June 13, 2005

Using Reading & Writing in the Content Area

Are you interested in learning about connecting the language arts and developing strategic readers who use reading and writing as tools throughout their classes? The WEA Professional Development Academy (PDA) is working with educational consultant Denise Pheifer to assist WEAC members in this area, helping them identify and practice specific strategies to be used at "hot" points before, during and after reading exercises. Other topics covered are text structure, the power of the senses and emotions when reading and writing, as well as question analysis to improve comprehension and clarify thinking.

Pheifer bases her work on material from the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) that is built upon proven, research-based teaching strategies. For more information, you can check out one of ASCD's free Research Briefs found at: ascd research brief.

The next opportunity for members to learn more about these reading and writing strategies will be at Summer Academy in August.

Recent Changes in AYP Determination: Granted by the U.S. Department of Education

State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Elizabeth Burmaster, has received permission from the U.S. Department of Education to use a more reasonable procedure to determine whether or not schools are meeting Adequate Yearly Progress on state tests. This will mitigate the harm to schools that can be the result of high stakes testing, as required by the No Child Left Behind law.
Any test score that a student receives on a test is an estimate of what a student knows and is able to do. If a student were to be tested again and again, he or she would most likely not receive the same score. It might be somewhat higher or somewhat lower. Likewise, whenever a group of students is tested, scores received by the entire group (for example, a group "average") also are estimates of what the entire group knows and is able to do. These two examples simply reflect the fact that all tests have measurement "error."

Based on this principle, the Department of Public Instruction will be allowed to do the following:

  • Some students who score at the Basic level, but are close to scoring Proficient, will be counted as Proficient. The decision is not arbitrary but is based on a statistical calculation.
  • For groups of students, such as an entire school or subgroup within the school, the DPI will calculate a "confidence interval" for the group. This is similar to the confidence interval that is reported in a public opinion poll (e.g., the pollster reports that there is 95% probability that if the election were held today that the results would be accurate within plus or minus five percent).
The same principle will be applied to state testing. Suppose there is a school in which 4th grade students are tested in reading. This year's target is 67.5% of students Proficient or Advanced. A confidence interval for the schools can be calculated, one that is based on the number of students tested and the observed proficiency rate.

For purposes of illustration, assume there are thirty students tested and that 18 (60%) are proficient. By taking into consideration the confidence interval for this group, there is less chance of making what is called a Type 1 error (false-positive), that is, misidentifying a school as having not met Adequate Yearly Progress, when in fact, it may have done so. In short, the school is given the benefit of the doubt. For More information on AYP click here.


Summer Academy
To find out about Teaching & Learning offerings at Summer Academy, click here Summer Academy

Quality Educator Interactive
WEAC members are now able to go to a single place on the Internet to sort out information about the state's new teacher licensing law (known as PI 34), and to conveniently complete the law's professional development requirements and opportunities.

And they can do it all at no cost. Quality Educator Interactive is available online at http://qei.wisconsin.edu

Among other things, teachers accessing this online service are able to securely and confidentially store license renewal projects, resumes and transcripts, using an electronic system developed by WEAC and its Professional Development Academy, the UW System, UW Extension, and AWSA. Vital career documents remain confidential, portable and accessible to member educators no matter where the teacher is employed.



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