Well, technically as I write this, it's the last day of April, but for real, y'all.... Can you believe it's May? Even though (as Paige mentioned) last week seemed to be the longest week ever, it's hard to believe that we are nearing the end of school. Having Follies rehearsals on top of all of that was CRAZY. It was so fun though and we had a blast!
Just a note: If you have any issues with expectations, please bring those to me and not others outside our staff. You do not want to create a negative perception of any kind before we even get into the doors! Thanks in advance for that!
Update: The parent meetings went very well. We have had a great turnout overall. I believe I have about 150 applicants after the meetings. These applicants are of both genders, all races, and all school zones in town. There is a called meeting with the board on Monday at noon where we will be proposing all of the costs for the building for the board to approve so technology, furniture and the gym can get going. Once we get into the rooms and you see what else you may need, we will budget accordingly for that. If it's ok with y'all, I may stick with the logo I used for the Powerpoint at the parent meetings for now. I really would like the kids to create a logo as a contest of some sort once we get into the year and use that for year 2 and beyond. What are your thoughts on that?
I want us to continue thinking about not sacrificing rigor for relevance this week. Look at your lesson plans and see where you can add rigor, especially those of you preparing for testing. Reflection shouldn't be a burden but a welcome part of your day to see how you can improve what you are already doing great. None of us have arrived. That's the great thing about education, it's always a never ending journey. Share your finding in your lessons and what you did to improve them. Please share by Thursday, May 4 (May the 4th be with you-- insert Darth Vader voice here).
Also, we need to plan a 3 day training for the engineering process and planning the strands for the year and what materials we need. We will definitely divide and conquer. We may only need 2 days because y'all are so awesome, but let's carve out 3 to be safe. June is pretty full, so let's look at our July calendars. What about the week of July 10th or 17th? Getting too much later, pushing us into moving days! Let me know what works best for you and I'll see if I can get us space somewhere. Also, I'm looking at bringing in a specialist from Region 8 on a monthly basis starting in July for differentiation training and support. We will get some of that during our GT training, but I want to ensure we have a good handle on that as we are challenging all of our students. That probably would be 1 day or possibly 1/2 day for K-2 and 1/2 day for 3-5. This will involve YOUR lesson plans, so it won't be a sit and get! I will ask her to give me a couple of dates in July and August to get started and then we will schedule the year out from there.
Thanks so much for taking this journey with me. It's a learning curve for all of us and I know I am asking a lot from your personal time. Please know that I GET THAT! I promise I will take care of you! :) Right now, I am off for a Pedi. My feet need some love right now!
SK loves the ROCKET team!
Good Wednesday Morning,
ReplyDeleteI am not even sure where to begin. I am not going to make this post all about my AMAZING two day conference at the Ron Clark Academy www.ronclarkacademy.com, but I have to say I am forever changed by what I got to experience. EVERY educator should be required to go because it is the model for what education should and could be. I would even be willing to bake cookies, wash cars, or make a fool of myself to see other Greenville teachers provided this opportunity. Ron Clark and Kim Bearden have several books out, but it is not the same as being there. I am telling you it is a game changer for educators and was a life changer for me.
As I prepare my students for next weeks "testing" I have really struggled with how to review them. We are wrapping up our last unit and I want their review to be more than questions and multiple choice answers cut up and placed around the school. Any suggestions? I really struggle with "testing" questions. I want my students thinking on their own instead of best guess between A,B,C or D. I love what the author wrote about 'standardized" testing on page 60. If you haven't gotten that far I highly recommend it. I have scheduled in some review games for vocabulary such as twister and head bands, but I still struggle with having the evaluate and create through review. I do have a day set aside for my students to use legos to create the concept I have provide for them and I have a discussion day with review concepts, but am I really providing rigor in those lessons? What do you do when you have to review multiple concepts with students?
Did I mention I went to the Ron Clark Academy and it was AMAZING (:
I love the idea of getting the students involved in the logo. I think the more we have the students involved the more pride and ownership they will take in the school.
I am available any time in July so either of those dates work for me.
I hope everyone has a fantastic rest of the week!
Did mention how awesome the RCA was? (:
I heard him speak many years ago and he is inspiring! I have always heard his school is amazing! Samantha - this is your task to find the cost and how we can make it happen to all attend!!!
DeleteOK Samantha...you motivated me! I immediately got on to the Ron Clark website and read all about him. Then, of course, I ordered books. Stacey, can we ALL go as a field trip??
ReplyDeleteSo far July is clear for me, but I do know that we are planning a get away sometime during the month.
I have been preparing some of my students to retake the reading portion of STAAR. I struggle with reviewing them because we worked SO very hard before the original test, yet they fell short. I do not want to skill and drill them to death as I do not think this will improve their scores one bit. I chose to, instead, do close reading strategies with my class during this two week review period. The rigor was there, but where I struggled the most was when THEY got stuck and couldn't figure out the answer, I found myself explaining it TOO well. I felt then that I had pushed the rigor down in my attempt to help them be successful. Once I caught myself doing that on more than one occasion, I had to really stop myself from doing that again! I had to step back and let the kids struggle a little, but eventually most of them stepped up and were able to get to the right answers. Rigor must be there in order for the kids to step up and perform. Set the bar high....they will get there, even if it takes them a few tries.
