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By Joe Zavala for the Mail Tribune September 04. 2015 12:01AM New program helps Ashland teachers catch stragglers before they fail Jennifer Losinski teachers her eighth-grade math class on Tuesday. Mail Tribune / Jamie Lusch It’s called the Popsicle stick game. The teacher asks each student to write his or her name on a Popsicle stick, then collects the tiny wooden name tags. Then the real fun begins. The teacher asks a question from the day’s lesson, gives the students a few moments to ponder, then pulls a Popsicle stick at random. If he grabs your stick, you better know the answer. Not because you’ll be marked down or sent to the principal’s office. No, the driving motivation in the Popsicle stick game is good old-fashioned peer pressure. Nobody wants to look like an idiot in front of classmates. “I tried that once and it was just a horrific failure,” Ashland Middle School math teacher Eric Sandrock said. “I felt bad for the kids. You could tell as soon as you called on them: ‘Oh my God, he called on me.’ It’s hard on middle school kids. I thought, ‘I’ve got to find a way to make this easy for me and easy for them, but also very, very complete.’” Putting to work the techniques gleaned from a program called “Keeping Learning on Track,” Sandrock and a growing number of his colleagues in the Ashland School District did find another way. It involves measuring consistently — several times per class period — how well each student is retaining lessons, then identifying students who are struggling. Teachers trained in the KLT method use targeted interventions such as after-school study sessions to get those students back up to speed, thereby catching stragglers before they bomb a major test without having to resort to less precise, more intrusive strategies such as pop quizzes and the Popsicle stick game. “It means in the moment, in the classroom, you are intentionally asking questions or doing a short snippet activity to instantly know which students are getting it and which students are not, so that you can immediately adjust what you’re doing to address those needs,” explains AMS math teacher Jennifer Losinski, who was one of the district’s original KLT leaders. The program was introduced to ASD four years ago through the Southern Oregon Education Service District, which was looking for professional development opportunities to support Southern Oregon teachers. The teachers who volunteered to sign up attended three all-day KLT sessions then hosted seminars aimed at recruiting teachers who would then, along with the trainers, roll out the program in their classrooms. At its inception in Ashland, only middle school and high school teachers were approached, but this year Walker Elementary has two KLT leaders — fourth-grade teacher Jennifer Parks and second- and third-grade teacher Amanda Dallas. The district’s other KLT leaders are Marina Borowy, a Spanish teacher at AMS, and Nancy Martin, a humanities teacher at AHS. KLT equips teachers with dozens of ways to assess students, including asking diagnostic questions — questions that present students with the general concept of the lesson as well as some common misconceptions and a correct solution. These questions are presented about midway through a lesson, and students are then asked to write their answer on a small dry-erase board (they each have one), then hold the boards up facing the teacher. “Then I can scan the classroom quickly and see which students have it and which students are picking the most common misconception,” Losinski said. “Then we can instantly address and have a conversation in the classroom about, ‘Why might a student do this,’ or, ‘Can anybody identify the error in this strategy?’” Sandrock devised his own formative assessment technique of walking around his classroom, asking questions, listening. Using “the walk-around,” Sandrock could zero in on the students who weren’t up to speed. And some of those who were struggling, he realized, were very good at hiding their woes. “Because a lot of times you think kids know what’s going on,” he said, “but they really don’t know what they’re doing. They don’t really understand it; they’re just able to do it because you just showed them how to do it.” By walking around his class and keeping track of what he discovered in a notebook, Sandrock says, he was able to spot students who desperately needed an “intervention” — extra tutoring, either before or after school. “I can think of three kids right off the top of my head who all struggled,” Sandrock said, “and they had become pretty good at hiding the fact that they were struggling. ... So I gave them targeted interventions and all three of them came in on a regular basis. Initially, we were looking at Cs and Ds, and by the time the end of the year rolled around, they were all getting Bs.” Eventually, added Sandrock, there was no stigma attached to coming in before school or after school to get that extra help. That was just part of the process, the new normal. That attitude itself is a game-changer, and one of the key tenets of the program. “The phrase that the KLT program encourages is ‘activating students as owners of their own learning,’” Losinski said. “That’s why I was so excited to participate, because it brings you all together for that purpose of learning and it’s equally on the teachers and the students. And, it really builds a community in the classroom that we’re here to learn and not make judgments about who’s not getting it and who’s struggling.” Joe Zavala can be reached at 541-821-0829 or [email protected].  http://www.mailtribune.com/article/20150904/NEWS/150909824 © 2015 Copyright © 1995-2011 Crain Communications Inc. All Rights Reserved. Terms of Use Privacy Statement -->