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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 Jannette and I am the English 11 teacher at Lakeview Charter High School. I am finishing up my second year in this position. One fun fact about me is that I love to listen to true crime, paranormal, and fandom podcasts.

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Hello! My name is Jamie Josselyn, and I am the 8th grade ELA teacher at Bert Corona Charter School. This is my third year teaching, and my second year in the 8th grade. One fun fact about me is that I spent time as a child doing community service with my mom in the neighborhood where my current school is! (A second fun fact about me is that my students and I have finished a book a month this school year, leading to 8 books finished per person.)

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IFQ: If I provide more opportunities for student choice and reflection, will my high performing students continue to show growth and development of critical thinking skills, as measured by their iReady reading scores, increased depth of participation in their mastery assignments, and participation in the development of creative projects?

CSTPs:
4.4 Planning instruction that incorporates appropriate strategies to meet the learning needs of
all students
5.4 Using assessment data to establish learning goals and to plan, differentiate, and modify
instruction

The reason why I felt that this should be my area of focus for my second year of induction is because it was an area that made me uncomfortable. In my time as a teacher, I saw my skills in differentiating and supporting my special populations and lower performing students grow, while my high performing kids remained relatively stagnant in comparison. As a high performing student who felt left behind, I wanted to target this group specifically so that they did not feel the same way I did going through the education system.

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Hello! I'm Nicholas Whaley and I am an 8th grade English teacher at Libertas College Prep in Los Angeles California. This is my 3rd year as a middle school ELA teacher and what a journey it has been! I am a husband and father of two beautiful girls, Maddie (4) and Danica (2). My life has completely changed due to my teaching experiences and I cannot wait to share my journey with you!

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If I build relationships with students, invest time in their interests,  and check in frequently, will students show greater interest in the content area and thus excel in their studies, as measured by MAP NWEA data.

I have always believed in the idea of educating the entire child. This means education in their content area, but also in the social emotional needs they have as well. This requires a teacher that is fully invested in the child, knowing about their interests, what makes them mad, sad, happy, or frustrated, and what they dislike as well. With this idea in mind, I wanted to make sure to learn about every student in the classroom. I wanted to have a 1-on-1 with every student in class at least once a week (which is a lot harder than I thought it was!) and to also make sure to be in frequent communication with families.

The main reason this was my goal was due to the experiences I had in school. I never had any conversations with my teachers outside of the course content. This was something that I wanted to change, and I set out as my life purpose to make a difference in the school system.

CSTP Indicators
Engaging and Supporting all Students in Learning

Weekly Assessment Data Analysis

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This year, I felt as though I had a lot of ah hah moments, mostly with learning about my students and reflecting on how my lessons went.

I was amazed to see how much my students enjoyed the more game based lessons that I did. Their competitiveness did not come as a shock, but the amount of engagement that I saw definitely did. My students are still able to recall some of the minute details of the mini lessons from the games, which is more than I can say for myself.

A major turning point that I saw in this year was the moment I relaxed and trusted myself (and my students) to be able to achieve the standards in the time and pace that flowed with the class itself. My relaxation allowed my students to step in and take ownership of their learning, which I am still seeing now.

Both of these moments had a direct lead into the amazing growth that I saw from my students, which will be discussed in the next session.

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Beginning of year Data:
Mid or Above Grade level- 4
Early on Grade level- 13
One Grade level Below- 16
Two Grade levels below- 12
Three or more grade levels below- 67
Unfinished- 11

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This year has been a series of ups and downs. My students and I have faced the challenges of returning to the classroom after a year and a half online, and they blew me out of the water with how much growth they achieved.

As shown above, over the course of the year, my students made an average of 172% of their typical growth in iReady.  Several of my English Learnings showed substantial growth (between 2 and 5 grade levels!), with one achieving grade level reading (meeting his own personal goal!). My SPED population also showed incredible growth. I had two students who started the year working at a first grade level, building basic phonics skills. They are both now working at a 3rd and 4th grade level respectively. One of those students increased his vocabulary skill from 1st grade to 7th grade. In skill breakdown, I've seen significant growth in comprehension of literature and informational texts, based on the classwork we completed this year.