Hope everyone has a great week!!!
It's hard not to want to guide them too well. I think through this process as we are all reflecting how we function now and seeing that when we let go - the kids really soar and do more than we ever expected! Keep pushing hard until the very last minute of the very last day!
DeleteI love the idea of having the kids create the logo! I think that will be so fun to do some kind of contest like you mentioned.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with Samantha and have the same questions she does. I find it really hard to create lessons that are engaging and rigorous when it is a review of all concepts. Also, like Karen said, you don’t want to continue to drill them because then they become burnt out. I have been using Plickers with my class on review questions to add a little more engagement to it. We have also done “Stinky Feet.” If you are a 3-5 Science or Math teacher, Stephanie Hensley presented this game to us at a training. I have been trying to incorporate more fun activities so they are not constantly using pen and paper and feeling tired of all the questions. I also have had to learn to let them struggle. I so badly want to help them through a problem when they are having a hard time, but then I find myself helping too much (just like Karen said). I have tried to let them struggle more on their own and I have seen quite a few of them push through and gain a new confidence in themselves.
We have a very busy Summer that we planned before I even knew about the school. As far as the two July weeks, I am gone the whole week of the 10th and will get back on the 18th, so I am free any time after that.
I'm just rereading these posts to comment and see you are not available on the 17 & 18. So, we'll see how the following week is for everyone. If everyone else can make it, we can just have a "catch up" session! :) Review is hard to ensure that we aren't trading rigor for relevance. However, when we continue to be mindful when planning and reflecting on our current practices, you can't help but to start thinking more in that mode. You're going to do great things, Baby Chan!
DeleteSo excited about getting started! Yes, I LOVE the logo idea. I will be at NASA the week of July 10 -15.
ReplyDeleteRigor and Relevance
After thinking more rigorously about rigor and relevance as it applies to STEM-infusion, here are some of my thoughts.
Content Standards provide a recipe for rigor that educators can tweak to suit all tastes. We all know that students have a variety of background knowledge on their plates. We want to infuse what they bring to the table and enhance their palate. It is our jobs as educators to serve up the clear expectations of what students should know and be able to do with progress towards learning objectives and goals. We must serve up and establish connections and relationships between concepts beginning with the end in mind. I call this backwards design. We start with what we want the ending product to look like and then add the ingredients to support the steps in getting there. An analogy that comes to mind is the model I use in my classroom: “Give me cupcakes.” I don’t want cookies, or smashed cupcakes instead I want intricate decorated, delicious tasting cupcakes. Likewise, I don’t want all of my intricately decorated cupcakes to look the same. We must establish rigor at the onset of our units by providing clear and purposeful menu of active learning tasks for all students. Some elements I will consider when creating my future rigorous STEM-INFUSED lessons are:
• Is the lesson student friendly considering all levels of background knowledge and learning styles?
• Is the rigor and intent of the standards maintained?
• Are students able to clearly articulate their learning goals and objectives with the end in mind?
• Are learning objectives and goals explained at the beginning of the learning cycle and referenced throughout the cycle of learning?
• What will students’ work look like to clearly represent and demonstrate the learning objectives and goals?
Part 2
DeleteTo establish relevance we must engage the students’ emotions to grab their attention. I believe that when students see and understand what we are asking them to learn has value to the real world and how it can be used outside the classroom, their perspectives on learning changes. Students need to understand the purpose of the task and how it relates to them in the real world and how their assignment relates to the learning objectives, standards, and goals. The tasks should be inviting and complex to get students’ attention and effort. This leads to students collaborating, communicating and using critical thinking skills while meeting the objectives. A recent challenge in my classroom was when students were in teams and asked to create a ramp and a pasta rover to test force in motion. Teams needed to design ramp to test for either distance or speed based on force. Students collaborated to figure out how to solve the challenge. They used their creativity in building the ramps and pasta rovers. Their curiosity for learning about force, design/engineering was established. The students took pride and personal interest in the challenge. They had a purposeful objective. They learn something about force, gravity, working together, and retooling their designs to make them better. They worked to figure out how to solve the challenge at hand. Encouraging our students to transition from simply mimicking us to critically thinking, acting and responding to challenges, complex situations and scenarios is paramount for STEM-INFUSION. As educators, I believe, that it is our responsibility to empower our students to tackle real-world global/community problems and issues. Some elements I will consider when creating my future relevant STEM-INFUSED lessons are:
• How will I tie the real-world to my students’ background knowledge and the content that needs to be taught?
• How can I encourage my students to take the risks to bring forth real-world questions/problems into the class that relate to our content that is being studied?
• What resources will I use when I have difficulties relating the content to the real-world?
• How will I craft lessons to include complex problems that have multiple solutions?
• How will I ensure that the content is rigorous when students engage in project based learning or inquiry based learning?
Diana - you always have such wonderful reflections. I love that you are always striving to look at your lessons and better yourself each and every day!
