Monday Points: February 25, 2013

Welcome back to Monday Points after a well deserved break last week. I hope the long last weekend was a good one for you. I attended a fascinating conference on the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in Math that I look forward to sharing with you throughout the rest of the year, and into next. This week though, we wrap up February, Session 4, and begin with a new cohort of Success Academy. Let’s get Started…

Celebration Points:

I feel like I want to celebrate every time I see students performing in class to the Distinguished level of teaching on the Charlotte Danielson. So I must share, I was in a class the other day on a random walk through and I witnessed a student in front of the class explaining the classroom expectations for behavior for the period. The teacher stood in support on the side. I was elated to see such a thing in one of our classrooms. The leading student’s peers listened on as the student clarified what her expectations were while the teacher was reading a book to them that day. Well done teacher you know who-you-are! Those are distinguished students. And I saw evidence of distinguished teaching. Celebrate.

Guest Writer: Leadership Team Member, Bruce Dearborn

As we seek perpetually how we can get better, please pause and ask yourselves this question.  In fact, ask each other “why are you successful?”  We are successful, you know.  We take the kids at whom the system has thrown everything they have, and somehow we pick up the pieces and, voila! a successful youth emerges. Is it them?  Is it something I have done; someone else?

A few of you are venturing to a WALA conference this week.  There, in addition to observing decades-old traditions, you will attend workshops put on by your colleagues.  They get to do this because they have a success.  Ask them the BIG question.  When they want to say “how” they do that, just bring them back to the BIG question.  When they say stuff like “we get the student to believe in themselves,” or, “they experience success,” then, ask them “How do you do that?”  And then, come back and tell us what they said, and what you said.

In 1978 I attended my first WALA conference at The Evergreen State College.  We stayed in dorms, ate cafeteria food and mostly talked about how to keep our alternative programs alive. By the late 90’s we occupied an entire convention center, had a notorious keynote speaker and Dr. Terri Bergeson came every time.  She started as a SpEd teacher and she “got it.”  However, even she did not know how we did it.  (She gave new meaning to the word celebrity – boy, did she love to celebrate!!)

We are our best teachers.

Instructional Point: Common Core

Heads up! Together for the next year or so we will be learning about the Common Core State Standards. Some of you may know the conditions for this transition from our own state standards (the EALR, GLE and GLO) over the next few years. The short of it is, in exchange for our state’s waiver from federal NCLB, Washington state is to adopt a new set of learning standards that is on par with a majority of other states across the nation. These standards are “The Common Core”, a term you will hear a lot about in our future.

Indeed, the CCSS is with us now. Books and dissertations have been written about the implications and meaning of the common core. Common core is far too vast to cover in this weekly blog, or years worth of Monday Points. For the purpose of this week’s message I will tell you what I know today.  I am sufficed to say that the Common Core represents:

·         Shifts in the form of “Anchor” standards to national English Language Arts (ELA) that are thematic and increasingly more rigorous throughout grade levels.

·         A raised bar for what students are learning in elementary grades, and even higher expectations for what students should know and be able to do in secondary education.

·         The same is true for Math, and how we approach the teaching of math in 8 explicit Math Standard Practices, they call “MSP”s.

·         The anchor standards of common core can be integrated into instruction for electives, CTE, and college and career preparation.

·         The common core is an approach to teaching standards that is applicable to how we teach now, but is perhaps even more observable when implemented in all classrooms.

We are embarking on a journey into the Common Core, today, and for years to come. We will learn what the CCSS looks like in classrooms, and across content areas. Get set for us to learn together, The Common Core.

PCT Point: This Friday, March 1, PCT is Team Time. You are to independently direct how you will spend your collaboration and learning time. It is also a District Job Alike Day. There will be opportunities to professionally collaborate with job alike colleagues across the district. I will be at the WALA conference on Friday with our leadership team. Please send me a message and let me know your intentions for your own professional growth and development this Friday afternoon.

Mike’s Schedule:

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
Feb 25	Feb 26	Feb 27	Feb 28	Mar 1
Weekly Letter Teach Success Academy New Spaces Meeting (Woodside) Sped Meeting M/Teacher Community Strategic Planning Event (Evening)	In Classrooms Teach Success Academy Observation Writing	Teach Success Academy In Classrooms Alt Ed Leadership Team Meeting	In Classrooms M/Jackie Graduate Success Academy Weekly Administrative Meeting Drive to Chelan for WALA Conference	Washington Association for Learning Alternatives (WALA) Conference (All Day) Drive Home

Have a great week!

Mike

Monday Points: February 11, 2013

Good morning and welcome back for another full week in the 3^rd quarter stretch. Coming off an inspiring PCT at Aviation HS last week, I am looking at our work, and our teaching, through a lens of project-based-learning. More in this week’s Instructional Point, but first let’s celebrate…

Celebration Points:

I want to celebrate good work by our staff thinking about student transitions. At CHOICE we have begun interviews for next year’s incoming 7^th grade class, which is an all hands effort. If coordinating and organizing isn’t enough, the days run long for all staff engaging in the intimate meetings with prospective families deciding to come to CHOICE. How exciting it is to meet new students and parents making their way into our community. On the other end, Counselor Andrea Love led 10^th grade families through High School and Beyond Planning in a well attended evening event. It is soon decision and transition time for our older students to think about Running Start or Puget Sound Skills Center next year. I was also moved, and want to celebrate several meetings I had with Seniors at New Start. In class sized senior meetings last week, and in one-on-one conversations I was encouraged to talk with several seniors who are preparing themselves for the final steps to walk across our stage at commencement. Happy Transitions everyone!

