4. Content Enhancement Routine Expertise

I am truly enjoying the FRAMING Routine. I use it myself when teaching my 3 hour Brain Power Class online. I have received positive feedback on the routine and many have asked for training in the routine in order for them to use it in their classrooms. The FRAMING Routine is also my personal favorite to share with teachers because of it's versitility. This particular routine is easy for teachers to visualize using in any content area. 

I am sharing samples of routines that I have collected on my own, and samples of routines collected during our training sessions here in Hernando. 

July 2022

2 Framing Sessions (

My experiences with using CER's in my classroom have likely been unique from many individuals who have sought to become a professional developer in this capacity.  I began using CER's while teaching 8th grade math.  Two years later, I switched to 7th grade and took on a new curriculum (meaning that I had to create new devices like unit organizers and FRAMEs to match that new curriculum).  Then I attended VaLI in the summer of 2019, while I was making yet another transition - this time to the high school level, where I again took on new curriculum (Algebra 2) and a completely new semester structure to the Algebra I course that I knew.  I was just beginning to get my feet under me in my second semester of high school teaching, reaching a point where I had some comfort with my material that would've allowed me to expand into other realms of CER as I saw fit.  But before I could get there, March of 2020 brought the COVID shutdown and threw education into upheaval for the better part of two years.  I was fortunate to get my first PD session done just 4 days before the world closed its doors.  Like most other educators, I spent the 2020-2021 school year attempting to figure out how to teach students who weren't present in my classroom, and then were only present certain days a week, and all other manner of constant adaptation.  Needless to say, under the strain of those circumstances, my focus was squarely on helping my students, my colleagues, and myself survive the experience.  I also ended up teaching in a year-long model - yet another adjustment from what had been "typical."  Trying to learn and incorporate new CER's under those conditions was, quite honestly, not a feasible aspiration.

This school year carried its own weights, as COVID protocols and other educational challenges (e.g. a lack of substitutes) meant that planning time was frequently absorbed in keeping the school afloat.  And while we did end the school year under conditions that somewhat resembled the "old normal," it was still a season of time where I had less time to focus on expanding my own mastery.  I did continue to use my unit organizers faithfully (back in a semester context once again).  Furthermore, I have had the privilege to develop those unit organizers in collaboration with my fellow Algebra 1/Algebra 2 teacher, who has quickly become my workplace best friend and biggest supporter.  She attended my PD session on the Unit Organizer in 2020, and since then, we've built all those UO's together.  Our ability to discuss critical content, student needs, and to strategically co-plan our curriculum has been the most substantial area of growth for me in these past 3 years since I moved to the high school.

So while I perhaps have not added "new" CER's to my repertoire, I sincerely believe that, through all the trials, I have gained knowledge and experience that is invaluable to fostering student success.  In the future, I hope to see if there might be weak spots in my teaching of the curriculum that could be made "sturdier" by a CER (e.g. Concept Comparison for types of variation, Question Exploration for various types of word problems, etc.).  But given all that the world in general, and the world of education specifically, has been through in the last 2.5 years, I'm extremely pleased with what I've been able to learn, and the successes that my students have had.   

I have implemented the following routines regularly through this experience by modeling with students in a classroom: unit organizer, framing, and vocabulary LINCS. I have also created and used the concept comparison routine and a question exploration routine on a more limited basis. I feel most comfortable with the Unit Organizer, Frame, and Vocabulary LINCS because I have attended the PD sessions for those and supported teachers in creating these to be implemented in their classrooms. At this time, it is the expectation of our school to have all of the unit organizers added to shared drives for our teachers YAG (Year at a Glance) documents for curriculum planning. Additionally, using the vocabulary LINC strategy, I have helped create specific intervention plans for students who need targeted instruction in reading and content vocabulary (especially with science courses this year). All of my samples for evidence, as well as my research into the guidebooks for the other CER and strategies has helped to build my confidence in supporting teachers in the use of these strategies. 

CERs implemented in my classroom:
-Unit Organizer Routine
-FRAME Routine
-Concept Anchoring Routine

As I gradually began to implement Content Enhancement Routines in my classroom, I saw a shift in how my students understood and retained information. This first happened with the Unit Organizer Routine. I started to connect my daily learning targets to the current unit organizer, and as I did that, students began making more and more connections between the content in a unit and across units. If there was a day when I forgot to make an explicit connection, students often brought up the fact that we were learning something from our unit organizer. I also noticed that students were able to remember and use the general vocabulary we were learning during class. Before they would always say something like, "You know that thing we learned the other day," but now they could articulate their thoughts with the correct vocabulary. 

While the Unit Organizer Routine helped my students learn the big picture and make connections, FRAME and Concept Anchoring helped them learn and retain much more content than they were able to before. In the past I have tried multiple creative methods for teaching concepts like figurative language and theme, but I'll never forget the first time I taught them using FRAME and Concept Anchoring because my students did not forget either. They remembered terms and definitions after one lesson that they had not remembered after an entire unit in previous years. The devices also served as clear and organized notes that students frequently referred to if they did not remember something. Going through the routines combined with having the devices has definitely created a more meaningful and memorable learning experience for my students. 

As my PLC began to implement the Unit Organizer Routine, I realized that it is not only good for students, but it's good for teachers as well. As my PLC began each new unit, we first had to construct the Unit Organizer. This allowed us to have a conversation that we were not having before. In order to create the Unit Organizer, we had to decide on the big ideas and how they connected to each other and to other units. Once we made these connections as a team, we were able to explicitly make the connections for our students. It also gave us the chance to clarify our content for ourselves and make sure we were all interpreting the standards and curriculum the same before teaching it to students. I had so much peace of mind knowing that our students with disabilities and our advanced students were having the same learning experiences. 

SIM has helped me grow as a teacher and has helped my PLC refine the curriculum work we have been doing for several years. I feel more confident about how I present information to my students and have seen improvements in their learning. As SIM is used in more classrooms across content areas in my school, students are seeing the value of the routines and are growing their ability to see big ideas, make connections, and retain information,