Beginning of the Year Business, 2012-2013

This post is dedicated to some beginning of the year business. There's a lot of information, all of it important, so please take your time and read carefully.
1.  Building Development: Collegial Learning Walks (CLWs)

This year, I would like to invite you to participate in Collegial Learning Walks with me.  The purpose of Collegial Learning Walks is to build capability and collegiality in our teaching community.  The focus of a collegial learning walk is to look for what is working in a classroom. Participants refrain from judgment and criticism and instead look for possible responses questions like these:  

• what is working in the context of this classroom?
• what might I learn from my colleagues?
• how might I transfer this to my classroom practice?

The whole process will take one class period, each visit lasting 5-10 minutes followed by a short debrief outside the classroom.  We will learn the process together and improve on it as we practice it. Please click here for more information about Collegial Learning Walks.
2.  Professional Development Plans
Each teacher in the building must complete a professional development plan (PDP) and have this turned into to me on or before Monday, September 10, 2012.  This year, given our district-wide study of The Art and Science of Teaching, you will write your PDPs around one of the ten design questions in that text.  Please take some to review the chapter that interests you before your draft your PDP.  You have these options for your PDP:

• You may write your own based on your own interest, or
  
• Your department may decide to write and engage in a professional development plan together.

Either option requires that I meet with you or with your department to review what you have written, for a copy of a blank PDP click here.  For a sample of what a PDP might look like this year, click here.
3.  Evaluations
If this is an evaluation year for you, you will be hearing from your primary evaluator.  Your primary evaluator is the principal with whom you will meet to discuss your summative evaluation at the end of the year.  The observations contributing to your summative, however, may be completed by one or more of the principals.  Your primary evaluator will let you know which of us will be completing classroom observations with you.
Our district study of The Art and Science of Teaching will move us toward understanding expectations for a new evaluation instrument to be implemented next year (if all goes as planned).
4.  Required Staff Training
There are some revisions to the Required Staff Training.  In order to be timely about completing one aspect of the training in particular, we will have a mandatory faculty meeting on August 27, 2012 from 3:30-4:30pm in the Auditorium.  Dr. Riss and Mrs. Holliday will be present for part of this meeting.  However, it will not be comprehensive, so you will still need to take some time to review the other Required Staff Training.  Please click here for the link to the PowerPoint and to the Training Tracker.  Once you've completed the PowerPoint, please complete the Training Tracker, print it off, and turn it into Ms. Edwards in the office.  You must have this completed by September 10, 2012.
We may review other aspects of the required staff training as necessary throughout the year.
5.  Scheduled Workshops
The Art and Science of Teaching
We will begin the study of The Art and Science of Teaching on August 10th from 8:30am to 12:30pm (there are some other agenda topics for this time as well).  We will begin with the introduction and design questions 1 and 6. In order to accommodate our study of this text, we will hold a required second faculty meeting a month.  These will be on the fourth Monday of the month.  Given the important nature of this text and how it connects to a future teacher evaluation instrument, these meetings are mandatory.  If you miss, we will schedule a time to make it up.

Blackboard Engage
Blackboard Engage is our new web software.  Many of you attended training over the summer; however, Dr. Simpson has scheduled a building training for the morning of 8/31.  If you did not attend a summer training, you are required to attend this one.  If you attended the summer training and would like to attend this one, you may, or you may work in a structured setting on implementing Blackboard Engage in your classroom.
Although the district has set December 2013 as a deadline for when we all must be using the new software, I expect that all teachers will be using the calendar function of Blackboard Engage by 9/17/12.
Other Dates, Times, and Topics
Last year, I received some great feedback on my anonymous survey regarding meeting planning, so please click here for a list of meeting dates, times, topics, and possible venues.  This is definitely a work in progress, and I will do my best to update it often.
6.  Hixson List Servs
This summer, I worked with Jason to update our Hx List Servs since many were out of date.  Most have been revised (e.g. teams), some have been eliminated (e.g. departments), and some have been replaced (e.g., electives, PE, and SSD are now by department).  Please review these in Outlook, they all begin with "Hx", and submit a tech req if you would like to revise or add a list serv.
7.  The Hixson Network
There will be changes to the Hixson Network made through the year as we transition from School Center to Blackboard Engage.  I will also be using the calendar function for the Network on or before 9/14.  I do not anticipate that this changes will cause too much of a disruption; however, I wanted you to be prepared for a more dynamic site than the sites I have used previously.

Welcome to 2012-2013!

Although I said, or  tried to say, that I wasn't much of a risk taker in my summer letter, clearly, I was willing to risk not doing one last proofread before I sent it . . . Still, I hope the spirit of my message was not too marred by my over-zealous final highlight-and-cut revision.
I am looking forward to seeing all of you in the building once again.  Following is a very nuts-and-bolts list; however, the information and reminders are important.
First Three Days Schedules
Opening Day, 8/8:

• The district opening ceremony will begin at 8:30am in Roberts Gym at WGHS,
• We will gather as a building community at 11am in the Hixson Cafeteria for
  • A brief, all-building meeting,
  • Lunch (provided by Hixson),
  • A brief meeting with the assistant principals for team teachers, and
• The rest of the day is devoted to you and your classroom.

