Week of December 17th

UAI Staff News

Volume VI

Issue 17

December 17th, 2018

(99 instructional days remaining)

Announcements

Lessons from Visits, Observations, and Intervisitations.  In the final teaching days of 2018, it's a good time to take stock of some key feedback and observations that we've had (or have done) in the last several weeks.  The biggest trend is around how we are working with our Lesson Look Fors.  We are improving significantly as a group in articulating quality look-fors that demand higher order thinking from our students.  As a result, our students across grades and classrooms are definitely being pushed to think beyond "identify" of "matching" or copying.  More of our students are posing questions, sharing their ideas, and putting their thinking into writing as a means to consolidate their learning.

One common stumble that we are seeing through our intervisitations and observations is in teacher circulation.  In pursuit of finding the look-fors, teachers are pausing too long with turn and talk pairs to elicit them from students.  This means that many teachers are spending 2-3 minutes with a single pair, while the remaining talking pairs are either finished with their discourse and/or making the same conceptual mistakes without prompts or guidance.

This week is a great one for taking stock of your own practice by looking at thinking and circulation:

Planning for Student Thinking
Continue working on your lesson look-fors.  Evaluate them using Webb's DOK (what level of thinking are you demanding).  Look at your lesson time allotment.  How much time are students spending at Level 3 or 4 for the duration of your lesson (students should be thinking at Levels 3 or 4 for a minimum of 30 or more min during the period)?   Suggestion:  About every 5 minutes, students need to be asked to be doing something (writing/talking/engaging in an activity to figure something out).  At the end of a piece of instruction, create a quick turn and talk (or stop and jot) to help students engage in thinking.

Pay attention to your timing and circulation.  How long are you spending with each pair?  Are you picking up trends across multiple pairs?  What are you doing with the trends and patterns that you find? Suggestion:  During student discourse or work, use the first 1-2 minutes to get a lay of the land - visit every pair or group and take stock of what you hear first.  THEN, make a decision with what to do with it - what hints can you drop to put pairs on the right track to think independently without you?  Do those hints work for the class as a whole - if so then pause the talk and give it to everyone!

To Do This Week

Monday PD.  We are rescheduling our Parent-Staff extended PD from this Monday to a Monday in late January/February.  We are still finalizing plans with Mr. McLean, Damon, and Doris.  Stay tuned!!  For this Monday, we will be giving the time over to grade teams to complete DESSA evaluations, January Plops, coordinate any logistics for trips this week (if applicable), and share any final scheduled assessments.  To the extent possible, please do not overburden students by giving multiple exams on the same day.  Having 4 major course content exams on the same day is unfairly taxing on students.  Please check in with one another to avoid this outcome as much as possible.  LDC teachers will continue to meet in 305 with Marsha and Rebecca.  All other members of grade teams will meet in the following rooms immediately at 3PM

• 6th Grade:  Alison (facilitator), Jennifer, Amanda, Tracy, Jennifer, Marni
• (Laura, Sarah & Phillan will be in LDC)
• 7th & 8th Grade:  Natalie (facilitator), Megan, Matthew, Cherry, Joanna, Jake, Natalie
• (Kristina, Christina, Marsha will be in LDC)
• 9th/12th Grade:  Jamie (facilitator), Meaghan, Zach, Elana
• (Damon will be at SLT; Cassandra, Rebecca C., Rebecca F will be at LDC)
• 10th/12th Grade:  Danielle R (facilitator), Nina, Kristi, Suzannah
• (Elena will be at SLT; Tiffany & Freida will be at LDC)
• 11th/12th Grade:  Kelly (facilitator), Judy, Tom, Giselle
• (Joey will be at LDC)

Holiday Craft and Karaoke.  Please remind your advisee's families that we have our annual UAI family craft and karaoke night on Monday, December 17th at 5:30PM.  Please invite them to tjoin us!

Tuesday Outreach.  Please let families know that we will be doing a rapid dismissal at the end of 6th period at 2PM on Friday, Dec 21st.   There will be no after school, and all staff must make plans to rapidly dismiss the building along with the students.  We will be closing the building for the holiday just after dismissal.  If you are planning a trip, students will not be allowed into the building after 2PM.  So, if students need to re-enter, please return to school no later than 1:30PM.

