5. Describe Their Implementation

Mrs. Sink did an excellent job instructing her students on the Vocabulary LINCing Routine. She began by explicitly explaining each section of the routine. As she moved through it, she constantly assessed students' comprehension before moving on to the next part. There were a couple of students who were more interested in making their picture very detailed, and Mrs. Sink nicely explained that the attention needed to be more on the reminding word and story than the artwork. For future lessons, I advised her to allow students to go to the Active Board and fill in a section or two of the routine to give them more of an opportunity to actively participate. Overall, she kept the lesson entertaining and did a great job teaching this routine.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1OyEsmIR7NDTr8wR7czzG2zrO1u8ha2r5

See link above.

Trudey did a great job explaining the routine and walking the students through completing a LINCing table.  She kept the attention of all students and interacted well with her co-teacher.  On the day of the observation, class periods were shortened due to an assembly.  This caused Trudey to rush through the routine faster than she should have but time was limited.  The also forgot to underline some of the key words from the definitions that were used in the LINCing story.

SIM Vocabulary LINCing Reflections Donni Davis-Perry
  I partnered in a middle school, co-taught classroom in an urban school district.  The school is currently unaccredited by VDOE. The group of students I facilitated with the SIM Vocabulary LINCing Routine was comprised of general education and special education students. There was one girl and three boys, all sixth grade students. During their initial introduction, the students took two 30 minute class sessions to engage in the strategy for four new vocabulary words.  This has become faster as they become more familiar with the routine.   Using the routine overall went very well.  The students enjoyed the process and were excited about how well they did on their assessment.  They were eager to use it again with different vocabulary words.  The only challenge was that the kids worked at different rates, some finishing very early.  After introducing and teaching the routine, I was able to allow them to work independently or in pairs so they could have as much or little time as they needed to complete the process.  This was the main adjustment needed to support the kids in their learning. We continue to use the routine in the classroom.  Additional students are cycling through the SIM ‘station’ and learning the routine. I have used the strategy on two days in November and two days in December. I plan to continue to use it through the rest of the year. When asked, 100% of the students have been able to recall the definition of all the vocabulary words they learned. 

My colleague and I were facilitating a Disability Awareness training for a school division.  I had the opportunity to model for her so that she could see me go through the routine of the cue-do-review.  We were in the division for the entire week, repeating our trainings, so I was able to model a couple of times.  When she felt comfortable, she then taught the LINCing routine, explaining its significance as a content enhancement routine to use with students with disabilities, as well as with students without disabilities.  She did a very good job reminding the audience about the reminding words and how it needs to LINC to the vocabulary word (sound like, or be a part of, etc.), and finally, she concluded by having the audience review the importance of the LINCing routine and why it would be a beneficial tool.  We were working with teachers and administrators, and we were very happy with the responses.  Some had seen the LINCing routine before and were happy to see it again and reminded as to how to use it, others had never seen it before, yet were very intrigued by it.  The challenges my colleague and I saw were that we were training on the disability categories, which have very long "medical" definitions.  It was a challenge to use the routine in this way with such difficult terms.  However, using the LINCing routine made learning the categories a lot more engaging.

Although I have not had the opportunity to provide follow-up coaching with the alternative education teachers, I have been coaching several teachers at my school who were previously trained in LINCS. 

Two seventh grade social studies teachers set a goal for themselves to work with me on implementing LINCS this school year. Their coaching cycle included getting together to set a goal, planning a lesson with me and implementing with video observation, then debriefing after we had watched the video and each filled out the implementation checklist. We discussed what went well and what adjustments could be made. One of the teachers had more off-task students than the other. We agreed that her pacing could be improved, her definition shorter and more focused, and her reminding word more student friendly. I am attaching her reflections on her implementation of LINCS and our collaboration through coaching:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B_mCRUJUV9kTUGFRTE5jSVNlTE1DeW93Y0FtaVNZa0Q5amI4

Both teachers continued their use of LINCS throughout their units of study, and they both volunteered to have teachers observe their implementation on our SIM Demo Day!