Hixson Network Calendar

We have made some upgrades to the Hixson Network Calendar to better reflect what is going on around the building. This video will walk you through the changes and how you can customize what you see.

October 28, 2013

Thanks to our StuCo members, StuCo sponsors, and all the teacher chaperons who helped with Friday's party.  BALOONZA! was a lot of fun.  =)

Fourth Monday Faculty Meeting: 10/28

Click here to look at the choices for 10/28's faculty learning.  There are three tech options, a Discovery workshop option, and options for working with your team, department, or by yourself.  The expectation remains that during this faculty meeting time, we remain until 4:30pm.  I hope these choices and this time continues to be valuable to you. At the same time, I am wanting us to be as prepared for an influx of technology next year. I may reconsider how these choices are structured next semester.

Red Ribbon Week
Our Student Council has good plans for Red Ribbon Week.  Click here to read more about the events of the week.

November's Thinking Strategy

November's Thinking Strategy is inferencing.  The ability to infer is a useful skill for reading, learning, and good decision making.  It's application, therefore, is valuable across disciplines. It is also related to the Elaborating on New Information strategy in iObservation (DQ 2.11).  The desired effect of this strategy is that students are able to draw conclusions, or to make inferences, that were not explicitly taught.  Teaching students to infer will increase their abilities to elaborate on new information.  Click here this month's resources related to inferencing.

Professional Development Day: 11/5

Here is my rough outline for the day:

8:30-10:00am: Department Time*

10:00-11:00am: Teacher Plan Time

11:00-noon: Lunch (on your own)

Noon-2:00: Team Time**

2:15-3:30: Faculty Meeting

If you are an Algebra, FACS, IT, (or perhaps another elective I do not know about yet) and will be working with other teachers on curriculum in or out of the building for part or most of the day, your schedule might look different; however, all faculty members, regardless of where they might be working, are responsible for attending the faculty meeting.  Given some new developments with SB 75, we will not have intruder training, instead, we will discuss DQs 1-5, per district expectation for the year.

*Departments should consider working on: Assessments and/or re-take assessments, Department wide accommodations and modifications of assignments, activities, and/or assessments, Ways of pre- and re-teaching content, Ways of teaching vocabulary, Curriculum work with a coordinator (if this coordinator is available), A new unit or strategy (or anything new), or Any other relevant and important topics.

• Department heads should send me an outline of how they will use the time.
• Not all departments are also on teams; therefore, please also account for how you will use your afternoon if you are not a part of a team.

**Teams should consider working on: Ways to acknowledge students performing well (in terms of academics and/or behavior), Planning for Discovery (which may or may not include time with other teams, with Aimee Vogt, with me, etc.), Planning with SSD teachers, or Any other relevant and important topics.  Teams should send me an outline of how they will use the time.

October 21, 2013

Have a great week! There are several topics below:

Attendance

The number of teachers who took attendance each class period they taught is definitely UP since Monday's faculty meeting. Thank you! I'll begin giving more specific feedback next week.

Hixson Student Show

On Fridays, Jason will no longer make announcements.  Just begin the Hixson Student Show immediately at the beginning of second hour.

Fourth Monday Faculty Meeting: 10/28

Click here to look at the choices for 10/28's faculty learning.  There are three tech options, a Discovery workshop option, and options for working with your team, department, or by yourself.  The expectation remains that during this faculty meeting time, we remain until 4:30pm.  I hope these choices and this time continues to be valuable to you.

10/14 Faculty Meeting

Thanks again for your participation in a productive faculty meeting.

• Click here to read the list of the faculty brainstorm regarding attendance taking.
• Click here to the summary of our faculty meeting last Monday.
• Click here to read the list of connections that faculty made between intersectionality and relationships (DQ 8).

November's Thinking Strategy

November's Thinking Strategy is inferencing.  The ability to infer is a useful skill for reading, learning, and good decision making.  It's application, therefore, is valuable across disciplines. It is also related to the Elaborating on New Information strategy in iObservation (DQ 2.11).  The desired effect of this strategy is that students are able to draw conclusions, or to make inferences, that were not explicitly taught.  Teaching students to infer will increase their abilities to elaborate on new information.  Click here this month's resources related to inferencing.

