Friday Faculty Focus
News and Notes about #BeBCMS-Issue #7- 2018
New Format: 1•5•10•15
We are crushing February! Thank you to everyone who has covered! I think with the warmer temperatures and the sunshine, spring is definitely on the horizon! Also I would like to officially welcome Ms. Snowden, our new Science teacher on Team 7! We are very excited to have Ms. Snowden join our family!
I am going to try out a new format in the Friday Focus. I used a similar version of this format this week in my Community Focus, and I like it. It is the 1*5*10*15 format. The Friday Focus will contain four core elements of information: the first block you can read in about one minute (the weekly events), the second block it may take you five minutes (Nuggets and News related to curriculum/instruction/data), the third block is the Curriculum and Instruction focus, a ten minute read and reflect, and the last block will be around fifteen minutes and it will always be about what I am reading, learning, and tweeting. I think you will find this new format more efficient and streamlined.
I am looking forward to our learning on Tuesday! Please report to the data room at 8:15 for the first annual #BeBCMS #BookTasting.
Tuesday Schedule:
8:15- #BeBCMS #BookTasting- Data Room
10:00- Leadership - Data Room
11:15- ALL head coaches meeting with Mr. Wright (Location TBD)
1:00 Special Education Teachers and co-teachers Professional Learning with KAT and Blaine- Data Room
Important Events! (The •1)
Monday- #CelebrateMonday , NO SCHOOL
Tuesday- #TerrificTuesday, Professional Learning: #BeBCMS #BookTasting 8:15 AM in the Data Room
Wednesday- #WinWednesday, The Innovation Center, Scholars Do Disney, GLRS here, MAP Learning Continuum workshop, Baseball B Team AWAY, Soccer AWAY, Principal's Advisory Council
Thursday-#ThankfulThursday, Scholars DO Disney, Baseball B Team HOME, Soccer AWAY
Friday- #FocusFriday, Scholars DO Disney, 7th grade STAFF BREAKFAST
Upcoming:
Disney Trip Feb. 21-22-23
Kindness Week- February 26th - March 2nd
Kindness Field Trip: Feb. 28th and March 1st -- Details coming this week!
Focus on..... Intentional Instruction (The •5)
Remember our #BeBCMS Moral Imperatives to an ELITE school?
a. Come to School- BE AMAZING- Go Home! Repeat
b. Bell to Bell instruction
c. ALL instruction/teaching will be on grade level and standards based
d. Take a STAND for teaching and learning. Get up!
Are you greeting your scholars at the door when they walk into the classroom? How do you communicate to them that you love what you GET to do everyday? I started teaching my WIN class this week and that is a non-negotiable for me. I am greeting every child with a high five and handshake when they walk into my learning environment. Please remember that our body language sometimes says more than our words! If you are communicating a Debbie downer day and a bad attitude, the scholars can see it, feel it, and often times will duplicate it! Be careful in the emotions you chose to spread! You get to set the tone of each and every class that you have. You have the power to make it an ELITE 60 minutes of learning!
Please remember we will begin our #ProjectLevelUP of GMAS preparation on Tuesday March 6th. That will give us a full 7 weeks before GMAS to prep and enrich our scholars to prepare them for the structure they will likely encounter on the test. We will be providing WIN curriculum for this as well as closings for every content class. It will be an expectation that beginning March 7th, you are closing your regular lesson and saving around 7-9 minutes for GMAS closing. Stay tuned for more information and details on how to implement this into your classroom to make it effective!
ALL lesson plans need to be turned in before you leave on Friday! (today)
Remember: Depth of Knowledge is less about verbs and more about critical thinking!
DOK 1: Memorize(factual knowledge)
DOK 2: Thinking (procedural knowledge)
DOK 3: Strategic Thinking (strategic knowledge)
DOK 4: NEW Thinking (extended knowledge)
QUICK REVIEW of our instructional strategies 1-4
1. Instructional Objective: Have it visual, aligned, and reference it
2. Suffix/Root Words/Prefix: Have them visual and accessible. Model use
3. Gradual Release: I do, we do together, we do collaboratively, you do. How are you using this in your teaching?
4. Types of Text: How are you using both informational text and literary text
ALSO:
1. Collaborative Planning is made up of three buckets:
Lesson Designs
PLCs
Data Analysis / Digging / DUMPing
Learning with Liz times:
7th grade 8:45-9:15
6th grade 11:45-12:15
8th grade 2:00-2:30
Here is our lesson design template: (make a copy first) https://docs.google.com/a/bryan.k12.ga.us/document/d/1YGAYfD7wP-xieqvJk0PXu7CXLgonm7JfSTQAuTpWOKY/edit?usp=sharing
Think Abouts?
