Carus Elementary School

Carus Elementary School kindergarten, first and second grade teachers met Wednesday for their usual collaborative team time before school. The reality though, is that their ‘usual’ seemed fresh and unique by way of their discussion, questions, sharing of ideas and successful strategies, and ultimately decisions about goals and expectations.

With a focus on results and reviewing the data, how do teachers ultimately judge student success? Kindergarten teacher Janet Frasier explained that to her, “it’s not about the percent of correct answers, but how they are growing academically.” This belief applies especially to students who struggle, in this case with Math, to score well on assessments.

This team also talked about a new math program called Fishin' for Addition used by second grade teacher Diane Swagerty for the first time this year. As pictured, Diane shared test results where her students showed dramatic improvement in their math facts after using this new curriculum. For some students that meant now scoring 93 percent where they had scored 87 percent on the earlier pre-assessment. That’s good growth, but when a student who has struggled with math concepts for some time improves from a previous score of 26 out of 50 problems correct (52 percent) to 45 out of 50—or 90 percent––that was exciting to see. Improvements were evident for many of Swagerty’s students.

To get an even clearer picture of how effective this curriculum might actually be, fellow teacher Heidi Keyser will give her second graders, who did not experience the Fishin' for Addition curriculum, the same assessment as Swagerty to check for progress.
Each grade level team had similar discussion surrounding their next SMART goal target and the instruction and assessments they would use. The teachers were conducting their own research before deciding whether to purchase the same curriculum for subtraction facts.

The Carus K-2 collaborative team is unique in that five out of the six members changed grade levels this year. The opportunity for them to meet regularly provides a perfect environment for collaborating effectively and efficiently in the time they have available to them.