Week of November 13th

UAI Staff News

Volume V

Issue 11

November 13th, 2017

[School Days 46-50]

Announcements and To Dos

Superintendent's Review (PPO Visit).  Our deputy superintendent will be visiting us on Wednesday, 15NOV17 to conduct our next formal evaluation.  As was true with the Quality Review, please have your current unit plans and your lessons for this week linked to your pacing calendars in preparation for his review.   Richard Cintron has been our deputy superintendent since we joined the Affinity Superintendency.  As a formal principal and quality reviewer, Richie has a skilled eye and as a very supportive critical friend, he has provided us with pivotal feedback over the years.  You may remember that he visited us at the start of the year to discuss the importance of planning, so please be sure to emphasize efforts in your planning documents.  Richie has also been a critical friend of UAI and his feedback has helped us grow to where we are today!

Here is a re-post of some of the look-fors we have for your planning and thinking this week:

Clarity of Objective.  Do the kids know what they are supposed to learn for the day and why? We'll be asking kids, but also, make an opportunity to pause the class and connect their current activity to the days' learning objective and why/how it connects to the larger unit plan.  This should not be belabored ... make it no longer than a 30sec check-in.

Student Thinking.  Are students thinking or simply doing?  Use Webb's Depth of Knowledge to assess your lessons to see what level of thinking you're demanding.  It should never be the case that for the 10-15min that we are in a class, there is only Level I or II thinking.   Make sure you are planning for thinking and not just planning for management or participation.  That said, not every struggle is equal.  Select the 1-2 places where you really want to go deep and get kids to use their brains. Create appropriate challenge (not too hard, not too easy), place in appropriate scaffolds that help strugglers overcome unproductive struggles and support all students in pushing their thinking to the next level.  This is the productive struggle that we've been talking about in PD and in observation debriefs.

Also, make sure your narrative lesson plan includes your "Look Fors".  Everything you do has a rhyme and reason.  You are trying to evoke something from your students.  What is it?  Be clear and articulate in your planning about what thinking you want them to show you.  

Check for Understanding.  After you've planned and articulated your "Look Fors", make sure you're actually looking for them from everyone!  To get a quick sense of this from your students and to improve student discourse, plan to have several quick Turn and Talks.  Ask a question or leverage a misunderstanding.  For example, "Ooh, as I was walking around, Kiri was saying <insert interestingly wrong idea> and Annie was saying <correct concept>.  I want you guys to turn to your partner and discuss who's idea is more on-target and why."  Then, go around and listen to the kids.  Try to find your look-fors or interesting misunderstandings.  Use what the kids said to start your full class conversations.

When we walk into a room, doing a quick turn and talk is the fastest, easiest way to demonstrate student thinking and demonstrate student questioning and discussion.  I'm encouraging you to do one (even if not originally planned) during the time that we are in your class!

Using your assessments.  The assessment data you get from collaborative learning groups (e.g. small groups or Turn and Talks) either written or verbal is valuable intel.  You need to use this information to further your lesson and/or make in-lesson adjustments.  If kids are not getting it, pause and say that! Don't just barrel on.  Connect to your teacher soul.  You're only teaching if your students are learning!  If your kids aren't learning, then make it your responsibility to stop the lesson and try a reboot or redirect. What really helps you do this is if you can identify the part(s) of the lesson that you're willing to sacrifice and the parts that are essential and if missed will be given more time.  The essential parts are...you guessed it...the productive struggle!

Monday PD and Benchmark Grading.   All non-LDC teachers need to report to room 409 for benchmark grading.  LDC teachers should report to room 305 as usual to work with Marsha & Rebecca.  All math and science teachers will be grading the Earth Science benchmarks.  All other teachers will be working together to grade the Global benchmarks.  CC Algebra, MS exams, and the USH benchmarks have already been graded.

Tuesday Outreach and Shooting for 100%.  One of our school goals this year is to improve our Supportive Learning Environment and Strong Family Ties through increasing the quality and frequency of home-school communications.  Between Thursday and Friday, 45% of our families completed student-led conferences.   60% of parents reported having had only 1 or no contact with the school.  At this point in the year, all advisors should have contacted each advisee at least three times (once to introduce yourself in September, once to provide an update on academic progress, and once to schedule for SLCs).  To improve our communications, we need to push ourselves for this upcoming marking period.

Let's shoot for pushing our current 45% completion of SLCs to 100% by the end of November.  We'll be using our Tuesday family outreach time to do this.  Please enter your schedule for Tuesday outreach in this Advisory Conference Scheduler.  Support staff will be using this document to call and confirm appointments for you.   All appointments should be scheduled for 3PM on Tuesdays. Counselors (Lauren, Jennifer, Marni, Martine, or Danielle I.), deans (Doris, Courtney, or Isaiah),  and admin (Kiri, Annie, Jen, or Brodie) will all be on hand to provide support when needed! 

SEL Update

Lauren has created DESSA groups to help us more accurately complete the DESSA.  She will be working with teachers next Monday to complete this work.  If you'd like to complete the information sooner, please do reach out to Lauren to find out more!

Add this calendar to your own!  See that little "+" sign in the bottom right-hand corner?  Click on it to have it show up in your personal google calendar!

Per Session Posting

Benchmark Grading.  The remaining benchmarks will be graded using per session.  Brodie & Joanna will be coordinating testing grading and per session.  Teachers will have about 3-5 hours (depending on amount of exams) to complete grading.  Please submit your willingness to grade to Brodie.  

Open Houses.  We are also looking for teachers to assist with tour and our open houses on Monday, 13NOV17 and Saturday 18NOV17.  Please email Jen for details