KIPP Charlotte Step-Up

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A Spotlight on Strategies that Work: HowKIPP Charlotte is making the most of winterMAP...

Posted by Alex McPhersonJan 22, 2014

As part of our ongoing series sharing strategies for student achievement, we

talked to Alex McPherson, Director of Data Management at KIPP Charlotte, about

their efforts to help students step up for the winter MAP test. Huge Shout Out

to Andrew Martin for his thought partnership on the creation of "keep up" and

"step up" goals!

At KIPP Charlotte, students frequently

hear the message that they arent

typical theyre extraordinary.

Thats why, when it comes to their MAP

scores, teachers and staff talk about

the fact that if they simply meet typicalgrowth each year, theyll stay typical.

And the Pride is anything but typical.

Over the last two years the KIPP

Charlotte team has been working

to set, track, and invest students in

growth goals differentiated to where

they are and where they need to be to

meet their college-ready targets. (Readthis post about why typical growth is

not enough for any of our students

and learn how you can use a new

tracker to set tiered growth targets

for your students.) It isnt just about

being atypical the team realized

At KIPP Charlotte, pre-testing conferences

are an opportunity for
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A Spotlight on Strategies that Work: How KIPP Charlotte is making the most of winter MAP...


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that ensuring every student left the

school college ready would often mean

making more than typical growth on

the MAP test each year. As they tell the

students, the goal that the computer

gives you is enough to keep up but not

enough to step up.

The conversation starts early. In

summer school, students start hearing

about MAP and thinking about the

implications of malleable intelligence.

Staff use data to tell the story,

comparing the track of an average

student to a student at KIPP Charlotte.

The goal is to spark reflection about

what that data means for themselves

and their future. After orientation this

year, teachers used spring MAP results

and the KIPP School Summit theme

of Rising to the Challenge to ask

KIPPsters: How will you rise to the

challenge this year? With that frame inmind, teachers and staff are conveying

the message that the bar is already

high but now it has to get even higher.

To learn more about how KIPP Charlotte

is helping students understand and

embrace those differentiated goals, we

interviewed Alex McPherson, Director of

Data Management at KIPP Charlotte, just intime for winter MAP.

How is that message that typical

growth is not enough conveyed to

students at KIPP Charlotte?

kids to understand their "keep up" and "step

up" goals for MAP.

In this picture, Brigette Jackson, a 6th grade

math teacher, holds a

conference with a student.

A group of students pose with their green

(math) and blue (reading)

Step Up shoes. The shoes celebrate

students who meet their growth

goals on the MAP test and give students thechance to wear the

shoes of their choice to school.
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For an individual student, it means

having a keep up goal and a

step-up goal for each MAP test.

Those goals are set in goal setting

conferences at the start of the year

and recorded in individual MAP binders

that the students use all the time.

We also talk about MAP all the time

why its important and how its

individualized to them.

Why is winter MAP so important?

In some ways, winter is almost more

important than spring. This is the one

chance that we have to assess and

adjust. Spring is the end game, but

we can use winter as a temperature

gauge to see how we're doing. We

found that even with the switch to

Common Core state assessments, MAP

really did predict passing results. If you

value spring testing, you have to value

winter testing. If youre going to use itinstructionally, then the winter test is

super important.

How are you investing students in winter

MAP?

We've been doing a countdown all over

the school. On the doors it says how many

school days until MAP. We want it to be very

present and visible to students, parents, and

visitors. Math and reading teachers, along

with our coaches also conferenced with each

student individually prior to Winter Testing

and gave them a MAP madness card to

remind them of their fall score and winter

goal.

A KIPPster shows off their shoe pass and a

sticker that

celebrates their growth on the winter MAP.
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How are you investing students in their

individual step-up goals?

Bulletin boards include fall data and have

shoes to display students' "step-up" goals.Any student who grows gets a sticker with

the number of points that they moved.

Students who make their step-up goals are

going to get an awesome "shoe pass" for

each goal that they make. They can redeem

it to wear the shoes of their choice to school.

We have uniforms, so that's a big deal for

middle school. Kids who get both shoe

passes [Reading and Math] are invited to

the Step-Up Social, where they can wearthe clothes of their choice and enjoy music

and refreshments with their friends. Before

the test, teachers have one-on-one pre-

conferences with the students and additional

conferences with students who do not grow.

How are you using MAP to adjust instruction

and support for students?

We started doing RIT-band instruction

Fridays. We call it Step Up Fridays, where

students are receiving targeted instruction

based on Fall MAP data. Math and reading

teachers are also having one-on-one pre-

conferences with students the week before

MAP to ensure that students go in knowing

their step-up goal and what they want to see

on the screen when they finish. We found

a strong correlation between the time that

students spend taking the test and how wellthey do, so we have focused on norming as

a school on what it means to show work and

annotate during the test. Using Winter MAP

results, we will adjust the groups for Step Up

Fridays and teachers will have conferences


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with students who didn't meet their goals this

time.

[Step Up Fridays] help us say to the

students, We really do use this data.They know they are in Step Up Friday

groups based on MAP data. Weve been

telling them that theyll move based on

growth.

What are you finding to be important for

student success on MAP?

We talked about data as a team andrealized that students who spent an

hour or less [on the test] were below

the 50th percentile and those that

spent more time did much better. We

want kids to understand importance of

taking their time and are messaging

that prior to the day of the test. We

dont want to stress them out; we want

to motivate them.

We are also norming as a school on what

it means to show work and annotate during

the test. We have packets with boxes that

they practice annotating because we want

them to take their time. And during the test,

they have their MAP Madness card on their

desk with their goal.

What are you still working on?

Step Up Fridays are still new and the reality is that people are often being asked

to teach things outside of their comfort zone with students that they dont

usually work with. We still need to find better ways of providing professional

development to support those teachers. Honestly, its a huge amount of work


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and our coaches are cranking out massive amounts of RIT band work. We are

continuously looking at whats working and going back to the drawing board.

We are also still trying to support differentiation. We know that 80 percent of our students

learning is occurring in their math and reading classes Monday through Thursday and that StepUp Friday is not going to be the only factor in student success. We have some areas where, after

Winter testing, growth by quartile was not what we needed it to be, so we are thinking about

ways to support teachers and students so that all quartiles are growing.

Tell us: how are you investing students in winter MAP? Whats working for you?

On Main Office, you can explore resources posted by your colleagues and share

your own strategies in this conversation thread.

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