College Ready Bar 2/ALT
Session: College Ready Bar 2
Facilitator: Anne Pearson and Will Roble
Date and Time: 6/23; second 90 minutes
Topic: College Ready Bar 2 – POG + PP
Total Time: 90 minutes
Intended Audience: HS + MS STEM ADs
Pre-Work: Read Conley: chapter 3 (mandatory), chapter 4 (optional), pages 53-98
Estimated Time Needed to Complete: 25-30 minutes
Supporting/Table Facilitators: NA
Internalization and School Use Guide
Aims:
 WWBAT describe concrete learning outcomes for students at the capstone grades of 8th and 12th grade.
 WWBAT explain how the grade band with which they work prepares students for success in the capstone
grade, college and careers.
 WWBAT articulate implications for their teachers’ instruction so that they are ensuring that all scholars are
on track to college and career readiness.
Session Description/Connection to PD Arc/Priorities
-
-
Synthesize what college readiness looks like over the course of a students' trajectory at AF within subject areas,
including:
o Key content knowledge
o Cognitive strategies and practices
o Learning skills/techniques
Explain how the course of study within their subject area systematically builds towards college readiness.
Describe concrete learning outcomes for students at capstone grades. Explain how learning in the grade before and
after supports readiness at the capstone grade.
Key Points
 PoG and PP tasks are an illustrative description of the
content knowledge, cognitive strategies, and learning
skills of a student who is on track to being college and
career ready appropriate to their current grade level,
and therefore should be used for backwards planning
 There are consequences for our decisions – given the
interconnectedness of the standards and the PoG/PP,
instructional decisions need to made with a full
understanding of long term implications
AGENDA AT A GLANCE
- What does it take to be a college ready math student?
- A k-12 path to college
- Setting the Bar
- PoGs and PPs
- Backwards Thinking
Potential Misunderstandings
 The task provided in the PoG/PP is the only
acceptable task for measuring college and
career readiness
 Any single data point is enough to define a
kid as college/career ready (i.e. task,
Regents, SAT, etc.)
 I only need to understand the content and
skills of my grade band’s capstone course to
make instructional decisions
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College Ready Bar 2/ALT
Materials
I will need:
 PPT + Handout
 Projector
 Doc Cam

Participants will Need:

Grouping/Physical Space Notes
No.
Assessment & Follow-up
Follow-up by Principals & Deans (dates):
Departmental or coach debrief with Principal
(optional with team) in August and monthly
thereafter:
 What are our own rigor weaknesses according to
the proficiency profile? What are our next steps
to address those weaknesses?
 How could you weave this into current structures
(data meetings, LASW, department huddles)?
 How will you share parts or all of the profile to
share with scholars to inspire or set the bar?
Additional Instructions/Notes for Facilitator
No.
Living the Learning (LtL) Legend:
O= Opening
AA= Airtight Activity
K= Key Points
M= Additional Model
A= Application
C: Closing/Reflection
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College Ready Bar 2/ALT
Session Detail
Time
Min.
Facilitator Notes
90
min
Aims and Agenda (F)
In this session…
 WWBAT describe concrete learning outcomes for students at the capstone
grades of 8th and 12th grade.
 WWBAT explain how the grade band with which they work prepares students
for success in the capstone grade, college and careers.
 WWBAT articulate implications for their teachers’ instruction so that they are
ensuring that all scholars are on track to college and career readiness.
2 min
13
min
10
min
Materials
We will get there by…
- What does it take to be a college ready math student?
- A k-12 path to college
- Setting the Bar
- PoGs and PPs
- Backwards Thinking
Opening
- Say: During our last session, we focused on understanding and digging into the
shifts and standards, which helped us define the key content knowledge, to use
Conley’s language, that our students need throughout their education. We are
now going to continue to build on our understanding of college and career
readiness by looking at the other key components along with the key content
knowledge components.
What does it take to be a College ready math student? (AA)
- 8 min: Provide ADs with 2-3 free response problems from an AP Stats and AP Calc
exam with exemplar student work provided (to allow ADs to see a full picture of
what kind of thinking students have to do and content they have to know to
complete the problems).
- Guiding question: Based on the problems and student work, what do we know
about what 12th graders need to do? Know?
- 5 min: Debrief guiding question
- Say: Let’s find out what we are doing at AF to prepare our kids to be able to do
this math!
A k-12 path to college
- Say: What is the path for our students to be college ready for mathematics? Here
is our course of study. The capstone courses are 12th, 8th, 4th, and 2nd.
- Project the course of study and ask:
o Why do you think we have set up our course of study as it is?
o Why do we delay tracking as long as possible, until the 11th grade?
o Why is appropriate to track starting in 11th grade?
o Why is AP for all feasible in Math? (FYI – not feasible for other content
areas)
- Link: the demands of a capstone course are only a fraction of defining what it
means to be college ready. On the last step of our journey, want to really dig into
the nation’s foremost expert on college readiness to define a clear vision of the
elements of college ready and how we back map from that point.
