Jet Stream
December 3-7
CONGRATULATIONS MR. PATTON!
Selected by peers as the WH NGC Teacher of the Year!
Join us for donuts in the conference room on Monday morning.
Classroom Management
Dimension 2: Discipline
- How do you communicate conduct standards and self-discipline?
- Do students monitor and intervene to implement these standards and expectations?
- Are students engaged in and mindful of class expectations?
- How do students show that they are engaged?
- Is student behavior monitored at all times? Provide examples of how you monitor behavior.
- What are some logical interventions you use that encourage self-discipline and prevent misbehavior?
Dimension 6: Student Relations
- Is the respect between teacher and student mutual and evident in all forms of communication? How is this respect evident?
- How do you exude a passion for content and curriculum?
- Are students internalizing the value of learning and teacher expectations? What are some examples of this?
NGC Behavior Interventions
Total Incidents: 10
- Disruption-2
- Disrespect-2
- Profanity-3
- Dress Code-3
If you see an issue, let's help our students correct the issue and document it as such in your grade book. Repeated issues should be reported through a referral. You can use the helpful document that Ms. Vafadar and the Community Culture Solutions Team created.
How To Keep Your Students Calm And Focused This Holiday Season
by Michael Linsin on December 2, 2017
As the holiday season ramps up, students become antsier.
They can feel the midyear break just around the corner.
And their excitement builds day by day.
The weather, the music, the traditions. The decorations, the lights, the commercials.
Despite how much your school may try to avoid the reminders, it all has a way of spilling over into the classroom.
Causing excitability, restlessness, and misbehavior.
If you’re not careful, the two weeks or so before vacation can be a stressful grind to the finish.
But it doesn’t have to be this way. In fact, with just a few strategies it can be a time of calm and focus and even accelerating improvement.
Here’s how:
1. Take your time.
Your students are strongly influenced by your temperament. Thus, the more excitable they are due to outside forces, the more important it is for you to stay calm and take your time.
Pause frequently. Speak in a softer voice. Move efficiently and with graceful ease. Breathe fully, in and out, and keep your body loose and relaxed.
Although your students may bring rambunctiousness and commotion with them from home, you control whether they keep it or surrender it out into the ether.
2. Provide more breaks.
Mental and physical breaks become more essential the closer you get to vacation. So get your students up and moving frequently, every thirty minutes or so.
Lead them in a series of stretches, yoga poses, exercises, or slow deep breathing. Let them walk over to say hello to a friend and even chat for a few minutes.
Include more time and opportunities to express their thoughts and ideas though pair-share and group work.
By providing the means through which they can shake out their restlessness, they’ll return to their more focused responsibilities refreshed and prepared to learn.
3. Focus on details.
One of the negative byproducts of over-excited students is that their work becomes sloppy and less precise. Following directions and performing routines also tend to suffer.
The antidote is to be more specific and detailed in your instruction. Add an additional modeling exercise. Ask another checking-for-understanding question.
Double down on the nitty-gritty and the chassis won’t get so loose.
And if anything ever fails to meet your high-bar standards, back up to the previous transition, reestablish your expectations, and start over again.
4. Increase the challenge.
The tendency is for teachers to lighten up as vacation nears. Without even realizing it, they find themselves accepting less and asking less because they happen to be in the midst of a holiday season.
But this sends the message that it’s okay to be less attentive and have shoddy work habits, that a certain amount of misbehavior is expected.
Although you should always push the envelope on what you ask of your students—every day of the year—the closer you get to an extended break the more critical this becomes.
Because it keeps your students on task, focus-driven, and striving to the end.
Subtle But Powerful
Effective classroom management requires you to be mindful of the moment, the time of day, and the season of the year. It takes a proactive view and a shrewd approach to potential landmines that lie ahead.
If you simply go about your business, the two weeks before holiday break can be filled with headaches, apprehension, and added stress.
But with just a few adjustments, a few tweaks to your pace, timing, instruction, and disposition, you can maintain your own sense of peace and enjoyment this holiday season.
You can subtly but powerfully alleviate the negative excitement and energy, the silliness and distraction, the impatience and impulsiveness.
And keep your class calm and focused all the way to the final bell.
Semester Finals Begin Wednesday, December 19th
Benchmark Test Creation:
Here is a link to MS and HS codes for benchmark test names. Please let us know if you have any questions regarding the naming process. This is to help you organize and make test results easily accessible. We have created an Achievement Series Tutorial full of helpful documents that you may need.
Video Tutorials are also available:
Creating and Item Bank Video Tutorial
Creating a Test Video Tutorial
Insert Item from Bank Video Tutorial
Activate a Test Video Tutorial
Important Dates for Benchmark Testing:
- Benchmark Testing window will be open from Wednesday, December 19th through Friday, December 21st.
- 9th Grade and HS will test December 19-21st. If you have students who need to test early due to leaving town or the country, please contact your administrator to make arrangements for early testing. We plan to have tests ready by December 13th for these special cases.
- Writing prompts will be delivered by the end of the day on December 7th.
- Answer sheets will be available for printing by Thursday, December 13th.
- Make sure you sign benchmarks in and out on the checkout sheet in the office. Return the benchmarks back in number order and in the correct file folder!!
- Online test codes can be checked out from Kathy Ralson at NGC and Steve Brinson at the HS.
- All benchmarks are to be scanned into Achievement Series by Friday, January 4th.
- Gradebooks will need to be up to date on Friday, January 4th. Tutorial for Loading Grades to Report Card