In reflecting on the year, I owe the growth seen to three conditions and decisions implemented. The first, and likely most important, condition that brought about this growth was my devotion to and time spent building relationships with my students. By getting to know them, I was able to make connections with them, see what their personal goals were, and use the information to continue to motivate them on an individual level. Secondly, I held incredibly high standards for myself and my students this year. I used myself as a model to demonstrate to my students what accountability and reflection looked like, which allowed a space for them to practice these values as well. Lastly, I intentionally increased the amount of connection and conversation that occurred in my room. Online learning took away a lot of the ability to truly connect and allow the students to work collaboratively. This year, I saw just how valuable these principles were, and how much of an impact they have. Some of the best work that my students produced started in a place of collaboration because it created a place where my students could push each other to perform in a higher capacity. I am so proud of the achievements my students made this year, and I look forward to continuing to push myself and explore strategies to find similar results in the upcoming school year.

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This year, as well as the two years prior have provided me with a lot of turning points, and "Ah-ha!" moments.

The first big Ah-Ha I had, was I realized that I will always be learning and having Ah-Ha moments while I continue my career as a teacher. I know it is cliche, but I feel like I learn more from our kiddos than I teach them at times.

I learned that our scholars need someone in their corner that has their back unconditionally. I realized that I will never know every student's at home situation, and its important to realize that they all come from different backgrounds/cultures. Regardless of these differences, the one thing they all need is someone fighting for them, coaching them, teaching them content, preparing them for the future, and most importantly, pushing them to be the best version of themselves possible.

When my students realized I was this person from them, marks my true first turning point. I got commitment, dedication, and excellent work production from 95% of my students on a consistent basis. I got a class that was engaged, and fully integrated into the lessons. They were willing to provide their opinions and dissect the content in an artful way that truly is representative of their unique ideas.

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My students have done such an excellent job this year as measured by MapNWEA scores. Throughout the year, I have been able to insure that 70% of my 8th grade students have met or exceed their individual growth goals, and as a collective grade pull within 3 points of meeting the grade level RIT norm as a class.

Additionally, my focus student has absolutely flourished in my classroom. His journey as been both hard and successful, but within the last two years he has become and English Rockstar! He is a student that went from being both an ELL and having an IEP, to testing out of his ELL status, and removing all ELA accommodations from his IEP due to his excellent improvement and advocating for himself to get them removed. Overall, this journey has been amazing for him, as well as for me in regards to our learning together!

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Wow! What a wild year! This is the first full year back from COVID-19 that we have had and it was tremulous for sure! This induction process has has a wonderful impact on my teaching career. It allowed for me to focus on not only my content area (which I feel like we are all so accustomed to), but also on my scholars individually. This has resulted in kiddos paying back that investment and treating me to 55 of the most warm thank-you's I have ever received. This is why we do this work!

I think what I am most proud of this year is my ability to adapt the lessons to culturally relevant work that allows for students to invest fully into their studies. Surprisingly, our Holocaust unit was the one the kiddos remember the most. They have all told me that they will forever remember, "Night" because of the passion I put into teaching the book and the content around it.

I will definitely be using inquiry based questions to drive results in the future. I want to constantly adapt my teaching so I can learn with our kiddos on a consistent basis. Inquiry questions allow for me to interact with my scholars in this way. Thank you PUC!

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Hello! My name is Ashli Choi, and I am a 12th grade English Language Arts teacher at Larchmont Charter High School. I am in my 15th year of teaching, and have enjoyed teaching 9th through 12th grade. At one point I was a track coach, but that was very short lived. Aside from teaching, I enjoy being at home with my 4 year old daughter and my 2 year old son.

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I am a 6th Grade Teacher at Larchmont Charter School in Los Angeles.  This year is my 11th year in middle school, teaching predominately English and Science. 

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At Larchmont, I have organized Science Fairs, coached the Speech Teams, traveled with students to Science Camp, and taught photography and collage electives. Aside from teaching, I love spending time with my family, playing with my dogs, working in my garden, practicing yoga, reading, drawing, taking photos, hiking, and so many more things!

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IFQ: If I develop specific criteria for success by using rubrics will grading be more purposeful when it comes to students exit tickets for data collection?