Week of December 10th

UAI Staff News

Volume VI

Issue 16

December 10th, 2018

(112 school days remaining)

Announcements

More on "Multiplication if for White People" Raising Expectations for Other People's Children, by Lisa Delpit.    As we finish up our 2nd round of observations focused on assessment and student look-for, this quote from Delpits chapter "How would a fool do it? Assessment" brings up Mike Schmoker's work from Results Now.  Delpit cites Schmoker's ideas for elevating student achievemetn by forming teacher teams focused on the following:

• being clear about what is to be learned and assessed
       [e.g. Lesson Look Fors]
• using assessments to evaluate a lesson's effectiveness and making constructive adjustments on the basis of results
       [e.g. listening into to Turn & Talks or Reading student writing]
• conducting checks for understanding at certain points throughout the lesson
       [e.g. student discourse, student summaries, or written work]
• having kids read for higher-order purposes and write regularly
       [e.g. reading for learning or analysis; writing every day]
• clearly explicating and carefully teaching the criteria by which student work will be scored or evaluated.
       [e.g. clearly stating/showing the criteria for success]

These are exactly the Look Fors that Annie and I use as we move around your classrooms to evaluate practice and student learning.  In your planning teams, continue to support each other in refining and elevating the quality of these points in your plans.  As you increase the quality of your Look Fors, your ability to respond and adjust to student thinking (as shown through your assessments and checks for understanding) will also improve.  As you increase the clarity of your Look Fors, your articulation and communication to your class about what it means to be successful will also increase.  The Lesson Look -Fors are the first step to high quality planning and lesson execution.  They are not a checklist of what you want students to say or do - rather they are an articulation of the type of thinking you want to see students execute in class. 

To Do This Week

Annual UAI Winter Staff Celebration.  Our annual winter celebration will be on Friday, December 14th from 4-6PM at Commonwealth Bar in Park Slope, Brooklyn.  Please give Del $20 if you wish to attend.  All are welcome!  If you'd like to bring a guest, you are welcome to do so.  Please just give $20 for them as well.  The $20 includes an open bar and food (TBD - but I am open to suggestions if you have any!) from 4-6PM.  Please at least RSVP to Del by the end the day Tuesday so that we have an accurate head count and can move forward in ordering food!

Tuesday Outreach.  Please announce to parents this week that we are hosting our annual UAI family craft and karaoke night on Monday at 5:00PM.  The PTA meeting will also be the same night.  We are also recruiting for our SLT and PTA Executive Board.  So, if you have parents who may be interested, please let Del know ASAP!  Also:

• 12/14 - School Assembly at 2:00 - parents are always welcomed to attend if they would like
• 12/17 - PTA meeting and Family Craft Night - PLEASE GET PEOPLE TO ATTEND THIS EVENT   Everyone that attended had a lot of fun last year 5:00-6:30
• 12/21 - Rapid Dismissal at 2:00 PM and no after-school - Start of Winter Break!!!!

SEL This week

6th grade SEL-

We have been learning about peer pressure in SEL. The girls learned about how their peers can be both a positive and negative influence. They made up skits showing what negative peer pressure may look like and then used the tools they learned in class to show various ways they can resist doing things that don’t feel right to them. They practiced saying no and standing their grounds in some very creative skits!

This past Wednesday, several Middle School and High School Girls Inc. students were invited to participant in the Annual PopUp Shop hosted in the Metlife building in Manhattan. These amazing students have the opportunity to the sell items they made in their respective clubs. Some of those items included cook jars, book marks, essential oil roller balls, candle holders and body scrubs. By the end of the night these entreprenuers were able to sell all of their products! 

9th Grade SEL: Last week, we dove deep into our unit on bullying and social media. We participated in thoughtful turn and talks and completed readings on our essential question: "How do our interactions online impact our everyday experiences and relationships?". Although there were tough moments where we had to be completely vulnerable and really put ourselves out there, we were able to use our experiences to become more mindful of other perspectives.

This week, we will continue preparing for our next Socratic Seminar around this focus question as well as the following supporting questions:

• How can hearing another person’s experience with bullying change our perspective?

• What resources are available to teens who are being bullied?

