Week of September 13th

UAI Staff News

Volume IV

Issue 2

Week of September 13th, 2016

Announcements

              10th Grade Human Knot                             How we learned...                         Learning to Work Together    

          

                

Risks and Rewards.  This week students, staff, and school leadership had opportunities to step out of their comfort zone, grow, and experience the positive rewards of learning!  It isn't easy to continually push at the edges of yourself and your current identity, but it can be quite thrilling to arrive at the other side and see how much you've grown.  This is an experience that we want our students feel everyday.  As you plan for this last week of unit zero, here are a couple things you want to remember:

• Strong systems and routines keep the classroom environment safe and predictable.  When we (kids and adults alike) feel safe, we push ourselves to take risks.  It's only in that spot that we grow.  Please make sure that you are vigilant in upholding the rules and expectations of your classrooms this week.  For example, if you don't want kids calling out all year, make sure you are intentional about who speaks and when.  If you want kids to follow SLANT with meaning, now is the time to make sure you refer to the behaviors, clearly, every time you expect active listening.

• Greetings and Farewells punctuate each class experience and package the tone of your classroom.  I know there are a million things that can compete for you attention in the flow of a classroom period.  Making sure you are at the door to greet your class and making sure you close the class period and follow them to the door as they exit need to be at the top of your priorities.  Think about a shelf without bookends.  Without something to hold them up on both ends, the most wonderful books in the world still end up in a messy, unintelligible pile.  So make sure you preserve your hard lesson planning work by creating equally strong entry and exit procedures for each class.

• Content and Rigor can always be infused to SEL.  As you plan your relationship and community building activities, share your plans with a colleague or coach.  Ask each other, is there a way that we can up the rigor of the work?  Can we push kids to think deeply at both the social emotional and the intellectual level?  Think about the activities we did in subject team camps (e.g. the coordinate plan characteristics, geography pictionary/taboo, would you rather in ELA using evidence to support claims).  

Marsha's Reading Class

A smooth launch leads to lots of learning.  I want to give a big shout out to Jen, Val, and Colleen. All three of them stepped into new roles this year and flourished this week.  The three of them worked interdependently to make sure all of our students and staff had a seamless start to the year! Whenever you launch a new school year, there is inevitably some confusion, but all of UAI followed the leadership of these three and this made the launch to the year very smooth!  Jen, Val, and Colleen not only stepped into their new roles with confidence and capability, but they also worked seamlessly together to support each other when needed. Their work established a strong foundation for our staff to excel in the roles so that our students had an amazing first week.  Great work team!

FAQs and Things To Do This Week

FAQs.  

• Ready To Learn.  Thursday and Friday were our communication days for students. Starting on Tuesday, deans and admin will begin enforcing school policies around electronics, dress code, and food.  Please do the same in your classrooms.  If you need support, do not hesitate to call room 302 and speak to a dean.
• Scheduling Problems.  This week will see our first Tuesday and Wednesday schedules.  Please review yours and your students schedules to check for errors so we can be proactive.  If you encounter any errors, please alert Val immediately!
• Groups.  If grade teams wish to make recommendations about groups, they should meet to discuss this week.  Grade teams must submit suggested changes to Val by Wednesday, 14SEP16. 
• Baseline Observations and IPCs.  Colleen & I will be beginning observations and initial planning conferences this week.  Our goal is to complete all initial observations and conferences by early October.  
• Don't forget to Pod.  Grade teams set up times to visit their pod leader and take low inference notes on selected indicators.  Please revisit the indicators, goals, and allotted times with your pod leader this week.
• Table of Organization and Staff Handbook.  Kiri is updating these blog-based documents this week.  They will be live and updated by next week's blog post.

Things to Do This Week.

• [DUE 07SEP16] Archive Unit Zero and Advisory Lesson Plans.  If you have not already emailed me your advisory lessons for Thursday & Friday last week and/or your Unit Zero lesson plans, please upload them here:
• Advisory Lesson Plans
• Unit Zero Plans

• [DUE 16SEP16] Upload Unit One.  We are also collecting Unit One plans this week.  Please upload your first instructional Unit into this folder by CLICKING HERE.  When you upload, please name your files like this "YOUR NAME_UNIT ONE_UNIT NAME".  If you'd like to submit other files that go with the your unit, that's fine.  Just make sure you name it "Your Name_Unit One_name of other file".  This will help me keep the file organized.
  
• [Daily] Entry & Exit and Ready to Learn.  Please make sure to be present at your classroom doors at each period's entry and exit.  In addition, please make sure that you are enforcing the Ready to Learn school rules in classes this week.

SEL Updates

SLANT.  At UAI, SLANT is a strategy we use to empower students, not to control them.  By adopting and internalizing these behaviors (Sitting Up, Leaning Forward, Asking or Answering Questions, or Nodding, and Tracking the speaker) our students are communicating their active engagement to the listener (whether it is the teacher or another speaker).  How we introduce and teach into SLANT will determine how successful the strategy is with students.   To really get SLANT, students need to first understand why it's important to show others that they are actively listening.  At the start of mini-lessons this week, work with your students this week to establish the significance behind SLANT and the long term benefits of having this pro-social skill.  For support see your coach, Colleen, or me and/or any of our SEL experts (Lauren, Jen JR, Lori, Fatima, Marni or Jen).

Accountable Talk.  Our 2nd strategy of the week is Accountable Talk.  Accountable Talk has been around for ages.  It is an SEL strategy to help our students communicate more effectively with one another (so that they can improve their collaborative problem solving).   In your collaborative reasoning groups this week, please make sure that you are teaching students how to effectively use these stems in their communication.  Avoid the pantomime effect by making time to teach understanding of how effective communication practices support their own and their peers' learning.

Per Session Posting

Coaching Per Session.  Coaches will receive per session to meet and prepare for the training of their peer coaches.  Hours vary as needed.  Coaches are selected by Principal (Kiri) and Instructional AP (Colleen) and have already been identified for the 2016-17 year.  If you are interested in being formally trained as a UAI instructional coach, please reach out to Kiri or Colleen ASAP!  Coach meetings are Wednesdays or Thursdays after school and begin the week of 13SEP and go through May 2017.

After School Activity Per Session.  If you are interested in running an after school program with Girls Inc., please contact Kree (kreec@uainstitute.org).  After school positions are 1-2 hours per week and must have a constant enrollment of at least 10 students.  Fewer than 10 students will result in cancellation.  After school teachers must adhere to all Girls Inc requirements.  

Shout outs to the three admin in their new roles