CSTPs:
4. Planning Instruction and Designing Learning Experiences for All Students
5. Assessing Students for Learning

After the first semester of the school year I realized I wasn't gettign the data that I wanted from my students. I was trying to grade too many things at once and I was starting to feel burned out. Because I wasn't specific with my grading the data that I was collecting and could collect wasn't always appropriate for what I needed to see. Throughoout the grading process I realized I needed to be more purposeful and specific in what I was grading for each time in order to receive data from my students at the end of the day. My hope for this IFQ was to not just make grading "easier" but more meaningful and purposeful.

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As challenging as the year was, I am thankful I had ah-ha moments.

The first ah-ha moment I had was realizing that it is ok to ask for help. In the beginning of the year, I was drowning, and I didn’t think I could rescue myself. I had really high expectations of what my job as a teacher was that I was terrified to ask for help. I was completely overwhelmed and felt like a failure. Fortunately, the team around me started noticing and helped lift me back up. I told them my worries and stressors and they worked with me to make sure I was receiving the support that I needed. After, I felt like maybe I could be successful in this career which then brought me to my second ah-ha.

I realized that even though I do have help in the form of lessons and curriculums it doesn’t mean that I must be married to everything. I started learning to adapt lessons to my goals and success criteria. Once I let go of the fear of making lessons and instead adapting what I had I got comfortable putting in things and taking things out. I had always been told to use the resources around me and not reinvent the wheel, but I wasn’t quite sure how to do that. Once I was provided with some resources, I could put that in practice. I am still not a master, but I am feeling more comfortable now.

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Greetings! My name is Sara Poteshman and I have been teaching for nine years. I taught high school English and History the first five years and, fun(ny) fact–-I had vehemently declared on multiple occasions over that time period that I would never, ever, teach middle school, especially 7th grade.  I am now finishing up my first year teaching 7th grade ELA at Larchmont Charter School in Los Angeles, CA, and I can't imagine teaching anything else ❤️ Additional fun fact: I moonlight as a children’s art teacher on the weekends 🎨

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IFQ: If I give students specific feedback on their work, will students use the feedback to improve their own work, as measured by informal check-ins, student work, and formal reflections?

CTSPs

1. Engaging and Supporting all Students in Learning

2. Creating and Maintaining Effective Environments for               Student Learning

Engaging with students during the writing process is paramount for growth in not only this content area, but also for the development of the skills to self-reflect. Connecting with students about their writing (conferencing, leaving meaningful feedback, encouraging/supporting the revisions, and making sure students are following through with any revisions) is an area I find challenging, especially with the time constraints of the school day and life outside the classroom. I want to feel more confident in effectively providing constructive and timely feedback on student writing, with the end goal being that they build the skills to independently reflect and revise their own writing.

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The artifact that I am showing is an essay excerpt from one of my students who has shown a lot of growth. I wanted to make sure that my students were including all of the parts of an essay in the argumentative essay they were writing. For this specific assignment I had them color code the sentences in theor essay as a viual reminder of the components. This was my first time using this particular color coding assignment and it worked really well, especially with my focus student. To get to this step, he had to use his graphic organizer first to help with his organization.  This is aligned to his goal to be able to include all the steps of an essay. Although the writen analysis wasn’t fully sufficient, I can see that he was trying to include all the steps in his paragraph. I'm really proud of my focus student for using the supports I provided for him and demonstrating growth from the first essay he used.

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Since last year, my first year as a teacher, I have been saying the yeThis year felt like my first year as a teacher all over again since it was my first time in person.
If induction hadn't required me to reflect and see my growth I probably wouldn't have known I grew in some areas of my teaching.

I think what I am most proud of this year has been the fact that I didn't give up. So many times I wanted to quit and walk away but I held it together. I was determined to try my best regardless of the situation. I am happy I spoke up and reached out to my mentors just in time for them to support me any way they could. After a much needed reset I felt more confident in what I was doing. I look forward to continuing my growth.

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A focus student's information book during the revising stage. This work meets the standard.

