Eatonville School District
Teaching & Learning
This is the place to find updates for Teaching and Learning and information about current PL offerings.
Fondly,
Diane
Thoughts!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
“One finds limits by pushing them.” - Herbert Simon
How can you know what your limits are if you’ve never pushed them? This quote is good not only for encouraging you to find your own limitations, if you have any, but also for testing the limits of what is possible out in the world. Sitting by and thinking you have limits without actually finding out if you do or not is akin to the story of how an elephant won’t try to break the simple rope that ties him down because as a baby they chained him up with a heavy chain. How many limits do you put on yourself that aren’t even real?
“The here and now is all we have, and if we play it right it’s all we’ll need.” -Ann Richards
The past is only in your head, and the future isn’t here yet, so there’s only one moment that truly matters, and that’s the present moment. No matter what time it is, it's always now, and you have to do the best you can with your now moment because you’ll never get anything else. If you do the best in the now, it’s all you’ll ever need because everything else will work itself out. Breath in. Breath out. Go make magic!
As we move forward into the holidays, I wish you all the best of times and rest. Let us all keep working towards common goals for our students and families.
On time, trust and teaching in a pandemic
Hi Team!
I pay close attention to the feedback loyal newsletter readers like you give me. Something that has stuck with me recently is what educators had to say about our free guide "Transformational Talks for Teacher Teams"
One teacher wrote to tell me that those prompts has helped bridge a divide on her grade level team. She said it was ok for me to share the following quote, "Working together is necessary but also very stressful, I'm stressed out, my team is stressed out, and things are hard, we need to learn to understand how to support one another right now."
I'm sure her thoughts resonate with many of you. I reached out to two leaders to get their take on what it means to support others, and what it means to be supported while working during a sustained period of stress and turmoil. You can listen to our conversation here.
Thanks for continuing to be a part of the Shifting Schools community, if you want us to start working on a new guide for our library, please do respond to this email and let us know how we can help you during this extremely tough time.
Take care,
Jeff Utecht
Click below
Travis Rush Technology Education Lead
November 12th, 2021
Greetings! I would like to say THANK YOU to the BLTT group for creating two great professional development opportunities for staff! You have all gone above and beyond for your staffs, and students. If you have any questions in regards to Google Classroom do not hesitate to reach out for the recorded videos of the PD ask one of the team members.
Currently the next step of the Technology Education Department, is to work with Administration and help create tools for staff, and studio teachers to support UDL and Personalized Learning. We will have more PD’s for clock hours soon.
In the meantime check out some of these great education resources!
Educator Resources
New Education Resources on Google Arts & Culture
Discover a guide for teachers, new lesson plans including "Get Smart with Art" from the de Young Museum, virtual field trips, and more. Find resources to keep students engaged no matter what, or where, they are studying.
Klimt vs. Klimt Exhibit on Google Arts & Culture
Explore a new retrospective that brings light to the many contradictions of a revolutionary artist. With videos, machine learning, virtual field trips, and a lesson plan, students will discover there is more to Klimt than surface decoration.
Creating Character Maps
Create a Book Character Map has students develop a map in Google Drawings to illustrate the relationships between characters in a story. Students will learn practical digital skills while organizing the components of the drawing in a way that represents relationships clearly.
UDL/ Inclusionary Practice Corner
Asking for student feedback is a great way to get buy-in! Students feel more excited about participating something they helped design.
Novak Education
Change is Painful
Let's unpack that. Change is painful. It requires us to let go of beliefs we once had and start over. To make things even more complex, the process of change may attack our identity and make us question everything we thought we knew about ourselves as educators.
Some Ideas from CCA for UDL
Pick one subject to concentrate on. Probably the one you are most comfortable with. Math might be easiest at the youngest grades. You can always change your subject later.
We will take one step per month, and try to incorporate it whenever we can during that month. This is a flexible schedule. You may move at your own pace. The idea is to ease these into our practices. You will not be evaluated on this. You won’t even be pushed to do it. I will support you in any needs you have in your classroom, hopefully some of them involve the implementation of UDL.
****Don’t be shy about asking me to brainstorm how to do this for specific lessons!!!***
State lesson objectives in words kids can understand. Be very clear about what you are trying to accomplish, and how you will get there.
-I can help pare down the lesson objectives for any lesson.
-A lesson might hit 4 or 5 objectives, but concentrate on only one or two.
Encourage students to think of reasons why the lesson is important to their lives.
-Ask them how they will benefit from being able to achieve the objectives.
-How can they use it in their lives, particularly right now.
Guide kids in rating their learning.
-Ask them if they achieved the lesson objectives. What went well, what didn’t go well.
After the lesson, ask them what other resources would have helped you learn better.
-Keep track of anything they suggest that you think would work.
-The discussion should guide students to start qualifying the ability to resources to be useful to them. It will help them choose the most efficient pathways to their learning.
Before lessons, ask what other resources students could use to better achieve their goals.
-Keep track of anything they suggest that you think would work.
-The discussion should guide students to start qualifying the ability to resources to be useful to them. It will help them choose the most efficient pathways to their learning.
Rest of the year: Start here then try to expand to additional lessons
Try to add an additional, optional resources to your lesson that will help students access the learning.
-Prior to the lessons, continue to discuss the objectives of the lessons and how achieving them will benefit them
-Encourage students to choose the resources that will be most effective
ex: Access to watch a video in place of, or in addition to your normal lesson, or play an educational game. It could be offering manipulatives.
-Try something new, that won’t take you much time.
- Keep it simple.
-You don’t have to do this for every single lesson, just when you have time for it. -Keep track of what has worked for you, as it will be easy to use that again. Eventually, you will compile a bag of tricks that are quick to turn to……...emphasis on EVENTUALLY. Right now, just try things when you can, and be okay with some ideas not panning out as successful tools in helping students to meet the lesson objectives
-After lessons, continue to ask them if they achieved the objectives
-Continue to ask which sources students could use to better achieve their goals.
~Katie Novak