September 2, 2016

Challenge By Choice

I have been reflecting back on something Ramona (facilitator from  Responsive Classroom) challenged us to do. Remember, she said to write down all the students names in your classroom quickly - from your head?  Doing this helps us recognize if there is a student or two in our classroom that we need to spend more time getting to know.

Challenge One:

Try it right now.

Did all those names come quickly?

Did you miss someone? I challenge you to be intentional about noticing this student and watching them more.

If yes, are there still a few students you don't know enough about? What do you need to know? Make a plan to find out.

Challenge Two:

This week I spent a bit of time with Lauren. She had skads of information about her students laid out on the table and was animated in our conversation sharing all that she's learned and how grateful she is that she has completed her formal and informal collection of information and sighed with relief that she can now concentrate on instruction. She even noticed that kids had progressed with no formal instruction from her!

I smiled to myself. This was perfect. We should be gathering lots and lots of information. We should be looking at it. We should wonder and then go find out more. We should expose kids to more than we think they might be able to do to see what they'll do with that. Were we even right that it was too hard? Was something we thought was easy, actually hard? Are we asking all kids questions, or are we basing our hunches on our high responders? Are we 'cold calling' intentionally to gather information? Ultimately, are we feeling like we have more than enough information to know where to begin to teach? We should be chomping at the bit to teach because we know just where to begin. Bravo Lauren!

Let's shift our thinking away from thinking that gathering all this initial information about students is slowing us down. It's exactly the information we need in order to target the zone of proximal development of our students. We must know what they control (are independent) and what they are on the verge of knowing - that could become within their control with just a little nudge from our teaching. This is what accelerates learning.

If you have been telling yourself that you have been too busy to look at the results of your iReady data, your writing assessments, your conferences, listen to your readers, talk with students, watch them wrestle with problem solving - because you are too busy planning for instruction - then I challenge you to stop. Look at this information. Shift your plan for a day or two, of course you'll still have students immersed in meaningful experiences  (how else would you find out?)- but your purpose is shifted to watch/interact and learn where your students are independent and what they are on the verge of doing independently.

Ha! And you thought I was going to talk about Adventure Education!

If I've confused you .... come visit with me!

 Wednesday, September 7th Professional Development

Our professional development session on September 7th will be an opportunity for us to all come together as a group. We will revisit our mission statement to ground ourselves in our unified vision for what we want for our kids. If you have done some work with the mission statement with your kids this year, we always love to hear what others are trying! 

We took a HUGE risk last year leaving the framework we'd used for years for our Showcases! It was scary to put ourselves out there being so unsure of whether it could work. Of course it did! We did it together! To quote our beloved Noreene, "The work will teach us how." And it did. So on Wednesday,

we will then spend some time reflecting on how our Showcases went in May. Take the time before Wednesday to jot down some of your thoughts. We will want to identify what went well, what changes we all think need to be made and be strategic for this year. This conversation will also be enormously helpful to our new staff to understand this unique experience we provide our students. 

We will wrap up having a discussion about Student-Led Conferences. In our quest to have a unified approach as a school; share language that means the same thing to each of us, have a shared purpose and vision - we need to unpack this ritual. It won't be long until it's time to conduct Student-Led Conferences, and this time together will set the stage.

I know that many of us need time to ponder and think in depth prior to a conversation. I hope I've explained it well enough that you have the clarity you need to do the prior thinking. If not, please let me know and we can talk together prior to Wednesday.

Calendar

September 5 - 9th:

Monday: No School

Tuesday: 

No MTSS meeting

Tyler's Crew out on Voyage

Wednesday:

PD: All together in Flex Room

Focus: Revisit our Mission Statement, Debrief Showcases from the Spring, and frame our beliefs and shared practices about Student Led Conferences

Thursday:

Deborah out to Elementary Principal's meeting

September 12 - 16th:

Monday:

Kenny's Crew leaves on Voyage

Brooks' Crew leaves on Voyage

Tuesday:

MTSS meeting

School visit from Danelle, our school director, 12:45 - 2:45 p.m.

SAC meeting 5:30

REA meeting 7:00

Wednesday:

PD: Team planning

BLT meeting 1:15 p.m.

Thursday/Friday:

Debbie out of the building

Have a great three day weekend!

Deborah