Dos Rios Elementary
Weekly Rocket * November 6, 2017
Principal's PLC-Connection
- We had a great turn out for Parent/Teacher Conferences
- Our 1st Quarter Student Assemblies Celebrated sooooo many students
- Our 1st Literary Character Day & Parade was a blast and it was nice to see so many teachers and students enjoying themselves and talking about literacy
- Galileo FoY Testing and a great Data PD Day
- The Runway was smokin' hot with student and teacher participation at the 1st Student Council Fashion Show
As I've been taking a look at DIBELS Progress Monitoring, great job to all the teachers plugging away. To all K-6 Teachers, please continue to get those RED's monitored and please let us know if you need assistance. We want to make sure we are invested in our students' progress and use that to drive our small group instruction.
As part of my reflection on the District/Administrative survey as well as the last Rocket News Survey Monkey, you will be noticing some changes to the Weekly Rocket News. The Weekly Rocket will be the NUTZ-n-BOLTZ of our week. Please watch for other information that comes throughout the week &/or monthly. My passion is to be a great instructional leader and it's important that I continue to share tips and strategies and deliver instruction to you to continue to build your capacity to be phenomenal teachers. A new "Message from Ground Control" will contain our standing Reading Rockets, Making Math Matter, and Health & Wellness sections.
I hope this streamlines your information so that more of our staff can access the needed information to successfully navigate through our weeks.
Principally yours,
Mrs. Annamarie Dowling-Garrott
Please be encouraged... "It works if you work it."
Weekly Launch Codes
Week-at-a-Glance
Top Pilots
Castro's Corner
Weekly Discipline Data (Week of 10/30)
- Out of School Suspensions (OSS): 8
- In School Suspensions (ISS): 6
Assuming the Best
by Rick Smith and Mary Lambert (ASCD Educational Leadership)
Positive Strategies, Positive Results
The strategies that follow can improve our interactions with students, create classrooms that honor students' need for safety and structure, and promote student learning.
Strategy 1: Use Volume, Tone, and Posture
When we assume that students want to learn behavior, we can readily see that we are here to teach behavior. This changes our interactions with students. For example, Mrs. Allgood is teaching a lesson; in the back of the classroom, Mark is disturbing his neighbors by showing them his new Sports Illustrated. He needs to stop. If Mrs. Allgood assumes that she's only here to teach content—to stay on task—she will go so quickly through the discipline piece that Mark will probably not understand, and so he will continue to act out. Some teachers jokingly refer to this as "drive-thru discipline."
On the other hand, if Mrs. Allgood assumes that she is here to teach behavior, she will pause in her lesson and address Mark's behavior. Her first option is to walk up to him and quietly state her request: "Please put that away and have a seat." If that's not possible because of time or furniture constraints, she will shift from "content mode" to "behavior mode," facing Mark squarely as she softens her voice and lowers her tone. Knowing that Mark is committed to both learning appropriate behavior and wanting to look good in front of his friends, she won't publicly humiliate him. Her shift in volume, tone, and posture will firmly but softly communicate what she expects of him, deescalating possible tension.
By taking these extra moments to address Mark's behavior, Mrs. Allgood will have more time to focus on teaching content because Mark will most likely get it the first time around. And if he says something under his breath, she knows that she can let him have the last word. It's his way of saving face as he refocuses on learning content.
Strategy 2: Implement the Two-by-Ten Strategy
Raymond Wlodkowski1 did extensive observations of student behavior, cataloguing student time in and out of seat as well as the types, instances, and severity of student disruptions. In particular, he researched a strategy called "Two-by-Ten." Here, teachers focus on their most difficult student. For two minutes each day, 10 days in a row, teachers have a personal conversation with the student about anything the student is interested in, as long as the conversation is G-rated. Wlodkowski found an 85-percent improvement in that one student's behavior. In addition, he found that the behavior of all the other students in the class improved.
Martha Allen, an adjunct professor at Dominican University's Teacher Credential Program in San Rafael, California, asked her student teachers to use the Two-by-Ten Strategy with their toughest student. The results? Almost everyone reported a marked improvement in the behavior and attitude of their one targeted student, and often of the whole class. Many teachers using the Two-by-Ten Strategy for the first time have had a similar corroborating experience: Their worst student became an ally in the class when they forged a strong personal connection with that student.
This can be counter-intuitive. But the students who seemingly deserve the most punitive consequences we can muster are actually the ones who most need a positive personal connection with their teacher. When they act out, they are letting us know that they are seeking a positive connection with an adult authority figure and that they need that connection first, before they can focus on learning content.
The teachers whom Paul Kilkenny mentors in East San Jose regularly use the Two-by-Ten Strategy with their challenging students. "Not only does it help with the toughest students," says Paul, "but also it helps the teachers remember their humanity as they attempt to survive and thrive in the classroom."
Strategy 3: Break Things into Steps
Just as students often need complex math problems broken down into small, digestible lessons, so they need small, manageable steps when it comes to learning behavior and classroom procedures.
For example, if Mark has a hard time putting his art supplies away on time, instead of punishing him Mrs. Allgood can meet with him, and together they can practice putting the supplies away. Instead of one step—"Put your things away"—the teacher can guide the student through several steps: "Pick up the scissors and place it in the scissors tray; return the colored paper to the stack in the back of the room; put your project in your folder." By practicing each of the steps, Mark has a better sense of what to do and is more likely to succeed when Mrs. Allgood announces clean-up time to the class.
Instead of throwing up our hands and saying, "These kids don't care" or "These kids can't succeed," we should assume they are committed to success in both content and behavior. We can then put our energy into breaking down the behaviors we want to see into simple steps so that students clearly understand what we expect of them.
Strategy 4: Use Behavior Rubrics
Rubrics work great for content—and equally great for procedures and behavior. For example, if a particular student is inappropriately loud, Mrs. Allgood can provide the student with a 1–5 volume rubric. A 1 would indicate a whisper, a 3 would indicate a normal conversational tone, and a 5 would indicate a yell. The student can practice all five numbers, and the teacher can then assign different numbers to different school and social situations: A 1 would be appropriate if the student asked a classmate to borrow a pencil while the rest of the class was engrossed in a writing task; a 3 would be appropriate for students conversing during group work; a 5 would be appropriate on the playground. Rubrics work well for many classroom behaviors, such as lining up, settling down to learn, and getting ready for dismissal.
Strategy 5: Use Visuals
Visuals also serve as great road maps for student success. If, for example, students have difficulty getting their textbooks and homework on their desks when the bell rings at the beginning of class, Mrs. Allgood can use visuals like the ones on pages 18–19 to clarify exactly what she expects. She can use a diagram, drawing, or photograph of the surface of the desk, with the textbook open to the proper page and the homework on the upper left-hand corner of the desk. At the start of class, using PowerPoint or an overhead, she can flash the picture on the board or screen in front of the room, giving the students "17 seconds to be ready to start." Visuals work well for such activities as setting up labs, putting supplies away, and clarifying the school dress code.