Thursday, February 23, 2012

February 24, 2012

The Having of Wonderful Ideas

This design principle is always one I can remember, and the first that I was drawn to six years ago. Picture those students in your crew who you see ready to burst; waving their arm, shouting out, standing up at their desk and leaning into the group! They are so fired up to share what they are thinking and learning! Often it is your questions, at the right time, that inspire your students to invent wonderful ideas!

Responsive teaching supports this design principle. We have a lesson plan, we know the target and we monitor how it is going. Through our experience and our responsiveness to follow the lead of our students as they learn, we may make a shift, inspired to do something different, as a child's thought process leads the class down an unexpected direction. In this type of classroom, the teacher is the guide. This is where the role of our questioning is critical in guiding and igniting the 'having of wonderful ideas'.

"The main difference between these students and those in other, more conventional classes we've taught is that they are what we call brave learners."

"Expeditionary Learning schools encourage all students to posit, question, and explore instead of simply repeat and fill in the blanks. The students have time and space to pursue spontaneous inspirations. They learn to think."

The design principle: The Having of Wonderful Ideas

Teach so as to build on children's curiosity about the world by creating learning situations that provide matter to think about, time to experiment, and time to make sense of what is observed.

Foster a community where students' and adults' ideas are respected.

Calendar

Week of February 27th - March 2nd:

Tuesday 28th:

* RTI 7:30 a.m.

* Neil & Lindsey Crew's Winter Voyage

Wednesday 29th:

* All School Meeting: Ms. Jill's Crew Hosts

* 6th grade to Art Museum

* Lauren & Brittany Crew's Winter Voyage

Friday, March 2nd:

*Teacher Work Day

* Texas Independence Day (ask Bill Dowdle about this!)

Week of March 5 -9th:

CSAP Window

Tuesday 6th:

* RTI meeting 7:15 a.m.

Love and Logic Teacher-ism:

When a child says "Not fair," smart teachers whisper, "I respect you too much to argue."

Wise teachers respond to a whiney "But why?" with "If you don't figure that out by next week I'll explain it."

Mid-Year Reflection

Thank you for taking 15 minutes to reflect on your goals and how things are going for you this year. Your feedback was valuable to me. Please never hesitate to let me know how I can support you.

I know my own mid-year reflection helped steer me back on course.

Morning Message:

On the Responsive Classroom Blog, here is what some teachers had to share about how they are working together on planning for Morning Message:

Submitted by Babs Freeman-Loftis on February 13, 2012.

These are great ideas, Margaret! I recently worked with some dedicated teachers in Memphis City Schools who were excited about shared planning opportunities for morning messages. The teachers were definitely feeling like they were in a bit of a “rut” in terms of running out of ideas for generating creative and engaging messages for students. The teachers decided to try rotating the duty of writing the daily message. With five teachers on the first grade team, they each took responsibility for writing one message per week – and they came up with daily themes, similar to your ideas here. Teachers had the option of using the shared message or creating their own. The group exchanged their ideas during their weekly PLC meetings. Another grade level came up with the idea of doing a morning message walk - where the teachers would just walk through each others' rooms in the morning (or afternoon) to read the different messages. It was a great way for teachers to gather new ideas and to get into their colleagues' classrooms.

Submitted by Sarah Fillion on February 14, 2012.

I love the idea of planning out the messages for the week with a theme in mind for each day! That would also help with planning out some of the other components as well. I used that method to keep my meetings fresh. For example, on the literacy day, I would have my students do a Dynamic Reading of a Poem and we might use an Adjective greeting.

A teacher I worked with would pull in "this day in history" on days she was focusing on social studies and might give a word brainteaser (example: eiln pu - line up in alphabetical order) on her literacy day to have the students thinking and interacting with the message in a variety of ways.

A group of teachers I recently worked with create their messages on Smart Boards and created a shared file that they just drop their messages into so others can pull and modify them. Technology has made it a lot easier to share and recreate messages pretty quickly.

Report from the health room:

"A student from Ms. Mary Beth's crew was in the health room.
He said to Kirsten, "Oh, my head hurts sooo bad. Everything I've learned is going to burst out!"

Featured Folks:

unknown author(s) we await you...

