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Compass PD Podcast with Dr. Carrie Hepburn
Compass PD Podcast with Dr. Carrie Hepburn
Compass PD Podcast Episode 42: Harnessing the Seasons for Student Success and Teacher Renewal
Have you ever wondered how data can transform a student's learning journey? Compass PD's Dr. Natalie Fallert leads a riveting conversation that promises to change how you view assessments. She helps unravel the intricacies of mid-year evaluations, stressing the importance of strategic feedback and how item analysis can illuminate misunderstandings that need addressing. Dr. Fallert discusses the power of celebrating academic strides and fostering self-analysis, helping students and educators alike pivot their strategies for maximum growth. Natalie's insights illuminate the path to reviewing results and using them as a catalyst for true educational evolution.
When winter's chill takes hold, it's not just the temperatures that drop – motivation can, too. Natalie explores the unique hurdles the season presents, from the distractions of snowflakes to limited time under the sun and how they mold our teaching landscape.
Wrapping up the conversation, Dr. Hepburn and Dr. Fallert discuss the undeniable importance of striking a harmonious work-life balance, aiming to inspire and make a lasting impact in the lives of our students and fellow educators.
Hello, hello, hello, dr Cary Hepburn here from Compass PD and I'm excited to say that we are joined by my good friend and colleague, dr Natalie Fowler. Hi Natalie, hello, how are you doing Good, good, how are you today?
Speaker 2:Great, it's cold, super cold. My kids are at home because it was a snow day for them, and that's the joys of living in the Midwest right. Exactly, and it's actually. I think it's gotten a little bit warmer. I think we hit 10 degrees or something like that.
Speaker 1:But you know, hold on, let me see. Oh, I have 14. Right now it's a balmy 14 degrees there you go, On my side of the state, so it's warmed up a little bit, but I think tomorrow they're calling for maybe 10 degrees, 15 degrees higher.
Speaker 2:So hopefully, yeah, I was just looking. I don't know if it's gotten better or not, but yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm just hoping no more frozen pipes or low tires 16.
Speaker 2:Now 16,. Yes, there we go.
Speaker 1:There we go yeah double digits.
Speaker 2:We're good to go right.
Speaker 1:We are so happy to be in the double digits, moving in the right direction, progressing for sure. So, as we think about where we're at right now, most of the school districts that we serve and support and our listeners have finished their first semester of classes and they've returned from winter break. Dr Fallard is here to talk with us all about January. So, natalie, as you think about it, what do you think should be on teachers' radars for January, right now?
Speaker 2:So when I think about January I always look at it's normally the end of the semester. Either you ended semester right in December before you went on break, or you came back and you crammed for finals and you just gave your finals and now you're starting a new semester and, being a secondary educator, I was always tasked with giving kids finals at the end of the semester and that I was always in a tested area. I either, no matter what classes I had, I always had like an English one or an English two or those upper level kids who were maybe going into an AP or even getting ready to take the ACT test, and so most of the time our finals would resemble or reflect what they were going to see on that state test in the spring or on that AP test that they would be taking, and we would use that as a gauge to see where they were and how we could be responsive moving forward in that second semester. And I know that there are times that we might give finals and I know right now I'm kind of talking to secondary teachers that this does still impact elementary kids because you normally do some type of mid-year progress report or diagnostic that kind of says you know, if they were doing reading or math, where were they at the beginning of the year? Where are they now? And I think that no-transcript. There's a lot of times that, as educators, when we get to that final or that diagnostic or that test, we do it because we're told to. It's like a check mark of the list, and so if we're going to take time out of our teaching and our kids learning to give them or administer this test, we really need to be strategic about the feedback that we give around that test.
Speaker 2:Now, if you have elementary kids or if you are in like a core class, like an English one or an English two, where you're going to keep those kids for that second semester and it's not going to be a shift in kids, then you really need to take some time and go over those results with your students, not only for them but also for you to be able to look and say like, what did my kids get? What did they not get? What do I need to work or spend a little bit more time on, and or what can I not spend time on because they're doing fairly well with it. And so I like to think about not, you know, don't just check it off the list and say I gave a final or I gave this test. What are you going to do with that data now that you have it?