Instructional Point:

Last week both staffs attended a PCT entitled PBL Seminar at Aviation High School. The PCT reminded me, and I hope you, about our school commitment to bring projects into the educational experience for our students. I walked away with two important reminders about project-based-learning that I want to re-edify for you. But first, let’s think about the traits of a learning project:

·         PBL is usually associated with a question or problem that must be solved.

·         PBL has a tangible product at the end which is created (and usually presented) by the student(s)

·         PBL is authentically relevant to real life, and often explicitly connected to post-secondary education, career or citizenship

·         PBL is Learner-Centered involving a poignant learning/connecting experience had, and realized, by the student.

This reminds me that PBL does not necessarily have to involve small groups, or include cross-curricular integration. While small group and integrated studies are nice add-ons to a student’s learning project, the PBL model can also be effective for individuals, and/or contained in one class or a unit. Think about Senior Projects. A true Senior Project is PBL.

I share this after learning about some individual student PBL experiences students engaged in at Aviation. Content integration and small group logistics are commonly believed barriers to effective PBL teaching. This weekend I learned they don’t have to be!

Certainly connections – authentic connections - still need to be made in PBL (as we know it) but that connection can be between content and career, community, transferable skills, or even previous learning in the discipline curriculum. Think about your practice, you might be doing more project-based-learning than you thought you were?

PCT Point: NO PCT this Friday.  It’s Friday Furlough Afternoon for Certificated Staff. Certificated staff is directed to leave campus at 12:00 p.m. (noon) and not work this Friday, February 15. Enjoy the day.   

Mike’s Schedule:

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
Feb 11	Feb 12	Feb 13	Feb 14	Feb 15
Weekly Letter ERAC Meetings NS Assembly In Classrooms Sped Meeting	School Board Visitor to New Start District Principal’s Meeting (ERAC) Principal/Supt. Social Present CHOICE at Des Moines Elem.	Observation Shelter In Place Drill Tardy Sweep CHOICE Staff Meeting	Teacher’s Development Group (TDG) Math Conference (Portland All Day)	Continue TDG Math Conference (Portland All Day)

Few closing notes this week:

·         CHOICE Staff meeting is this Wednesday

·         Thursday & Friday I will be out of District at a Math Conference. Here is the link if you are interested where I am http://www.teachersdg.org/institutes.asp

·         Next week is Mid-Winter Break. Enjoy an extended weekend.

·         Because of the short week there will be no Monday Point Post next week.

·         Monday Points Returns February 25 with Guest Writer Bruce Dearborn.

Have great full week teaching our kids, enjoy the break, and Happy Valentine’s Day.

- Mike

Monday Points: February 4, 2013

February 4, 2013

Welcome back for another week of great teaching and learning for our students.

Celebration Points:

This was a great week for celebration. Student led Conferences at CHOICE Academy this year were a delightful and heartfelt experience. In arena conferencing on Thursday afternoon and Friday morning CHOICE students proudly stood before their parents and openly presented their learning experiences with parents and family. Sometimes it was just parent, and for others it is was the whole family. Either way, I cannot express the satisfaction I had seeing our students articulating their learning experience at CHOICE. Each had best works, and rambled off script elaborately describing what inspires them, and what challenges remain before them at school. They praised their teachers for pushing them and teared up if they felt they let their parents down. In all cases, every student demonstrated to me, teachers and family that they had ownership of their learning. Thank you CHOICE staff for letting me be a part in the small way I was. Our student led conferences reflected well on your teacher-advisory role in their lives. Last week was an incredible look into the learning our students are experiencing from your great teaching, every day.

Instructional Point:

Thank you for an exciting, and what I felt was a very worthwhile PCT for Charlotte Danielson Day II. I have already had a lot of great feedback on our time together. We became (near) experts in Domains 2 and 3!

You will recall Domain Two is about the classroom environment. We explored each component in depth, collaboratively building levels of performance in particular scenarios for each. One of our colleagues shared an observation of a general shift through the performance levels from a solely teacher center-classroom at the left (unsatisfactory/basic) to a Student-Centered Classroom on the distinguished end of a spectrum. Another described the time a teacher must spend in a basic and proficient mode to develop an environment that even allows for reaching a distinguished level.

In Domain 3 we looked at Instruction, quite literally. We watched several videos with each other, took notes and practiced collecting evidence. I was amazed at how quickly we calibrated around what we saw in 3B. We saw a proficient level performance by a teacher using higher order questioning and discussion techniques (pushing her student to think about possible answers). As table groups, and as a room it was determined by all of us that the second teacher was performing in basic or unsatisfactory level, given she did most of the talking and appeared satisfied with yes or no answers. One of our Woodside colleagues observed and wisely shared, “If the teacher is on it, then the students will be on it too.”

We covered a lot of ground on Friday. Please respond to me how what we learned together last Friday will affect your instructional practice. Will you do, or think differently in your planning?

PCT Point: Project Based Learning Seminar at Aviation High School. Friday, February 8, 2013. @ AHS. Begins at 1:45. We will join Aviation staff and others to share experiences and discuss our work in Project Based Learning. I am proud to have registered my teaching teams from HIPP, CHOICE and New Start. Looking forward to this professional development hosted by our colleagues at AHS. Please report to Aviation High School @ 1:45.

Mike’s Schedule:

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
Feb 4	Feb 5	Feb 6	Feb 7	Feb 8
Host Principal Learning Walk at CHOICE In Classrooms at New Start MDT Meeting Sped Meeting District PBIS Meeting	In Classrooms Discipline Webinar MAPS Planning Advisory Planning High School and Beyond meeting at CHOICE	HSPE Training In Classrooms Student Enrichment Meeting	New Start Math Data Team Observation CHOICE Interviews Counselor Meeting	HEA Update In Classrooms Weekly Admin Tardy Sweep Meeting PCT on PBL at Aviation Weekly Letter

Have a great week!

Mike