Wildcat Weekly
January 28, 2019
Could our kids explain what we are trying to teach them?
I recently had a chance to be a part of a pretty important and meaningful conversation with a group of people I highly respect and honor. An perhaps difficult question came up as to how we explicitly communicate the real world skills sets and mindsets to our students through work they are doing? Our group could easily identify the product of student work, but whether our kids were able to express their learning in terms of our 4 C's or in terms of developing character traits like grit or a sense of purpose, we were unsure if our kids could.
I am not a huge fan of acronyms. Sometimes I think we try to hard to make them work, however as I have been reading What School Could Be, after having spent an entire school year visiting over 200 schools Ted Dintersmith describes attributes he found to be common to those environments in which students thrive. Though he adds one more acronym to our world, this one made so much sense to me! The PEAK principles when used to guide instruction I believe can determine the difference between creating projects with a product versus meaningful learning experiences that go deeper. The next question is how? Explicit teaching of these skills is difficult, but I am looking forward to learning how we continue to grow in this area for our kids.
PEAK Principles
Purpose - Students attack challenges they know to be important, that makes their world better.
Essentials - Students acquire the skill sets and mindsets needed in an increasingly innovative world.
Agency - Students own their learning, becoming self-directed, intrinsically motivated adults.
Knowledge - What students learn is deep and retained, enabling them to create, to make, to teach others.
So as we launch into a new semester, whether we have a new set of kids or continue on with our same groups, we all have the opportunity to consider how we might continue creating experiences and environments to allow our students to own their learning.
Glad you’re here!
Coming Up On Our Calendar
This Week
1/28 - No students - District Planning Day
1/29 - Fire Drill at 2:35, rain or shine:)
1/30 - NAEP testing for a handful of 8th graders
Next Week
2/8 - Extended Advisory - Morning Assembly Schedule
Coming Up In PLC
January PLC Schedule
1/28 - No Kids Planning Day
2/4 - SEL Focus