Week of December 3rd

UAI Staff News

Volume VI

Issue 15

December 3rd, 2018

(117 school days remaining)

Announcements

More on "Multiplication if for White People" Raising Expectations for Other People's Children, by Lisa Delpit.   The lessons from this book are endless.  This week, I found the following ideas from the chapter, "Warm Demanders:  The Importance of Teachers in the Lives of Children of Poverty" particularly inspiring:

• Successful teachers of low-income, culturally diverse children know that their students are "school-dependent"...Children who are not part of the mainstream [privileged culture] are dependent on schools to teach them whatever they need to be successful. 

• ...[Inequity], family issues, poverty, crime and so forth all affect poor children's learning opportunities....[The] quality of teaching has six to ten times as much impact on achievement as all other factors combined.

At UAI, our mission is to bring the type of learning and educational experiences our students need to successfully compete in STEM fields and careers.  Inherently, our mission is one of social equity.  In order to build the skills and resilience necessary for our students to overcome the hurdles placed before them, our students depend on UAI and the amount of work, effort, and attention to quality that our teachers put into planning and executing high-quality instruction everyday.  Instructional work is neither easy nor simple.  Our work each day is to plan and execute the best learning experiences that push student thinking to higher order levels and use that level of thinking to acquire new knowledge and skills. 

Last week, several folks expressed interest in intervisitation for classroom management.  When students' minds are challenged and when they are provided with entry points with which they can actively engage in the challenge, behaviors follow suit.  Behaviors are a by-product of instructional planning.   While it can be necessary at times, the goal in instructional planning is not to find ways to control behaviors.  Rather, the goal is to perfect learning activities and lesson execution so that student behaviors promote critical thinking.

Each visit will have the same agenda.  All visits will start in Room 401.

• 10min Review the lesson and examine the look-fors and protocols for classroom visiting
• 15min Classroom Visit
• 20min Debrief & Discuss the Visit and Lesson Plan

Please click the link to sign up for a specific classroom visit.  You will be provided with coverage if you teach during the same period.  To the extent possible we will try to get everyone into their first choice!  Here are the visit details:

• Wednesday, 05DEC at 8:30AM:  
• Earth Science; Exploring Convection with Ms. Kristi 
• Thursday 06DEC18 at 9:25AM:  
• 9th Gr. ELA; Writing Strong Arguments with Ms. Cassandra & Ms. Rebecca F
• Friday, 14DEC18 at 8:30AM:
• 8th Gr. CC Algebra; Exploring inequalities with one variable
• Date still TBD
• Spanish II; Irregular Verbs - finding and applying patterns

Girls Inc. Does it Again!  This month, seven High School Girls Inc. participants were invited to the Adidas Creator Farm in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. They worked in groups and were guided by women who work in a wide range of roles across the sneaker industry to create a design and sales/marketing strategy for a shoe. The girls had an amazing time presenting their new creations to a group of talented Fashion professionals. 

To Do This Week

Annual UAI Winter Staff Celebration.  Our annual winter celebration will be on Friday, December 14th from 4-6PM at Commonwealth Bar in Park Slope, Brooklyn.  Please give Del $20 if you wish to attend.  All are welcome!  If you'd like to bring a guest, you are welcome to do so.  Please just give $20 for them as well.  The $20 includes an open bar and food (TBD - but I am open to suggestions if you have any!) from 4-6PM.  

Monday PD.  This Monday is the first Monday of the month.  We will be meeting in Grade Teams in Room 409 to continue writing plops for December and January.  All teachers should meet in 409 for announcements.  Please complete this brief survey so that we can make sure we cover your concerns.  After announcements, we will go straight into PLOPs and/or team meetings.

Tuesday Outreach.  This Tuesday, please focus your energies on reaching out to families to get emails.    Please CLICK HERE to see which of your advisees still need an email.  We want to improve the reach of our newsletters, and direct email to families is the best bet.

Conference Outcomes.  As a school, we saw 60% of our families in person.  While I know some of you had phone-conferences with your families, the in-person conferences have much more impact.  Face-to-face conferences better enable us to build critical relationships with families that lead to student achievement.

As a reminder, Tuesday Outreach is designed for phone conferences.  We should be conducting phone conferences with each of our advisees at least once per marking period.  By now, you should have had at least two phone conferences with each of your advisees.  These conferences should be reviewing student progress and setting goals.

