Oh, Flip

Teachers,

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

Oh, Flip  —

Kim is taking a Principal's tech class, and in braving the class she will be given a little money for our school to be used for technology or professional development for technology. So the idea we came up with is to have a few classes for teams to implement blended learning/flipped classroom. The blended classroom/flipped classroom is using tech to provide more differentiation using video and tech activities mixed with traditional teaching, small groups, and rotations to differentiate learning in the classroom. I have seen it work from kinder to high school in different formats and to varying degrees.

We would provide the time and professional development to build lesson plans and build the tech for the classroom. I know everyone is thinking, this is a great idea. Learning about using the tech in my classroom and having the time to build the curriculum that will be used in the classroom? Sign me up… but wait. When will this happen? Will we be paid for our time? The thought is there are a few options. 

1. Get subs and take a few half days or a full days to work on the curriculum. 
2. Take time after school with a few options for times and days and get a stipend. 
3. Take a half or full day Saturday here and there with a stipend. This would be optional, but we would like teams to decide to do this. 

This is optional, but would be an opportunity to implement differentiation using tech and to build the curriculum to fit your classrooms. We have a google form for you to fill out on this subject. It is short, but will give us an idea what your thoughts are. Be a part of a way to provide a way to differentiate or personalize learning for your students. If you want more information, I can discuss it with you and your team. There are many articles on both subjects, especially in edutopia.org https://goo.gl/forms/fqfKngqoWILIQPLv2

Quote I’m pondering —

“Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt.” William Shakespeare

Favorite Blog of the Week —

Steve Borney's Blog: I'm on a Learning Mission

I found this blog this week and it has some amazing math ideas for lessons. Look through some of his older posts. Some great ideas here.

Favorite Article This Week —

Should We Test Reading or DIBELS

We have just tested DIBELS for K-3 and will be testing 4-5 next week. This was an interesting article about testing Literacy.

A Big Thank You —

Thank you Lisa, Cami, Jaime, Jana, other helpers, and a host of Fifth Graders for helping with the afternoon snack. Lisa has taken the job of managing the snack and gets it to K-1 as well as handing it out to the students, with the amazing Cami, Jaime, and Jana. There are a few other helpers here and there and I really appreciate them also. With the meetings we have had which takes us away from the school in the afternoons, it is nice to have helpers to give the snacks to students. Thank you all for just takin over the snack and getting it out. Thank you for all you do in the school. It is the little things that make the big differences and keep everything in order so teachers can teach. Thank you for all you do. Thank you.

I appreciate all of you and your hard work. Have a wonderful weekend.

Glen Andersen

Title 1 Coordinator, Dixie Sun Elementary

Oops, Your Reflection is Showing

Teachers,

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

Oops, Your Reflection is Showing  —

One of the other topics Trisha talked about in our training was reflection in the classroom. One suggestion she gave to us is to have teachers reflect own their individual classroom engagement. What is the best way to do this? Video. Don’t freak out. Let me explain. She mentioned that each of the teachers in our present day has a video camera with them every day. It is your phone. All teachers need to do is set it up and video them teaching. No one else in the world needs to see it. No one else needs to hear it. But just watching ourselves will not give us the information we need to make us better teachers. We need to watch with intent to learn. No one else needs to see it…ever. So this is my suggestion. I purchased some wonderful tripods that hold phones. I also have a paper that goes with the tripod for reflection on the video. All a teacher needs to do is set it up in a corner of the room to video the class during a whole group lesson. I would even suggest putting gate camera in a couple different places over a couple days to get good data to reflect on. Then the teacher watched 15 minutes of the video (or a couple videos) and collect information on the paper. Look for opportunities to respond for students. The teacher asks questions and  during the reflection tallies each time a student responds. If the whole class responds with whiteboards or thumbs or chorally, a C is entered for whole class. Then the teacher looks for positive or corrective interactions. Positive interactions are comments or actions with students that are doing what they need to be doing. Corrective interactions are getting students back on task with a positive or firm correction. The last is how many distractions are there that take the instruction off course. From this information collected, a teacher can reflect on how students are reacting and acting when the teacher is teaching. If coaching is needed or wanted, the teacher contacts Alma, Glen, or Kim and we support, offer strategies or resources, and coach the teacher to increase student success in the classroom. This is an optional strategy to help teachers see what we just can’t always see. If the teacher is perfect, this will only show that in the video. If they are not, it gives them an opportunity to get better at teaching and increasing the success in the classroom. I thought back at how many times I had myself videotaped and the reflection process I went through with my coach. This is an opportunity to collect data on how students work in the classroom. If you are interested, please let me know and without question I will hand a tripod and reflection paper to you and will even take a few minutes to explain the paper to you. Make peace with reflection.

Quote I’m pondering —

“Whatever you’re doing, don’t give a voice to things you’re not able to change.” – Vince Vaughn

What I’m Watching —

This Is Water

This video was shown to the Tech Endorsement class on Tuesday by Tony. David Foster Wallace gave a commencement speech at Kenyon College in 2005. These are a few excerpts from it.

Favorite Article This Week —

Teaching Adding Decimals:What If You Gave The Answer First

A blog article about teaching decimals with an interesting idea that goes against how we were taught to teach. How do we scaffold to help students understand. This is a lesson that provides the scaffolding to get students thinking.