Speaker 2:Because if you've taken time away from teaching and from learning to administer this test, it is really important for you to do something with it. And so I, you know, one of the things that I used to do with our finals is we would really do even item analysis. So if a huge chunk of my kids missed a particular question, I would go back and ask like, was it because they didn't know it or was it because of the way the question was written? And so it also allows you to reflect back on your assessments to say whether or not that's a good question or a good assessment. And then it also allows you, if it was a good question, to know you know where your kids are in that you could create small groups from that that you know around certain standards or teaching points. But it would be really important for you to kind of spend a little bit of time analyzing that data.
Speaker 2:I also think that it is important to show that to your students.
Speaker 2:Too often I've seen and I've done it myself, we'll give the final and then we don't give it back to the kids or we don't go over it with the kids because it's the sacred final and we don't have it back.
Speaker 2:But it would be really important for you to give some of that feedback back to your students and maybe you can't give them the test back, but could you say here were the skills or standards that you did really well on here, or the ones that you didn't do as well on, and giving them the opportunity to kind of self-reflect? I know that at the beginning of the year we talked about setting goals. This would be a great time for you to look and revisit those goals and say what were your academic goals? Did this midterm or this diagnostic test that we did or this progress test that we did here in the middle of the year, is it showing any growth towards any of your goals and taking the time to celebrate that with your students? Not even if it's just a little bit of growth? Or let's say that they didn't grow? How can you get them to kind of self-reflect on what did they do that maybe didn't work or what did they want to try so that they can still push towards those reaching those goals that they set.
Speaker 1:Something that I would do in elementary is when we would do important assessments, like a benchmark that might be given three times a year is, instead of doing small groups for just a couple of days, I could quickly do conferences with kids and talk with them about what we're noticing in their tests on that particular assessment, talk about whether they make growth or not, what we're seeing, how I can help them, help them set a goal, that kind of thing, because in elementary they sometimes need a little bit more guidance, especially at that primary level in setting goals. But letting them know that you see them, you value and find this assessment, the information that we're learning, valuable and important, and that you want to help them reach that next step, I think is really important work that you can do right now and make the end of the school year, the last semester of the school year, really impactful on their growth and their learning. It's really good thinking, natalie. Thank you for that.
Speaker 2:Well, I love that you kind of mentioned that, because I also noticed that when we give like we used to give the star reading assessment, and that you know you give it at the beginning of the year, you give it in the middle of the year and then you give it again at the end, and a couple of things that I've noticed is that the older kids get the more kind of like disengaged they get with that test and so they don't spend as much time on it.
Speaker 2:But then I asked my you know I've asked my teachers and myself, like are you talking with your kids about this test, about what it's showing us and how we can track their growth and we can see what we need to help them with?
Speaker 2:And so this gives you that opportunity to kind of come back and say it's not just another test that we're making you take, like there's valuable information that we are getting from this, and if you're not taking that information and sharing it with your students, then they don't see the value of that test and so they might blow it off or, you know, not pay as much attention.
Speaker 2:I know that another thing that I have noticed, and this might be something that you want to really point out to your students is a lot of the times if kids don't read during the summer, when they come in in August their scores usually tank and it takes sometimes January to February free to get them back up where they were.
Speaker 2:However, that's going to show a lot of growth and so, even though they may be in January where they left off in May of last year, if you look at their scores from August till now, showing them how much growth they've made because they have been reading and digging into school, that that might be that boost that they need to keep that effort going, then you're like oh, if I put forth effort, then I will see academic success with that growth mindset and that is something that I think we kind of overlook is like we might look at their January scores and say we're still not on grade level. Let's celebrate their growth of where they were at the beginning of the year to where they are now so that we can keep that momentum moving forward.
Speaker 1:Now you can't let us forget what I want to talk about. As we start to get toward April is ending the school year well, so that we're setting the students up to be able to continue doing the things we've been teaching them all year long independently over the summer, so that they aren't making that sliding back. That's when we do some of our most important work is pushing them to see that they can do all these things we've been working on all year long.
