Week of March 13th

UAI Staff News

Volume X

Issue 23

March 13th, 2023

Upping the Rigor.  Last week we received the results of the Student Perception Survey.   There were some definite bright spots.  We had growth in how our students felt about teachers making them feel welcome, holding high expectations of them, and teachers being sensitive to student's emotional needs.   These are all indicators of the good work folks are doing in developing caring and supportive relationships with our kids.  It is landing well, and as a result, we are moving the needle on our goal of building student-teacher trust!  

Now we have the necessary trust capital to begin to lean in and push our students to achieve and excel.  When students know that you want only the best for them, and that you will always have their back when they take those intellectual risks, that is precisely when they are the most ready to thrive and grow.  It is time to put our collective foot on the rigor pedal and challenge our kids to meet the level of achievement they need to succeed.  It is 

The secret sauce to high student engagement is high academic expectations matched with strong relationships and trust.  When students are in this zone in your class, their responses to the questions around Classroom Engagement are overwhelming positive.  

Challenge yourself to grow your classroom engagement over the next few weeks.  Measure your progress with a focus group of your students.  Choose five kids.  Select a sample of kids that best represent the full spectrum of kids in your classes (the ones who are totally into everything all the time to the most recalcitrant and reluctant participant).  Take a look at your Classroom Engagement survey data as the baseline, and ask those five kids what they think needs to change to improve student responses to these questions: 

1. How much do you look forward to learning in this class?
2. In this class, how eager are you to participate?
3. How often do you get so focused on learning during class activities that you lose track of time?
4. When you are not in class, how often do you talk about ideas from class?
5. How often do you use ideas from this class in your daily life?

It's a simple method to track your own progress.  The added plus is that kids absolutely LOVE being part of the answer to improving their own learning.  So, first, check in with them.  Then, find one small change that you can do to improve their learning experience.  Then, check in with them in about two weeks to see how it went - asking the same five questions each time!

Important dates. 

• Tuesday, 14MAR23.  Progress Report #2 Grade Entry
• Monday, 13MAR23.  LES Survey & Progress Report Updates
• Wednesday, 22MAR23.  
• P/SAT in school day for all 10th & 11th Graders
• Mock Regents for 8/9
• Mock MS Exams for 6/7
• 12th Grade TBD (trip or special schedule - TBD)
• Ramadan begins in the evening 
• Thursday, 23MAR23.  Evening Parent Conferences 5-8PM (Remote)
• Friday, 24MAR23.  Afternoon Parent Conferences 12:20PM-2:50PM (Remote)
• Friday, 31MAR23.  End of MP3
• Wednesday, 05APR23.  Rapid Dismissal
• Thursday 06APR23 - 16APR23 - Spring Recess
• Friday, 21APR23 - Eid al-Fitr - No School

Announcements & To Dos

CLASS Rubrics and Danielson.  This week's post takes a bit of a deeper dive into the CLASS Rubric on Analysis and Inquiry.   This week, first reflect on your own practice to observe how many of the following behavioral markers that indicate student engagement in analysis and inquiry.

Analysis & Inquiry

So.. how might you continue to develop the quality and frequency of student analysis & inquiry in your classes?

• Start with examining what you're asking kids to do (your tasks)
• Do they offer extended opportunities for students to examine and analyze information
• How often are students asked to read and analyze a text, table, chart, or graphic?
• How often do they generate inferences, make hypotheses, compare & contrast, find patterns or relationships?  How often do they do these things without your prompting vs. how well do they do them with your questioning (asked on paper or in person)?
• How many of the lesson's tasks open-ended?  
• Prompt student predictions and Inspire them to develop arguments.
• Students need to be challenged to figure out their own answers and justify those responses.  In classes, how often are students expected to find AND evaluate their own answers? 
• Do students know what good analytical thinking looks like?  How clearly do they understand the types of behaviors that lead to developing their capacity to ask, answers, and justify solutions to things they are being asked to do or figure out?  Modeling Thinking (e.g. a Think Aloud) or highlight students thinking (e.g. Talk us through what you did, coupled with teacher commentary on how that thinking was strong) are good tools for getting the models out there.  Don't forget to create visuals for those models, too (e.g. scribing on the board or making a poster).  Visuals provide long-term references for the thinking crtieria you're expecting to see.
• Include student reflection on learning
• Finally - go meta.  Make create structures or protocols that allow students to reflect on their learning.  Depending on your focus for the day, this might take the form of a simply completing sentence stems like "I used to think...but now I think.."   or "Today, I was confused about...and now I understand that...".  Finally, feedback on exit tickets is also crucial for students to develop this ability to reflect and grow from their learning.  In order to develop the skill of how to learn, that needs to be taught alongside the content they learn.  So, feedback that centers on moves students can make to develop their ability to analyze (predict, hypothesize, compare, contrast, find patterns, etc) and feedback on how to ask useful questions will go a long way to helping students develop the independence we want to see in their analysis & inquiry.