No Per Session Updates This Week

Week of November 26th

UAI Staff News

Volume VI

Issue 14

November 26, 2018

(122 school days remaining)

Announcements

"Multiplication if for White People" Raising Expectations for Other People's Children, by Lisa Delpit.  I first Delpit as a first-year teacher working in an alternative high school here in Brooklyn.  In 1997, I had recently arrived in NYC.  Reading it was pivotal to my perception of myself as a teacher in relation to my students and their families.  About two years ago, I finally made the time to read this next book of hers, which gave shape to work I had been as an administrator.  As we near parent conferences and benchmark exams at the end of this week, I'm borrowing her words to express my thoughts and charge for the week.  From her chapter "Picking Up the Broom: Demanding Critical Thinking", Delpit writes:

• In the name of "test prep," students spend hours and hours completing worksheets that are presumably meant to increase their test scores on standardized tests...Some instructional approaches focused solely on repetition of decontextualized bits may "work" temporarily to raise test scores for children in urban settings, but if the children's minds are not engaged, then the programs are failures.

Our main instructional goal for this year is to engage teacher thinking around student thinking and to do so by articulating lesson activity look-fors in their planning.  By being explicit about look-fors, teachers will be able to evaluate the level of thinking that their activities demand of students.  In so-doing, the goal is to plan for critical thinking and to move away from planning for doing.  When we focus on planning for thinking, we achieve high levels of student intellectual engagement.

Throughout our visits to classrooms, worksheets are common.  The paper itself is not the issue, it's what's on the paper that needs to be considered.  To what extent are kids being asked to critically think, and if the task is clearly one that requires higher order thinking, are we over-scaffolding the exercises to get them to completion vs. supporting their ability to productively struggle?

This is a short week leading up to our first series of benchmark exams, our baseline measures on state exams.  Continue to exercise high levels of planning and reflect on the levels of thinking that your lesson activities demand of students.   To see how this plays out in your own discipline please sign up for a visit to one of your colleague's classrooms by CLICKING HERE.  Once you sign up and we finalize the calendar, you can expect a google calendar invite and follow-up instructions for coordinating logistics.

To Do This Week

Monday PD.  On Monday, we're going to have a series of different activities for staff. Several folks will want to be in two places at once.  All staff should report to your assigned rooms at 3PM.  No announcements this week.  We'll do a combined announcement next Monday to cover both last week and this week.

• In Room 409 w/ Annie - Setting and Following Through on Common Expectations for 8th graders.  This is targeted for any teacher of the 8th grade.  The team is working on establishing and committing to following through on behavioral and academic expectations.  This team will meet on the following Mondays;  26NOV and 10NOV to complete the work.  Damon, Meaghan, Cherry, Joanna, Christina, Jake, Natalie, Nadine, Elana, and Tracy
  
• In Room 407 w/ Kiri - Planning Intervisitation Visits for Lesson Look Fors.  We'll begin prepping for classroom intervisitations coming up in the next couple of weeks.  Cassandra & Rebecca F. (9th ELA), Kristi & Amanda (Earth Sci), Jamie & Matthew (8th Gr. Algebra), Elena & Giselle (Spanish)
  
• In Room 305 w/ Marsha & Rebecca - Continuing LDC Work with Christine.  Laura, Sarah, Phillan, Kristina, Tiffany, Freida, and Joey

Prepare for Student Led Conferences.  Please use Tuesday outreach time this week to prepare your classrooms and bulletin boards with student work.  Please make sure you are keeping THIS DOCUMENT up to date with your notes and appointments.  The main office will be scheduling students and confirming appointments this week.  It will greatly help the main office and the professionalism we put forth with our families if our Del and Nancy have up-to-date information.

Prepare for Benchmark Exams.  Please check this Benchmark Schedule.  There have been changes.  Your lunch period is a full lunch period, now.  Everyone has an extra long prep on Thursday, and all teachers should report to their assigned grading room, promptly at 1:10 to grade the Thursday benchmarks.  At the start of each benchmark day, all proctors should report to room 145 to pick up their proctoring bins for the day.  At the end of benchmarks, please return those bins to room 145.  All teachers who are hosting intervisitations for next week need to report to room 401.  Prep time on Friday will fall at different times for different teachers, depending on your SLC appointments.