Speaker 2:Right, and if you can show them that connection throughout the year, then when you send them off in the summer, you can say, hey, remember how much you grew when you were reading and maybe remind them that, hey, when you didn't read in the summer, you kind of fall back. But look at what your effort allowed you to accomplish. If you just read a little bit, something's better than nothing over the summer. You know what can you do. And so I think that when I think about January and February, we're from the Midwest and so and I live in like a rural area where, if it slightly snows, we are off school, right, and I taught in this school district it was always challenging because you never knew if you were gonna have school the next day or not. And so things that I'm thinking about is that, as an educator during this time, if you're in a situation where there's oh, we might not have school a day or two, whatever, you start worrying like, okay, I only have so many days, like the state test is still gonna be on April, whatever, and that's not changing. And so every day that I have a snow day, that's one last day of instruction that they have moving toward that date or that end of the semester or AP test or whatever. That is.
Speaker 2:A lot of the times we give up that opportunity to conference with kids and to celebrate and to have some of these individual conversations with them about their growth and setting goals, because we want to put the curriculum back in place and so I don't want people to lose track of how important and impactful it is for to set goals and to be very clear in the direction that you're going as a teacher with your students, and so being able to say like this is where you are and this is where we're going is extremely important.
Speaker 2:And then it also when you're celebrating them and their individual accomplishments. It helps you build those relationships. And those three things have such a high effect size on kids that you could skip a week's worth of instruction in your content If you can get those things in. And so a lot of times we give up that opportunity to conference or celebrate or set goals because we're so afraid that we're not going to get all the content in. And I just want to remind teachers that you don't like to learn from people they don't like Like. If you like somebody, you're more willing to push a little bit harder or dig in a little bit deeper, and if you know exactly where you're going and you know the steps and how to get there, it's it makes it more manageable. And so don't underestimate the power of those conferences and conversations with your students during this time, even if you are pressed for time.
Speaker 1:Agreed. I actually want to make sure that I add that episode where you talked to all about goal setting in the show notes, so those of you listening will make sure that that's in the show notes and you can go back and listen to that episode. It's one of our most popular episodes about setting goals and the difference between performance goals and mastery goals and all about getting that work started if it's brand new for you. So thank you for bringing that to our attention, because I agree this is it is one of the most powerful things that you can do, and when students know that you see them and you value them and that you can help them, they will really outperform any of our expectations. So I think this is a great way to kick off 2024, 2025, next year, any new year. Let's think about moving from what should be on their radars to the predictable problems the teachers are going to face this time of year.
Speaker 2:Well, I always found again and I feel bad saying this because if you live in Texas or in Florida, you don't have these problems but I mean, I would constantly have to shut my blinds because the second it started snowing outside, you lost every bit of attention. And so if you teach kindergarten and you think that snow impacts kindergartners, no, it impacts kindergartners just as much as it does. So we used to have to shut the blinds because it was going to snow. I think that you know there's also just I don't know, like when I think about the winter, I don't feel that kids are as active.
Speaker 2:And so thinking about that in your classroom, that if you don't get to go outside, like if you're little ones, don't get to go outside and burn off some of that energy, they're stuck inside. And so how can you make learning more active and more engaging for them so that you're not losing them in the midst of everything? You know, daylight savings, like that impacts things. I just think about some of those pieces of the puzzle that we don't think about outside of school because you know, like vitamin D impacts our personalities and so kids might be a little bit more on edge, they might be more lethargic or depressed, kind of keeping some of those things in mind whenever you're dealing with kids in January and February, especially as we're thinking about the lessons that you're teaching. How do you kind of bring back some of that excitement or engagement in your classroom, especially coming off the sugar high of all the?
Speaker 1:parties. My friends that live in the Carolinas they recently canceled school for a rain day, so it may not look like snow, but there was something happening with rain. And then my friends that live in Florida, where you know they have hurricane season, Hurricane season, and so we're we run into. We all kind of have our own different issues that we're dealing with. It just so happens that right now, a large portion of the country's in the middle of, like this crazy winter lizard weather, so things like that seem to be happening this time of year and it's affecting what's happening in schools. What's a tip or a reminder that you want to share with teachers right now?
