B2+Narrative

B2 Narrativetoc

Narrative Introduction
Below you will find Draft 1.0 of the narrative that was created by the WCEA-WASC Core Team, temporarily formatted in this Wiki. All comments and edits should be included at the **bottom of the document** below the narrative. In order to allow for continuity of the document and clarity of revisions, all focus group members should write bulleted notes below the narrative.

Category B2: How Students Learn

To what extent... Does the professional staff use research-based knowledge about teaching and learning? To what extent does the professional staff design and implement a variety of learning experiences that actively engage students at a high level of learning consistent with the school’s philosophy and mission and expected schoolwide learning results?


 * __Focus Group Findings__

**The Use of Research-Based Knowledge:** Administrators and faculty members have become consumers and producers of research in ongoing efforts to build the capacities of the school and its students. The principal, assistant principal of instruction, and librarians regularly distribute among the faculty various research studies and their results for purposes of information, stimulation, and professional support toward the improvement of practice and student achievement.

In recent years, whole departments or individual teachers throughout the school have examined research in relation to the effective use of technology in the classroom, learning-centered models of instruction, differentiated instruction, reading comprehension strategies, and challenge-based learning, to name a few current topics. Momentum has developed significantly among administrators, librarians, and teachers in referring to educational research as a matter of course in order to deepen understanding, to build upon the knowledge base, and to learn alternative practices and the educational theories on which they are predicated.

Departments have also produced informal research studies through the process of analyzing their online curriculum maps in order to close gaps and eliminate redundancies within sequential programs  in their disciplines. Comparative studies of departments’ Curriculum Diary Maps are evolving into the creation of Essential Maps by which teachers may identify those skills and concepts that are essential for students to know, understand, and be able to do within the given discipline. Through this process and the online publication of it, the essential curricula can be supported, developed, and reinforced across all departments throughout the school, and the interrelationships among the disciplines may be more clearly exposed and less departmentalized. In this way, all teachers can monitor the academic rigor, the unity, and the critical content of the schoolwide curriculum in support of student achievement of the ESLRs and in accordance with the Mission of the school.