Parent Communication
At the Principal's Coffee on Friday, the main theme of parent questions and confusions was team communication.  I don't think it's teams are not communicating (I assured them that I expect teams to e-mail parents updates, etc., at least twice a month); I think there is confusion about where to go for what. So please continue to explain (and perhaps re-explain) how and from where you communicate.  [One parent suggested that teams create an FAQ with this information that could be sent out periodically.  If I can be helpful with clarifying this information with parents or if I can add information about building or district communications, please let me know.]

A Walk-Through vs. A Wander-By
I did not do a good job with all of the details of a Walk-Through.  All teachers will receive at least two walk-through evaluations in iObservation this year.  Walk-throughs are brief, highlight 1-3 dominant elements, and count toward your final evaluation scores (click here for the evaluation FAQs from earlier this year).  Post-conferences are a part of the walk-through experience; however, these may be done in person OR via a conference in iObservation.  The principal observing you will let you know which is appropriate: in person or via iObservation.

A walk-through is different than a wander-by.  A walk-through is part of the evaluation process.  A wander-by is when I wander by your classroom just for the sake of  . . . wandering by.  You'll know the difference.  Walk-throughs require observers to take notes.  Wander-bys do not.

District Bandwidth/Internet Acess
Interesting FYI: Our current bandwidth is 80Mb.  This is 30Mb over DESE's recommendation (which is 10Mb per 1000 staff/students).

10/14 Faculty Meeting Summary and Reflections

I'm sure it's odd to say that I enjoyed the faculty meeting yesterday; however, I really did.  Your participation, your laughter, your candor are all valuable to me (and to one another, I hope).

The Learning Goal for yesterday's meeting was that "Teachers will be able to make connections between the following concepts:

• Intersectionality and Low Expectancy (DQ 9),
• Intersectionality and Relationships/Classroom Community (DQ 8), and
• Low Expectancy and Relationships.

Teachers, all of us really, show mastery with this goal when we adjust our teaching (or leadership, etc.) based on our understanding of these concepts (Hx SIP Goal 1).

During our September faculty meeting, we discussed the importance of monitoring our response to students based on our (conscious or unconscious) biases*. We discussed this in terms of valuing and respecting all students (DQ 9.39), asking questions of the same frequency/depth (DQ 9.40), and probing for incorrect answers in the same manner for all students (DQ 9.41).

During our October faculty meeting, we discussed connections between our (conscious or unconscious) bias and how we build relationships with students.  We discussed this in terms of all students feeling known and accepted by their teachers (DQ 8.36), and feeling cared for (DQ 8.37) and in terms of displaying objectivity and control (DQ 8.38).  

In a socially just and equitable classroom and school, we must work to understand the intersections at which we are situated, the intersections at which are students might be situated, and how this might (or might not) affect (for better or worse) our expectations of and relationships with our students (and one another).

There were three dominant elements (and, thus, three desired effects) to yesterday's plan:

• DQ 1.1: Providing Clear Goals and Scales (understanding what the learning goal and scale mean),
• DQ 2.11: Elaborating on New Information (drawing conclusions that were not explicitly taught), and
• DQ 3.14: Reviewing Content (accurately representing previously taught critical content).

Based on your participation and the information each group shared via the handout, I am confident that all of us understood, drew accurate conclusions, and recognized critical content from the last faculty meeting. Thank you.

Click here to review the presentation from yesterday's meeting.  Click here to see the Cloze Activity (a recommended Marzano activity) we used for DQ 3.14. 

*As a brief reminder, these biases may come from the intersection of our multiple (and unique) identities and experiences.  We stand at the intersection of a variety of raced, sexed, gendered, aged, abilitied, etc., identities.  I favor the metaphor of intersections because it includes us all, still leaves room for conversations about race, ability, and other identities, and limits, I hope, divisive feelings of feeling other than (as an unintentional result of a one-identity-at-a-time approach). 

October 14, 2013

Thank you for your energy and commitment during conference week.  Your work is important and impressive, and I received feedback from a variety of parents to support this.  I hope your three-day weekend was restful and rewarding.

