Team Thomson News & Notes
November 28, 2016
Important Information for You!
Cool to Care
As we enter the last full week of this year's Cool to Care Drive, I want to thank yo all for your generosity and support of this worthwhile program. As you know, all of the items donated stay right in Davison and directly support our families and those living in our community. While there will be no 'special' incentives for staff this week, I just ask you to consider contributing one last time to your classes or the class of your choice. Classroom teachers, please let me know by the end of the day Monday what your total so far is. I will be sending home a note mid-week and would like to include where we are in meeting our 3,500 item goal.
Holidays & Behavior
As you know the holidays can be a very exciting time for kids, however, they can also be a time of stress and anxiety for some students. All of this can have an impact behavior. It is important to remain consistent and calm in our expectations, reteach (not retell) when needed, and use positive reinforcement (not threats of missing 'special time/things'). If you have students that do not seem themselves, first seek to understand where the behavior is coming from or what might be causing it. Use your PLC team, counselors, Jen Seal, and myself to problem solve and develop strategies with.
Early Release Day
Early Release PD for the majority of the staff will focus on Unpacking/Implementation of the Common Core Standards. We will not only 'unpack' the Standards, but we will also be writing Learning Targets, Success Criteria, Aligning Materials, etc. The goal for the first two hours is that teachers walk away with a set of unpacked standards that can be put into practice in the classroom. The last hour will be a time for teachers to discuss, share what is working, and problem solve things that might not be going so well during the Word Study block. Classroom teachers should be prepared with Language Arts curriculum materials and Word Study materials/schedules.
Parapros will be given their agenda from Melissa Baracco. Music teachers will be meeting at Gates to work on ACC documents. Speech paths will be meeting as a group to work on 5D+ materials.
Remember, students will be dismissed at 1:28 p.m. and professional development will run from 1:45-4:45 p.m. for those at Thomson. If anyone has any questions prior to Early Release, please let me know.
News from the Tech Department
As Chris Lesko shared in an email earlier this month, the tech department will begin enforcing length and complexity requirements for all employee computer login passwords beginning the evening of Monday, November 28th. New passwords will be required to have more than 8 characters and contain characters from three of the following five categories:
- Uppercase characters of European languages (A through Z)
- Lowercase characters of European languages (a through z)
- Base 10 digits (0 through 9)
- Non-alphanumeric characters: ~!@#$%^&*_-+=`|\(){}[]:;"'<>,.?/
- Any Unicode character that is categorized as an alphabetic character but is not uppercase or lowercase. This includes Unicode characters from Asian languages.
This new policy is necessary to keep our district's network and data secure. Also in the the email from Chris, he shared that we would move to sync our Google and Synergy accounts at the same time, so that we will use the same information across all three systems. This change will not require us to put in a help-desk ticket but we will have to complete the process on Tuesday morning (Nov. 29) in order to have computer access.
Sharing the Learning Target and Success Criteria Verbally
"Verbally sharing the learning target and success criteria means more than simply telling students what to do in the lesson. To be effective, the language we use must be descriptive, developmentally appropriate, and student-friendly. And it must be be stated from the point of view of a student who has not yet mastered the learning target" (Moss, Brookhart, 2012). Two effective verbal strategies are: the Four-Step Framework and the I-Can Framework. Listening to students paraphrase a learning target is a third strategy that works with both frameworks to deepen student understanding.
The Four-Step Framework uses a set of "starter prompts" that unpack the learning target, performance of understanding, and success criteria from the student's perspective. The four starter prompts are:
We are learning to...
We will show we can do this by...
To know how well we are learning this, we will look for...
It is important for us to learn this (or be able to do this) because...
The first starter/step helps us explain the learning target in student-friendly, developmentally-appropriate terms. The second prompt/step describes the performance of understanding. The third step describes the look-fors (success criteria) and the fourth step establishes relevancy.
The I-Can Framework is much shorter and assumes students understand the relationship of learning target and success criteria. The I-Can Framework uses:
Step 1: Describe the learning target in student-friendly language;
Step 2: Alert the students to the performance of understanding as an "I can" statement
It is important to remember that posting learning targets and communicating them are two very different things. Our job to to ensure that our students know what it is that they are supposed to be learning and how they will know if they have learned it or not.
Quotes Worth Reading
"Every child deserves a champion: an adult who will never give up on them, who understands the power of connection and insists they become the best they can possibly be."
-Rita Pierson
"Your profession is not what brings home your weekly paycheck, your profession is what you're put here on earth to do, with such passion and such intensity that it becomes spiritual in calling."
-Vincent VanGogh
Thomson Elementary
Home of the Thomson Teddies!
And..
Where Kids Come First and Futures Begin!
Email: nmiller@davisonschools.org
Website: www.davisonschools.org
Location: 617 East Clark Street, Davison, MI, United States
Phone: 810-591-0911
Celebrations & Announcements
Thursday, December 1st, Baby Shower for Emily Williams! Please join us in the staff lounge and library at 3:45 p.m.
Important Upcoming Dates:
- Monday, November 28th-Math Curriculum Committee Meeting, 4:15-6:15 p.m.
- Wednesday, November 30th-Early Release Day, students leave at 1:28 p.m., staff professional development from 1:45-4:45 p.m.
- Thursday, December 1st-Elementary Principals Meeting; Emily William's Baby Shower, 3:45 p.m. in the Staff Lounge/Library
- Friday, December 2nd-Thomson Trading Post Open
- Monday, December 5th-Cool to Care Ends; Board of Education Meeting, 7:00 p.m. in the H.S. AMR
- Tuesday, December 6th-k-2 ELA Meeting, 4:15-6:15 p.m.
- Wednesday, December 7th-Cool to Care Pick-up; Natalie at MEMSPA Conference
- Thursday, December 8th-Natalie at MEMSPA Conference
- Friday, December 9th-Natalie at MEMSPA Conference; Table of Honor