Maude Saunders Newsletter
Week of February 3, 2020
At Maude Saunders, we are...
One School
One Team
with One Mission:
EXCELLENCE A+
Goals:
- Have a positive mindset each day toward students, parents, & staff.
- Build team efficacy through collaboration.
- Create a school culture reflecting excellence in ourselves and our students.
- Build cognitive capacity in our students through high expectations.
Mission & Vision:
To be a place where all students succeed and achieve to their maximum potential with a curriculum that is a dynamic response to each student's needs.
Vision:
Maude Saunders Elementary School will create and sustain a school climate that encourages student success.
In the Spotlight - Dana Kay Evans
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK
2020 is the YEAR OF GREATNESS at MSE!!!
Claim it, Work it, & See it Happen
Differentiated Accountability: We are proudly educating 547 future leaders.
Let's continue to be consistent with our classroom procedures and school norms so we can continue to reduce referrals.
INSTRUCTIONAL FOCUS - Student Engagement & Questioning Strategies
Top 10 Achievement Boosters For Students ©2016 Eric Jensen
10. PLAN B
WHAT THIS MEANS:
Every teacher has their favorite ways of teaching. If your results are through the roof good, keep using them! For most of us, what we need is to invite alternative representations for the learning. This means simply, if you said it, let them write about it. If they read it, let them perform it. If they built a model, let them present the model to others. In short, whatever the original representation of the learned concept (visual abstract, performance, soundtrack or experiential learning, etc.) shake it up and offer a “Plan B.”
HOW TO MAKE THIS HAPPEN:
Gesturing the learning is VERY powerful. Requiring children to gesture while learning the new concept helped them retain the knowledge they had gained during instruction at a 90% level. In contrast, requiring children to speak, but not gesture, while learning the concept had no effect on solidifying learning (Cook, Mitchell & Goldin-Meadow, 2008). In math, researchers used three groups. First, they found that children required to produce correct gestures learned far more than children required to produce partially correct gestures, who learned more than children required to produce no gestures (Goldin-Meadow, Cook & Mitchell, 2009).
Writing is powerful. Asking students to write out their thoughts has three benefits. The research among meta-studies assigns summarizing a high effect size of 1.0 contributing to student achievement (Marzano, 2001). First, it allows them time to reflect and clarify. Second, writing can deepen our thinking, encouraging us to make additional connections. Finally writing helps us remember more than if we did nothing or used a keyboard (Mangen & Velay, 2010).
But allowing them draw out what they are learning helped them recall even better (Azer, 2011). Here’s how to use this. In your work, after students learn a small chunk of content, give kids a choice, they can gesture or write (summarize) the topic to summarize for 5 minutes. Then, switch them off, so that those who wrote will now gesture and vice versa. The results are powerful, since each skill helps unleash the other. Both processes will help unleash a powerful memory.
The final and most well-known strategy is using some type of graphic organizer. The effect size is a huge 0.75, and some of the sub-strategies can be higher (Marzano, 2000). You’ve got common options to use mind maps, bubble maps, the fishbone and flow charts. There also a dozen or more other types of graphic organizers you can use so that your students never get tired of them. Once you start down this path, you’ll see you can have students do them solo, with a partner, on a team, piecemeal for a jigsaw effect, use flip charts, digital maps and even collaborate with other classes. It is one of my favorite tools to use as pre-learning or for post learning reviews as well as a cognitive or social builder. There are many other ways to represent student learning, but you get the idea: always use your “Plan B.”
Important Information
- Formal Observations: Please go ahead and schedule your formal observation through MS Outlook. If you need a quick review of how to use Outlook, please do not hesitate to let me know.
- Interim Reports: Go home with students on Thursday, February 6th.
- FOCUS: Please keep your grades updated and make sure your grades are standards-based and you have the correct number of grades per the SPP.
- House Points: Please continue to award points for students.
- Individual Student Goal Setting: Please complete K-12 Lift Student Goal Sheets and make sure you document in your lesson plans.
- Review Proposed Standards: In a Just Read, Florida! presentation yesterday, they boiled the most significant proposed changes in the new standards to the items listed below. Please review the standards and submit feedback through this link: https://www.floridastandardsreview.org/
- Skyward: Anyone that has submitted TDE into Skyward must upload an attachment (agenda, email requesting you attend, etc.). If you did not do this, please go back and upload your attachment. NOTE: You do NOT have to submit TDE into Skyward for trainings we have on our campus. This was just clarified at my Principals' Meeting. So for our Data Chats, you do NOT have to upload an attachment.
- Comp Time: Please do NOT enter comp time for Faculty Meetings. Loveta will enter Faculty Meeting Comp Time into Skyward for all that attend. If you leave early, make sure you write the time you leave by your name. Also, please remember that comp time must be pre-approved. For parent meetings, please upload an attachment to indicate the time-frame in which the conference was held.
- Lesson Plans: Please make sure your lesson plans are on your desk and accessible each day. I may need to refer to them when doing a walk-through.
- Parent Communication: Are we continuing to make positive phone calls home home?
- Safety: Please keep all pod doors closed and locked and any classrooms that have direct access to the hallway.
- Attendance: Attendance should be completed by 8:30 a.m.
- Transportation Notes: Please make sure these are sent to the front office no later than 8:30 a.m. Also, make sure transportation notes are picked up from your box before dismissal.
Calendar Additions:
NOTE: Please let Mrs. Bonnie know if you have events that need to be added to the master calendar. Ms. Bonnie will begin this week entering what we have on the master calendar so far.