1. What data are you using in your instructional design planning?
2. Are you and your co-teacher using the co-planning document each week to prepare for your instructional designs
3. Are you finding GAPS in your lessons? If so, think about ways we can support you to fill them in.
Nuggets and News (the •10)
PBIS Update:
February 2018 Data:
17 MAJORS
96 MINORS
February 2017 Data for Comparison:
89 MAJORS
221 MINORS
Please take a look at your own personal referral data. The highest teacher data (excluding office) is twenty!
OSS/ISS
To date:
209 days of OSS
222 days of ISS
This data supports that building relationships is ALWAYS the answer.
The Innovation Center: Please be on time and be intentional in your learning!
I am VERY proud of the work we are doing in The Innovation Center and we are ExExExCited for this incredible site based , intentional professional learning!
Q3 will be required by all staff.
TEACH LIKE A CHAMPION!
SPRING SPORT SIGN UPs! Every staff please sign up for TWO spots this spring for supervision. Forms are here: If you don't sign up this week, Mr. Wright will sign you up and let you know what you are covering.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OC9uSswNY4xjM3gFDpJBjbGr6zGKJ1hak8eRRXVdSbQ/edit?usp=sharing (baseball)
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1A5Q3xHHslCpXxX9CCMzZ8AQXyLijqydsWIphbp4u9jA/edit?usp=sharing (soccer)
Compliance Checks - 5x5s will be on Wednesday this week! Looks fors will be on alignment between SWBAT and what you are teaching.
Focus is on: Instructional Objectives and intentional instruction!
Meetings Schedules: Monday: TEAM, Tuesday: Learn with Liz (PL), Wednesday: Math ,Thursday: ELA/Soc.St. , Friday: Science
Keep up the ELITE work with the Positive Referrals!
Problem Solving Summit Committes will be released soon! Stay tuned!
Jeans passes are for FRIDAY's only! (Earned Jeans passes are for any day)-- Please make sure you are dressing professional every day that is not designated a JEANS day and if you are wearing JEANS you turn in your pass to Ms. Shelby.
Techie Thursdays with Dana is optional Professional Learning but ELITE. Please consider being a part of the PL and implement your new strategies into your classroom designs.
EdCamp Bryan is March 16th. Participation is optional. Sign up is live! If we get 100% participation, we will have a FULL STAFF CELEBRATION day on Monday March 18th!
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/edcamp-bryan-tickets-41396166047
Chrome Cart Splits: We will be making some adjustments to our sharing of Chrome carts beginning Quarter 4 (March 7th) Stay tuned for that!
NEW TECH/Gadgets: Are there items you would LOVE to get for your learning experiences! Fill out a WISH REQUEST to let me know to be in consideration! The link is here:
Staff Breakfast Celebrations:
Friday February 23rd - 7th grade team
Friday March 30th - 8th grade team
Friday April 27th - Connections
Friday May 18th - Office Squad
#LoveTheProcess
What I'm Reading.... (The •15)
I am very excited to have been selected to lead a PIRATE Twitter Chat this Spring! On May 21st, I will be the moderator for the #LearnLAP Twitter Chat, co-hosted with the author of the ELITE book, Paul Solarz! There will be more details about that as we get closer, but I have taken time to reread this great book to select a topic.
As I started to reread, a common theme kept coming up: feedback. It was interesting too, because I had been in several classrooms this week and had questions about what kind of feedback Ts are giving to Ss in an effort to increase and maximize the learning. Then, in my own WIN class, as I read over the pre-test and graded it, I was faced with my own feedback dilemma. I KNOW that if I just give the rubric score (1, 2, 3, 4) that is not going to increase ANY learning! Instead, I had to provide examples and structure of what exactly is expected when they answer a short constructed response.
John Hattie tells us the effect size of feedback is HUGE! One of the biggest, actually! .75 to .78 to 1.17 effect size! Couple that with students predicting their grade, and you have a recipe for success!
"I believed my students' abilities could grow EXPONENTIALLY if I could increase the amount of CRITICAL feedback they received."
Do you agree with this statement? I do, because I have witnessed it and I am experiencing it right now!
I KNOW that if we want our scholars to dominate the GMAS and all of their learning-- we have to teach them and model EXACTLY what is expected and that begins with the feedback we are giving them!
Paul talks a ton about this in his book, Learn Like A Pirate, as there is an entire chapter dedicated to improvement focus! Mark May 21st on your calendar and join me in the chat!
#ReadersAreLeaders
#RTB
#Moments
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#BeBCMS
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