Wm. Adams Middle School
Faculty and Staff Newsletter • January 7 - 11, 2018
Duty This Week
Be Intentional
One thing that I am working on is being more intentional. I want to act on as much of my day as I can with purpose. Yes, we all need "down time" and time to decompress, and those times will happen. But my hope is that by planning my day better, my productivity will increase and I can reflect on the day with more positivity.
The question I have for you is this: How can you make your day more intentional? Perhaps you are happy with your work plan as it now exists. If so, great! If not, I have included a form at the bottom of this newsletter for your consideration. No one has to use this. My intention (no pun intended) is not to give you more work. If you find that it works for you, then please continue using it. You may find that it is a great accompanying document to your lesson plans. I will give 3 jeans passes to the first teacher who uses them for a week and gives me feedback on how they worked, didn't work, or what they would change about them.
The work we do is too important do be done haphazardly; too much depends on us. Let's make every minute matter.
TPO - Three-Part Objective
Three Part Objectives came out of our trainings with John Samara and Model Classroom Project. These objectives, as their name implies, are written in 3 parts: The cognitive verb (from Bloom's Taxonomy), the content to be studied/presented, and the resulting product. Why do we put so much emphasis on the TPO? Well, there are several reasons, and among them are that as a teacher, it helps you translate your core curriculum into focused activities that impact student understanding and achievement, and it helps focus your instruction. The TPO, for students, helps focus their learning.
As mentioned above, the cognitive verb should be from the higher levels of Bloom's Taxonomy as much as possible. Yes, there will be times when students will be working at the lower levels; however, we must push them to think more so we should be designing our lessons such that students work at the higher levels (.....put the verbs here. )
The content area of the TPO provides a brief description of what is being studied.
Finally, the product is what students will be creating. Don't confuse this with a project. The product might be their journals, or an activity.
Example:
We will analyze figurative language in poetry using journal notes, and the poems "The Road Not Taken," and share ideas through teacher-led discussion and Thinking Maps.
It is easy to see the specificity in this 3-part objective. The cognitive verb is so important to the lesson objective. Please remember this when you write your objectives.
Too often, we write the objective on the board and never address it during the course of the lesson. By starting there, students have a smooth transition into the lesson and can immediately focus their energy and attention to the work at hand. One of the strategies we learned from our trainings with Mr. Samara, is to engage students from the very beginning by asking for a volunteer, or selecting a student, to read the objective aloud to the class. Then, the teacher spends just a minute or so asking what the cognitive verb means and setting the stage for the work to be done during that class period.
Walkthrough Focus This Week
As per the TTESS rubric, we will be looking for opportunities for students to establish high academic and social-emotional expectations for themselves; evidence of mastery of the objective; opportunities for students to self-monitor and self-correct mistakes.