Westwood Wrangler
Vol # 3 Issue # 24
THANK YOU!! THANK YOU!!
TO ALL THAT HAVE ACQUIRED TRAINING AS YOUTH MENTAL HEALTH FIRST AID RESPONDERS!!
Scheduled for April 16th at LSUS is the last opportunity to acquire this training for FREE!
We are currently at 75 % of the instructional staff (teachers, paraprofessional, and administrators) that are trained. There is a training date scheduled for April 16th as you may have noted within the last WW Wrangler. Help the WW Ranch to achieve this goal and make it a pride point for the WW Ranch. Marshal Franklin is slated to be 1 of the 2 trainers who are presenting on this day.
An individual who is trained as a Mental Health First Aid Responder acquires a certificate that is valid for a 3 years.
Please let Marshal Franklin know so he can coordinate with Dr. B. White's / District Psychologist department to ensure you are on the roster for this date.
Note: This training is the adult training for response to adults in crisis - for those of you who would like you are welcome to acquire this one as well. Thus you will be trained as a Youth Mental Health First Aid Responder and an Adult Mental Health First Aid Responder as well.
There is a stipend and the resource book and training are provided to you free of charge.
A Powerful Reminder!!
Shortly after this thought I came upon this graphic on Pinterest (in my feed). Thus I felt the need to share. We must share this process with our students. In addition, we may need to remind ourselves to apply the filters noted above accordingly when needed.
ACTIVE SUPERVISION!!
IT IS PARAMOUNT THAT WE EFFECTIVELY IMPLEMENT
MAKING IT WORK FOR EVERYONE!!
AP Article Review
I had previously bookmarked an article, Making it Work For Everyone (Seven Ways to Create a Classroom that Meets the Needs of All Your Students) for later review. As I was preparing this issue of the Westwood Wrangler the Harvard Graduate School Article by Zachary Herrman caught my attention.
The author Herrman focus on how students are different or diverse. He elaborated on his preliminary approaches and the obstacles he ran into. However, he continued his focus and went further in depth and derived seven strategies for meeting the many needs of students.
The questions he asked himself were as follows:
What can teachers do to manage the complex needs of many different students? How can we make our classrooms more flexible - and turn the diversity into an asset?
Here is a synopsis of the seven strategies:
- Build positive relationships with students: Teachers do themselves and their students a fair when they take the time to get to know their students, communicate and express care for them, and leverage those relationships to help students succeed.
- Communicate high expectations through what you say and what you do: Of course, setting and communicating high expectations are of importance. However, we must consider implicit messages communicated through our actions (what we expect / what we accept / how we support).
- Help students feel like they belong by focusing on effort, not ability: Shifting the student personal ideas and perceptions about who “belonged” and who did not (letting student know that you belong because you can apply yourself and achieve),
- Prime students to believe that everyone has something to offer: The validation of all students by encouraging contributions by all - creating learning task that require range of skills & abilities, and structuring activities in way that requires participation by everyone.
- Give the right kind of task: Task that are complex, open-eded, and have no “right way” to be completed give students a genuine reason to collaborate and work with each other.
- Get students to depend on each other, not you: A classroom that relies on the teacher as the sole source of knowledge, feedback, and management is limited to what it can do. Through collaborative learning everyone can bring forth ideas, concepts, or experiences that will facilitate learning.
- Design your classroom to help you learn about students in real time: When students are doing group work “take a lap” (freely move around and observe) around the classroom. Herman states, “It was remarkable how much I could learn by closing my mouth, opening my ears, and moving my feet. I would use this date to consider my next moves as a teacher - what content will I focus on….”
MICHEAL JACKSON FRIDAY ON THE WW RANCH (PBIS Incentive)!
RD Franklin, AP
Email: rfranklin@caddoschools.org
Website: www.westwoodcowboys.com
Location: 7325 Jewella Avenue, Shreveport, LA, United States
Phone: (318)6865489