7th Grade Orientation and 8th Grade Visitation, 8/9:

• These are planned for 8/9 from 9-11am and 1-2pm, respectively, and
• The rest of the day is devoted to you and your classroom.

Professional Development, 8/10:
We have a mandatory staff development meeting from 8:30am-12:30pm for

• Discussing The Art and Science of Teaching, design questions 1 and 6,
• Reviewing new expectations and supports for Discovery time, and
• Reviewing some new procedures in the faculty handbook.
  

Other Items:
As you being planning for the school year:

• Here is a copy of the 2012-2013 Master Schedule.
• Here is a copy of the Daily Schedule.
• Here is a copy of the Student Handbook. There are two new sections:
  •  p. 17--Harassment, Intimidation, and Bullying, and
  • p. 19--Misuse of Electronic Devices.

Regarding facilities and equipment:

• If you keep food in your classroom, please
  • Limit the amount to just what you absolutely need, and
  • Keep all food in sealed containers at all times.
• Limit the number of refrigerators, coffee pots, etc., to one of each per team,
• Keep our building windows and doors shut at all times (this is for building safety and for helping to regulate the building temperature),
• Please keep trash inside of your room rather than in the hallway (Mr. Townsend assures me that they will get the trash out of the classrooms),
• The building will close at 4:30pm on 8/8-8/10 and at 3:30 on 8/13.

(If you have the energy and focus to keep reading, please check out some Beginning of the Year Business as well.)

Discovery Expectations

The purpose of Discovery is to support student literacy and learning in a variety of meaningful ways based on available data and information.  Discovery is divided into two sections: Reading (20 minutes) and Other Activities designed to support student learning.  

Discovery is:

• a time for students to develop and practice reading skills using self-selected material.
• a time to implement interventions to support student learning, per reading ILIPs or other plans.
• a time for pre- and re-teaching as necessary.
• a time for enrichment.
• a time for team building.
• a time for Project Alert lessons.
• a class that requires preparation based on student needs.

Discovery is not:

• unstructured free time for students.
• additional time for content area curriculum.
• a study hall, unless this is an intervention stated in a plan (e.g. IEP, ILIP, 504, etc.).

Grading and Scheduling

• Students will receive a pass/fail grade for Discovery.
• Teams may re-organize students during Discovery for the purposes of meeting student needs.

Teacher Input

On 8/9, team teachers will have an opportunity to meet with faculty members who spent time this summer responding to feedback about Discovery, brainstorming possibilities, and planning improvements.  Their time and effort is valuable, and they advocated strongly that you have time to review expectations and ideas and some time to plan for August. More information about the 8/9 schedule will come.

• To review the presentation they created, click here.
• To the Thinking Strategy lessons and/or Reader’s Toolkit resources posted to the Network last year, click here.

Teaming Expectations, 2012-2013

Click here to read the most up-to-date draft of teaming expectations for the 2012-2013 school year. 
I do not anticipate anything but slight revisions and clarifications to these expectations.  As we learn more about the plan for Discovery, RtI, and Care Team, many of these expectations will make more and more sense.  Several of your teaching peers have been working on ways to support teams in these areas.  We will work together to implement these this year.

Please let Dr. Heisserer know if you have any questions or if you need support in any way.

Anticipating The Art and Science of Teaching

We will spend some time introducing The Art and Science of Teaching on August 10th.  However, I wanted to post so that you might anticipate before 8/10 (and review after) the planning model and the design questions we will spend the year studying.
Essentially, the ten design questions (DQs) that we will be studying this year can be organized into three interdependent lesson segments:

• Routine Segments
• Content Specific Segments
• Segments Enacted on the Spot

Routing Segments include those aspects of our teaching practice that we do routinely (that is for every lesson, every day).  They include:

• Learning Goals and Feedback (DQ 1) and
• Rules and Procedures (DQ 6).

We will review these on 8/10.
Content Specific Segments include those aspects of our teaching practice that we implement to help students learn the skills (procedural knowledge) and content (declarative knowledge) included in our curricula. They include:

• Interacting with New Knowledge (DQ 2),
• Practicing and Deepening (DQ 3), and
• Generating/Testing Hypothesis (DQ 4).

We will review these in October, November, and January.
To help connect last year's and this year's learning, you can think of

• Interacting with New Knowledge as acquisition,
• Practicing and Deepening as making meaning, and
• Generating/Testing Hypothesis as transfer.

Click here to refer back to last year's post about this. Consider also that I asked that you code your learning plan activities last year as A, acquire new or basic knowledge or skills, M, make meaning or gain a better understanding, or T, practice transfering knowledge, skills, and understandings to new situations.
Segments Enacted on the Spot include those aspects of our teaching practice that have the most variables and over which we have more influence than control.  They include:

• Student Engagement (DQ 5),
• Adherence to Rules and Procedures (DQ 7),
• Teacher-Student Relationships (DQ 8), and
• High Expectations (DQ 9).

We will reivew these in September, February, March, and April.
Design Question 10, organizing lessons into cohesive units, we will consider in May.  Last year, we spent a lot of time planning backwards from this.  Marzano does not put DQ 10 in any design segment above.