September 26, 2014

I know that it's true, that sometimes challenges turn into opportunities. Over and over this week I've walked into, passed by, or been a part of a conversation between colleagues grappling with how to move their practice forward. How cool is that?! I'm not exactly sure what has created the momentum, but I'm so inspired! Collaboration is occurring in a very organic, meaningful way. I'm not hearing, "This can't be done."
 I'm hearing, "I wonder if we tried...? What do you think?  Oh, my gosh, I think I'm on to something that might work! Oh, you've got to see what I'm working on!  I've decided to try... I'm not sure it will work, but I like it better than what I'm doing now..."
What a thrill to dwell among learners.

Those precious planning days - use them!

Hanni and Amanda wasted no time turning a vision into a plan...

You'll be glad they did when they share what they've created and how they did it on Friday!

RAKtivists in Action

 Our crew's busy day of blanket-making for Project Linus today. We spent about 90 minutes working on our tied-fleece blankets and ended up with 28 (exceeding our original goal of 25). I was so impressed - these kids showed empathy, beneficence, critical thinking, creativity, and collaboration skills while providing a service to our community. I think the pictures speak for themselves. :)

Jill's Crew:
Our morning at Bonaventure was so sweet. The crew loved riding over there on the small white buses. They got a little nervous as we walked down the hall to the community room but they moved past that quickly. There smiling, singing faces made me choke up a bit just watching them. Our mission was to sing songs that might bring back some good memories for the residents and I have to say - mission accomplished! They were so flexible when we had to kind of squeeze together to talk to the residents - they didn't let that stop them. We had rehearsed what they could say and ask and they did a great job. When we got back to school they were proud to share how they helped a resident have a good memory. The Center enjoyed it so much that they would like to have us come back again. So I will begin planning that soon. (I have no connection with this center. This summer, Ms. Deborah asked teachers to go out and perform random acts of kindness one day. The group I worked with chose to go there - completely at random - and sing them some songs. They loved our group of 4 teachers and wanted us to return with our students. That is why we went today. It is just a bit personal to me because 5 years ago my mom had a hemmorhagic stroke and now has memory issues.) Thanks to Ms. Wendy for managing to nab a few pictures of our time there.

I know there are many more wonderful acts of service happening - I just happened to have access to these stories and photos.  Please think about sharing your stories and photos!

We are making it happen!

Calendar

September 29- October 3rd:

Student-led Conference Week

Tuesday: 

* RTI meeting 7:30 a.m.

Wednesday:

'The Beat'
Pam takes Lonnie's Crew on field work in the morning

PD: Student-led Conferences

Thursday:

Deborah out for PK-12 Admin meeting
Brittany's Crew- fieldwork 10:45- 2:00

Friday:

Boot Camp

October 20 - 24th:

Monday: 

No Students

8:30 meet in library for Drum Circle facilitated by Todd from Rhythm Vision

Individual and team planning time

Tuesday:

RTI meeting 7:30 a.m.

Wednesday:

NO 'The Beat'

PD: All staff in library @1:30 - Beginning of our unit of study on assessment

Thursday:

Deborah out for Elementary Admin. meeting

Friday:

Deborah out from 9:00- 2:00 for Boot Camp prize outing

'The Beat'

Thank you Chelsea for your leadership and risk taking! We are all lovin' the beat!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Deborah

September 12, revised

Learning Targets

Outcomes

It's long been an expectation at Renaissance and in Expeditionary Learning schools, to provide students with learning targets. Why? 

The process of learning shouldn't be a mystery to students. Learning targets provide them with tangible goals that they can understand and work toward. 

Learning targets are goals for the lessons, projects, and units. They are written in concrete, student-friendly language - beginning with the stem "I can" - shared with students, posted in classroom, and tracked carefully by students and teachers during the learning process. 

The term 'target' is significant. It emphasizes that students are aiming for something specific. They are meant to be used by students. Every day, students discuss, reflect, track their progress, and assess their work in relation to learning targets. How might learning targets support students as they talk about their learning during Student Led Conferences? Portfolios?

