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.