Faculty Meeting 10/14
We have our monthly faculty meeting on Monday, 10/14, at 3:30pm in the cafeteria.  Click here to review the PowerPoint from our last meeting, and click here to review the summary and notes I shared the next day.  Reviewing these isn't required, but if you have the time and inclination, it might be helpful.

Third Monday (10/21)
We do not have required meetings on third Mondays (unless your department has agreed to meet at this time).  However, Jason will be offering a repeat of a past technology session (WGCloud and Google+), and I will be available to work with team teachers on Discovery.  Click here to let me know if you are interested in either.  (A Discovery workshop option will also be offered on 10/28.)

Keyless Entry (Coming Soon)
Beginning in November, maybe earlier, faculty and staff will receive key cards that will unlock doors 22 and 23 (off the Elm lot) during a specific time period.  This will make getting in the building easier before school and during the day.  This will be done at no cost to Hixson as we are part of a beta grant.  I will share more information when I have it.

Updates for Conference Week

The Hixson-Staff listserv isn't work properly, so I am posting the following here until we can e-mail all-school updates again.  Thank you for your flexibility and determined good work this week of teaching and conferences and health and career fairs!

Fire Drill
Today's fire drill will be around 10:30am.  Webster Groves Fire Department will be on campus for this drill.

Health and Career Fairs

Several teachers have asked me about scheduling for Wednesday.  I apologize for not giving more information about how students will be organized to attend the Health and Career Fairs earlier.  Since this is our first year holding these events on the same day, we are going to organize students in the manner I describe below and use this experience to help us plan better for next year.

The Career Fair is smaller this year and will no longer include an introduction (in the past, students gathered on the bleachers and the counselors checked in about the activities).  Our guests for the Career Fair will set up in the Cafeteria.  Our Health Fair will be in the gym as in years past. 

Since Wednesday is marked as neither an A- or B-day (but as an * day), please tell students to follow their A-day schedules.  Students who would have gym on an A-day will meet in the gym and visit the Health Fair.  Students who are in Discovery, Learning Strategies, or GEMS will meet in one of those classes and will visit the Career Fair in the Cafeteria once teachers take attendance.  Half way through the period, students will switch venues and then be dismissed from Cafeteria or Gym.

Again, I apologize for the late notice regarding this.  I am erring on the side of visiting both fairs to be respectful of your planning this week (this feels like short notice regarding the plan).  Since students visit booths based on interest and since the Career Fair is smaller, I believe that 10-12 minutes in each fair will be sufficient (I think of all that our students are able to play and do while at 10 minutes of recess).

This Afternoon/Evening

• Please take some time to visit and encourage parents to visit the food trucks on our campus.  We stand to benefit from their sales.
• I will be at a Curriculum Coordinating Meeting this evening during some of our conference time.  I will return from that meeting to finish conferences with you.

Wednesday Morning Reminders

• Please leave space for our Health and Career Fair guests to park close to door number 23 on the Elm Lot.
• Due to set up in the gym and cafeteria, students will meet in the auditorium before school.  

October 7, 2013

Conference week is always a busy and important time.  Your time with parents is valuable, and they appreciate all the ways you reach out and accommodate them during team or other times if a time this week does not work.  Friday will be a well-deserved and well-earned day off.

Career and Health Fairs
This Wednesday, we have both our Career and Health Fairs.  I am looking forward to both of these events.  We will have many guests in the building who are offering their time and expertise to our students.  Please leave ample room in the Elm parking lot for our visitors and guests to park (particularly since many bring artifacts and other items as a part of their set up).

Team Rep Meetings

The meeting scheduled for Monday 3:30pm for team representatives will take 30 minutes or less given that the only agenda items are from me (regarding the purpose and formative of these meetings, Discovery expectations and conferences). Only one member of each team needs to attend; of course, any teacher, whether you're on a 7th or 8th grade team or not, is welcome to attend. If there are agenda items you would like me to consider, please e-mail them to me.  We will meet in Sherri Evans' room.

Conference Feedings

Thanks to Sarah Bodi and our SCC for getting the Meltdown and Cake Stop food trucks on our campus and for organizing our orders for Tuesday afternoon.  Our PTO will be providing food on Wednesday and Thursday.