Ashley Walser

10/29/16

EDAD 543
Assignment #5

Supporting a Colleague in the Inquiry Cycle

AWSP Focus Standards:
Criterion 1 Creating a Culture
1.2 Engages in essential conversations for ongoing improvement
1.3 Facilitates collaborative processes leading toward continuous improvement
Criterion 2 Ensuring School Safety
2.2 Provides for social, emotional and intellectual safety
Criterion 3 Planning with Data
3.4 Assists staff to use data to guide, modify and improve classroom teaching and
student learning

For this assignment I had the opportunity to interview a 26-year veteran teacher
in our building, Mrs. Frizzle. She is a versatile teacher who epitomizes a growth
mindset. In my six years of working with her she has changed teaching roles from a
general education 3rd grade teacher to the head Title 1 reading teacher. Her teaching
certifications include elementary education, special education and, surprisingly, art
(something new that I found out from this interview). A new challenge for Mrs. Frizzle
this year is that our Title 1 model has changed from targeted to school wide. This is
also the first year that Mrs. Frizzle will be on a comprehensive evaluation related to her
Cycle of Inquiry. Mrs. Frizzle is a teacher that I often go to for support, but with my
experience in being on the comprehensive assessment for four years I have the
opportunity to repay her for her help in a small way.
Mrs. Frizzle and I are a part of a PLC together this year with other specialist
teachers working on their Cycles of Inquiry focused in on Criterion 3 and the reading
strategy of conferring. With her reading expertise in mind, I have encouraged Mrs.
Frizzle to take on the role of facilitating our PLC. This role will assist her in collecting
evidence for Criterion 8 on her comprehensive evaluation. Mrs. Frizzle has asked me to
share tools with her that I have used in the past in facilitating our PLC around book
discussions, from the National School Reform website.
When discussing her current Inquiry Cycle Mrs. Frizzles main noticing was
around students not independently choosing books to read that are a good fit for them.
She wants to work on assisting students in a variety of reading interventions to help
them grow in this area. This work will be done by her instruction as well as her
collaborative work with classroom teachers in our new school wide Title 1 model. Her
current focus area is district driven. As a district we are recommended to focus on
Criterion 3 for our focus area. Connected to this criterion is also a large amount of
trainings and resources that are being made to grow in the area of conferring.

Ashley Walser
10/29/16

EDAD 543
Assignment #5

In our PLC we are using our focus area to create student growth goals that are
connected to the impact conferring will have on academic reading scores. Mrs. Frizzle
felt that there was a strong connection to how her areas of focus and student growth
goals are connected. She will be using the DIBELs and MAZE assessments as an
indicator of student growth. We have had previous conversations about what the best
indicator of growth would be for an intervention setting. Our PLC has been trained a
few weeks ago on how to use the Fountas and Pinnell Benchmark Reading assessment
tool to determine students independent reading levels based on reading accuracy and
comprehension questions. Mrs. Frizzle decided that she would use this assessment as
an additional measure, but since her instructional work would be outside of
independent reading time a better growth measure for her COI would be the DIBELs
and MAZE assessments. When determining what growth would be appropriate for her
students we compared how students in the resource room performed over the previous
year in those measures to the standard general education growth expectations of 30
correct words per minute (cwpm) on the DIBELs and 10 accurate responses on the
MAZE. I also recommended that Mrs. Frizzle looked at her target students previous
growth on those measures in the previous school year using our online Homeroom
program. Mrs. Frizzle then used a middle ground between those two growth
expectations to create her own goal.
Mrs. Frizzle shared that when she receives feedback during her COI process from
others she would like it to be focused in on how to align her intervention instruction
with the classroom. In this first year of providing school wide services Mrs. Frizzle is
feeling disconnected from the general education setting. Instead of pulling students
into her room for support she is working on going into the classroom to serve a variety
of students in support of existing classroom instruction. Currently her services are
looking different in each classroom setting. In the past Mrs. Frizzle has been involved
in a focused evaluation. She felt that her previous criterion focuses, like engagement,
were easier to collect measureable data on. Being in a collaborative setting for her
instruction, she is feeling unsure of how to measure her impact on student growth.
Mrs. Frizzle would like the alignment of her instruction in the classroom to be a
continual focus for her feedback with administration. Another area she would like
feedback on is how to find observable evidence related to her student growth goal to
progress monitor students. In the past she kept a notebook of data. This is a tool she
would like to continue using.

Ashley Walser
10/29/16

EDAD 543
Assignment #5

This year Mrs. Frizzle was honest in the fact that she would like a lot of support.
The support that she is looking for is more in the service delivery model than her
reading instruction. She is wondering how to intertwine the new school wide model
into her cycle. Mrs. Frizzle is in need of clarity in how this instructional model impacts
her growth goal. In her service model she is working with individual students for two
short 20-minute pockets of time in a week. She recognizes that the students reading
instruction is more than the short interventions she is providing them. The students
growth is not solely dependent upon her intervention instruction, but also the
collaboration that occurs between teachers to provide targeted reading instruction in
the general education setting.
An additional area that we discussed was how the social/emotional needs of the
learners she works with impacts her instructional models and work in her cycle of
inquiry. When working with her targeted students Mrs. Frizzle makes adjustments
based on their social/emotional needs. These range from using social thinking
language she has learned from the resource room. Mrs. Frizzle shared that the most
important piece of learning is getting to know students and making a connection. She
takes care in spending time with students that have social/emotional needs impacting
their reading skills to reinforce the good things about them. My favorite quote from
Mrs. Frizzle is that it is the most important for students to, Letting them know that you
care about them more as a person than just a reader. After this is done she can redirect them to their learning.
Overall I thoroughly enjoyed my conversation with Mrs. Frizzle. I felt like it
strengthened my relationship with this fellow intervention teacher by taking the time to
ask her perspective on the inquiry process. Mrs. Frizzle appeared comfortable during
the interview. We had the conversation sitting side by side at a table in my classroom.
She was happy to have a break from her room. From this conversation I learned that I
am a relational leader. I enjoy building relationships with others focused around
learning; with students and co-workers. I would like to continue to grow in my
communication skills. When I questioned Mrs. Frizzle she would ask clarifying
questions to better understand the questions. This connects to how I am hoping to
grow in my facilitation skills through communicating with a group. I would also like to
work on the skill of engaging in a conversation while simultaneously taking notes on
the conversation. Typing her responses during the conversation felt awkward at times.

Ashley Walser
10/29/16

EDAD 543
Assignment #5

Below is a table outlining how my leadership moves from this assignment support my
growth toward my standards.

Assignment #5 AWSP Standard Growth

Standard
Indicators of growth
Criterion 1 Creating a Culture
- Collaborated with a teacher to
1.2 Engages in essential
determine a student growth goal.
- Discussed how intervention services
conversations for ongoing
involvement in COI work will impact
improvement
student growth.
1.3 Facilitates collaborative
processes leading toward
continuous improvement
Criterion 2 Ensuring School Safety
2.2 Provides for social,
emotional and intellectual safety

Criterion 3 Planning with Data

3.4 Assists staff to use data to
guide, modify and improve
classroom teaching and student
learning

Discussed strategies a teacher is

currently using to support the
social/emotional needs of her
students.
Recommended resources to use to
project growth.
Assisted a teacher in tools to
determine student growth.