The library has become a significant support resource for teachers as well as for students in designing and implementing lessons, content, and assessments. The library staff works closely with individual teachers and with whole departments to collaborate on best practices in educational technology and offers lunchtime workshops for teachers interested in various search strategies, Google sites, and technological pedagogy. In addition, the Library has transformed, since the integration of the 1:1 laptop program into a "learning commons" where library and tech support staff provide students with assistance in research and technology applications to support their classroom learning. The library staff provides ongoing professional development and tech training to teachers as well as students. In addition, the library provides a slate of programming that allows students to be part of panels, present their own creations and ideas, and find their own voice in their learning.   Through the integration of technology across the 9th, 10th, and 11th grade years, the school has also focused on increasing student understanding of the appropriate uses of technology, and making morally upright decisions on what materials to access on the laptop. Through the new Technology Camp for all incoming ninth graders, students engage in discussions around the responsible use of technology, and the pitfalls ofsocial networking sites, off-task behavior, cyberbullying, plagiarism, and cheating. In spring of 2010, the library staff reviewed the existing tech camp curriculum and determined a hybrid format to standardize instruction would best meet the needs of tech camp instructors and students. Screencasting software has been implemented to provide instruction along with videos of MCHS faculty and students. Links, online documents, digital images, and online submission drop boxes rounded out this course. In response to a growing need for more proactive intervention around academic integrity, the library staff developed a self-guided academic integrity tutorial within Moodle for first time offenders of plagiarism and cheating modeled after the tech camp format. Interactive quizzes and lessons are designed to help students understand academic integrity, and learn how they can respond to peers when pressured to cheat.   <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial Narrow; font-size: 11.5pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">To help faculty use new technology to inform their own practice and transform their curriculum to meet the needs of our students in Spring 2009 the Library staff customized an existing technology staff development program, "23 Things" for the Moreau Catholic community. This program was developed to help faculty explore and experiment with emerging web 2.0 technologies and social networking tools in the context of student learning. At the same time the library staff created the MCHS Learning Wiki as a technology tool and curriculum resource for the school. The library and technology staff continue professional development around technology by leading round tables at selected faculty/staff meetings introducing tech tools and demonstrating search tips. In 2010, the library staff created Teacher Features to share innovative technology use by individual classroom teachers with the community and the public. At the midyear professional development meeting the library staff gives a short presentation each year featuring different ways the library program supports faculty and staff. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial Narrow; font-size: 11.5pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Moodle (an online course management system) became an increasingly popular choice with faculty in 2009 for hybrid (online and face-to-face) instruction. The library staff took on the role of training for this software application helping teachers set up accounts and Moodle course components. The library also serves as the front line of tech support for other web applications, particularly Web 2.0 applications. Students now can access supplementary course resources and experience an online course experience enabling them greater accessibility to resources and support for their learning. The school is currently moving from print textbooks to eCurriculum resources. A dialogue began between the library, administration, science and math departments about moving the science and math department towards an eLearning model. Continuing to leverage learning opportunities available through the school's use of laptops and its networked environment, the library staff purchased software, LibGuides, to create interactive research guides that can be used as research pathfinders, as companions to class content, and as informational platforms for campus activities. Moodle and LibGuides has enabled students to access course content and resources on-demand. To create an opportunity for more intellectual discourse outside the classroom setting, the library staff developed a program called Live from MCHS, modeled after Live from NYPL (New York Public Library). "Live from MCHS" brings students, faculty, staff, and administration together to discuss interesting topics and learn from differing viewpoints. A live audience both on-site and streamed online makes for an engaging and interactive discussion. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">As a result of the research conducted by the technology committee, and since the launch of the 1:1 laptop program in 2006-2007, students engage more frequently in a wide variety of hands-on learning experiences designed to stimulate their Intellectual curiosity as well as to challenge and deepen their knowledge. As teachers continue to develop their own computer skills and acquire more strategies for teaching with technology, students may perform any or all of <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">the following sample of tasks, in and for their classes:
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Design and Implementation of a Variety of Learning Experiences: **
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Record essays in Word to assist with the editing process, using a variety of editing tools
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Participate in interactive discussions with public figures via Skype and live-streams
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Compose and collaborate with online blogs
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Discuss literature in online forum discussions
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Conceive, design, create, and present iMovies
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Utilize Webquests
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Learn and review material by using Quizlet
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Compose and write for daily life using twitter/penzu
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Learn new vocabulary using Provoc/Zdt
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Visualize authentically through virtual tours using Google Earth
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Collaborate through Wikis and LibGuides
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Practice recording using Audacity
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Communicate with target language on ichat/skype
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Research, create, and design using keynote/powerpoint and independent Internet research
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Create independent videos to communicate/teach concepts to classmates
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Design PowerPoint/Keynote presentations of research
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Use Smartboard
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Use digital cameras to document and create artwork.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Manipulate work and create work on Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Conduct research using online museum sites
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Use iMovie to create films: Stop motion animation
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Communicate and participate in critique through Facebook
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Create iMovies and PowerPoint/Keynote in group projects
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Utilize Wikispaces for collaborative studying
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Learn about far-away places through 360º online tours

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In the past few years, the 1:1 laptop program at MCHS has attracted many visiting teams from high schools around the diocese, from neighboring districts, and even from across the country. Each visit consists of a briefing in the preliminary research, the preparatory training, and the implementation processes involved in launching the program, followed by self-directed tours among classrooms using technology for visitors to observe how students learn using the tools of technology.

