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).