SEL Update

9th Grade: 9th grade successfully completed their first SEL Socratic seminar on key issues in 13 Reasons Why paired with supplementary nonfiction texts. We made sure to root every observation with evidence when discussing our focus question: "Are teens equipped to handle everyday stress?" We were reflective about how both internal and external factors (lack of support or mental health awareness in school or at home, harmful comments on social media) can affect our ability to effectively manage stressors. We discussed how classes like SEL are beneficial for the mental health of all teens (shout out to the SEL team) and why all schools should have them.

We will be wrapping up our week by prepping for our student-led conferences. We are excited to show off our artifacts that represent areas of strength and reflect on those that represent areas of struggle.

No Per Session Updates This Week

Week of November 19th

UAI Staff News

Volume VI

Issue 14

November 19, 2018

(125 school days remaining)

Announcements

A Farm Near You Coming Soon!  Mr. Tom has been working with NY Sun Works to get a new hydroponics lab built in room B49.  Mr. Damon sought out the grant last year and handed off the project to Tom this fall.  Mr. Tom has since been working diligently with NY Sun Works to bring the UAI indoor greenhouse to life!  This will be a fantastic hands-on learning opportunity for our students and staff to learn more about aquaculture, hyrdroponics, and sustainability!  In addition, the basement will have some greenery to brighten it up!

UAI Staff CrockPot Potluck and PTA Potluck.  On Monday, we have two events.   All staff are invited to bring something to our crockpot PD.  If you can't bring a slow cooker, feel free to bring anything you can.  After the staff Potluck, please stay to join our PTA potluck later that night!  I know it's not always easy to find the time to bring food to these kinds of things.  Please don't feel limited to a crockpot recipe.  Branch out and let us know what you are able to bring.  It can be anything - it's the spirit and thought that counts!  Please sign up to let us know what you can bring.  CLICK HERE

To Do This Week

PLOP Prep, Grade Team Meetings, and a CrockPot Potluck.  On Monday, we will be starting in on December PLOPs.   We will begin the meeting with Administrative Announcements.  We can't fix or praise things that we don't know about!!  Please complete this quick one-question survey so that we can be sure to address anything that may be on your mind.  CLICK HERE to let us know what needs to be addressed and/or celebrated! We will be switching up the order a bit for Monday

• 3:00-3:40 PLOPs - End of Nov and Beginning of December
• 3:40-4:10 Potluck and Announcements

Tuesday Outreach.  Student Led Conferences will be one week from Thursday.  This is a short week, so we need to make sure that we reach out to all of our parents before Thanksgiving so that they have enough notice to schedule an appointment with us.  Many of you have already entered in your appointments into the sheet . Thank you so much for that work!!  By the end of outreach on Tuesday, we need all teachers to enter their appointments into this  SLC Appointment Sheet.

Student Led Conferences and Benchmarks.  As part of the announcements on Monday, we will be going over expectations for Student Led Conferences and Benchmarks.  Please reach out to your grade team members this week to learn about their experiences with SLCs and Benchmarks.  Then have your questions ready to go for Monday's PD.   Also, if you share your questions and concerns in the survey link (above), we'll be prepared to give you a thorough answer at PD!

SEL Update - Ask 6th graders to listen with their EARS and they should understand the type of listening you require. They spent time talking about the difference between listening and really hearing and taking in what others say. Keep an eye out for the break down of EARS in our next SEL sound bytes.
They also spoke in depth about their core values and how identifying them can help make for clearer, better decisions when they’re faced with both peer and internal pressure. They had so much fun trying to chart their future paths by writing about where they’ll be at 20, 28 and 65 years old!

Week of November 12th

UAI Staff News

Volume VI

Issue 13

November 12, 2018

(129 school days remaining)

Announcements

October Member of the Month  Class of 2016 Alumna, Shavonnie Victor (the student I showed during PD on Tuesday) is making headlines again!  This time she is being celebrated as Cornell University's National Society of Minorities in Hospitality's (NSMH) student of the month.  Historically, managers in the hospitality environment have not represented a wide diversity of backgrounds.  Cornell's NSMH goal is aimed to recruit and support students of varying backgrounds to change that narrative.  Well beyond graduating from UAI, Shavonnie continues to find her voice to build a better, more just future for us all!  Way to go Shavonnie!!