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This student frequently shares that he "doesn't read", and he does not particularly enjoy writing. This informational writing unit, however, required students to teach their reader about something in which they are an expert. His Post-Its demonstrate that he really took the time to read what he had written and kept his reader and writing purpose in mind. He carefully considered how to improve his writing so that he would effectively communicate the information he deemed important for understanding.

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I have pretty much learned something from each aspect of this inquiry cycle. The ILP made really helped keep me focused on the basics of lesson design, which in turn helped me stay on track during implementation. Working through this document kept me on track with my learning objectives, which I realized I can all too easily veer away from. It has been like an essay-writing graphic organizer for me–because I have a clear thesis statement and mini-arguments, I don’t leave myself room to stray off topic.

The mentor observations have been emotionally fortifying, and I attribute a lot of that to my amazing mentor. I can be my harshest critic with many a’blind spots for my own successes, but my mentor was really helpful in bringing these to my attention. For example, classroom systems is an area in which I feel I have a lot of growing to do, but from my mentor’s outside perspective, students seemed to be clear on systems I didn’t even realize were in place. She also reminded me of the very real importance of having a good rapport with students–I realized that I can be dismissive about this because it is something that feels natural to me, so I don’t even acknowledge it.  Some other blind spots that she illuminated for me was how I can speak fast (who knew?!) and that I can give too much attention to behavioral disruptions if I am not careful with how I choose (if at all) to address these. I also realized that I talk too much, which I think comes from nervousness. I skimp on modeling the skills I am teaching because I get so worked up in my head about making sure I get to all of the things I need to get to. Long story short, slowing myself down and staying grounded will allow for more spaciousness in my instruction.

My biggest a-ha came from my student work analysis activity, and I’m honestly kind of embarrassed (I know I shouldn’t be) by how basic it is–evaluating student work is really important (I mean…duh). Working through the evaluation process solidified my theoretical understanding of the value of analyzing student work at the whole-class level. My a-ha moment was when I realized that I’ve been neglecting the “evaluating” side of the teaching triangle; taking the time to sort through student work and comparing the percentages of those who do not meet, are approaching, meet, or exceed the lesson target gives me a better idea of the strengths and weaknesses of my instruction. The data really informs the “planning” and “teaching” sides significantly, bringing balance. Being “on” all day at work wears me out and I have been taking shortcuts in a crucial area that should not be cut short.

Lastly, I learned a lot from observing my mentor teacher, particularly her organization of the teacher-created student document that accompanied the lesson. It was a strong example of a comprehensive, student-friendly document and it made me think about to organize student handouts.

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I’ve often been told that I spend way too much time grading individual assignments that it’s not sustainable. I often burn myself out with grading and eventually just stop altogether (much to the chagrin of students). This induction inquiry made me see how grading based on a clear (and limited) set of criteria lets me see right away whether or not my class as a whole is understanding the content I am teaching. Being able to efficiently determine this allows me to provide intervention in a timely way–in the case of this lesson, I knew which students to conference with first about bolstering their revisions. I could also support those students who met or exceeded the lesson target in furthering their revisions.

This school year was a year of firsts–the first year back in-person after a year and a half of virtual instruction, my first year at an entirely new school, my first year not having an English department team (our school is 5th-7th, with multiple ELA teachers in 5th and 6th, whereas I am the sole 7th grade ELA teacher), and my new school’s first year implementing the Writer’s Workshop program. I felt a tremendous amount of pressure and responsibility going into this school year, but I showed up in all my imperfect glory. I celebrate myself for this, as well as my capacity to be authentic with my students about my learning process teaching Writer’s Workshop. I was able to model for my students what it looks like to show up, to learn with them, and to get up and fall down and get back up again. I am most proud of seeing students soften in their approach to writing. Students typically come to 7th grade with unrealistic expectations of their writing–they think they are supposed to know exactly what to write, that they are supposed to spell everything perfectly, phrase everything just so, use grammar perfectly, all from the moment the pencil hits the paper. I appreciate and celebrate my students’ willingness to trust me and to go outside of their comfort zone and get messy in the writing process.

As intensive as the induction inquiry form was, it really helped me get back to basics in terms of having a clear lesson objective, teaching strategy, and data analysis. I will be referring to it as I plan future lessons until it becomes second nature for me.