CPUMS
Week of December 5
Formative Assessment Strategies-Fist to Five
Students put hand up with one of the following prompts:
Fist (represents 0)-I don't get it. I am frustrated and possibly angry.
Five-High 5- I get!!!!
1-4 fingers is a likert scale on their level of understanding.
Inspiration from last week!
Small changes can lead to big results!
The key to improving student achievement isn't more teacher time—it's more teacher impact. But how do you decide which instructional practices will deliver the most bang for your buck?
This is no one-size-fits-all to-do list for the classroom—it's a simple and flexible framework you can customize to fit your working style and students' needs. Grounded in more than a decade of work with instructional coaches, this revolutionary book focuses on the three areas of high-impact instruction:
- Content planning, including using guiding questions, learning maps, and formative assessment
- Instructional practices such as the use of thinking prompts, effective questions, challenging assignments, and experiential learning
- Community building, in which you shape a classroom culture that promotes well-being, creativity, learning, and high expectations
This accessible road map for professional learning empowers and supports you in making changes to your practice with practical tools, including:
- Checklists, numerous observation tools, and recommended resources for further reading
- Online videos that focus on implementation of high-leverage instructional practices
- Ways that students, teachers, instructional coaches, and principals can support implementation of the practices
- Suggestions for using the book and videos in coaching and school improvement efforts
I look forward to working with you in any of these areas. My "playbook" is filled with new ideas and information. If interested get in touch with me!!
Positive Praise
Jim Knight believes that positive comments should out weight negative comments 5:1. Here are some suggestions from him:
- Commit to saying hello to every student as he or she enters the classroom (put special emphasis on kids with whom you may have had a recent negative interaction).
- Seek out positive (appropriate) interactions that are not contingent on behavior.
- Find the little things that make kids tick (activity, team, interest, etc.) and talk about them with them.
- Catch the good behavior by drawing attention to it (thanking students, commenting, etc.).
- Focus praise or attention on effort rather than attributes (talk about a student’s hard work rather than a student’s intelligence).
- Pay attention to academic and behavioral opportunities for praise.
- Post reminders to praise (sticky note to yourself on; poster in the class, on your lesson plans).
- Set specific praise goals (today every student who gets the book out will be praised).
- Set goals based on irrelevant prompts (every time a teacher enters my room, I’ll praise three kids).
- Double up on praise by naming all students who are doing something appropriate (Michelle, Lea, Susan, and Jenny, thanks for getting your book out so quickly).
- Vary methods of praise.
- Call (or email) the parents of children who are doing well.
- Send home postcards to parents to praise kids.
- Prominently display student work in the classroom.
- Ignore minor misbehavior if the behavior is attention seeking.
Calendar
Monday 11/28/16
- Mindsets and Engagement with 8th grade students
- Team meetings-task
- Book study-Mathematical Mindsets
Tuesday, 11/29/16
- Mindsets and Engagement with 8th grade students
- Visit classrooms
- Subject area meetings
Wednesday,11/30/16
- Data Teams-7:30
- Work with students and teachers
- Work with students and teachers
- Team learning meetings
Friday, 12/2/16
- Work with students and teachers
- IC Meetings-PM
If you would like to see my Google calendar search my name while in Google Calendar.