Speaker 2:I think that I guess a tip that I would give teachers right now is too often we go into winter break and we think that teachers are going to relax and rejuvenate and come back in January, you know, able to hit the ground running, and that's not really the case. Because you know, let's face it most, most educators are females. No offense to them, and out there, I don't you know, but there are more female classroom teachers and most of them are moms or wives or, and so you leave on Christmas break and you're wrapping presents, decorating, hosting people in your house and family, and then you still have to get ready for the next semester and you might have to grade finals, and so you don't really get this time to just relax and rejuvenate. And so when you come back, you think, oh, I should be ready to go because I just had two weeks off or whatever, and that wasn't really the case, because you really just replaced one thing with something else.
Speaker 2:So I think that you know, thinking about that it is a new semester and we are starting a new year, but to give yourself grace and thinking about like, not that I'm saying set, you know, do new year's resolutions or whatever, but thinking about how do you balance you know, continue to balance work and life and what that looks like In when we also think about the fact that we have less daylight hours and so we're tired and just kind of keeping all of those things in mind that you do have to take care of yourself, and that is important, because if you can't take care of yourself first, then you're not going to be able to be 100% for your family or your students.
Speaker 1:I love that. I love that I feel like we do not take that time at that winter break and really get the chance to rest. Rarely, rarely do we get to do that. And so giving ourselves grace, balancing that work and life and trying to find ways to feed ourselves emotionally, I think is really critical right now, especially when there's less sunlight out there. I have to tell you a story.
Speaker 1:I lived in a school district. My students, my kids, attended there and then I taught there that we had year round schools. And I have to tell you I think if we had year round schools, people may not believe this, but I truly believe that we would see people flocking to those, those school districts. So we would start school actually in July and you don't really want to be outside anyway because it's too hot and I am a summer person, so I'm saying it's really hot If you're not in the water, it's. You don't want to be out there doing a whole lot. So we would start toward the end of July and you would teach, you would work.
Speaker 1:The first quarter would be nine weeks long and after that nine weeks you would have three weeks off. You would have a three week break. So one week I would clean my house and do all the stuff around the house. One week I would get all my stuff in order in my classroom out of those three weeks. So I would go in my classroom, I would clean it up, I would be grading stuff, I would be planning for the next quarter, and the third week I just spent time with all the people the family did, vacations, friends, all of that that I loved.
Speaker 1:So you had three weeks off and then you'd come back and you would teach again and you'd hit it really hard for nine weeks and then you'd have three weeks off again and that three weeks would usually hit around that winter break. So you might get off like December 10th until January 3rd or 4th with the holidays, and then you teach again and have that three weeks, teach again and then have a six week summer break. So six weeks it wasn't nine or 10, but it was six weeks. But you had these little breaks, these times of just like refreshing your soul, feeling like you were caught up. You knew you could do something when you knew, okay, I just have to put my head down for nine weeks and do this really great, and then I know that this break is going to come, I keep wondering if that might be the thing that we should bring back.
Speaker 2:I personally would love that, especially like I have freshman boys, like my boys are twins, and that's that. Other thing is like as a mom. They're home over break and so you want to spend time with your kids and then like and so then you're, like you know, trying to spend time with them. Then after a while, they don't want to spend time with you.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And so they're. You know when I think about in the summertime, right now, they're offered 12 weeks and they are so bored by the end of those 12 weeks, but we did just have the shorter time frames. That what would that look like. But you know, I do, I think about. You know those days that we do. You know a lot of times, like yesterday was Martin Luther King day and a lot of people were off of work that day. Well, my kids were home also and so I, you know, spent time, spent time doing stuff with them as a mom, because they were off and I only have so many days with them, right, and they're 18 years. That's hard, because then you, you take everything from that day and you push it off to the next day, right you?
Speaker 1:know, but that work is still there. Find a way to give yourself some grace and I think, as I hear you and Stephanie say, just like, teach them something Every day. We're going to teach you something, we're going to build relationships with you, we're going to let you know that we see you and conference with you and and be confident that, compounded over time, that's that makes an impact, right? So what I want to do is just tell everyone thank you for listening. If you didn't know, compass PD has a goal of impacting the learning of one million students during the 23 24 school year. You can help us out in reaching this goal by liking or subscribing to our podcast, sharing it with a fellow educator and giving us a review. Thank you so much, dr Fallert, for this time and just sharing your brilliance with us. I totally appreciate it and I know that our listeners do as well. I want to say take care and stay inspired. Compass PD community, have a great day.