CKE Monday Notes
"If It's to Be, It's Up to Me"
Common Planning Follow-Up
Good morning Coker Family! Teachers please remember the following from our common planning meetings:
- Through grade level collaboration, work on developing common assessments to better inform instruction and improve practices. This means that teachers should be working TOGETHER to develop various assessments that everyone uses in the same subject area in your grade level.
- Use assessment results to provide specific, individualized, standards-based teacher feedback to students (not cut and paste comments) and use these results to adjust instruction.
- STRENGTHEN SCHOOL-WIDE IMPLEMENTATION OF DIFFERENTIATION - Stating that students will answer more or less questions or work independently or in groups is NOT differentiation. Your plans should include more detail about the specific activities that your students will be doing. And differentiation should be more pervasive, not just conducted once or twice a week.
- Students should be setting learning targets and goals aligned to standards, and use self-monitoring tools more often like rubrics, checklists, and exemplars so that they can actively monitor their own progress. Students should be examining their progress on academic goals.
- Through grade level collaboration, work on developing common assessments to better inform instruction and improve practices. This means that teachers should be working TOGETHER to develop various assessments that everyone uses in the same subject area in your grade level.
- Use assessment results to provide specific, individualized, standards-based teacher feedback to students (not cut and paste comments) and use these results to adjust instruction.
- STRENGTHEN SCHOOL-WIDE IMPLEMENTATION OF DIFFERENTIATION - Stating that students will answer more or less questions or work independently or in groups is NOT differentiation. Your plans should include more detail about the specific activities that your students will be doing. And differentiation should be more pervasive, not just conducted once or twice a week.
- Students should be setting learning targets and goals aligned to standards, and use self-monitoring tools more often like rubrics, checklists, and exemplars so that they can actively monitor their own progress. Students should be examining their progress on academic goals.
Kindergarten Registration
Our annual kindergarten registration will take place on Thursday (3/10) from 12:00-6:00 in the media center. Let's be hoping and praying for a GRRREAT turnout!
Spring Picture Day
Spring Pictures and Class Pictures will be taken this Thursday morning in the media center and possibly some in the Paw Hall. We would ask that everyone be on time for pictures since we have kindergarten registration beginning at 12:00.
CKE Tech Cafe
Common planning time on Thursday will consist of the next installment of Tech Talk with Dr. Terry in Adrian's classroom.
Revisiting Rigor
Common Definitions - Quality of thinking, not quantity, and that can occur in any grade and in any subject; High expectations are important, and must include effort on the part of the learner.
Rigor Myth: In order to engage in rigor, students must first master the basics. - Rigorous thinking is involved in learning even the most basic material. Students can learn the basics in highly rigorous ways. They can learn how to build adequate representations, organize those facts in some way, analyze and construct relationships among those facts, and make inferences beyond what is explicitly presented while they are mastering the basics.
For those that missed their PLC meeting this past month I have included the clip from Dr. Bill Daggett below on rigor and relevance. Check it out! : )
Rigor Myth: In order to engage in rigor, students must first master the basics. - Rigorous thinking is involved in learning even the most basic material. Students can learn the basics in highly rigorous ways. They can learn how to build adequate representations, organize those facts in some way, analyze and construct relationships among those facts, and make inferences beyond what is explicitly presented while they are mastering the basics.
For those that missed their PLC meeting this past month I have included the clip from Dr. Bill Daggett below on rigor and relevance. Check it out! : )
Coker Elementary School
Home of the Cubs
Website: http://coker.murray.k12.ga.us/
Location: 1733 Leonard Bridge Road, Chatsworth, GA, United States
Phone: (706) 695-0888
Tip for the Week - Now That's a Good Question - Are You Sure?
I had a chemistry teacher who made me thing by asking questions. He often answered our questions with more questions and pushed us to be confident in our answers by asking, "Are you sure?" even when we were correct. It's a strategy that I used with my own students and now encourage other teachers to use. At first, students react by retracting or erasing their answer, but soon enough this question pushes students to think about why their answer is correct. It encourages students to have reasoning behind their answers, not just the "right" answer. Even if a student isn't sure, this question forces them to think about why they aren't sure and sparks a question of their own. - Jill Swissa
Dr. Willard Daggett Live: Relevance Makes Rigor Possible, 5 of 6
Quote of the Week
"You learn something out of everything, and you come to realize more than ever that we're all here for a certain space of time, and, and then it's going to be over, and you better make this count." - Nancy Reagan
Leadership Team Meeting
Coming up next Thursday - St. Patrick's Day - our leadership team will meet from 12-3 in Adrian's classroom. Please put this date on your calendar. Coming up next Tuesday is our monthly faculty meeting and Connie Brown from Mentoring Minds will be here to speak to us and share some new resources. Have a GRRREAT week! : )