A Big Thank You —

Thank you Kindergarten for all the opportunities you take to learn more. Thank you for being positive about teaching when you have half the time to teach your students. Only being able to teach each class twice a week is not an easy prospect when you have so many Standards to teach. Thank you for taking the time and asking the hard questions to make sure you understand what is expected. Thank you for taking care of our little ones and creating a great introduction to Dual Immersion learning at our school. Thank you for your time and efforts. Thank you for all you do. Thank you.

I appreciate all of you and your hard work. Have a wonderful weekend.

STOIC

Teachers,

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

STOIC —

The training Kim and I went to the last couple days was an amazing reminder how important classroom management is to student learning. It provides a safe, civil, and productive school. The trainer, Trish, gave us amazing ideas that we will talk about in small doses and then do a full training on it the beginning of next year. We know that you do many of the things she talked to us about. The great things we learned were clarifications of ideas and information we have been using for years. We just need to tighten up on a few things. This includes  The first idea I want to share with you is stoic. It is an acronym for Structure, Teach, Observe, Interact, and Correct.

The first two are what we what we talked about the most.Teaching students how to behave responsibly in the classroom. So here are a few questions I want you to think about and if you say no to any of these questions, reteach your class. It is a great time of year to reteach the procedures and get them in the right way to learn. 

• Have you created lessons on expectations and explicitly taught them for classroom activities and transitions?
• Have you created lessons on expectations and explicitly taught them for classroom routines and policies?
• Have you provided teaching and reteaching as needed?

The part she stressed is creating lessons. Are they explicitly taught and expectations explained and practiced. The other part is Structure. Organizing the classroom for success. The thought I want to leave with you is the story Trish told about most high schools that have a rule about not wearing hoodies on their heads during school. But in the school store they sell hoodies. The lesson here is that if we are giving students the tools to break the rules, we are part of the problem. So the structure needs to be looked at and changed. One area we are addressing is playing tag during lunch recess. We take away tag and don’t put something in its place that provides the running and playing students need, they start getting in trouble play fighting, or playing tag again. So we need to change the structure. We are looking into adding some organized games during lunch recess to give students options to play and run. We hope to have these in place in the coming weeks. That is one area we needed a change. Look in your classroom and look for areas, times, or procedures where the most misbehaving happens. How can the structure be changed to avoid these behaviors? We are doing the same thing in the in all areas in the school. I will write about Structure and the rest of the STOIC framework in other 5 Points.

Quote I’m pondering —

“We don't see things as they are; we see them as we are.” —Anaïs Nin

What I’m Watching —

The Fastest Way to De-Fog Your Windshield

I love science. This is a good refresher course on the water cycle and condensation. I watched this a couple days ago and I am going to try this over the next couple days.

Favorite Article This Week —

Op-ed: Escaping the provocative self

I found this interesting and yet very informative. I need to look at situations this way. Especially when my kids are not happy with me.

A Big Thank You —

Thank you Kirby for all you do. The care you put into this building and grounds to make it beautiful and safe makes you so important to our school. Thank you for helping everyone at lunch to open milk, open tacos and frozen juice. To clean up after all the students each day. Keeping our floors clean and shiny. Keeping your eye on all the little things that keep us safe. I appreciate your humor and putting up with all the crazy things we all do. We appreciate your helpers Jack and Nick as they take care of us at night. We appreciate their help and support as we do evening activities. We appreciate all you do, Kirby. We also appreciate Jack and Nick. Thank you for all you do to make our school a better place to be. Thank you.

I appreciate all of you and your hard work. Have a wonderful weekend.

Assessing the Learning

Teachers,

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

Assessing the Learning  —

I was reading a blog and I read a thought about assessments. If we give an assessment and we don’t do anything with it to help the learning, whey did we give the assessment? Assessments should be used to guide what we teach and how we teach it. Small assessments can be used to see if students are understanding what is being taught in the moment. Larger Assessments can be used to guide the instruction for the unit. My question is this. Do we only give the larger tests at the end of the unit when we are finished with the unit, or do we give it in the middle to see what they know and what we still need to teach? All tests should be formative. Dibels is formative. We can use SAGE as a formative test as we use last years data to guide our instruction the following year. Assessments do not need to be 25+ questions. There just needs to be enough questions to help us understand if they understand it. How are you assessing students, and what are you using those assessments for?

Quote I’m pondering —

“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” — Philo

Favorite Infographic This Week —

27 fascinating maps that show how Americans speak English differently across the US

America speaks so differently. It is interesting what people call a role poly around the US.

Favorite Article This Week —

From “Data Driven” to “Evidence Informed”

A thought about assessments and how to look at the data we gather from them. What do we do with the data we gather? 

A Big Thank You —

Thank you Kathy for taking on the Lego League and giving a hand full of students a way to explore and grow. They are excited and have taken coding to a new level at Dixie Sun. Thank you for the extra hours. Thank you for the help and kindness you have given the students. Do well on Saturday. I am excited for the future of this program and what our students at Dixie Sun will do. Thank you for all you do. Thank you.

I appreciate all of you and your hard work. Have a wonderful weekend.