Peek Into the Life of our School:

Our very own snowman!
Thanks Eric for all you do when you arrive early on those bad weather days
to clear a path for all of us!
(Glad Chevy brought you a well deserved Starbucks!)

Jill is trying something she has always wanted to do...Explore Time.
This is how Nico spent his first Explore time...a personal project;
he made this belt complete with velcro fasteners.
Can you tell he's a little bit proud?

Add caption

Lauren and Brittany support their learners in the first steps of their writing genre.
The kids are using the content they learned during their recent field work to Garden of the Gods.
Can you guess what they are learning about?
Great way to blend the learning within an expedition with a genre study in writing.

Mary Sue created a paragraph prompt writing checklist for her students.

Neil provides his students with some practice with test taking items AND provides specific feedback about what works. If you didn't know about the CSAP, you'd think Neil was doing a lesson on critical thinking! Every student was engaged!

If you taught kindergarten you'd never take letter formation for granted again!
Gotta love learning in a bulb blooming environment!
Bulbs blooming on every table. Smells good too!
(Perhaps 6th grade should consider growing bulbs??)

6th Grade is learning about pop culture and photography in an effort to document the "Strangeness of the Ordinary". They did a "walk about" around Castle Rock to capture images of their surroundings from different perspectives. They are now working on overlaying these images with text that encourage their audience to think creatively and "outside of the box".

(Is our school cool, or what?)

Have a great weekend!

Deborah

Thursday, February 16, 2012

February 17, 2012

Crew Not Passengers

I continue to ponder and reflect on the Design Principles. I often hear kids call out in class, with much exuberance, "I made a connection!" (Always makes me smile.) Well, picture me calling this out to you as I read through the design principle: Service and Compassion (last chapter...obviously not reading this in any particular order but hey, who cares...I love being in control of my reading), "I made a connection...!" We are crew, not passengers and how directly linked our motto is to service. "By placing service at the heart of learning, schools encourage students to see service not as an isolated action, but as a way of being a member of a community." Ah...service is a way for a student to have belonging! "Hey! I made another connection!"; the four quadrants of a drum circle!

Oh, I just want to copy the whole chapter...it is all so powerful!

It goes waaayyy beyond just creating a service learning project for the sake of serving...it's really an opportunity to empower kids to feel like they are answering to a call, "I need your help". Students shift from the narrow perspective of their immediate life and world, to having a responsibility for the whole. Crew, not passengers? (Learning to take care of the circle when we are drumming?)

It's amazing how deeply kids talk to me about what 'Crew, Not Passengers' means to them. They really get it! And yet, their responses all reveal that 'crew' to them, is only their family here at Renaissance. Do they understand that we are a crew of global citizens?

So where are we with our commitment to service? Rather than viewing it as one more thing to do, how can it be embedded? In what way does our community/global world call to our kids, "You are needed"?

"Service helps young people see the connections between the academic content and the problems people encounter in everyday life."

I leave you with this to ponder with me, "One of school's primary functions is to prepare its students with the attitudes and skills to learn from and be of service to others."

Calendar

Week of February 20 - 24th:

Monday, 20th:

* No School (Enjoy!)

Tuesday, 21st:

* RTI 7:30 a.m.

* Michelle/Lonnie's crew Winter Voyage

* Bill & Rebecca Crew's Winter Voyage

Week of February 27th - March 2nd:

Tuesday 28th:

* RTI 7:30 a.m.

* Neil & Lindsey Crew's Winter Voyage

Wednesday 29th:

* All School Meeting: Ms. Jill's Crew Hosts

* 6th grade to Art Museum

* Lauren & Brittany Crew's Winter Voyage

Friday, March 2nd:

*Teacher Work Day

* Texas Independence Day (ask Bill Dowdle about this!)

Love and Logic

Teacher-ism:

Don't criticize yourself, get down, or lose hope. Instead, pat yourself on the back for doing everything within your power to help.

