EAGLE MOUNTAIN NEWS & NOTES #30
APRIL 6, 2015
EAGLE MOUNTAIN ELEMENTARY
Email: bmclain@ems-isd.net
Twitter: @bmacEME
REAL QUICK
Thank you all so very very much for your perseverance on the STAAR tests last week and for the way you came together for the benefit of KIDS! Our testing went smoothly thanks to your deliberate efforts, & it is appreciated more than we can convey!
I know things are especially busy this time of year & will remain that way until June! A teacher remarked to me last week that in essence we take four months & cram them into two, & I thought that was spot on accurate! I hope it gives you comfort to know what you are doing MATTERS! Let’s strive to have a strong ending to our year as it will be over before we know it!
IMPORTANT INFO FOR THIS WEEK!
· Our EME 25 Skill of the week is Rule #23 - Don’t ask for a reward!
· Thank you for doing such a wonderful job with your clubs. Please let Tim know by next Friday what your next club will be & we need to make sure each club is strongly connected to a TEK. You’ll have a few weeks off before we start our final round of clubs.
· This reminder that your TSR Sections II & III are due April 15th.
· Thanks for your patience as I help out Comanche Springs.
· Drew will be out Wednesday – Friday for crisis training.
· Please make sure you include in your class newsletters that we will have school next Friday, April 17th as a bad weather make up day.
· Please maximize instruction these next two weeks as we prepare for the final rounds of testing…every minute counts!
Measuring What Matters Most in Schools
In this article in The Boston Globe Magazine, Susan Engel (Williams College) wades into the debate about standardized testing with an arresting statement: the tests U.S. students are taking don’t measure what really matters in life. But Williams isn’t for banning all tests. Rather, she says, we should assess what we value most in order to get objective feedback on how schools are doing on their most important job. “We need an empirical snapshot of a school,” she says. “By approaching assessment this way, we’d free up students and teachers to do more meaningful work.”
Here’s her list of seven high-level educational outcomes, which she believes can be ascertained through sample testing:
• Reading – The goal should be “the ability to read an essay or book and understand it well enough to use the information in some practical way or to talk about it with another person,” says Engel. This won’t happen unless students are reading on a regular basis, using books and other texts for pleasure and information, and continuously developing their grammatical complexity, vocabulary, and thinking ability. What’s the best way to measure all this? By analyzing random samples of students’ essays and stories.
• Inquiry – Young children enter school with a natural “disposition to inquire,” says Engel. However, she continues, “One of the great ironies of our educational system is that it seems to squelch the impulse most essential to learning new things and to pursuing scientific discovery and invention.” Maintaining childish inquisitiveness and curiosity should be a major goal of schools, and the best way to keep track of progress is keeping track of the number and quality of questions a child asks in a given period of time – Can they be answered with data? How does the child go about getting answers? And how persistent is the child when answers are hard to find?
• Flexible thinking and use of evidence – College students are assessed on their ability to think about a situation in several different ways, says Engel. Why not get this information on K-12 students and use it to fine-tune the curriculum? Kids might be asked to respond to a prompt like this: “Choose something you are good at and describe to your reader how you do it” or “Write a description of yourself from a friend’s (or enemy’s) point of view.”
• Conversation – “Teachers are given scant training in how to encourage, expand, and deepen children’s conversations,” says Engel, and notes that economically disadvantaged children are less likely to hear and be part of rich conversations at home. How can conversational skills be assessed? By listening in on children’s chats, it’s possible to code:
- The length of exchanges and turns taken;
- How many of these turns are in response to what was just said;
- How attuned each speaker is to what the other person is saying and thinking;
- Number of agreements and disagreements.
- Variety and depth of topics;
- Points of view articulated;
- Amount of information exchanged.
“If teachers knew that their students’ conversations were valuable and that they and their students were being measured by their conversations,” says Engel, “they might get more help learning how to scaffold or enrich children’s talk.”
• Collaboration – “One of the most robust findings in developmental psychology is that kids learn how to treat one another by watching the way adults treat them and treat each other,” says Engel. “The habits of kindness and teamwork need time, effort, and attention to develop.” She believes that teacher training programs, professional development, and administrators need to be more attentive to this hidden curriculum and measure the levels of helpfulness and mutual support within the student body and faculty. For example, some popular students lord it over their cafeteria tables while socially isolated students don’t know where they can sit.
• Engagement – The educational philosopher Harry Brighouse believes that one of the most powerful cognitive skills children can acquire is the ability to remain focused on something for 20 minutes at a time. Engel says schools should look for this ability and work to get all students to at least that level of engagement. This means frequently observing everyday classroom activities and seeing if teachers are providing opportunities for students to become fully absorbed in and energized by specific activities.
• Well-being – One way to measure if the six preceding elements are in place is asking students questions like these:
- How often do you enjoy being in school?
- What are you working on? Does it interest you? Do you care about it?
- Do the adults in this school know you?
“7 Things Every Kid Should Master” by Susan Engel in The Boston Globe, March 1, 2015,
THERE ARE NO NEW TECH DO'S THIS NINE WEEKS
THESE ARE THE TECH DO'S WE HAD THIS YEAR.
1st WEEK – Try ClassDojo.com
2nd WEEK – Decide what you would like to do. (twitter or blog)
3rd WEEK – Twitter or blog should be ready to go
4th WEEK - Post at least one time to twitter or blog
5th WEEK – Set up a You Tube Channel
6th WEEK – Should be posting regularly to twitter or blog
7th WEEK – Post a video to You Tube
8th WEEK – Try to Flip one lesson
9th WEEK – What’s Your Plan for the Next nine weeks?1st WEEK – KEEP TWEETING AND BLOGGING
2nd WEEK – RESEARCH APPS AND SUBMIT APPS FOR APPROVAL
3rd WEEK – USE QR CODES IN A LESSON
4th WEEK - FLIP ONE LESSON THIS WEEK
5th WEEK – REPORT ON HOW iPADS ARE BEING USED IN YOUR CLASS
6th WEEK – TWEET AN AUTHOR ABOUT A BOOK THE CLASS HAS READ
7th WEEK – VIDEO A STUDENT LED LESSON AND POST TO YOUTUBE
8th WEEK – POST A STUDENT LED TWEET
9th WEEK – MAKE-UP ONE WEEK YOU MISSED
THIS WEEK AT A GLANCE:
Monday – Bryan to CS this morning, PTA Board meeting – 8:45, Happy Birthday to Steve Skidmore
Tuesday – Bryan to Principal’s meeting & Budget training in the morning, The Teacher of the Year nomination committee meets after school, Happy Birthday to Leslie Hooe!
Wednesday – Bryan to CS this morning, Drew out, Tim to ALI & out in the afternoon
Thursday – Bryan to CS for a couple of hours, Kelli, Regina & Suzanne to ALI, Drew out
Friday – Mom’s & Muffins – 7AM, Eagles of Character celebration – 1:15, Drew out
NOTEABLE QUOTABLES:
SHOUT OUTS
- A big thank you to Janet Dickerson for donating 2 sets of new guided readers to our Guided Reading Library! Your thoughtfulness is appreciated.
- Congratulations to Christina Witta who is officially an Eagle now & is doing amazing things in Kindergarten! We’re thankful you’re here!
- Kelli deserves a gold star for her top-notch organization of all things STAAR –related. We wouldn’t trade for her! Thank you Kelli for keeping it all together!