Celebrating Elliott Excellence: Team Elliott’s Journey with Differentiated Instruction and Assessment

At our school, we take great pride in fostering an environment where every student has the opportunity to thrive, and our students’ achievement is a testament to our dedication to providing a personalized learning experience for each and every student.

In a recent video feature, we had the privilege of showcasing how our students experience differentiated instruction and assessment on a daily basis. Through intentional instructional routines and customized assessment strategies, our educators ensure that every student’s unique needs are met.

Differentiated instruction is not just a buzzword for us—it’s a fundamental aspect of our teaching philosophy. Whether it’s through small group activities, hands-on projects, or one-on-one support, our teachers go above and beyond to create learning experiences that engage and challenge students at their individual levels.

We understand that one-size-fits-all assessments may not accurately capture the diverse range of skills and abilities that our students possess. That’s why we employ a variety of assessment techniques to ensure that every student’s progress is accurately measured and celebrated.

The link provided takes you a short video showcasing some of the incredible moments from our classrooms, highlighting how our students are thriving in an environment where differentiated instruction and assessment are the norm. We invite you to watch the video and join us in celebrating the achievements of Team Elliott!

Together, we are #elliottachievers, and we are committed to continually elevating the learning experience for all our students. Thank you for being a part of our journey. #fisdelevate

Link to the video: https://www.instagram.com/reel/C6HIiF1L3Zc/

Students sharing their goals: https://youtu.be/H3fQ8fIh0Tg?si=tWmB7RlSUKq1G8cj

Goal Setting Process in 3rd Grade: https://youtu.be/qsXsU9vahzc?si=8yaYFuxHiP0L-Z9D

Build Community for Productive Struggle

My learning this week focuses on creating a math community! We typically look at building a community in general. However, after reading Chapter 3 in Productive Math Struggle: A 6-Point Action Plan for Fostering Perseverance, it is essential that we build classroom math communities within our school. The Math Class Comic Strip is just one example of how to guide our students to think of scenarios that could occur when students work together. This chapter inspires me to lead the development of classroom math communities. Within these communities our students will begin to see themselves as successful, confident, and courageous math students! Thank you @mcorley75 @danifryIC #FISDmathworkshop

Math Identity

It is time to get back to public reflection and share ideas that are just amazing! This summer, I joined the Productive Math Struggle: A 6-Point Action Plan for Fostering Perseverance math book study. It is amazing! Above is a photo of a student math identity activity. There are so many more ideas to guide our students through this important reflection. Thank you to @mcorley75 and @danifryIC for leading this incredible opportunity!! I am learning so much! #FISDMathWorkshop

Know Thy Strengths

If we know our strengths, we know our impact. Identifying our own and our team members’ strengths is a critical part of Teacher Collective Efficacy.

Why? When teams of teachers truly know each others’ strengths:

• Relationships are meaningful.
• Time spent in analyzing and planning instruction is maximized.
• Collaboration is effective as teams efficiently share instructional strategies and quickly identify evidence of student learning.

This week, our team will begin identifying, reviewing, and sharing our strengths. Our guidance comes from the book Strengths Based Leadership.

A couple of years ago, we took the Four Domains of Leadership Strengths and color-coded them to develop our teaching teams.

• Executing = Red
• Influencing = Yellow
• Relationship Building = Blue
• Strategic Thinking = Green

This color-coding has positively helped our team members identify themselves as they approach a specific situation or begin to work with someone new. In the Additional Resources section of the book, each strength is described and a how to lead others with their strengths is also provided. Knowing our strengths has supported effective communication, challenging conversations, and collaboration. On our team, everyone is a leader… our strengths are the foundation to build and to ensure teacher collective efficacy and, ultimately, how we rise up and lead all students to achieve high levels of success.

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Be Kind, Rewind #l2ipa

“Be Kind, Rewind” is the phrase you might remember on the VHS tapes rented from a local video store. If you did not rewind the tape you rented, you could possibly find a small fine on your account the next time you checked out. While listening to 80s music on a road trip with my family this weekend, this phrase reminded me about how much I loved walking around the video store to view the many choices and it slowed me down to reflect on our current reality. As information continues to flood our team beyond the daily expectations of instruction, we will slow down and rewind to:

• celebrate current successes,
• inquire & connect,
• ensure clarity, and
• clear up confusion.

As Brene Brown shares, clear is kind. My goal this week is to ensure that kindness is consistently occurring by:

• listening to seek first to understand any confusion,
• providing clarity, and
• communicating again in a different or better way.

Allowing for time to rewind and prevent small fines of confusion from accruing each week will lead to abundant success and a peaceful learning environment for all stakeholders.

Rise Up & Lead

Feedback…the wise listen and own what can be changed and improved.

Taking action on our daily reflection is the pathway to growth. My goal this school year is to share my weekly learnings through this blog. I hope that I can continue to share positive inspiration to motivate actions that lead us to support students, teachers, and families as we embrace our learning journey.

Our school theme this year is Rise Up & Lead. I am in awe of how our team has positively embraced the challenges and changes we continue to work through with a different start to the school year. With this, I am reminded that it will take our collaboration to ensure we maintain collective teacher efficacy. With change being our only constant, we must:

• believe in each other,
• know our plans may have kinks and need revisions; however, all of us want what is best for students,
• communicate, communicate, communicate,
• give grace… seek first to understand, and
• problem solve together.