Are you in a Morning Message Rut?

http://www.responsiveclassroom.org/blog

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Featured Folk
authored by Mary Sue

I wrote this as an assignment for my Digi Ed Class, and I think it fits well with our Friday Flash! The assignment was an idea from NPR radio, who feature "This I Believe" from audience members.
MarySue

This I Believe

   I believe that teaching is not a job. It’s a way of life. Today I commented to my husband Terry that I hope he appreciates what a great job he has. He works from home, makes way more money than I do, is able to work out in between conference calls, can eat and snack when he wants, runs errands once in awhile, and doesn’t have to drive when it’s icy.
    There are downsides like loneliness, always being on the phone, and crazy co-workers.
    But he didn’t point these out, he said instead that my job as a teacher is way better. He said I make a difference. He said when he dies, no one will care what he did for a living. He said when he dies, people will say what a great guy he was (and I added husband too). Then he said when I die, people will say what a great teacher I was. How I touched their life. How they remember me, even though they were only 7 or 8 or 9 when we were “crew”. Wow. Terry has told me that before, but not in quite the same way. I’ve always dismissed it, because I love teaching. I don’t feel noble at all, and I thought you should feel noble to make a difference. I thought being noble meant a whole lot of pain and suffering. I don’t feel noble because I love living in the world of 7 and 8 and 9 year-olds. Sure, they have some social issues, but for the most part they love to learn, and they want to have a good time while they do it. They love to laugh. They like a good joke. They love to be read to, and I love to read to them. I get to play with some cool toys and games with them. I get to learn reading, writing, science and math and social studies right along with them. I get to spend my day in a place full of joy.
    Of course, there are downsides. I can tell when I’ve taken on too many projects, but I can’t stop myself until I’m so brain dead my body screeches to a halt. Dealing with all the adults associated with the students can get messy and discouraging. Always trying but not always succeeding in being on top of all the details. Carrying on with a smile, even with the flu or a cold or heartache over a friend or family member.
    I did the office thing for many years. I was a Secretary, I was an Administrative Assistant, and an Office Manager. I mostly liked the people, but not the work. Thankfully, in my late 30’s teaching discovered me.   A voracious love of learning came back into my life. Happy childhood memories came back. Passion for teaching rushed in. Many years have gone by, and still - it doesn’t feel like a job.
    It feels like life.

Peek Into the Life of Our School

Valentine's Day Celebrations
An opportunity for relationship building
Connections to 'Belonging and Generosity' from
the Circle of Courage

Clever Lauren makes Valentine crayons for her Crew.
I should 'pin' those!

Opportunities for creative expression!

Brittany provided a Valentine inspired opportunity to build belonging and generosity.
She made name cards, and then each student recorded a kind word about one another.
Now, they'll be desk name tags!
Great way to let an event live beyond the moment!

Passing out Valentines in kindergarten...
a rich literacy learning experience!
Kathy shared that it is common for kindergarten students
to take their Valentine boxes home and read,
re-read, and re-read their Valentines all through the spring months!

Hand-made Valentines.

Robin Hood!

Have you been to our archery range?
Way to go Doug!

How inspiring!
Spring must be on its way!
The bulbs are blooming in kindergarten!
(Science Expedition)

Teachers: The Great Facilitators
Thanks Jody and Kathy for shining the light on our skills as facilitators.
I plucked the information below, directly from our Adventure Education Curriculum Handbook.
There's more if you want it!
Nice link between facilitating Ad. Ed. and a drum circle!!!

Framing

Framing provides the opportunity for facilitators to prepare the students for the challenge they are about to face. Framing is carried out with a “big picture” in mind- the facilitator will introduce ideas in framing with the direct intention of returning to those concepts in the debriefing. Framing may contain some or all of the following components, depending on the nature of the activity and the desired outcomes of the activity.

Safety Briefing
Introduction
Instruction
Outcomes

Activity

Activity is characterized by action on the part of the students, but still requires deliberate attention on the part of the facilitator. The facilitator is constantly assessing the performance of the students, and if necessary guiding them appropriately.

Debriefing

Debriefing is the opportunity for students to draw a link between what they learned in the activity and future application of that learning. In debriefing, the facilitator guides the students through a discussion as they process the activity. Remember to use the predefined outcomes of the activity to help structure the debriefing.

