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Standards and Instruction

Next Generation Learning Standards

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Wayne-Finger Lakes BOCES Makes Success Possible for All Students and Staff

Wayne-Finger Lakes BOCES includes 25 component districts between Rochester and Syracuse, from Lake Ontario in the north down through the beautiful Finger Lakes region. We serve 36,000 students in small city and rural communities.

The Staff Development Department, led by Jessica Sheridan, has relied heavily upon the Standards Implementation Roadmap when planning and providing professional learning opportunities for our region.

On March 19, 2018, Betsy Serapilio-Frank and Andy Mitchell, Wayne-Finger Lakes BOCES Staff Developers, led a regional introduction to the Next Generation ELA and Mathematics Learning Standards at the Conference Center. Over 100 people attended. Several other BOCES staff developers and component district administrators facilitated professional learning on this day. This work, coupled with the Supporting All Students statewide conferences in Saratoga and Rochester, raised awareness for our teachers and leadership teams surrounding the revised standards.

Betsy Serapilio-Frank, our Regional Literacy Coordinator, has worked diligently to call attention to the ELA standards in three steps:

  1. Facilitating a close read of the introduction to the P-12 ELA Standards as well as the Early Learning Standards so educators have a deeper understanding of the “What and Why” changes were made. 
  2. Modeling a protocol to examine the progression of one standard in order to answer the question, “How can we use the exit standards to plan backwards and ensure all students have equal accessibility to a rich curriculum that will support their success?”
  3. Analyzing the Lifelong Practices of Readers and Writers to determine what the practices currently look and sound like day-to-day at school and how they could be even more present.
...now I feel much more confident in my knowledge about those new standards and how/when to make adjustments to my curriculum.

Often it is difficult for our rural districts to find enough substitute teachers to attend on-site training. In response to this need, Andy Mitchell worked with Bill Campo, Wayne-Finger Lakes BOCES Coordinator of Multimedia Development, to create the online course Standards, Snapshots, Crosswalks, Oh My! to introduce our K-12 math teachers to the Next Generation mathematics standards. Angela W. says, “This was a great opportunity. I thought the videos were concise and worthwhile.” Tonya M. writes, “I knew before taking this course that the standards would be changing, but now I feel much more confident in my knowledge about those new standards and how/when to make adjustments to my curriculum.  I definitely took more time than I have in the past to really read through the standards at my own grade level as well as the levels right below and above mine and I feel that this has given me a much better sense of the progression of topics from MS on to and through HS. I enjoyed the online format very much because I could work at my own pace when it was convenient for me.” If you want to know more about this work, please contact andrew.mitchell@wflboces.org for details.

Reneé Greenly, Wayne-Finger Lakes BOCES Staff Developer, has combined Dr. LeSeaux’s Literacy Briefs with personalized learning protocols to increase the capacity of our region’s teachers to meet the literacy learning needs of our students. By integrating student engagement initiatives in our professional development, our team is modeling excellent classroom instruction while building teacher knowledge of 21st century literacy instruction.

The views and opinions expressed in this newsletter are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the policies or opinions of the New York State Board of Regents, the New York State Education Department, or its staff.

NYSED does not endorse or promote any products, services, or websites mentioned in these articles.