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College Ready Bar 2/ALT
15
min
40
min
Setting the Bar
- Say: Before we can understand the full picture painted by the PoG and PP, we
need to understand more of the background thought that went into it. Therefore,
we are going to take some time to engage Conley. We already dug into the
content, now we will take some time to understand the four key components
described by Conley.
- Group Jigsaw – Key Cognitive Strategies, Key Content Knowledge, Key Learning
Skills and Techniques, Key Transition Knowledge and Skills.
Guiding questions: How would you describe the key assigned to you? Why is it
essential? What is an example? How does it support the other keys?
Share out on each Key
- After each Key is shared, do a fist of five for each key allowing ADs to reflect on
where their schools are and what the challenges are for our students.
- Link: With the shifts, standards, capstones and Conley in mind, we are developing
a nuanced picture of college readiness. At this point, we would like to synthesize
with a PoG and PP. This can serve as a tool for teachers to deeply understand
what kids need to know and how they need to think and engage in order to be
on-track. As we dive in, ask yourself does this resonate with my picture of college
readiness? How can I share this vision with my staff?
PoGs and PPs
- Whole group, say: We are now going to dig into the PoG and PP in our grade level
bands to understand the picture of a graduate and 8th grader leaving our MSs.
Please know that the first four pages paint the big picture, while the task is a
concrete example of the type of thinking we should see in our students’ work and
it is not the only way to measure their college and career readiness. Also, we
can’t use these tasks anyway, because Anne will be arrested and we don’t have
the tech to support Will’s project ( insert funny pictures)
- Break into grade band groups
- Go through the PoG and PP in sections and use guiding questions for each
discussion
o Read first four pages
o Guiding question: how are the shifts, standards, and keys integrated?
o Read the task description
o Guiding question: What are the opportunities for the shifts, standards,
and keys to be integrated?
o Read the exemplar student work
o Guiding questions: How are the shifts, standards and keys demonstrated
in the students’ work? How is this different than what you anticipated
during the previous conversation?
- Bring the two groups back together
- One person explains a response to the following question from each group: What
does a 8th/12th grader need to accomplish in terms of concrete learning
outcomes?
- As a group, compare and contrast the expectations for what each grade level
needs to accomplish.
- Let’s revisit the ratings you gave on the four keys. Are there any ratings that you
would change now that you have an even clearer vision for how they play out?
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College Ready Bar 2/ALT
10
min
Backwards Thinking
- Say: Give your school a 1-5 rating on alignment to preparing students to do the
thinking and work required by the task embedded in the PoG/PP.
Note: this is different than doing the actual task as we want these skills, habits
and understandings to be applicable to a range of opportunities requiring
students to demonstrate this kind of thinking. You should be considering the four
key components outlined by Conley, the shifts and standards.
- Share out ratings and rationale.
- Reflection: So what does this all mean for our schools and our kids? Some things
to think about: How might this impact your observation lens? LP or LP feedback
expectations? PD for teachers on writing lessons or picking problems?
Expectations for quality of work from students? How you pick resources? Etc.
What are 2-3 next steps you are thinking you should take given the implications
of this work? What would it mean for kids if you were successful in carrying out
these next steps?
-
Final soapbox for Will and Anne – here is our major takeaway from this work
There are consequences for our decisions – given the interconnectedness of the
standards and the PoG/PP, instructional decisions need to made with a full
understanding of long term implications at all grade levels.
-
Name suggested next steps, things to think about:
o Departmental or coach debrief – what are our own rigor weaknesses
according to the proficiency profile? What are our next steps to address
those weaknesses?
o How could you weave this into current structures (data meetings, LASW,
department huddles)?
o How will you share parts or all of the profile to share with scholars to
inspire or set the bar? …moment of humor – introduce as, look what folks
at network can do, step it up kids.
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College Ready Bar 2/ALT
ADDITIONAL NOTES/REFERENCE:
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College Ready Bar 2/ALT
Internalization & School Use Guide
Purpose & Context of this Session: explain the overall goals of this session and how it fits into the larger
flow of learning for the summer/year in this area
Facilitator Prep: Each facilitator should take the necessary steps to ensure s/he understands the
session and is able to deliver the session with clarity, accuracy and confidence. The preparation steps
below are recommendations (general and specific to the session where applicable) and recognize that we
all have our own mechanisms for preparing sessions. Ultimately, our goal with this basic guide is to assist
facilitators in internalizing the session.
All Sessions:
1) Read the session in its entirety and preview the powerpoint to get a feel for the flow of the session.
2) Closely read the aims and annotate the session plan for they key moments where the session most
leads to these key aims.
3) Consider the potential misunderstandings and note where you might pre-empt those.
4) Read through the session, looking specifically to group directions, participant practice and
directions. Visualize how these directions would go to ensure clarity and flow.
5) Script and assign times to your personalized session plan.
6) Practice.
Notes for this specific session:
Based on the specific session or subject, list the specific preparation steps. For example:
1) Read the relevant text
2) Read the relevant unit
3) Read the TBK, background knowledge
4) Read this article for context.
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