EAGLE MOUNTAIN NEWS & NOTES #6
SEPTEMBER 21 , 2015
EAGLE MOUNTAIN ELEMENTARY
Email: bmclain@ems-isd.net
Twitter: @bmacEME
REAL QUICK
Thank you very much for making an appearance at our Howdy Dinner on Friday.
You will receive some jeans passes for attending Friday night. Your presence at our school events are always sincerely appreciated. We’re expecting a big turn-out at tomorrow night’s Watch Dog Kick off meeting.
Important Information this week!
- Our PBIS committee meets this afternoon at 3PM. Drew attended PBIS training last week & has new information for us that he will share. Drew really appreciates those of you who have stepped up & volunteered to help tomorrow.
- The Education Foundation’s Because We Care campaign is going on from now until the end of the month. Drew is our Care Captain & will be overseeing our participation. Cathy Wells is the co-chair. Here are some important things to know with the campaign:
- Our campaign starts today & goes through October 30th.
- Our goal is to have 100% participation from the staff this year. Here are our campus incentives:
- The first TEAM to donate will get a full week that they’re allowed to wear jeans.
- The team that donates the most will get to wear jeans for two weeks.
- The person who donates the most will get their own free parking (reserved space) for the entire year!
- If we as a campus get 100% participation, we then I will provide a pizza party for the staff.
- You may donate cash, check or through payroll deduction. If you donate with cash or a check please give your money to Sandra who will keep up with it for us. If you choose to donate through payroll deduction give your form to either Drew or Cathy.
- Please put reading the short (but good!) Fundamental Five book on your To-Do List.
We’re asking that you have it read by next week’s Faculty meeting as that will be the topic & focus of our faculty meeting. It is an easy read & contains valuable information we know you will put to use!
· Kelli, Drew, & I attended some excellent training last week on teaching kids from poverty – it was excellent & we’d like to share that information with you so we can better meet the needs of ALL kids.
· I will be working on my RISE presentation this week which is next week.
· We have new & improved ICLE rubrics that we will share with you soon as they are more detailed & specific.
· Angela Kennedy is beginning to plan for the 2nd grade Texas Reading Bee Championship. The Texas Reading Bee Championship happens in three stages:
1) Campus bee – The top 2nd grade reader competes to represent their campus at our district bee – our campus bee has to be completed by October 16th.
2) District bee - The top campus readers will represent their campus at the district bee – the district bee has to be completed by October 28th.
3) The Texas Reading Bee Championship – the top district reader competes with districts across North Texas at TCU – November 21st.
4) Please let me know if you are interested in being our Reading Bee Facilitator. It would be great if one of our second grade teachers would take this on! Let me know by Wednesday please.
· Nicole Herlin will be meeting with students this week to get started with Battle of the Books! Her presentation includes a brief, (3 ½ minute) video, a brief explanation of how Battle of the Books works, & how the kids can participate.
Here is the schedule Nicole will follow:
4th grade – Tuesday at 1:00
3rd grade – Friday at 8:15 & 8:35
5th grade – Friday at 12:30
LOOKING AHEAD
On October 2nd we have an Early Release day. That afternoon we will have Mamie McCullough present to us. Mamie is a hilarious motivational speaker who used to work with Zig Ziglar & is funny & down-to-earth. She will give us a lift!
October 12th is a district professional development day that you will have some good offerings to choose from & October 13th is a campus day & we’ll allow for some vertical team time as well as some ICLE work that day – more details will be shared with you regarding our plans for the 13th soon as we’re excited about that day!
CHECK OUT WWW.DIY.ORG/SKILLS TO GET CLUB IDEAS.
TECH DO'S
Week 5 – Set up a SKYPE account to use within our campus.
Week 6 – Set up your Canvas Profile Page – this should be after we’ve had the training, so you will know what to do, & we’re told it is easy to do.
Week 7 – Set up your You Tube Channel. Chase & Tim are our resident experts on this. More information will be shared soon.
Week 8 – Create a Flipped Lesson that you can use with your learners. (This will be modeled for you before our Fundamental Five faculty meeting at the end of the month.)
Week 9 – Create a presentation for your class using one of the following presentation tools: Prezi, Powtoon, Emaze, Power Point, or another one that you like.
At the start of the school year, I had plenty of motivation for creating a classroom brand, but had to devise how I would implement my classroom brand in my physics classes and determine what it would require to get students to buy in to the brand. The classroom brand had already been chosen, TeamPhysics, but without much of a background in marketing, implementing the brand was a challenge. So, I looked at all that I knew of successful branding campaigns and put pieces together from each to form the elements of my classroom brand.
- Write your classroom experience sentence -
- Design a logo for your classroom brand -
- Come up with a hashtag for your classroom brand -
- You need a mantra for your classroom brand -
Think of the short sub-sentences that companies have underneath their logo. Tumblr has a good one: "follow the world's creators." This is something that students can remember and recite to others about your classroom brand. It helps build that abstract element of what the brand stands for. The TeamPhysics mantra is "Challenge accepted."
- Your classroom brand should embody student-developed norms and values -
Not at all to be confused with classroom rules, norms and values are ideals that students seek to have in their classroom community. Develop these together in the first days of the school year and then promulgate them. A good example of a norm from TeamPhysics refers to what happens after whiteboard presentations or students volunteer. The norm is: everyone claps, and it's a golf clap. These are those behaviors that everyone wants to have going on but don't come from rules. Much like tipping a server at a restaurant is a norm, not a rule.