Considerations for the Facilitator

· Pay attention to Maslow

· Time

· Language

· Age appropriateness

· Connect lessons to specific real-life scenarios

Have a great weekend!
Deborah

Thursday, February 9, 2012

February 10, 2012

Reflections on Design Principles

It continues to amaze me how I can pick up a journal, book. or piece of literature and have owned it for quite some time, and not looked at it in ages. I can remember when I first read it and how powerful it was to me. I reflect and remember how it spoke to me at the time. And yet, as I thumb through it again today, it is though I'm reading it for the first time.

I note what I underlined, marked or tagged and wonder why that was a big deal to me? Or...I say, "oh yes...how could I have forgotten that?" Or..."why didn't I underline this!" Why, I had this most amazing and guiding book right under my nose and I've been ignoring it?

Then, right behind those thoughts, I feel a bit of frustration creeping up. I resent that I don't have nearly enough uninterrupted time to allocate to the reading I want to do. Thinking, "why, if I only could get this all read, I'd know exactly what to be doing and how I will fix the things that need fixing!"

I recently picked up the very tiny book by Emily Cousins, Reflections on Design Principles. Within this book are the ten design principles that are our best short statement of the philosophy of education and core values of Outward Bound and Expeditionary Learning. I fell in love all over again.

I decided I would read one design principle each week; ponder it, grow a deeper understanding and application.

I am reminded of the teachings of Marie Clay and how the efficiency of words is critical for learners to take on new knowledge and transfer new learning into real understanding.

The book is no bigger than my hand and fits in a pocket of my purse. I think Emily Cousins understood something about saying a lot with a few words.

Well, I didn't even get past the preamble this week...in fact I got stuck on it...

"Preamble to Design Principles:

Learning is an Expedition into the unknown.

Expeditions draw together personal experience and intellectual growth to promote self-discovery and construct knowledge.

We believe that adults should guide students along this journey with care, compassion, and respect for their diverse learning styles, backgrounds, and needs.

Addressing individual differences profoundly increases the potential for learning and creativity of each student.

Given fundamental levels of health, safety, and love, all people can and want to learn. We believe Expeditionary Learning harnesses the natural passion to learn and is a powerful method for developing the curiosity, skills, knowledge, and courage needed to imagine a better world and work toward realizing it."

What, in this preamble, speaks to you?

Calendar

February 13- 17th:

Monday:

* Josh's Crew leaves for Winter Voyage

* 3rd Grade Reading CSAP week

Tuesday:

* RTI meeting 7:15 a.m.

* Valentines Day :)

Thursday:

* 3rd grade Field Work to Garden of the Gods

* Fire Drill 10:00 a.m.

February 20 - 24th:

Monday: No School

Tuesday:

* RTI meeting 7:15 a.m.

* Michelle/Lonnie Crew leaves for Winter Voyage

* Bill/Rebecca leave on Winter Voyage

Peaceful week?

Student Led Conferences

Making the shift to semesters (hard to even say that word in an elementary school) has changed the way we schedule our Student Led Conferences. Looking over the remainder of the year, it would not make sense to hold these in May when we are up to our eye brows in end of the year rituals, such as Portfolio Showcases.

So, we will plan on having our Student Led Conference the week of April 16th. This is a four day week, as you are granted a teacher compensation day on Friday, April 20th for your extra time for conferences. Some of you may prefer the week of April 23rd through April 27th and that would be fine if you need the flexibility.

Now is the time to mark your calendar!

For next year, I propose we think about doing our first Student Led Conferences right after Fall Break rather than December, and spring conference right after Spring Break. This way, we are having those conferences mid-way through grading periods.

Professional Development Opportunity:

The Tointon Institute for Educational Change

This academy is designed for teams of teachers/leaders from schools. The academies are held in Beaver Creek, Colorado June 14 -17th and at no cost to you (except for supper each evening).

I would like to take a team to the academy this summer!!!! Unfortunately, I can't take all of us! The academy limits the size of the team and we can send 6 teachers. Some of you will want to attend, but your summer schedule will be a conflict. For others, this may sound like just the right thing for your professional goals/needs.

It is quite exciting that Jill and her husband, Karl, will be the presenters for one of the days!!! Yeah Jill!

If you are interested in attending, I need you to write a narrative explaining why you would like to go, how you think the content of the academy fits into your needs and how you will be accountable for putting what you learn into action. I will evaluate and select the participants based your reflection, need and commitment.

