Reflections & Shout Outs
What a wonderful start to our first full week of school!
I was thrilled to get into almost everyone's classrooms today. Today I saw so many of our teachers pushing themselves way beyond their comfort zones and into the full throws of Learning Cultures. For most of you, it was new and it was scary. However, I saw some impressive first days and moves, and you should all feel proud of the efforts you put forth and the risks you pushed yourselves to take! Here is smal sampling of what I got to see and hear today
- In Natasha's class, I watched Natasha and Ian in conferences while the rest of the group worked independently. During this independent work time, I watched Diamond Blackman use the textbook to find the evidence she needed to prove to her doubtful table mates that the Arctic Ocean was, in fact, the elusive 4th ocean for which they were looking.
- In Darby's class, I watched students flip through binders of mentor texts to get ideas for their own writing tasks while Darby conferenced with Kerrie Bell about her individual strengths, needs, and goals in writing.
- In Tom's class, I saw him push students to breach as they read in Unison and to ask questions when they got stuck.
There were so many more wonderful instances, which I'll definitely share with you each individually. As the blog goes on, I will make sure to continue this shout out section in celebration of all of your pedagogical prowess!
In addition this awesomeness, I also wanted to draw attention to some common hiccups that can hinder the capability of students' independence. These are two easy-fix items that I noticed in many of the classrooms.
- Be sure that all students can clearly understand and see how much time remains in each portion of the lesson (Agenda with times, for example). It's hard for students to learn how to manage their time when they are uncertain of how much time they have.
- Remember to make sure students have time to struggle. Be mindful of the message you send and the tone you set when you rove to tend to student questions. I spoke with several of you today regarding this idea. The common thread among all the conversations was about how hard it was to resist the reflex to immediately respond to the raised hand. However, it is also the very thing that makes our students over-dependent on us. Their first instinct is to seek out the teacher rather than exhaust their own resources. We need to flip that order, and part of the work in doing so, is being mindful of our own actions in the classroom.
Remember, you may feel overwhelmed and uncertain, but you are making the moves that our girls need and deserve. Perhaps the best thing you can do is see and believe in the best of them so that you can readily remind them of that when (or if) they choose to forget.
September Expectations and Outcomes
If you haven't already done so, you should become very familiar with the Work Time, Environment, & Conferencing Rubrics. These three rubrics will be used in your teacher evaluation. In September, I'll be focusing largely on the establishment of routines and formats (in LC classrooms). At the end of this week, I'm going to give you your initial evaluations based on this Sept Environment rubric (which is a combo of the work time and environment). The expectation is that the majority of these items on the rubric are at least satisfactory by the end of the week.
There is a lot of support for you to achieve this goal! Tomorrow during PD, you will have the time to focus on your classroom environment with the support of myself, Kelly, Emily, or Tara. Emily and Tara have put together some logistical documents for you to review when organizing your environment.
Except for all Elena, Raquel, Denise and Hassan, (who, for scheduling necessity, are teaching from 2:00-2:53) all teachers should report to the library at 2:10 to join the middle school for the afternoon session of PD. Here's the agenda
- Brief Overview & Staff Meeting (10 min) - Intro with Allan, and Review of Expectations
- Independent Work Time
- Workshop Options ->
- Resource Development & Classroom Organization in Math
- Resource Development & Classroom Organization in Science
- Resource Development & Classroom Organization in Humanities\
- Language Team - we'll meet at 3:00PM to check-in in the Library
- Hassan - I'll make sure to find time for you & Tara to meet earlier in the day tomorrow.
Logistical Announcements
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| This is the High School Bell Schedule |
- Group and Bell schedules were posted this AM! This is the accurate bell schedule. Please make any necessary adjustments to any errors you may see on the posted flyers. To see the full master schedule, click here - just remember to download the document and open in Excel if you want all the pretty formatting and tabs to show up.
- Group lists are resolving and should be closer to final by the middle of the week. Thanks for your patience!
- All teachers should be welcoming seniors joining sections today as they enter classes they need for graduation.
- Assemblies for the rest of the week will follow the normal schedules as follows
- 9th Grade - Fridays in B53 (I don't think they'll fit in the library)
- 10th Grade - Thursday in Library)
- 11th Grade - Wednesday (It originally said Friday on your teacher programs, so please note this change) in Library
- 12th Grade - Mondays in Library
- With Rosh Hashanah on Monday & Tuesday, we have a four day break from school this weekend. Please be sure to remind the girls of the schedule.
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