Anchin in Action News: Fall 2022

We hope this fall newsletter finds you well as we embark on another academic year. We have had a busy summer in the Anchin Center partnering with teachers, leaders, and school districts in efforts aligned with our mission to help improve the quality of education for K-12 students and provide professional development opportunities for teachers and school administrators. We are delighted to highlight some of our recent work and preview upcoming efforts as we begin fall semester 2022.

In order to continue to receive our newsletters, please be sure to subscribe to our mailing list. To learn more about the David C. Anchin Center, please visit our website.

Featured in this newsletter:

• Research Brief: Keeping Students' Attention in the Classroom, David Rosengrant, Ed.D.
• Policy Brief: Equity, Effectiveness, and Control: The Every Student Succeeds Act and State Approaches to Defining School Turnaround, William Black, Ph.D. and Adam Rea, Ph.D.
• Technology Integration in Mathematics to Promote Mathematical Proficiency and Computational Thinking
• AP Summer Institute Highlights
• Upcoming Professional Development Offerings
• Leadership Collaborative
• Conference Save the Date, Third Annual David C. Anchin Center Conference
• What We're Reading & Watching

We have all probably heard the old teacher adage that you only get your students’ attention for the first 15 minutes of class and then you lose them. Educators understand that attention, and keeping it, is a critical part to learning. Teachers want our students to focus on something, and regardless if they do it because they want to or because there is an outside force, it cannot be kept forever. What is interesting though, is that this 15 minute loss in attention is usually researched outside of classroom situations where the presentation methods have little variations in them.

That is not to say that we have not studied classroom attention. Some methods in the past to study attention involved looking at student notes, instructors observing their students and how they think their students are paying attention, or using technology like clickers where students self-report their levels of attention6. These are just a few examples and the results are really mixed. As one might expect, there is a great deal of variability on keeping attention... Read more

Over the last three decades, State Education Agencies and State legislatures have taken more active roles in creating policies to measure and define school performance. Guided by federal policy inducements, states have developed policies to evaluate school-level performance and define schools in need of improvement as well as the lowest performing schools in need of turnaround. In this policy brief, we provide an analysis of 52 state plans

submitted and approved under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) of 2015.

ESSA called on all 52 states educational agencies to detail specific turnaround plans for struggling schools. Our analysis of state plans focuses on variations in state-level definition and framing of three categories of school status determinations for schools in need of improvement: TSI-Targeted Support and Intervention; CSI-Comprehensive Support and

Intervention; and MRI-More Rigorous Intervention. We conducted a content analysis of the approved plans from the 52 state agencies. After an initial inductive review, we found that states’ approaches to the three categories of TSI, CSI, and MRI were central to turnaround school policy.

Given the enormously disproportionate percentage of low income and students of color attending schools in TSI, CSI, and MRI status, it can be argued that state-level plans for turnaround interventions represent a de facto state level policy lever for more equitable

outcomes. While ESSA was designed to provide greater flexibility to states, and state-level and contextually sensitive flexibility is desirable, our analysis reveals a significant and wide variation in categorical definitions and identification of turnaround schools... Read more

The Anchin Center partnered with the Coalition for Science Literacy, Texas Instruments, and the College of Education’s Mathematics Education Program to host a two-day workshop this summer that empowered mathematics teachers to explore evidence-based instructional practices and how to integrate technologies that promote proficiency and computational thinking into their classrooms.

Teachers who participated in the workshop earned a non-degree certificate and a professional digital badge from USF.

The Anchin Center's annual Advanced Placement Summer Institute is the third largest in the world, with participants joining us from 30 states and 5 different countries, including Canada, China, Germany, Kuwait, and Thailand. This summer, we welcomed approximately 800 Advanced Placement (AP) teachers to campus for our AP Summer Institute, which was delivered in-person again following two years of online delivery due to COVID.

The Institute was very well received by participants who shared that they gained a lot from the opportunity to build their knowledge around their AP courses from experienced and enthusiastic College-Board consultants, and from fellow participants. One teacher stated, "It was wonderful to be back in-person again to connect and collaborate with other AP teachers! I am very happy to have attended the workshop as I now feel much more prepared and confident as a new AP teacher."

With 47 different course offerings planned for next summer's program, the Anchin Center's AP Summer Institute continues to grow. Registration for 2023 APSI will be opening soon.

