Friday Focus - February 28, 2020

Great Things I Noticed this Week:
*Students excited and engaged in their group projects to present to their class. They came up with their choice live presentations or recorded videos in front of the green screen to demonstrate their learning.
*Student groups leading their class in games they created to review their content.
*I was so incredibly proud of how staff pulled together to support one another and support our students this week. I was especially surprised by the students who brought be cards for Mr. Hales's family...students that I didn't even realize had a connection with him. He has definitely left a legacy behind of his positive attitude and kindness for ALL!

Upcoming Events:
Monday - EP training at 3:15 in IMC (on documentation log)
Tuesday - ACT modified schedule. We have had a couple of revisions to the coverage and I will resend out this weekend (although I believe all who have any changes know about them).
Wednesday - NO combined ms/hs faculty meeting - I will be at CESA 6 with 12 high school students and won't be back in time. Please feel free to use the time for curriculum work. 
Friday - consumable order packets due

"Nuts & Bolts" Notes:
*With our referendum signs out I've seen several students/parents taking a look. Please share if you hear any feedback/questions at school or in the community that can help inform our work as we prepare for upcoming open houses in the community.

Tech Tip of the Week:

Schoology PD course is still available for your use. There is a folder labeled Rubrics with videos and tutorials on getting started and/or new ideas on how to use Rubrics in the classroom. Below is a short video on how to get started creating Rubrics, an article with 5 Great Uses for Rubrics that may have some new ideas for you and you can find many more resources: Schoology>Courses>Schoology PD>Rubrics. 

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1RT7hujf2Y&feature=youtu.be

Article: https://www.schoology.com/blog/5-great-uses-for-rubrics-youll-wish-youd-thought-of-first

Blogs, Tweets & Quotes:
*Do you ever experience frustration with a certain behavior in your classroom? Like, a pet peeve, that just drives you crazy? There's a chance that you might have a secret rule for yourself. I found this post by Angela Watson extremely insightful: What are your secret rules for how how everyone else should behave?

Friday Focus - February 21, 2020

Great Things I Noticed this Week:
*When a class finished early with their lesson/activity with 5 minutes to spare, students got to play a quick game of vocabulary charades in partners--they pulled up the academic vocab on their iPads and took turns acting our a word for their partner to guess. Great idea to use every minute!
*Great conversations and great questions at Monday's PD Day. I will tell you that I learned a TON from going to Poynette on Thursday...I just need to figure out how to consolidate the many thoughts spinning around in my head to share with you. I will tell you that before we have our next PD day I have 3 additional days of learning to inform our work (including 2 full days of training on PowerTeacherPro) so I should have lots of answers to your great questions.

Upcoming Events:
Wednesday - a bonus Workout Wednesday to make it through the final week of February! :) (What??!!! It's already the final week of February?! How did that happen?)

Nuts and Bolts Notes:
*When students are absent, they should be allowed time to make up their work from when missing. Please do not put a zero in your gradebook if they haven't had adequate time to make up the work yet.

*Mr. Modaff has tried to block students from finding movies people have put out on google drive, but somehow, students find work arounds. IF you see a student watching a movie this way, please tell them that is not allowed and then you can email Mrs. Modaff and I if it continues so we can address.

*I know that you all don't have a study hall or ARP, but want to reshare the procedures in case you end up covering for a colleague.
-First 10 minutes is reading.
-The rest of the time is for class work, studying, reviewing, or reading. Students should NOT be playing games or watching videos on their iPads.  There are more details in this handout that was shared at the start of the school year.


Tech Tip of the Week:
Learn360. There are many safe and appropriate ways to find media to support and enhance your curriculum. One of those resources is Learn360. Media such as videos, audio, and interactive tools can be accessed, downloaded, and shared with students. Content can be searched based on grade level, topic, or standard. Take a look at how to get started here.

Blogs, Tweets & Quotes:
*6 Teacher-Approved Tips for Faster, More Effective Feedback (it's actually a quick video clip to watch!)

Friday Focus - February 14, 2020

We are at mid-February...the armpit of the school year. Winter finally decided to show up, along with all sorts of viruses, curriculum work, cell phones, hats, tech violations, Parent/Teacher conferences...there's a LOT going on right now. It's the time of the year that we hit that slump and countdown the days until spring break...IF we let ourselves get lost from our why. Do you remember YOUR why? Why do you do what you do? Most of you filled out a card at the start of the year to "Never Forget Why" and now it's time to remind you. You'll find something in your mailboxes today to remind you of your why and keep it as your guide so you keep that passion alive.

Upcoming Events:
Monday - PD Day
Wednesday - Workout Wednesday
   MS Faculty Meeting (topic: accommodations/modifications)

"Nuts & Bolts" Notes:
*Thank you to those of you who have shared pics/info from your classes or students to spotlight on the facebook page. Please keep them coming so parents don't believe their kids did nothing all day!!

Tech Tip of the Week:

Note Taking Resources. Last week’s student Tech Tip was about taking notes. Shared with them a web page that discussed Cornell Notes. Here are a few more resources that may be helpful when expecting notes to be taken by students. 

“It would probably be more effective to simply build note-taking into the class activities. For example, if students are encouraged to take notes, and then they are given a pause every few minutes to compare and revise notes,...” https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/note-taking/ 

Sketchnoting was referenced in the student Tech Tip and if you need a few resources on what that is here is a Google Doc with everything you should need.

Blogs, Tweets & Quotes:
*3 Reasons Students Procrastinate and How to Help Them Stop

Friday, February 7, 2020

Great Things I Noticed this Week:
*Students working together in partners to create what they thought were the 5 most important questions they should be able to answer correctly for their chapter. They were very engaged in reviewing their notes and vocab to come up with challenging questions.
*Students excitedly looking for the traits of drosophila under a microscope (fruit flies) and then setting up their cross experiment to see how traits are passed down.
*The power of relationships--one of our high school student athletes is a mentor for a middle school student. When the high school student was sad about something, her middle school mentee saw her and sought her out to encourage her...this was finally the moment for the younger student to give back!
*We started a Student Spotlight on our district facebook page and I hope to have more recommendations come my way!! You don't even have to have a picture---if you just share with me the student and why you're nominating them, I'll take the picture and make a fancy graphic for Facebook.  Check out the awesome first student spotlight post:

Upcoming Events:
CTSO week at HS
Wednesday - HS Faculty Meeting (topic-upcoming March 3 plans)
Thursday - P/T Conferences 4:00-7:30 in the MS/HS Gym
6:30-7:30 Incoming Freshman night in the multi-purpose room

*My trip to Thailand has been postponed until the world figures out the coronavirus, so I'll be here for all of February now. ;)


"Nuts & Bolts" Notes:
*Please hold firm on student cell phones. MS students should NOT have them. Period.  HS Students
need to put them in the pocket chart and if they're out in class, they are removed.  Think of it--if just one class lets students have their phones out, if that was 20 students, those 20 students now think in their 8 other class periods that they can try to pull them out again, because they got to somewhere else. That's 160 possible student opportunities to push the cell phone boundary in a day. We can hold firm together with this expectation!


Tech Tip of the Week:
Apple Classroom on your Mac. A reminder that Apple Classroom is on your Mac and works similar to when you use it on your iPad, but sometimes you may be using your iPad for instruction. Here is a user guide with directions on how to use some of the tools within Classroom.

Blogs, Quotes & Tweets:
*How to Keep Kids Engaged in Class