Points of Pride
August 25, 2017
What a Week!!!
There has been a lot of reflecting for me this week as I continue to look for ways to improve my practice.
Instructional Focus:
This week I wanted to spend some time reviewing why it's so important to not only have your objective posted in the classroom, but to state it at the beginning of a lesson and allow for reflection at the end. Now I am being transparent here, so please don't hold it against me :) When I was teaching, I never really saw the need to put the objective on the board, and even when I started doing it, it was just because Lana told me to. Then I sat back and wondered why no kids would advocate for themselves and raise their hands when they had a question.
I have come to learn, that my students didn't know, what they didn't know. Since the lesson had no specific stated purpose at the beginning, they were unable to use metacognition to reflect, and then advocate. Take a minute (the video really is just over a minute long) to watch the video below about "SWBAT." While the term "SWBAT" is a little dated, think of how easily this practice could be tweaked to "I can," or "We can."
Robert
Odds and Ends:
- We don't have site specific dates for AIMS and AzMERIT yet, but the state has given us our window: AIMS Science will be March 26-April 20, AzMERIT Writing will be April 2-13, and AzMERIT Reading and Math will be April 2-27.
- Arizona Representative Travis Grantham will be attending Settler's Point Elementary on September 14 from 8:00-12:15. More details to come as we put together his agenda for the day. We are excited for "Take your Legislator to Work Day." I think this will be a great way to showcase all the great things we do here.
- I am looking to start a PBIS committee for Settler's Point and would love to have the following groups represented: specials, primary, and intermediate. This is a philosophy that is a passion of mine and I look forward to "jazzing" up our Dandylions. Meetings will not be more than monthly. If you are interested in joining, please email me.
- No AM Specials (prior to 12:00) on August 30. For compensation, please see Maria.
- State letter grades for schools has been pushed back to September 12 (ish).
First Fire Drill....
Cookie Dough....
Diamondbacks Teacher Event...
Observation Information....
Please know that walkthroughs are a "snapshot" of your teaching, and you should not get all "observed." The district has been working on creating better inter-rater reliability for this among administrators. I am only supposed to be in your room for 5-10 minutes, and it's going to be very difficult for me to see everything that is on that form. It does not mean that you are a bad teacher, it just means that I didn't see it during that 5-10 minutes.