers during guided reading, will my students grow in reading as observed by F&P, Running Records, MAP tests, ELPAC, etc.
I chose this because I wanted to implement an activity that the students are engaged in and enjoy. This was a creative option for me to get into and myself and the students enjoyed it. :)

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This year has helped me improve as an educator. I am able to plan instruction based on student needs and observations. This helps me support my students in all content areas. I have always enjoyed both the mentor observations and peer observations because I love feedback and I also enjoy watching other educators to learn from them and their experience. I also really enjoyed the student focus as I chose a student I have had since kindergarten. I was able to focus on his growth and help support him in what he needed to continue growing (small group instruction, independent reading, partner reading).

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Something that I am super excited about it the spelling tests that I have students do each Friday. These words are in the homework packet each week as well as in the centers. I have seen such a huge improvement in scores of students (one student who would get a 0-2 in the beginning of the year is now getting 9-12 on his tests). I have attached an image of an example that I am very proud about as well. This student was my student focus this year and he almost always will get 14-15 on his tests!

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This induction was impactful in a positive way because I continued to receive immediate feedback from my mentor which helped me grow and learn. I love to continue to learn and be the best educator that I can for my students so the more feedback and support I receive, truly help me grow. I am so excited about my students' growth in math and reading. Most of my students are on or above grade level reading, are amazing at spelling and have mastered our math concepts. I am continuing to help support the students that are still a little behind, but they still have been growing too, just at their own paces. I will continue to use centers going into next year and I plan to search out feedback from other colleagues and support staff as often as I can. :)

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Hello Everyone! My name is Allison Frye. I am the Science Instructional Coordinator at Synergy Academies (Middle and High School). This is my 7th year in education. I love being outdoors so much that I backpacked in the Sierra Mountains for 3 weeks straight.

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Hi everyone! My name is Stephanie Le and this is my sixth year of teaching! I taught sixth grade ELA for five years, and this is my first year teaching fifth grade. I love going to the beach and will get married on the beach next March!

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If I incorporate writing prompts that focus on the plot structure and literary techniques, will students' reading levels increase, as measured by MAP data, lexile scores, and guided reading observations.

I chose this area of focus because I noticed that I had several students who were beginning the school year as emergent readers. I wanted to test out my teacher toolbox to see how to best differentiate learning for them!

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1) The first turning point occurred during winter map assessment. My focus student improved in reading by 19 points. This was a turning point for me because I realized that I am able to accurately choose strategies that help students at their level of development. I just felt more confident in my abilities as a reading teacher.

2) I absolutely loved my schools professional development session on building student relationships. I had an aha moment when I realized that I could be doing more for one of my students, such that I should have more communication with their parent. I made a game plan and executed it. When I started to give more parent updates, I noticed that the student was turning in more of their classwork.

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This is my focus students' summative assessment data from 4th grade until now. They grew SO much in 5th grade! They moved to the US from El Salvador in 3rd grade. They also have an IEP. I am incredibly proud of all their hard work during ELA class and guided reading.

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I am most proud of my students' reading growth, especially after they experienced 2.5 years of distance learning. I definitely felt a little discouraged at the beginning of the school year because my students' reading levels were low, but then I decided to focus on their strengths. I also reached out to my mentors for advice. I helped them flourish in reading and writing! I also had to be comfortable with making mistakes. For example, I learned that the new curriculum that my school was using was not as effective as we hoped, so I asked to switch back to the previous curriculum. Most students jumped 1-3 grade-levels in reading!!

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Hi! My name is Haidy Song and I am currently a 3rd grade teacher at New Los Angeles Charter Elementary School. This is my 4th year teaching and my first year teaching 3rd grade (I taught 2nd grade for three years). Although we collectively faced many challenges in 2022, it has truly been a magical ride because I was able to loop with my second grade class. I love photography and children, and I hope I can weave my two passions together someday!

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My focus inquiry question in Cycle 1 was, "If I provide weekly practice unpacking vocabulary words in complex text, will students demonstrate understanding of grade level vocabulary, as measured by student writing, oral language, comprehension and iReady vocabulary scores?" Later I updated my inquiry question in Cycle 2 to, "If I provide weekly structures to help students record and engage with new vocabulary words will they be able to use them independently in their writing and conversation?" This focus was inspired by a question a student of mine asked me during distance learning. She was an English Learner and she was bright, driven, and had so much potential for exponential growth. She asked, "Ms. Song, how come some students in our class understands the big words you use but I don't?" This stuck with me. I truly appreciated her honestly and took it as valuable feedback. In addition, vocabulary  was one of the domains my class struggled with most (which was reflected in their iReady data). I wanted to reflect on my own teaching practice and dive deep into this inquiry and how I can better support my community of learners. The CSTP focus indicators were: "1. Engaging and Supporting all Students in Learning,
4. Planning Instruction and Designing Learning Experiences for All Students,
5. Assessing Students for Learning, and
6. Developing as a Professional Educator.

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Prior to my inquiry focus, it was challenging to build in daily targeted small group instruction. I relied heavily on whole group instruction and/or individual support. However, by seeing the outcomes of student performance in scores, independence in accessing strategies to find the meaning of unknown words, and increased confidence in using their new words, I am now a firm believer in prioritizing small group instruction to further support the needs of my diverse learners. I see that with just a little "nudge" students are able to meet their grade level goals and take a step towards independence. I also found the seminar on Constructive Conversations was a great reminder to continue building academic language by giving students frequent opportunities to participate in higher level thinking by elaborating, citing evidence, giving examples, paraphrasing, negotiating, etc. This would also help my students with their vocabulary development.

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My focus student has grown in confidence and independence. I can see evidence of that in her willingness to participate more in class discussions as well as small group discussions. She also gets started on her work right away and now completes the written portion in her problem solving math tasks. I started to provide word banks on assignments and routinely provide sentence stems across most subjects so students are given the opportunity to talk about the content before writing. I can see evidence of these supports in her written explanation in problem solving. She included the words “capacity” and “equal to” which were provided in the word bank. Her explanation of her solution is relevant and clear.

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Prior to this induction program, and going on my fourth year of teaching, I felt overwhelmed because I knew there was so much growth to be made as a teacher. I did not know where to start. However, this induction program guided me to focus on one area of growth. I realized it is impossible to master all areas of practice at once, and taking a deeper dive in a focus inquiry question allowed me to hone in and master one area of growth. With the help of my mentor, I was able to get many meaningful opportunities to reflect on looking at data and used the data to find different instructional strategies/resources to meet diverse student learners. With the scaffolds and supports that were routinely provided, I saw a lot more confidence in EL learners and students with IEPs. Students who weren't willing to take risks in the beginning were more willing to share. Additionally, I found that my focus student is attempting to use vocabulary words more independently with scaffolds. I am so proud of my students and so grateful for this program!