Professional Learning Community

Teachers,
Here is your weekly dose of “5-Point Friday.”

Professional Learning Community —
What can I say about PLC’s that has not already been said? Well, the name says it all We are professionals and should be treated and act as such. We should always be learning and growing as teachers to benefit ourselves and especially our students. We are a community of teachers trying to do our best to teach our students. So we move into our Team meetings to build our Professional Learning Community. As we worked together this week I have noticed there has been great work on our GVC’s and Learning Targets. In a couple weeks, Annette will be here to work with 3-5 grade on focusing our GVC’s and targets. We will look at building formative assessments to make sure we are testing what the are teaching and finding out the information we want to know from our students. As we finish this training, Alma and I will work with the younger grades to help focus our targets and assessments. I don't want you to think this will be a ton of more work. GVC’s and Learning targets need to be reviewed and refined often. This is one reason we look at GVC’s and Learning Targets each week as well as the tests we are giving. I had a great question asked this week. Do we need a test every week to discuss the data? No. We will work with the data we have and discuss interventions and extensions. We will discuss students and their needs. The data should confirm who needs what and then we plan our next steps. The CSIP is what we use to document what we are doing. I appreciate all your help and work.

Quote I’m pondering —
“Before you can inspire with emotion, you must be swamped with it yourself. Before you can move their tears, your own must flow. To convince them, you must yourself believe."
—Winston Churchill

What I’m watching —
Audri's Rube Goldberg Monster Trap
When we inspire students, they go home and want to do more. That is the ultimate homework. Something they do themselves because of what a teacher did to inspire them. I do not know if it was a teacher that inspired Audri. But if it was…

Favorite Article This Week —
100 Percent is Overrated
This article quotes one of my favorite educators, Jo Boaler. She is a Professor of Math at Stanford and has done research on how Math should be taught. It is a change from what is traditional math teaching. I was fortunate to take an online math course from her about How to teach math. Her research is fascinating. If you are interested, I have the videos on my Google Drive I can share.

A Big Thank You —
Kirby is the man. He keeps our school clean, in working order, and well stocked. We have a few issues, but those are beyond Kirby’s control. He has taken this school and made it a work of art. The halls are always clean and the students are always taken care of in the lunchroom. He may say he doesn’t like opening milks, but I am sure he does deep down… really deep down. He loves this school. He loves making sure we are all taken care of. He is the man behind the scenes that makes our school run smoothly. Thank you Kirby. Thank you for all you do.

Thank you teachers for all you do. I appreciate all your hard work. Have a wonderfully long weekend.