In this two-hour online workshop, we’ll explore how to support independent reading and grow readers. We’ll talk about challenges to developing reading fluency, ways to re-engage readers, titles to ignite reading lives and identities, and genres/formats that get people talking about the books they read.

• August 22, 2022
• 6:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m. EST
• Free to attend

Supercharge your school with student leaders who can positively impact your school’s culture! Cultivating Leaders and Intentional Culture (CLIC) is partnering with the David C. Anchin Center for the Advancement of Teaching to offer a pilot student leadership institute program for interested schools. CLIC has been successfully operating in schools in both Pasco County and Hillsborough County, and we’re looking to expand this opportunity to the broader Tampa Bay area.

When students understand the value of building relationships to meet school-wide goals, the goals are more meaningful. Students who are an integral part in implementation and execution of their school's improvement plan have a true feeling of ownership towards the school and its mission. Creating a culture of empowered, compassionate, and confident students will also generate a legacy of leaders who enter high school to learn, and depart to serve their respective communities. CLIC is designed to develop leaders who will create positive relationships, community connections, and intentional kindness in and out of the classroom.

• August 27, 2022
• 9:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m. EST
• TECO Hall, College of Education, USF Tampa Campus
• Lunch will be provided
• Free to attend

• September 5 - October 14, 2022
• Online and self-paced
• Registration: $295

This online professional development course is designed for classroom teachers to explore the science of reading and developmental models of reading.

A focus on phonological/phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary development, comprehension, and foundational, inclusive literacy practices are central topics we will explore throughout the 6-week session. Through the exploration of these topics, teachers will consider implications for explicit, systematic literacy instruction and multisensory literacy interventions for children with decoding difficulties, dyslexia, and broader reading challenges.

The goal of this course is to provide a platform for practicing teachers to explore flexible and skillful use of developmentally appropriate instructional strategies for planning inclusive, responsive, and culturally relevant instruction for all students.

The Science of Reading professional development course satisfies the Florida Department of Education’s 40-hour learning hours requirement in reading instruction. Florida statute 6A-4.0051 requires 40 hours of professional learning “in the use of explicit, systematic, and sequential approaches to reading instruction, developing phonemic awareness, and implementing multisensory intervention strategies” for recertification of teachers renewing various teaching certifications (e.g., elementary education, primary education, middle grades, education, English education, reading, and others).

This online asynchronous course will prepare you to earn a passing score on the Reading K-12 Subject Area Exam (035). A passing score on the Reading K-12 Subject Area Exam (035) is a state-approved pathway to a complete reading endorsement, a legislative requirement for any teacher who provides intensive interventions in reading. Facilitated by a literacy and reading expert, this course will review best practices in reading instruction and intervention.

Minds-in-Motion provides children with integrated neuro-developmental and sensory-based activities. The Minds-in-Motion approach views the student as a whole, rather than isolating fine motor, perceptual, or other aspects of the child's functioning.

• October 22, 2022
• 9:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.
• USF College of Education, TECO Hall, Tampa campus
• Registration: $150

The Leadership Collaborative is an initiative sponsored by the Anchin Center and school district professional development leaders from the west coast of Florida, including Citrus to Sarasota Counties, Polk County and the Heartland Consortium. Participants focus on issues related to professional development and discuss items of concern at the state level.

The Leadership Collaborative will be holding its fall meeting in early September online for discussion related to new legislative requirements for teacher recertification, upcoming professional development opportunities, and shared strategies in support of teaching and learning.

• How the first woman of color to be elected to the U.S. Congress remade education
• My students don't seem to care about their studies. How do I reach them?
• Reading and Writing the Word and the World
• Practice Guide for Preparing Young Children for School

The mission of the David C. Anchin Center for the Advancement of Teaching is to collaborate with teachers, school leaders, districts, and other educators to improve the quality of education for students and to transform the teaching profession to attract, retain, and develop quality educators. We achieve this mission through partnerships with schools, the broader educational community, business and industry, and the community at large.

Email: AnchinCenter@usf.edu
Website: usf.edu/education/anchin
Location: 4202 East Fowler Avenue, Tampa, FL, USA
Phone: 813-974-5959
Facebook: facebook.com/USFAnchin
Twitter: @USFAnchin