As you write your application consider the content of the academy.

Here are some things you might consider as you write your application:

*Is there a better way to help today's students learn? How do we get there?

*How can I teach to the future and what does that even mean?

*How do you choose the appropriate learning tools for students to use?

* What are the roles of assessment?

* What types of assessment are most useful for partnering with students?

* What are the essential skills our students need to learn in order to be successful?

* What should future schools and education look like?

* Where are you in your application of providing meaningful feedback to students?

* Where are you in planning and following through with including evaluations from a global audience and/or audience outside our school?

* How do you help students understand their own progress?

THIS IS NOT A LIST OF QUESTIONS TO ANSWER! Just food for thought to get you thinking before you write.

Please email your word document application to me by Wednesday, February 22nd.

Here is the description of the academy:

Meaningful, Changes Classroom Dynamics and Propels Student Learning
June 14-17
The academy will focus on what we do with students in our classrooms and how to do what we do more effectively.
In this academy, we will look at how we can think differently about the role technology
plays in our instruction. We know this is a powerful tool to aid student learning and to increase student engagement, but we will examine some principles we need to consider in implementation and discuss how can we integrate technology seamlessly into our daily work with kids.
Additionally, this academy will provide an opportunity for teams to learn about effective instructional learning targets and the power of developing clear criteria for success, aligning formative assessments to lessons and providing descriptive, evaluative and coaching feedback.

We will learn about the relationship between the feedback we provide and the mindsets of
our students. Finally, we will examine effective elements of team planning, including how we ensure that there is a high level of implementation of initiatives in classrooms, how we monitor implementation and how we address resistance and have difficult conversations in order to improve instruction in our classrooms in an effort to increase student learning.

Life Is Art; Update

Emily Key is spear heading the crew projects. Here is what she is sharing with us:

I just wanted to update you on the Class Project portion of Life Is Art in hopes that you can give the teachers a heads up.

-We have projects planned for k-6, some will be combined across the grade level and some will be classroom specific.

- We will need an hour at most of class time to complete these projects and we have set aside (Tuesdays) Feb 21st and Feb 28th to make these happen. (some projects will be 15 minutes or less)

-There will be a sign up genius coming in the next week for time slots for these dates.

- We will supply everything except maybe classroom items such as scissors etc.... and we will try to give each class a heads up as to what they will need to help things run quickly and smoothly.

- We realize there are voyages sprinkled through these two dates, but are confident we can find everyone a time- please let the teachers know we will work with them to find a good time for them!!!

-We will reveal the finished product to the class at a later date so they can swell with pride. We will probably be a little vague until then with some projects. We don't want them to know what's coming. :)

-if anyone has any questions or concerns they can email me directly ekey1025@yahoo.com

Love and Logic

Teacher-isms:

Questions create thinking...
warnings, lectures, and threats create resistance.

Crew Blogs

It's been so impressive to see how we have all grown in our ability to communicate with our community using digital tools! Just amazing! Talk about evidence of learning! We have long strived to make the learning visible, and this has certainly supported realizing that goal! Collectively we created tremendous momentum around growing and learning about how to use digital tools for learning. Thank you for keeping this focus and continuing to grow in your personal use with these tools.

I notice that we are providing links to one another's blogs on our home pages. That is great! Friday Flash is intended just for staff, so please do not include Friday Flash as a link for our community.

I have to acknowledge that I have dropped the ball on my 'Pondering's of a Principal' blog. I have struggled with that and hope to pick it back up soon.

Call for Featured Folks authors...

Thank you to those of you who have provided a feature piece for Featured Folks. I know that Featured Folks is everyone's favorite! A call to those of you we are still waiting to hear a story from! When you email me your piece, please send the pictures as an attachment. It's been so wonderful to connect together in this way.

Featured Folks

authored by Michelle Oslick

Hmmmm…What to share? Isn’t that always the question when trying to write about yourself? Where do I start?

I guess a good place would be to say that, in a million years, I never though I would be a teacher. My plans and dreams were very different for the first 18 years of my life. Since life very rarely turns out the way we imagine it, though, I can only be thankful that somehow, I ended up right here at Renaissance.

