For those of you who either long for the days of Loverboy or have no idea who the group is, click on the icon above for “Working for the Weekend” from 1981. In the lyrics, when they state “Everybody wants a little romance” they are, of course, talking about the romantic feeling engendered by a well-crafted instructional experience that one has shared with one’s students that is working and from which you can bask in the glow of satisfaction for the [entire] weekend. That makes it educationally appropriate. Also, Loverboy is a Canadian band and Canada has a lot of schools. So, this song is totally appropriate for this memo. Really.
Forthcoming Deadlines
1.0 Your self assessment and goals are due by October 31. This is a hard deadline. For those who have done them, thank you. If you want me to review them before you sign them (and lock them on your side), please e-mail me separately at the same time that you share them out.
Support Resources
PD & Misc. Opportunities
Forthcoming Deadlines
1.0 Your self assessment and goals are due by October 31. This is a hard deadline. For those who have done them, thank you. If you want me to review them before you sign them (and lock them on your side), please e-mail me separately at the same time that you share them out.
- 1.1 At the last meeting, I shared out the all-departments model PPG. This is here. Several people asked for SLG ideas that would work with that PPG. I have created one and put it here. The sample SLG has a number of explanatory concepts embedded into it, so you might want to look at it — and query me about the whys and wherefores — even if you aren’t interested in using it.
- 1.2 Remember that members within a PLC may produce identical SLGs and PPGs. If you produce your own SLG outside a PLC, make sure that you state a way in which you will be able to compare the data that you use in your SLG with some other standard, whether it is another teacher’s or school or state averages that you find.
- 1.2.1 If you need help with this data component, please talk with me and I will help you straighten it out. If you want to incorporate extramural data, I’ll help you with that, too, up to the state level. National level data is appropriate for our MA SLGs, given how much MA students outperform and outgrow students from almost all other states.
- 1.3 I provided data that you can use to inform your self assessment and goals here. If there is other data that you need that is hard to get, please let me know and I’ll work on it for you. If you have students that are at risk, it can help to have student data from other courses, historical attendance, etc. I can work up a profile for you, if you are more comfortable working with me than a given house office.
Support Resources
- Daniela Ricciardi and Carla Correa are offering teachers the opportunity to go to them for social worker counseling for helping students who you think are at risk, but are not sure how to help. All of the department chairs have agreed to personally cover the duties of teachers who need to talk with a social worker to better help a student. This spreadsheet (click here) gives times when Daniela will be available for meeting with teachers. This spreadsheet (click here) gives times when Carla will be available for meeting with teachers. Please let me know if you need to talk with one and you don't see a way to make it work with this schedule.
PD & Misc. Opportunities
- If you click on the image below, it will take you to the registration page for Generation Citizen’s first Webinar. All of GC’s instructional techniques are developed to foster a differentiated classroom across the spectrum. The webinar is open to all teachers, not just current GC teachers.
Kudos & News (please contribute!)
More kudos or news that the department should know? E-mail me for the next memo...
- Kudos to Lisa Colloca for pulling off another fabulous NHS induction ceremony! The kids looked great, Jaishri Atri gave a great go-for-broke speech, and George Gikas proved that he is quick on his feet at the podium. My seat kinda sucked w/r/t taking photos (Tom, can you supply better ones?), but you can see a few highlights below.
- Kudos to Jim Callahan for being chosen by the NHS kids as their teacher of the year! That was almost as exciting for his kids, who were there for the honor, as the frosted cookies they got after the ceremony. After this and appearing on Kelly Clarkson’s show, Jim can now be found at Boarding House Park on weekends, where people pay for his autograph as the coolest half-million-like teacher in LHS history. He is paying for his kids’ college education that way. E-mail him for his hours there.
- Kudos to Kara Pigeon for being the first in the department to do a peer observation! Not that there is any sense of competition, but English has had a quarter of its teachers do peer observations. Math is double digits, too. I’m not sure about Science. Social Studies? Kara is also the last person to have done one, as well as the first...