To Do This Week

PLOP Prep, Grade Team Meetings, and a CrockPot Potluck.  Our next full staff PD will be on Monday, 19NOV18.  Thank you to everyone who used their professional period time to complete the PLOPs that are due this month.  We will be starting in on December PLOPs next Monday.  In addition, for some Thanksgiving cheer, we're inviting all staff to join in on a crockpot potluck!  If you can bring something for the celebration, please sign up here. Here's next Monday's Agenda

• 3:00PM - PLOP Writing
• 3:30PM - Announcements - Reviewing SLCs and Survey Data
• 3:45PM - Grade Team Meetings

Tuesday Outreach.  It's not too early to begin scheduling parents for SLCs.  This year our Student Led Conferences are on Thursday evening (5-8PM), 29NOV18 and Friday afternoon, 30NOV18 (11:50AM-2:50PM).  Please begin scheduling SLCs this Tuesday.  To optimize the time, please schedule parents every 20 minutes, which will give you 18 slots to fill.  Please enter your appointments in THIS document. 

NOTE:  We are always trying to update our parent contact info to keep it up to date.  Please enter parent phone number and email into the SLC appointment sheet and in the NOTES section, indicate if the contact information is new or if it matches Skedula.  

Week of November 5th

• UAI Staff News

Volume VI

Issue 12

November 5, 2018

(134 school days remaining)

Announcements

Halloween Fun!  Nearly the entire staff joined in the fun of dress up last Wednesday!  Those in costume paraded through breakfast causing a tidal wave of teenage paparazzi that was a sight to behold!  Once again the 6th-grade team brought out their A-game with their Wonderland Themed gear, but close on their heels this year was the 7th grade with their Coco/Day of the Dead inspired costumes and the 10th-grade team in the garb of the 4 estates of the French Revolution.  Finally, Annie wowed all the grown-ups with her dead ringer costume of the Honorable RBG, but alas, too many of our young students recognized her only as Judge Judy.  On the upside - if our students knew everything already, we'd all be out of jobs!  Overall, it was a wonderfully fun day!

To Do This Week

Monday PD.  Due to our Superintendent Visit on Wednesday, we are shifting Monday PD time to school beautification.  Annie will introduce more of this in PD on Monday, but we will be moving PLOPs and Grade Team meetings to 19NOV18 (next Monday is a holiday).  We want to give teachers time on Monday to fill out our bulletin boards with student work (that has actionable feedback and is posted up with a description of the task and its rubric).  In addition to attending to our bulletin boards, teachers can use the Monday time readying their lessons for Wednesday's visit.

Tuesday PD.  All staff should expect to report to UAI on Tuesday unless you have previously spoken to Annie or myself in person.   Tuesday's PD is critical to the work we have been doing for the last few years around planning and elevating the quality of our classroom instruction.  On Tuesday, we will be focusing on developing the quality of our Look Fors in our lesson plans.

• 8AM - Breakfast Optional
• 8:30AM - State of the School Address
                   [Kiri]
• 9:00-11:00AM Investigating the Power of High-Quality Lesson Look Fors
                           [Annie, Kelly, Suzannah, and Zack]
• 11:00-12:00PM Lunch
• 12:00-1:50PM Lesson Planning For Observations (with Planning Partners)
• 2:00-2:50PM Prepping for the Visit (lesson planning and bulletin boards)

SEL Update

9th Grade: Last week, we dived into the word "perspective" and took a look at how individual perception shapes the way we tell stories and interact with the world. During our Thirteen Reasons Why novel study (and in 9th grade ELA!), we began looking at different perspectives and started to understand how there are multiple layers to every issue, relationship and story. Our goal is to tie the work we've done around two overarching SEL skills (relationship building and social awareness), relationship builders and damagers, effective collaboration techniques and our novel study together via a socratic seminar. We have a busy but fun week ahead of us!

6th graders worked more on learning to solve conflict constructively. One of those strategies is reflecting their friends feelings as a way to allow them to feel heard and understood. They practiced how to confront someone using “I” statements and learned how starting with you can contribute to a less productive outcomes. We even saw them trying to use these new skills in action as we helped with several mediations this week!