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