When to introduce the learning targets can vary. In many lessons, the target is shared at the start of the lesson and then referred to throughout as teachers and students assess progress. Some teachers have students read the targets aloud, restate them to classmate, or discuss them in small groups to ensure that they understand what they are aiming for. Teachers can choose to collaborate with students in revising them to be more clear, compelling, or measurable, and even in creating new learning targets.

For some lessons it's better to hold off on sharing learning targets until partway through the lesson. For inquiry lessons, it is often best to hold off revealing targets. After discussing the ideas that emerge, the learning targets can be introduced to frame the next steps of work.

Sometimes we need 'nested' learning targets - the steps necessary to build towards a larger target. For example, while collaborating with students on a target where students will analyze something, together the teacher and students will notice that in order to analyze they will first need to identify, etc. and write those learning targets together.  

You'll notice I used the word 'collaborate' in some of these explanations. On the CITE rubric the goal is to collaborate with students on outcomes (learning targets). I've shared several examples of how this might look in practice. 

So, how are you doing with learning targets?  Have we established a school-wide practice that ensures that learning targets are communicated and understood? Will I see them in your classroom? Are they leading your planning, assessing and instruction in all things?

Clear learning targets can help teachers make decisions about what to teach and how to assess learning. Learning targets are one part of a comprehensive student-engaged assessment system.

Do we need to have explicit learning targets for the 21st Century Skills and 4C's? How would you answer that? Do your learning targets reflect your answer? Do we understand how our daily learning targets are connected to Enduring Understandings?  To our Essential Questions? (Do we post these?) How do we weave all this learning target work into something kids understand and connect with?

Working collaboratively with students to unpack targets and make sense of them
and then to set some goals.

Check out what Pam has to say about learning targets and intentionality - link to her blog:

http://artteacherc.blogspot.com/2014/09/intentionality.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2FgyXmI+%28Renaissance+Art%29

I really want to encourage and support you to have dialogue together about your questions, practices, trials, and discoveries using Learning Targets. Share what you are doing. Share what isn't going so well and ask for help. I'll be providing you with feedback as I visit you in your classrooms.

Calendar:

Sept. 15 - 19th:

Monday:

Leadership Team meeting 4:15 - 5:00 p.m.

Debbie and Suzie out for Every Child a Writer training

Tuesday:

* iReady training for using this tool to progress monitor - 8:00 a.m.

* No RTI meeting 

Brittany's Crew leaves for Voyage

Debbie and Suzie out for Every Child a Writer training

Baskin Robbin's Community Night 4-8pm

SAC meeting 5:30 p.m. - District Strategic Plan Presentation

REA meeting 7:00 p.m.

Wednesday:

PD: Presentation of the District Strategic Plan

Friday:

4th grade fieldwork to Molly Kathleen Mine - Deborah gone from building to support fieldwork

1st grade fieldwork in a.m.

Discovery 5/6 fieldwork to Saint Mary's Glacier

Sept. 22nd - 26th:

Monday:

Nicole's Crew out on Voyage

Tuesday:

* RTI meeting 7:30 a.m.

Debbie out of the building for PLS meeting

Wednesday:

CITE 6 Team meeting 12:00 - 4:00

PD: Individual plan

Friday:

No Students - Teacher Professional Development Day

FYI: Student Led Conferences are scheduled for the week of Sept. 29th - our last week before Fall Break.

iReady

Progress Monitoring

We've used iReady to establish a baseline. We need to move forward using it to progress monitor growth and achievement. Elisha will be offering a training demonstration for how to use iReady for progress monitoring on Tuesday, September 16th at 8:00 a.m.

I'm going to ask that you use iReady to administer a progress monitoring assessment each time we return from a break - so the first one would be directly after Fall Break. It will take approximately 10 minutes for reading and 10 minutes for math.

The time frame of progress monitoring may not correlate with the time frames mandated by the READ Act. So, we might need to talk about what makes sense and make some adjustments. It might also be that we will want to progress monitor some students more frequently than every 8 weeks (roughly the time between breaks.) I'm flexible in my thinking about 'when', but certain that we do need to be progress monitoring.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Deborah