November 26, 2013

Coming Undone?

Not the Thanksgiving photo you were expecting?

What is it about this time of year that makes things feel like they are coming undone, leaving us feeling frazzled, confused and upside down?  Each person I talked to today was dealing with a complicated situation and most of those included a good deal of emotion from all people involved.

What happened? Things were going so smoothly just the other day???? How did this happen? Suddenly it all feels like it's coming undone?

I'm not blaming the holidays, but it is foolish for us to discount that emotions run higher this time of year in children, their parents, and in us. Have we acknowledged that? Do we see it in ourselves? How do we get steady on our feet again, let alone be a rock for others? 

A gentle Love and Logic reminder to all of us. Stop. Unless you are dealing with imminent danger...you can simply say, "I'll get back with you." (This works with kids AND adults.) Take some time to talk it through with someone else before you make any decisions or actions. I don't know what the magic is in talking with others, but I know personally that once I've been able to articulate it, clarity comes and I am able to identify the real concerns, apart from the emotion. Talking with others also allows us some 'group think' and some much needed support.

Do not go the rough waters alone. Take a buddy. Take a life jacket. Plan for the trip. 

Calendar

Week of December 2 - 5th:

Monday:

* New Parent Orientation

Tuesday:

* RTI meeting 7:30 a.m.

Wednesday:

* Professional Development - Balanced Assessment System 

Week of December 9 - 13th:

Tuesday:
* RTI meeting 7:30 a.m.

Wednesday:
* 9:00 a.m. Third Grade Musical
* 1:30 Professional Development: Balanced Assessment System

Friday:
* Third Grade fieldwork to Castlewood Canyon

Week of December 16th - 20th:

Sixth grade to Keystone Monday - Wednesday

Tuesday:
* RTI meeting 7:30 a.m.

Wednesday:
* 8:30 Parent Orientation
* All School Meeting
* Professional Development: Reflection on progress (personal assessment)

Apple Award

'Tis that time of year for nominations. As a staff, with our agreement to recognize a teacher by seniority on staff, we will be recognizing Michelle this year! We will take the opportunity to have an appreciation circle for Michelle on Monday, January 6th, at the end of the day (the day we return from break). Spend some time thinking about the word or phrase that captures what you would like to acknowledge and share with Michelle.

Job Alike - District Professional Development

January 17, 2014

Registration for Job Alike 2014 is open for Certified Staff.  January 17, 2014, will provide incredible opportunities to analyze and produce synergistic ideas, concepts or plans to improve instructional practice. Marc Prensky will come and share his deep experience and insight in educating our youth.

Registration begins November 21, 2013 and closes Friday, December 13, 2013. Additional information and registration links may be found on the DCSD Job Alike 2014 Google Site.

Please contact The World Class Education Department with questions or if you need additional information. 

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Deborah

November 22, 2013

The more you know,

the more you don't.

I've been thinking a lot about some of the things I've asked you to do because now I'm just not so sure.... 

I started off the year asking you to think about creating systems for students to track their learning, as a way to increase student ownership. In addition, to think about creating systems for providing student with authentic feedback. Then I started reflecting about myself as a learner.

 I worked hard over the summer training to run in the Ragnar Relay. Running any distance was not something I had ever been able to do successfully. I started off by driving the roads on a four-wheeler calculating the distance( I still wasn't running :) I looked at the Ragnar training schedule. I started in...I tracked my progress (and lack of it...). Then Lauren showed me this great app for my phone that calculated my distance and now my speed. (Gulp.) I rarely embarked on any run without it. I noted the days that I didn't complete the scheduled training and berated myself. I decided if there was a rubric for this, I would just have to be okay with developing and not mastering this thing...but I could 'see' that I was no longer just beginning. That felt good. Just being able to track that my distance had increased was monumental for me. It was concrete.

Then the race was over - I'll never forget the first day I went for a run and didn't take the app and didn't chart the course. I just went out and ran. For the first time, I actually enjoyed it. I decided I was no longer interested in tracking any of it. I would just do it for the joy of it.

Hmmm. If I had just gone out and run and never looked at the training schedule or tracked myself would I have progressed? Would I have had the same level of commitment? Would I have been as successful?

