APLM Online: Recruitment Information

Middle School Writing Coaches and Teacher Teams

Test out an auto-scored progress monitoring online tool for writing and the associated professional learning tools to support the use of student data to make instructional decisions. Tell us how to improve the tools.

Focus of the Project

WRITE provides automated scoring of student quick writes with instructional recommendations. WRITE was developed to support educators to make data-based decisions on which evidence-based writing interventions are appropriate for the specific needs of their students. It provides teachers with an interactive Progress Monitoring (PM) Tool to continuously assess student writing and a set of evidence-based writing interventions.

The APLM Online will support in-service professional developers/coaches as they coach middle school teachers on the implementation of WRITE with students with learning disabilities. The coaching tools include readiness assessments, coaching logs, and conversation guides. These tools are based on the Adaptive Professional Learning Model (APLM)
designed for teachers.

Participation Benefits Include Access To:

1. Online Dashboard Systems: used by coaches to facilitate virtual or in-person professional learning with teams of teachers and by teachers to link student data to instructional decisions
2. Infrastructure Readiness Assessments: used by teams to prepare for WRITE professional learning and implementation
3. Initial Professional Learning Resources: over-view videos on how to use the WRITE progress monitoring tool and using data to select writing interventions and to make ongoing instructional decisions
4. Coaching Resources: used to capture teacher-coach progress through implementation of new instructional practices in writing; includes coaching logs, conversation guides, and implementation evidence sharing
5. Progress monitoring system that auto-scores short writing samples for middle school students, teachers and coaches to use within APLM Online.

Current Project Need

Our current need is to identity two middle schools with at least 1 instructional coach who works with approximately 10 teachers on writing instruction.

1. Participating educators will test and provide feedback and suggestions to improve the APLM and WRITE Tools.
2. Instructional coaches may hold other positions in their school or district in addition to coaching. As desired by participating schools, the project may supplement coaching for participating teachers with a project-provided virtual coach.
3. The time commitment is September 2023 to June 2024 and approximately 10-15 hours of total time outside contract hours.
4. Educators will receive an honorarium for their efforts and support in the implementation of the APLM and WRITE Tools.

If you are interested in learning more about this tool and how to participate in the project, please register for our Informational Webinar on May 10th, 2023 from 3:00-4:00 pm Central Time or email aplm@ku.edu.