All Things CLASS

I was hoping for some help. I am having great difficulty helping my staff in the Instruction Support domain. I have given the teachers questions cards with open ended questions. We have gone over self and parallel talk. We have worked on planning time and we are still scoring in the low range. Does anyone have any suggestion?

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Kathy Werner
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In my experience, growth can often be hard to see in the Instructional support domain when looking at Dimension scores. To help see growth, both for yourself and for the teachers, have you looked at the growth at the indicator level? For instance, if teachers are doing none of the behavioral markers in Concept Development six months ago, but now you are seeing some How/Why questions, and one instance of planning/creating of thoughts...you're still gonna have a score of a "low", BUT I consider that progress! It can be hard for teachers to understand these concepts and then to put them into practice. So, I would suggest using video. Have them watch themselves for a short 2-5 minute video looking for what successes there were, then depending on where this person is developmentally you could challenge them to find a spot where they could have used a "How/Why question" instead of giving the answer, or maybe a place they could have asked the child to plan what they were going to build.

Honor the small successes you see, and build from there!

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Tamara De Los Santos
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------Original Message------

In my experience, growth can often be hard to see in the Instructional support domain when looking at Dimension scores. To help see growth, both for yourself and for the teachers, have you looked at the growth at the indicator level? For instance, if teachers are doing none of the behavioral markers in Concept Development six months ago, but now you are seeing some How/Why questions, and one instance of planning/creating of thoughts...you're still gonna have a score of a "low", BUT I consider that progress! It can be hard for teachers to understand these concepts and then to put them into practice. So, I would suggest using video. Have them watch themselves for a short 2-5 minute video looking for what successes there were, then depending on where this person is developmentally you could challenge them to find a spot where they could have used a "How/Why question" instead of giving the answer, or maybe a place they could have asked the child to plan what they were going to build.

Honor the small successes you see, and build from there!

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Tamara De Los Santos
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Kathy we have implemented an aggressive quality improvement plan for our CLASS scores this year.  All of our teachers whose CLASS scores decreased from Spring 2018 to Fall 2018 are receiving one-to-one coaching and support by 3 of our education admin staff who are certified CLASS Observers.  After a class observation we record an action plan with the individual teacher, which records her goals, steps to accomplish each goal, and resources to support improvement.  In 1 1/2 to 2 weeks we return to give follow-up support on the plan prior to our next program CLASS midpoint assessment in February.  This will provide us with evidence of improvement.

Our teachers have welcomed this extra support and say they have a better understanding of the CLASS expectations.  We divided the staff who needed support in three groups as follows:  1) Teachers needing intense support in all 3 CLASS domains, 2) Teachers needing support in only one area 3) Teachers, who only had one to two point decrease in their summary of scores. 

We used the CLASS Dimensions Guide as our primary resource for support.  We began using this resource tool when we began using CLASS; however, many teachers needed this extra one-on-one coaching to really understand the CLASS Dimensions.

  


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Lee Aycock
Sandersville GA
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While I don't have much context around what you are currently doing, I would suggest taking a deep dive per dimension and focusing your support in that specific dimension or even deeper with a specific indicator. In my experience, I have found that if I give teachers too much to think about or focus on in an observation, their success is less observable than when they have one specific strategy. If possible, ground learning in that one dimension (or indicator). You can model best practices, read about the dimension, watch exemplar videos, etc. until teachers have mastered the strategy.

Seeing differences in teachers' practice throughout the day is not uncommon. I recall reading an article that discussed teacher fatigue toward the end of the day and the waning of certain practices. If time of day is a concern for you, consider providing support during the time of day when you are not seeing desired actions/strategies. Providing coaching support during another part of the day may help teachers understand how practices can be embedded throughout the schedule, not just during a specific block of time.

Last thought: I know there is strong emphasis on numbers, data, scores, etc but data doesn't tell the entire story. As a previous community member stated, growth is not always seen in the numbers. Celebrate the small (and big) wins!

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Gizelle Keys
ECE Specialist
Washington, DC
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------Original Message------

I was hoping for some help. I am having great difficulty helping my staff in the Instruction Support domain. I have given the teachers questions cards with open ended questions. We have gone over self and parallel talk. We have worked on planning time and we are still scoring in the low range. Does anyone have any suggestion?

------------------------------
Kathy Werner
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I love the example of following a recipe as if a blind person were in the room. I tell the teachers it's like being a sports announcer and describing in detail what is happening as they or the children do it. I also remind them at first it may feel uncomfortable announcing what you are doing but over time it gets easier. 

I've also never thought about teacher fatigue and the affect it would have on coaching times. Most of my coaching meetings occur at the end of the day. It's usually a busy time but never made the connections the teachers are probably tired out from the day. I'm going to keep that in mind moving forward with my meetings.