- Classroom brand paraphernalia -
Start planning early to find out who your school or athletic department uses to get t-shirts made. Have students participate in the design of the shirts, choose colors, etc. Get them made as early as possible in the year. Encourage everyone to get one, and, if you can, find grant money, booster club or parent club support, to get everyone a shirt. You can have special days where students where their shirts, like test days (like game day support for a team.) It helps to promote the classroom brand and unify the group.
- Make your classroom brand ubiquitous to students -
- Obtain survey-based feedback on your classroom brand from students from time to time -
TeamPhysics was one of the best ideas I have ever had for building classroom culture and establishing the learning climate I wanted to foster in my students. It fits with the way that I teach science and my philosophy of education. It gives the students something to be a part of and not merely feel they are just in another class. This can be really helpful when the going gets tough. Since physics is taught using the Modeling Method we are doing a tremendous amount of student-centered activity in groups as well as project-based learning. The atmosphere of the classroom is that of a team, and needs to be just that, in order for Modeling Instruction to work. Modeling Instruction doesn't work if you don't build rapport and the fastest way to building rapport is to promote a positive classroom culture.
The students really came together around the classroom brand and talked it up so much and so regularly that it did become something bigger than I alone could ever have made it. The principal would comment to me about how he noticed students regularly Tweeting about physics using the hashtag #TeamPhysics and that they seemed to be genuinely interested in the notion of 'physics as sport.' It was rarely homework to Tweet about physics. Instead, we would have #TweetYour______ Twitter activities during class, where students would share pictures of their labs, whiteboards, or even just their data. Also, we held class discussions, much like #scichat, on Twitter during class and played Kelly O'Shea's whiteboard mistake game using Twitter as well (#WhatsUpWithThatBoard.) Students outside of class would post comments or questions about homework, share photos of projects in the works, or just share links to physics related stuff they saw outside of school or online. When the students started sharing on their own volition about physics with the #TeamPhysics hashtag, I felt I had accomplished something with the classroom brand.
To round out our classroom culture, we had character building activities during the year, opportunities for community service, and celebrations of accomplishment.
The Rock, Paper, Scissors tournament is a good example. This single elimination challenge of the classic game has the winners of each round taking the losers with them to the next round as their cheering squad. This is the "biggest fan" stipulation. If you lose, you become the winner's biggest fan and cheer them on. By the finals, the class is divided in half shouting and cheering on one or the other student. There are plenty of character-building team-building activities out there. They take only a few minutes and can make the difference in sculpting your classroom culture from time to time.
In December, we adopt a local family whose name has been submitted as needing assistance for Christmas. The class divides up into groups and organizes purchasing gifts and food for the entire family for Christmas. Then, they have a wrapping party one day (complete with hot chocolate and donuts) and then choose a few students to personally deliver the gifts to the family. This is always a memorable opportunity for students and makes the class seem to be more than just 'learning physics.'
Donut holes or popcorn parties are easy to do, and they go well with activities in class. For example, if you have presentations coming up after a big project, get a bunch of popcorn for everyone to share and eat while they observe the presentations. Putting this extra tidbit into your classroom activities can make 'scary presentation time' into a celebration of accomplishment.
When it all comes down to it, there are so many activities and elements of the TeamPhysics classroom that stem from the classroom branding idea. For me, the classroom brand had to entail a sense of team, foster student-student and teacher-student rapport, help extend learning beyond the school day, and be something with which students could identify. Capitalizing on the popularity of the #Team________ concept on Twitter, and leveraging the power of branding, helped to create the classroom culture that I always wanted. The reason I believe it was successful now, looking back, is that everything I wanted my classroom to stand for was all represented in one centralized abstract thing, the classroom brand. Once your classroom brand takes off, other students and colleagues will start to take note. It will bring positive attention to your students and their classroom, which will reinforce the greatness of that classroom culture.
THIS WEEK AT A GLANCE:
Monday – Grade level PLC meetings, PBIS meeting 3PM
Tuesday – Vision & Hearing Screening K-1, 3 & 5, Watch Dog Dad’s Kick off meeting – 6PM
Wednesday – No faculty meeting today!
Thursday – Individual Picture Day, Brief meeting for K & I teachers to debrief about LIINK with Dr. Chadwell – 3PM
Friday – Theme Friday – Crazy Socks Day, Student Design Team meets at 2PM (5th grade)
NOTEABLE QUOTABLE:
SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT:
Like it or not, your classroom is already “branded.” Is it the one you want? If not, how can you change your practice to change the story that can be told?
SHOUT OUTS
· We want to give a shout out to the following teachers & staff for attending our Howdy Dinner Friday night:
Danielle Adama, Nala Beal, Hope Howell, Pam English, Sandi Bowers, Debbi Roest, Madeline Tittle, Regina, Sheryl Copeland, Beth Carpenter, & Kelli Shipp. Your presence was noted & is appreciated!
· KUDOS to Drew for being our Care Captain on the Because we Care campaign & to Cathy Wells for being the Co-Captain.
· We’re so fortunate to have Chandi Punt with us this year!
She is doing an exceptional job & has gone out of her way to reach out & communicate with her Speech parents. Way to Go Chandi!