So, what does that mean for other areas of learning? Does it mean that first when I'm learning something new I have to break it down, keep track, assess my progress until I reach a level of independence and then I can let that all go? Did I feel successful because I had a way to really define my success by tracking it? Do learners need to track anything? Do they need to know how they are doing? Does that take the joy away? Does it support the victory?

What do you think?

Then....

What about learning targets?

I do see power in making it clear for kids what they are trying to learn. AND I also can see that posting a learning target before a lesson kills the curiosity and inquiry. Is this one of those 'it depends' responses? Could there be times when the learning target should be clear at the end of a lesson? Could there be times when figuring it out - deciding what we've discovered and learned should be part of the shared inquiry? What about this idea of posting a question instead of a learning target? Hmmm....

Would someone please figure this all out and just tell me?

 During our Creativity course we overlooked

 the importance of constraints in the creative process.

 If you want to know more about this element of a successful creative process 

you might want to read Pam's blog post, Creativity Loves Constraints 

 Pam's favorite resource on creativity is Ken Robinsons book, Out of Our Minds. 

The most comprehensive, thorough and entertaining look at creativity she's read.

Teacher/Crew Blogs

I just love reading your blogs! I find out so much about what you are doing that way. You should all check out one another's blogs from time to time! I promise you'll find inspiration!
I was looking at our school website the other evening and noticed on the staff page that most everyone has their bio's posted. However, there are many missing their blogs. Take a minute to check - if you haven't sent the link to your blog to Ryan  to be uploaded into the website, please do that.

Peek Into the Life of our School

Service - Recycling Diva's

Skyping with their sister school in Australia 

Using the Circle of Courage with Drum Circle -

Tyler's Crew focused on Independence this Monday

Dynamo Diana

Diana - thank you for you passion, enthusiasm, abundant energy and dedication to create such an awesome Book Fair!!!

The Book Fair, and the special events you created, brought our community together and strengthened everyone's sense of belonging. I don't know how you maintained your high level of energy and enthusiasm all week. Impressive! Bravo!

Our own personal movie star:

Mr. Doug

Speed Stack, a local company off of County Line that has since gone global and in partnership with WSSA, recognized Doug's expertise and how his program has taken off. They contacted Doug and asked if they could come and film him to use as an instructional video on their website. In addition, they are using photos of Renaissance cup stackers in their new catalog, promotional materials and on their website.

Yeah, Doug - 

You deserve to be their 'poster' teacher to get

other schools interested!

Calendar

Week of November 25th:

* Only two day week

Monday:

* New Parent Orientation

Tuesday:

* RTI 7:30 a.m.

Wednesday - Friday:

Thanksgiving Holiday Break

Week of December 2 - 5th:

Monday:

* New Parent Orientation

Tuesday:

* RTI meeting 7:30 a.m.

Wednesday:

* Professional Development - Balanced Assessment System 

Have a great weekend!

Deborah

(How's your creativity challenge coming along?)

November 15, 2013

This is me tonight. 

Considering that I couldn't keep anything straight today, it would not be a good idea for me to delve into anything that requires anything remotely connected to thinking.

Today, I was just certain, that today our new director of schools (Tacy) was going to make a school visit. I even planned to get a photo of her to share with you so you would recognize her if you saw her.  

Along with a list of other things I had wrong today, I discovered she is coming tomorrow - Friday. So, if you see me touring around the building, popping into classrooms with a new face, you'll know that I'm showing our new director around. (I will try very hard not to touch anything in your room and be diligent about the vampire sneeze/cough.)

Calendar

Week of November 18 - 22nd:

* Book Fair week

Tuesday:

* RTI meeting 7:30 a.m.

* Book Fair Family Night: 4:30 - 7:30 p.m.

Wednesday:

* Professional Development: Assessment work

Thursday:

* Family Thanksgiving Lunch beginning at 10:30 a.m. (different lunch schedule)

Week of November 25th:

* Only two day week

Monday:

* New Parent Orientation

Tuesday:

* RTI 7:30 a.m.

Wednesday - Friday:

Thanksgiving Holiday Break

Have a restful weekend!

Deborah

November 8, 2013

All School Meeting

The Creative Process 

When we embarked on creating our All School Meeting we did so with the purpose of creating a ritual that would bring our community together to develop our culture - to be unified. To develop belonging within our community.