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Susan Anderson
Coach Coordinator
GECAC Head Start
Erie PA
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Original Message:
Sent: 01-31-2019 14:32
From: Donna White
Subject: CLASS

Hello Kathy, 

A few suggestions below helped us to improve in this area:

Focused observations for short periods of @15 minutes where the staff video one another's interactions with the children and critique each other. 

I felt like this was less threatening than me always observing. (of course, this can't happen until the staff has a clear understanding of the domain itself)

For self and parallel talk, I described these concepts to my staff as if they were cooking, following a recipe, in the room with a person that is blind. This seemed to finally soak in to them. It helped them to understand that they were verbally describing what they were doing as they were doing it in the case of self-talk or describing someone else's actions in the case of parallel talk. We actually had a training day where we set up different centers and practiced this out loud. It really did seem to help them grasp the concept.

In the dimension of language modeling, I had my teachers plan and include new words that they would use for the week onto the lesson plan with easy to understand meaning of the word that would be child friendly. I also had them to add 10 open ended questions to their lesson plans that would be incorporated into the day each day for several weeks until they got better at including them into their day. 

It's all about being more intentional in their interactions and it helped them to see this once they were adding these things to the lesson plan. 

Hope this helps!  

--

Donna White

Education/Family Services Manager

Breckinridge County Head Start/Preschool

Office: 270-756-3146

Cell: 270-230-2276

Fax: 270-756-3037

This email may contain confidential data or information and is intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom it is addressed. If you are not the named addressee you should not disseminate, distribute, or copy this e-mail, and you are requested to notify the sender immediately.

Original Message------

I was hoping for some help. I am having great difficulty helping my staff in the Instruction Support domain. I have given the teachers questions cards with open ended questions. We have gone over self and parallel talk. We have worked on planning time and we are still scoring in the low range. Does anyone have any suggestion?

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Kathy Werner
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Thank you for sharing! I like the idea of incorporating new words and 10 open ended questions to the lesson plan !

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Veronica Elizondo - FCCHP
Gilroy CA
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Original Message:
Sent: 01-31-2019 15:45
From: Susan Anderson
Subject: CLASS

I love the example of following a recipe as if a blind person were in the room. I tell the teachers it's like being a sports announcer and describing in detail what is happening as they or the children do it. I also remind them at first it may feel uncomfortable announcing what you are doing but over time it gets easier.

I've also never thought about teacher fatigue and the affect it would have on coaching times. Most of my coaching meetings occur at the end of the day. It's usually a busy time but never made the connections the teachers are probably tired out from the day. I'm going to keep that in mind moving forward with my meetings.

------------------------------
Susan Anderson
Coach Coordinator
GECAC Head Start
Erie PA
------------------------------


Original Message:
Sent: 01-31-2019 14:32
From: Donna White
Subject: CLASS

Hello Kathy, 

A few suggestions below helped us to improve in this area:

Focused observations for short periods of @15 minutes where the staff video one another's interactions with the children and critique each other. 

I felt like this was less threatening than me always observing. (of course, this can't happen until the staff has a clear understanding of the domain itself)

For self and parallel talk, I described these concepts to my staff as if they were cooking, following a recipe, in the room with a person that is blind. This seemed to finally soak in to them. It helped them to understand that they were verbally describing what they were doing as they were doing it in the case of self-talk or describing someone else's actions in the case of parallel talk. We actually had a training day where we set up different centers and practiced this out loud. It really did seem to help them grasp the concept.

In the dimension of language modeling, I had my teachers plan and include new words that they would use for the week onto the lesson plan with easy to understand meaning of the word that would be child friendly. I also had them to add 10 open ended questions to their lesson plans that would be incorporated into the day each day for several weeks until they got better at including them into their day. 

It's all about being more intentional in their interactions and it helped them to see this once they were adding these things to the lesson plan. 

Hope this helps!  

--

Donna White

Education/Family Services Manager

Breckinridge County Head Start/Preschool

Office: 270-756-3146

Cell: 270-230-2276

Fax: 270-756-3037

This email may contain confidential data or information and is intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom it is addressed. If you are not the named addressee you should not disseminate, distribute, or copy this e-mail, and you are requested to notify the sender immediately.

Original Message------

I was hoping for some help. I am having great difficulty helping my staff in the Instruction Support domain. I have given the teachers questions cards with open ended questions. We have gone over self and parallel talk. We have worked on planning time and we are still scoring in the low range. Does anyone have any suggestion?

------------------------------
Kathy Werner
------------------------------

So many good suggestions in this thread! Certainly, keep mind that progress can be small and slow but is still so meaningful. 

I have a few resources to suggest to add to it:

• Blog post on planning for concept development (includes printable planning form)
• Blog post on analysis and reasoning
• Two podcast episodes to listen to on Instructional Support Here's 1 and 2
• <g class="gr_ gr_41 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_run_anim Grammar only-ins replaceWithoutSep" id="41" data-gr-id="41">Printable</g> list of ways to incorporate more Creating into a classroom

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Liz Savage
Community Manager
Teachstone
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