DeleteYes! on the student designed logo, song... and don't forget our parents. As we move forward, I have a passion for involving our parents in any and every way that we can. They have such a wealth of knowledge and experiences that we can draw from. I would even like to have a parent survey from our parents about what they do for a living, what THEIR interests are and are they willing to come share with us and/or explore new interests with us.
ReplyDeleteSo, that was a little off topic.
I had to add rigor to a lesson I had this week. I used a Breakout box to review all of the learning we did this year, and sneak in some new things too. So, for the lesson I had to change some of the clues from one class to the other because of the different levels of students in my different classes. I created the story and all of the clues so, it would have been nice to just call it - Done! That was a lot of work and we are all tired this time of year. However, I knew these guys needed a bump and added a clue where they had to find the value of a set of binary numbers. This was 5th grade. I was very pleased with the results and would not have been happy with myself had I not done it.
Bea - my thoughts on parent involvement are the same and I will be asking them to fill out something when I meet with them this summer so we can see where to plug people in and how. I love the breakout box lesson. You always find ways to add rigor to your lessons which is going to impact your classroom tremendously! So excited to have you on my team.
DeleteWOW!!! I love reading everybody's blogs! It's going to be so much fun working with and learning from all of you! I'm sooooo excited! :)
ReplyDeleteI too love the idea of a student contest for the logo and I think they will love it too! :)
Also, either of those weeks in July work for me, as of right now anyway. :)
Again, as I posted last week, rigor in Pre-K looks a little different from y'all's classrooms. :) That's why when I read y'all's posts, I'm like...WOW!!!
In some lessons about Earth Day and Arbor Day and recycling, here are some things we do in our class...
*I like to do KWL charts to begin a unit.
*I like to show videos of the dump ground and the recycling plant (when we can't go somewhere, I try to bring it to us). But we don't just watch them...we stop and talk about things along the way and develop vocabulary.
*We sort trash and look for the recycling symbol.
*We create something from the trash and tell what it is and it's purpose.
*We journal the experience.
*We make a book about recycling.
*We walk around the school yard and pick up litter.
*And through all of this, I'm constantly trying to engage their thinking by asking those higher level questions.
*And of course we read lots of books and sing lots of songs about recycling and taking care of the Earth...vocabulary, vocabulary, vocabulary.
And as far as relevance...
*We talk about the jobs involved in these processes and who thinks they would want to do that when they grow up.
*We talk about what kind of world do they want to live in now...polluted or clean...and when they grow up, what kind of world would they want their children to live in.
*We talk about what we can do now, at 4 and 5, to help keep our world clean.
I know there are more ways to be more rigorous and relevant, even at the beginning level of Pre-K, so I would love to hear any ideas y'all would like to share. As Stacey said at one point, none of us have arrived! We're never to old to learn something new! And I'm looking so forward to learning from y'all! :)
Vickie--- THIS is why a parent was crying on the phone when I told her you were going to be one of the Kinder teachers. She loves you and knows what an awesome experience you will give her child. I don't remember the parent's name now, but this just goes to show what an impact you have already made in this community through the years! I am completely blessed to have you on my campus!
DeleteOMG! This has been a long week for me! Whew! Just had to get that off my chest lol. Any of the dates in July work for me and I LOVE the idea of letting the kids come up with a logo for our school!!
ReplyDeleteI agree with Vickie, our classrooms look very different from the uppers and I find it a bit more challenging to challenge them without it being too over their little minds. Like Vickie I like to start my lessons with anchor charts that we create together as a class. It's a way for my studenrs to have a say in what we are discussing, and reinforces what they know. Also everything we do is very visual and hands on- EVERYTHING. We finished up our force and Motion unit today with basket races down the hallway. It was such a fun way to have the students really see how it works with push and pull and which force was easier to use. It was amazing to see how their little minds were spinning and coming up with different techniques to use that they thought would make them more effective. I absolutely loved watching them!!
THIS------THIS is what it is all about!!!! I'm so excited you will be part of the Rocket Staff and I can't wait to learn from you!
DeleteLove the idea of the kiddos coming up with the logo! I think that is something I look forward to more as we move in to the STEM school...having the kids help create the school and what it represents!
ReplyDeleteIt seems July 17 and 18th will work great!
My classes recently completed an authors study unit. Each group in each class were randomly assigned an author to research. The students were required to find out certain information about the author and their books and then present to the class. They used the iPads to find the information. I gave them each the website (for that author) and they found the info. It was challenging! They wanted to answers to be right there. They didn't want to look around or read anymore than they had to. I was a bit disappointed as I work really hard to create independent learners and they were almost resisting. I then told them discuss their findings with the group and come up with one answer together. That seemed to work much better! It was so nice to hear them sharing their feedback on the different books, seeing that authors pictures and learning new facts. One of
My favorite lessons all year!
Research is hard! Teaching them to not copy word for word is even harder! You are finding a balance. Students have to be able to be independent learners and not always rely on someone else while at the same time creating an environment that when it is time to share they can work together well. You're doing a great job!!
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