Thank you, Jessica Eaton, for designing the logo for our theme this year!

I Am A Reader

The principal that I have always wanted to be… Inspire our students to feel excited about becoming readers and writers, support teachers in creating a language rich environment where students are intrinsically motivated to read, write, and share!

In my seventh year as an elementary principal, my idealistic view of the principalship is quickly coming to a reality! Early in my career as an educator, my training and graduate work was focused in the area of reading instruction. I was empowered by the implementation of specific instructional routines that frequently led to quotes similar to,

“Mrs. Miller…listen to this! I can read!”

Like is was just yesterday, I can still hear those words and feel the exhilaration of listening to my students read. As teachers share the experience of students embracing the feeling of knowing and performing as readers, they are brought to tears of true happiness.  This is the best job in the world! Each day we have the opportunity to lead and celebrate our students to believe in themselves as readers.

After attending Grade Level Collaboratives led by our @ci_elem department and a Reading & Writing Workshop training led by Johnathan from @TCRWP, I see a bright intentional pathway to be the principal that I always wanted to be. I am learning more about the components of the workshop, how to help students see themselves in the books they read, and how to support and celebrate our incredible teachers so they can consistently share the authentic happiness our students own when they see themselves as readers. Thank you @ci_elem and @TCRWP! Below are just a few photos of our readers!

 

Pure Joy

Children want the same thing we want. To laugh, to be challenged, to be entertained and delighted. – Dr. Seuss

Pure joy is immediately felt when you view the above first day school photos. Twenty-four days ago we opened our doors to begin the 2019-20 school year. The photos shared with me are just a glimpse of the positive energy felt by our campus. Our students and teachers couldn’t wait to get started together! As I continue to reflect and smile while looking at these photos, I am reminded of the daily commitment demonstrated by our Team Elliott.

Our team consistently:

1. smiles and welcomes our students and families each morning,
2. plans intentionally engaging lessons,
3. communicates expectations and success,
4. provides feedback to ensure our students have clarity about their progress, and
5. collaborates to know and connect with every child.

I am in awe of the heart and of the effort our team devotes to our students each day. As I walk throughout our school, the pure joy felt on the first day strongly continues. #L2IPA @elliottlearners

Our Elliott Community celebrates and empowers ALL children – who they are and who they will become.

Elliott Excellence

Mission is what you do today. The mission is there to accomplish the vision.

Vision is where the mission takes you. The vision must be consistently good for everyone involved.

Each month I anticipate the release of the consistently inspiring: Andy Stanley’s Leadership Podcast.  My desire to grow and improve as a leader only increases each time I listen. The powerful words shared by his guest, Horst Schulze, led me to reflect on the mission and vision of @ElliottLearners. After listening to our community and gathering feedback from our team during the 2018-19 school year, our mission has led us to develop the following vision.

Our intentionally collaborative team:
-seeks first to understand,
-partners with families,
-frequently communicates student progress, and
-believes we can lead each student to meet or exceed grade level standards and close achievement gaps in literacy, math, and science.

Our mission:
Our Elliott Community celebrates and empowers ALL children – who they are and who they will become.

We began the 2019-20 school year last week. Below are just a few photos that demonstrate how our vision is good for everyone involved. We have an incredible team and I am grateful for their unwavering commitment to our students and to bringing our vision to life each day!

We love our families!

Morning meetings begin each day in a positive direction

Ensuring students have a special spot for their backpacks

Welcome to a great new year!

Expectations are explicit.

Layered rewards are motivating and consistent

Student names are the first words on our word walls

Students know what positive actions look like and sound like.

Taking time to get to know each other.

Finding out what our classmates have in common

Taking a few minutes to rest and recharge

Found…

The above Elliott Learning Leaders led our entire school district in reciting our pledges. @elliottlearners See it through Cameron’s World! 

Inspiration was felt in full force this week! As our team embraced the start of  the 2019-20 school year, we have been filled with excitement and energy. On Friday, Eric Sheninger was our speaker at our #FISDconvocation2019. His incredible message to me was clear:
-continue to build meaningful relationships,
-be sure you know your why,
-prepare our students for anything, and
-share your story.

Every day, in every one of your schools, great things are happening. How does your community know? @thomasmurray & @e_shenineger

Our vision at Elliott Elementary is… Our intentionally collaborative team:
-seeks first to understand,
-partners with families,
-frequently communicates student progress, and
-believes we can lead each student to meet or exceed grade level standards and close achievement gaps in literacy, math, and science.

With Meet the Teacher Night quickly approaching, we are beginning our family partnerships by creating a warm and welcoming environment for our community!

We support each other in taking big risks!

We value laughing during hard work!

We are a team who is committed to bringing our vision to life and reaching our mission which is: Our Elliott community celebrates and empowers ALL children – who they are and who they will become.

We can’t wait to to have our building buzzing with student learning in just a few days!

Our students with our Superintendent, Dr. Waldrip!

Team Elliott

Team Elliott

We love our students!

Our students with Mr. Chandler, our Deputy Superintendent.

Practicing for their big moment!

We are fired up for this year!

Team Elliott

Thank you, Eric Sheninger for starting our year off with great motivation! My virtual mentor, Jan Iwase , was right in sharing your innovative work with me when I began my principalship!