Progress Reports & PID Letters.   I know this seems fast - but that's because of the last mess up.  We need to do these progress report updates so that we can have progress report grades for our family conferences next Thursday & Friday (23MAR & 24MAR).    This week's Monday PD will have time for Progress Report Updates to the Progress Report doc.  New students have not yet been added, so, please do add them at the bottom of the document.

Parent Conference Prep and Contact Information Updates.   Please use Monday PD time to schedule your conferences into THIS DOCUMENT by Friday, 21MAR23.  Here are some things that need to happen

• ADVISORS - Please input the correct email and contact number(s) for each of your advisees.  Then, please take a look at your Advisees grades.  If you have an Advisee who is currently failing and/or has been consistently failing a course all year, please make sure to connect that Advisee with that teacher and help make sure that conference happens next week.  Any Student that has <90% attendance is required to have a conference with you.  The goal of the conference needs to be how to get students to sustain at least a 90% attendance average for the remainder of the year.  Give concrete numbers...
• Be present everyday from family conference to Spring Break
• Be present everyday from after Spring Break to May 1st!
• Don't miss more than 2 days in May!
• Be present everyday in June

• CLASS TEACHERS - Any student who has a grade <70 (or no grade from the last progress report) are required to have a conference with you.   
• Students who have <70 in your class are either failing or just barely passing.  The goal is to make sure students are securely passing by the end of Marking Period 4.  
• In Particular - Please make it a priority to contact the homes of kids who had a failing progress report grade for the first time in MP3.  It is super confusing for families to suddenly see a failing grade when we've been communicating via the progress reports that their child has been passing the entire fall.  So those instances will require a conference to help families and students understand why this is happening.
• Focus this conference on the things that the student IS doing well and find ways to maximize that/those strength/s to improve performance in class.
• Help families problem solve around hurdles that are getting in the way of the student achieving in your class.  
• Make a concrete and realistic goal for the next progress report which will be grades thru April 18th - which students will receive on April 25th or 26th (depending on when they have advisory)
  
  
• NOTE:  Conferences should be about 10 -15minutes.  This will give you time for 20-30 conferences.  Please prioritize and schedule accordingly.  If you are unable to schedule or connect with families, please schedule another time during Tuesday outreach time on 28MAR or 04APR.  Please email any families that you are not able to connect with during family conference time.

All conferences MUST be schedule by EOD Friday, 21MAR23.

Per Session Postings

For ALL per session activities (view all 2022-23 postings here),
please complete Per Session Application For

Grade Program Research Committee.  Well it's time to start looking for a permanent Skedula replacement for next year.  I'm looking for a committee of 3-5 folks to work collaboratively together to research grading programs (which do more than just grading btw) and do a cost-benefit analysis to figure out which one would be the best fit for UAI.  The objective of this committee is to get enough information to understand what the platform provides and how it might interface with our school culture, digest it into a presentable format (e.g. a PD) where staff can explore, and then we will make a community decision about what we want to do for next year.  If you are interested, please email me ASAP.  This committee will be 3-5 people for about 10-15 hours per person (including research and PD prep). Posting Closes Monday 20MAR23.

• Richer Picture
  
• Jupiter
• GAMA
• Something Else?

Summer School.  If you are interested in working summer school, please complete THIS FORM.

Per Session Postings Now Closed