March 31, 2014

Every year at this time, I write a blog post called "Turning the Corner" for the parent blog. Honestly, it doesn't vary much from year to year. The message always seems timely. It's right before MAP testing that I seem to notice the most changes in our students. Even this year, with the snow days and other interruptions, the confused weather and other stressors, it's at this time of year that things seem to coalesce in a more mature way for our students. At least from perspective.  And just as we're gaining momentum, just as we're about to round the corner of spring and begin the speedy course to the last day of school . . . comes the MAP test.

We will get through this together. Our students have our support and our relationships and our optimism to connect them to their learning, and I believe that they will show what they know as best as they can on behalf of all that they have learned in your classrooms.

Meeting Dr. Stacie Stryhal
I hope you are able to introduce yourself to Dr. Stryhal in the Annex on Monday morning. We'll be around the building at other times, but this might be the best time to slow down for a moment and welcome her to Hixson Middle School.

Monday's 1:1 Tech PD

We will meet in the auditorium immediately after school on Monday for our teacher-designed and led tech PD.

•  Please bring your laptop (and power cable if your computer needs it)
• After a brief presentation you will move to 1 of 3 classrooms (118, 107, 211)

April's Thinking Strategy: Synthesizing

Synthesizing is the process whereby a student merges new information with prior knowledge to form a new idea, perspective, or opinion or to generate insight. It's important to reading and to learning. When students 

• elaborate on new information (to make inferences not explicitly taught),
• record and represent knowledge (i.e., their understanding of the information),
• examine similarities and differences or errors in reasoning, and 
• generate and test and hypotheses (to see if their new idea, perspective, opinion, or insight "works" or not)

they are relying, in part, on their ability to synthesize. In what ways can you help your student's synthesize in your subject area? Click here to learn more and for Discovery-related resources.

Professional Growth Plans in iObservation for 2014-15

Growth plans can be edited through the beginning of school year 2014-2015. Teachers have two options:

1. To continue their current Growth Plan with no changes and the plan will rollover to the 2014-15 school year evaluation cycle, or
2. To revert to draft and change one, two, or all of their goals for the upcoming school year. If you want to change your goals, you will need to talk with your principal and the principal can revert the growth plan to draft.

These changes can be self-directed by the teacher, or required by the principal. If teachers want to change their goals, all changes must be made and approved by Friday, September 19, 2014.

And have you noticed a new referral? We had a group of teachers make a prototype and . . . well, if you've seen a new referral, you've seen the prototype. Based on my miscommunication it got out before there was any communication. So, can we just try it for a bit and see how we like it please? . . . thank you. =)

March 24, 2014

Welcome back! I hope you were able to spend spring break in a way that was meaningful to you and to those important to you. Stopping, slowing down, taking a break, all of these things impact our health and our work, so I hope you were indulged in all three. Our work is big and important and necessary, and yet, it happens and perhaps gets narrowed into the moment-to-moment work of our day. I hope by stepping away from the minutia you're able to step back into the bigness and importance and necessary-ness of teaching and learning.

Meeting Reminders for the Rest of March

• 3/24--Annual Required MAP Meeting
• 3/31--1:1 Tech PD 

April's Thinking Strategy: Synthesizing

Synthesizing is the process whereby a student merges new information with prior knowledge to form a new idea, perspective, or opinion or to generate insight. It's important to reading and to learning. When students 

• elaborate on new information (to make inferences not explicitly taught),
• record and represent knowledge (i.e., their understanding of the information),
• examine similarities and differences or errors in reasoning, and 
• generate and test and hypotheses (to see if their new idea, perspective, opinion, or insight "works" or not)

they are relying, in part, on their ability to synthesize. In what ways can you help your student's synthesize in your subject area? Click here to learn more and for Discovery-related resources.

Have a great week!

March 10, 2014

Here's a list of reminders that I think (I hope) will get us to spring break:

• March Monday Meetings have been re-arranged:
• 3/10--No Meeting
• 3/17--Spring Break
• 3/24--Annual Required MAP Meeting
• 3/31--1:1 Tech PD 
• The Cake Stop food truck will be here on Tuesday and Thursday (No Meltdown truck, that was my mistake). You can pre-order cupcakes for March 11 by clicking here and for March 13 by clicking here. Sarah's Cake Stop is here as part of a fundraiser, in addition to fulfilling any sugar needs created by the stress of conferences.
• The PTO will be buying each of us a cupcake on 3/11.
• The PTO will also be supplying us with a $20 credit for the Scholastic Book Fair. 
• The deadline for PTO grants is 3/13. They are very eager to support our grants, so please consider writing one (I'll also request an extended deadline).
• The Activity Fair is Wednesday, and our scheduled will be flipped for this day only.

I know this week can be very challenging, important as it is, so please be mindful of whatever it is you need to do to stay steady, focused, and healthy.

March 3, 2014

Your participation in Monday's peer-to-peer conversation about the coming 1:1 was helpful and interesting, I thought. The answers are often in the room, and I appreciate your participation. If you're interested in a summary and some emerging themes around Managing Equipment and Physical Space, you can click here to see them. You'll be able to prompt all of our thinking with further comments or questions from within that shared document.

March's Thinking Strategy

Proficient readers:

• spontaneously and purposefully create images using all five senses and their emotions as they read.
• create images that help them engage and make text more memorable.
• use images to make interpretations from the text.

Click here to access the resources to support March's Thinking Strategy: Sensory Images. Leveraging images is good for student learning and relates to Marzano strategy 12 Recording and Representing Knowledge as non-linguistic representations have been shown to enhance student understanding, engagement, and memory.

PTO Grants
PTO grants are due by March 13th. There isn't a limit on the ask; however, the PTO will want to grant as many as possible. So be considerate of your peers when asking. That being said, we had a very successful House Tour, and the PTO is soliciting donations to help support us further.

This week will end with our Talent Show and a Social Courtesy Committee event. I know your students and your peers will appreciate your presence and support at both, if possible.