Our All School Meeting is an opportunity to practice the Circle of Courage. There are opportunities for students to practice independence, generosity, mastery and belonging.

Crews who lead All School Meeting have an opportunity for leadership and to be creative about how they engage the audience. For the Crew leading the meeting the purpose isn't to present; rather to bring the 'audience' together in a shared experience.

An important part of the creative process is to have some constraints. Our constraint is the framework we developed for how the All School Meeting would flow - the structures of the meeting. Within that structure, Crew's have the opportunity to be creative people and to lead our community in a creative experience.

As in all things, the pendulum swings. As we develop our meetings and prepare our Crews to lead the meeting could the pendulum have swung a bit too far in following the structure and it is time to think about how we can be creative within the structure?

When I sit in the audience at All School Meeting and students share the results of their creativity I am so moved. When I watch students who are creative people expressing their passions, I am moved. Might this be yet another opportunity where we can take risks, embrace new and creative ways of working within the All School Meeting structure?

This might also call on us to 'let go'. Would it be okay if a Crew is presenting and dancing to a song to invite the audience to dance too? During the last All School Meeting when the video of Bootcamp was playing I was surrounded by students who started to sing along with the music 'Roar' as it played. My heart swelled as the students around me were moved to sing and sway. They connected to the music and the pictures and the audience was one with the presentation. When Josh's students were singing the Beatles song they had selected for the Going Out Song, I was moved to see them smiling, dancing and feeling the moment. I wanted to sing and dance with them. 

I am so proud of how far we've come developing All School Meeting as an important ritual in our school. Certainly the kids love it and so does our community. I wondering if we can open up our creativity and see how our All School Meeting can be an opportunity for creative expression? How can All School Meeting be a creative process and opportunity for our creative students to be creative?

Calendar

Week of November 11- 15th:

* Climbing in PE

Tuesday:

*RTI meeting 7:30 a.m.

*REA meeting 7:00 p.m.

Wednesday:

* New Parent Orientation 8:00 a.m.

* All School Meeting 9:00 a.m.

* Professional Development: Assessment work

Week of November 18 - 22nd:

* Book Fair week

Tuesday:

* RTI meeting 7:30 a.m.

* Book Fair Family Night: 4:30 - 7:30 p.m.

Wednesday:

* Professional Development: Assessment work

Thursday:

* Family Thanksgiving Lunch beginning at 10:30 a.m. (different lunch schedule)

Week of November 25th:

* Only two day week

Monday:

* New Parent Orientation

Tuesday:

* RTI 7:30 a.m.

Wednesday - Friday:

Thanksgiving Holiday Break

Our Second Graders
at Rocky Mountain College
of Art and Design

Sharing the link to this wonderful article written by Kristine Kilbourne about our second graders fieldwork at RMCAD. You will also see there is a link at the bottom of the article to Pam's backward plan for this unit. What a cool idea to include photos from the actual implementation into the plan! Check it out! Really incredible Pam!

http://www.rmcad.edu/news/elementary-students-visit-rmcad

Just a reminder...

At the conclusion of our time together last Friday I asked you to find a few quiet moments and think about your "perfect" classroom and think about what you would see there. Take one idea from this or move forward with an idea you've been wanting to explore and implement it using the creative process. Be willing to fail, to be resilient and try again and again.
Shifting from 'What would I do if I wasn't afraid" to - "What matters enough that I'm willing to fail?"
You will need to identify something you are currently doing and be willing to set it aside while you work on this new thing. I'm anxious to hear about what you are going to try.

Thinking about the Design Principles: 

How do these apply to you?

The Primacy of Self- Discovery –

learning happens best with challenge, emotion and support. We find our abilities, values, passions, in situations that offer adventure and the unexpected. Include perseverance, craftsmanship, fitness, and imagination. Teacher’s primary task is to help students overcome their fear and discover.

The Having of Wonderful Ideas –

curiosity and providing important things to think about, experiment and make sense of what is observed

Solitude and Reflection –

time to explore own thoughts, make connections, create their own ideas

Collaboration and Competition –

personal best with rigorous standards of excellence

Success and Failure - must have experiences of success to build confidence to take risks and more difficult challenges AND also important to learn from failure - to persevere when things are hard, and turn disabilities into opportunities.

Gratitude HD - Moving Art

Have a great weekend!

Deborah