==**<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Student Engagement: **== <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Moreau Catholic’s implementation of technology across the curriculum was acknowledged and validated by the school’s designation as an Apple Distinguished School for 2010, one of 54 nationwide, eight of which are in the state of California. Over the past two years, Moreau Catholic students, faculty, and technology staff have been invited to the Apple Campus to provide executive briefings for Diocesan School Departments and District Office leadership teams on the process of technology implementation.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">While technology has facilitated student learning, it has not replaced the need to continue developing students' higher order thinking skills in a variety of ways. To varying degrees, teachers design lessons that require students to analyze, synthesize, evaluate, and create--and often to communicate their processes and findings to their classmates. Students must work to resolve their expected solutions for a given problem when presented with unintended consequences in their work and to consider the ethical implications of their solutions, where appropriate. However, classroom walk-through observation data indicate that higher order thinking tasks are not consistently present in all of the observed classes during any given schoolwide walk-through.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Other strategies for engagement in active learning invite students to do the following:


 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Analyze, synthesize, and evaluate ideas in fiction and nonfiction texts
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Create and act out original skits representing different daily situations (in modern languages)
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Discuss and evaluate current events with other students to gain different perspectives
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Conduct self-assessments of work, using rubrics
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Create scripts and perform skits using new vocabulary words
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Participate in Socratic seminars and fishbowl discussions
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Write peer reviews
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Explore evidence for and create a study of seismic-events around the Hayward fault considering [a] safety issues for the home, [b] early warning detection at Moreau Catholic HS with instrumentation permanently installed in the school
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Participate in online activities: NSTA case studies allowing virtual world studies online using MacBooks in biology, geology, physics, chemistry
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">ProjectMoreau.org activities: five activities now under construction: Earthquakes, Air quality, Life Science, Potholes on highway 238
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Collaborate in and then lead carousel discussions
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Conduct silent discussions through Passing Notes activities
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Rotate among roles of responsibility in literature circles
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Create and participate in cultural celebrations
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Organizes, plan, collaborate, perform, and produce culture projects
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Participate in group critique of artwork
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Communicate with and help each other during studio or workshop time
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Design, create, and play board games

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">On the whole, MCHS strives to optimize its resources in order to cultivate in its students a life-long love of learning by exposing them to as many educational media and as diversified a collection of learning strategies as possible. Efforts continue, through professional growth opportunities and teacher collaboration, at enhancing the variety of modes for student learning. || <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">__Evidence__


 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">WASC Survey


 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Teacher Features MCHS Webpage
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Challenge-based Learning Coordinator
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Differentiated Instructional strategies; Alternative Learning Styles resources and support
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">23 Things (MCHS Webpage: Library)
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Sequential Reading Comprehension program
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Department Status Reports (Spring, 2011)
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Department Meeting Minutes
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Curriculum Maps


 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Lesson Plans
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Student work products
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Classroom Observation Reports
 * <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Longitudinal Results from TRAILS Survey


 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Visual Arts lesson plans and projects


 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Google.docs and guidelines for laptop visiting teams
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Feedback from laptop visiting teams


 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Student Surveys
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Student Rating Questionnaires
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Freshman I-Search project
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Service Learning projects


 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Department Goals and Action Plans


 * Classroom work products
 * Classroom performances
 * Schoolwide Culture days and celebrations ||

**Focus Group Comments**
Please insert any comments or edits to the narrative in this space. These comments will be integrated into future versions of the narrative.

__General Comments__ • Add headings to improve organization ** Done. ~cjs ** • Inclusion of non-technological evidence of how students learn in B2 Evidence ** (added) **

__Specific Comments__ • Inclusion of Lab-Pro, data collector connected to the computer • Disparity between B1 and B2 Evidence pages - B1 is a link to a confusing spreadsheet, B2 is a collection of evidence on the page with headings
 * The links were not supposed to be transferred from the original Google doc to the Wiki; they have been removed. **
 * The bulleted lists within this narrative are not lists of evidence but consolidated lists of skills, all marked by action verbs, to describe what students DO, in answer to the Category, "How Students Learn." These actions are part of the story of how students learn and the strategies that are used in that process. Let me know if that answers the concern. The evidence would be the products of those actions (which will be displayed in classrooms during the visit). **

__** 10/11 Comments **__
 * ** consistent use of capital letters in the bulleted list **
 * list might be considered redundant in its multiple use of "powerpoint" (for example). While it is noted that these are separate tasks, members are wondering if some of these can be combined. For example, "Research, create, and design Powerpoint presentations to show independent research, groups projects, etc."
 * What is the task associated with the use of the Smartboard?
 * 2nd bulleted list seems English and Modern Language "heavy". What about Math and Science?