As I child, I had one passion in life, dance! To be more specific, ballet. I was born and grew up in the far northern suburbs of Chicago, and thanks to the proximity of the city, and having an older sister, that I had to emulate at every turn, I started dancing and developed a major interest in the arts when I was about three. You add into this mix a grandmother who also had a passion for dance, before having 10 children, and a grandfather whose soul focus was his family and making sure that all of his kids and grandkids (which now numbers somewhere in the upper 20s, though we stopped counting some years ago, once the great grandkids started to come along) had every bit of love and support possible. In other words, I had everything I needed to pursue my dream.

And so, I grew up in a very typical Midwestern family, going to school, dance rehearsals, fighting with my sister, etc. building on my dream until I was dancing with professional troupes downtown, and making plans to attend a performing arts school in New York. Life was pretty prosaic, UNTIL my junior year of high school, when a bizarre incident at a rehearsal left me with permanent nerve damage to my sciatic nerve and the pronouncement that I would need years of physical therapy before I could even contemplate dancing again, and that if I didn’t do this and kept dancing I would be lucky to walk by the time I was 21.

A new direction had to be found. Not being able to give up my link to dance completely, I found myself an assistant teacher to the 2-3 year olds at one of my old studios. It didn’t take long to realize that my love for kids, could be my new path.

I started this journey by attending the University of Iowa, to study elementary education. I spent three years on campus in Iowa City studying, and thanks to a cohort they participate with, was able to move to Ireland and teach in a three room school house right on the Atlantic seaboard. I taught preschool, kindergarten, and 1^st grade all in one room, and absolutely loved it. I spent my time there teaching and traveling.

This love of traveling and exploring that came home with me when I returned to the States, making me decide to give living outside of the Midwest a try. I took a leap of faith, and moved to Colorado without ever having visited.

I started teaching up in Cherry Creek. It was there that I found my passion for G/T, leading me to switch elementary schools in an effort to work in that field. However, that move had a more unexpected outcome. Instead of my dream job, I found another dream, my husband. He was a 5^th grade teacher at the new school I was working at. In fact, the first time we met, was the day he interviewed me for my teaching position there. This is still a source of constant amusement and teasing from our families and friends.

At the same time, I was no closer to being able to have my dream job of working full time with gifted students. That is, until I got an email from a former colleague about the Discovery positions open here at REMS.

I made the move down to Douglas County; and though I am not anywhere near where the dreams of my youth directed me; I am exactly where I know I am supposed to be.

Other fun facts the might/might not surprise you

-I love heavy metal and hard rock music

-Though very type A outside of home, I am the relaxed parent willing to say, “She’s fine…it was just a little bump”

-While I camped as a kid it is not an activity that I would chose to do on my own time (ironic with the 6^th grade voyage I know).

-Math is my least favorite subject to teach

-As a kid I played ice and floor hockey

-My instrument(s) of choice is the drums

-I love to climb and have since I was a kid

-I am dyslexic (I am NOT the “go to” person to ask how to spell)

-I love musicals and plays but hate concerts

-If you ever are able to sneak up on me in my classroom during work time, don’t be surprised to find me singing and dancing away while working around the room, or I might be on top of some piece of furniture to be able to reach and staple things to the ceiling. I have often had to chase people that walked in, look for me, and walk right out again.

-Family is everything to me

-I was lucky enough to grow up with 3 sets of great grandparents, as well as my 4^th great grandmother. In fact it wasn’t until I was 16 that any of them passed away. While all of my grandfathers have passed on, all 3 of my grandmothers (one is a step grandma but was never considered so) are still alive and in there 80s.

-My mom’s side of the family (is huge) keeps growing by leaps and bounds. Last year we actually did try to count how many of us there were from Grandma, down to the great grand kids. We gave up around 52, because we knew we were missing someone. Funny thing is, we are all really close. We still have Thanksgiving, Christmas and 4^th of July together at one of the aunt’s house. It’s absolute chaos and I wouldn’t change it for anything.

-I hate reality television

-I have three vices: Really good champagne, a hot bubble bath, and romance novels (especially with vampires and other supernatural characters in them).

Peek Into the Life of Our School