Dr. Maude A. Sanders Primary School
Staff Newsletter-Week of September 3rd
Don't Let Up
Reading Logs
Attendance
In addition to the attendance logs, attached to the email is the student attendance tracker. Please have students keep track of their attendance using this. K and 1 teachers (especially K), if this is something that is difficult for students to do, we can figure out something else.
Work Sampling
More information will be coming out regarding work sampling over the next week. Teachers of reading and math, you'll be asked to turn in examples of low, medium, and high levels of work for each subject twice monthly for a total of 12 artifacts monthly (yeah, 3rd grade math!). Work samples will be kept in the PLC room and submitted to the district for review. Again, we'll provide you with more information as we get this rolling.
Grades
PBIS Incentive for September
Student Autonomy
As far as student autonomy is concerned, an easy way to look at it is by looking at two different instructional styles: teacher-centered and student-centered. Here are just a few characteristics of each.
Teacher-Centered Classroom
- Teacher does most of the speaking and teaching.
- Classroom arrangement is not conducive to collaborative structures (e.g. desks in rows).
- Students passively receive information.
Student-Centered Classroom
- Students do most of the speaking and working.
- Classroom space is arranged for students to move around and work with each other.
- Students process information with each other.
This isn't meant to be a knock on teacher-centered practices. There are still appropriate times for direct instruction and some other teacher-centered strategies, but much like those lower level areas of the Marzano Taxonomy, we can't live there too long. Having a student-centered classroom built on strong collaborative structures can help create a strong culture of learning in a classroom. And when a strong student-centered classroom is in place, coupled with higher levels of cognitive complexity, you will start to see rigor.
We will look more at student-centered classrooms in the upcoming weeks and ways that we can support them.