- I’m waiting by the phone for your call — and checking my e-mail, too — to get you out of duty, so that you can observe each other and help each other’s professional practice grow. Cross departmental observations are also encouraged.
- Kudos to Joe Jussaume for his ongoing work at the national level to develop instructional practice around blind and visually impaired students so that they can fully engage in project-based civics!
- We had Councilman Joe A. Garcia of the Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo at LHS on Wednesday as part of the District’s new Distinguished Speakers series. Kudos to Steve Szecskas and his Lyceum homies for their flexibility in answering the call at the last minute and providing exceptional freshmen as an audience, when 40 seniors totally bagged on us during the PSAT lockdown!
- Councilman Garcia is the past president of the National Congress of American Indians, Governor of Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo, and a Council Elder of the Pueblo today. His talk covered a broad swath of issues related to Native education today and the ways in which it can inform contemporary non-Native American education. As soon as I can get his slide deck, I will put it up with some explanatory notes. There was a lot of challenging and useful information and ideas that he put forward in his talk. He and I will continue to dialogue about this, and perhaps integrate some of his theoretical ideas, as well as content, into our departmental coursework. That is a longer term goal, but if you are interested in learning more, please contact me.
- Members of last year’s Seminar on American Diversity will participate in the Boston Book Festival tomorrow from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. Details here.
More kudos or news that the department should know? E-mail me for the next memo...
A final note...
I and the other chairs are well aware that some of the faculty, including members of our department, are unhappy with the focus areas of the turnaround. The department chairs are trying hard to make sure that consistent messages from the instructional team go out to all teachers in all departments, so I will not give a technical response here. However, I would note that there is a difference between the names we give things here and what they represent for us in this process. An article from 2011 on objectives has been passed around as representative (proof?) of why the present focus is misguided. I think it is worthwhile not having these discussions in a subterranean way and bringing them up to the surface. Although we have harped on the word “objective,” the real focus is on coherent, purposeful structure to lessons, so that students are engaged in critical thinking and are self aware of their learning. Lesson objectives are a starting point for creating a map, but they are not the whole map, just a destination. They tell the people in the car where the car is supposed to end up. We teachers are Siri. We, with our experience in the classroom and our training, figure out the best route to get there. We warm up the car, then start off; at some point we let the kids get behind the wheel, because they have to learn to drive, too. We check for our bearings and re-route as necessary, and if we don't make it to where we need to go, we make plans for getting there the next day, and make sure the kids remember the driving lessons for the day and where they’ve been, and why. The next day we start again on the journey, maybe to reach yesterday’s destination, maybe onto a new one.
I and the other chairs are well aware that some of the faculty, including members of our department, are unhappy with the focus areas of the turnaround. The department chairs are trying hard to make sure that consistent messages from the instructional team go out to all teachers in all departments, so I will not give a technical response here. However, I would note that there is a difference between the names we give things here and what they represent for us in this process. An article from 2011 on objectives has been passed around as representative (proof?) of why the present focus is misguided. I think it is worthwhile not having these discussions in a subterranean way and bringing them up to the surface. Although we have harped on the word “objective,” the real focus is on coherent, purposeful structure to lessons, so that students are engaged in critical thinking and are self aware of their learning. Lesson objectives are a starting point for creating a map, but they are not the whole map, just a destination. They tell the people in the car where the car is supposed to end up. We teachers are Siri. We, with our experience in the classroom and our training, figure out the best route to get there. We warm up the car, then start off; at some point we let the kids get behind the wheel, because they have to learn to drive, too. We check for our bearings and re-route as necessary, and if we don't make it to where we need to go, we make plans for getting there the next day, and make sure the kids remember the driving lessons for the day and where they’ve been, and why. The next day we start again on the journey, maybe to reach yesterday’s destination, maybe onto a new one.
Taking your kids places isn’t particularly easy. If you don’t have children, you can remember being a child and a teenager going on trips. If you have young children, you know how often you have to stop for potty breaks. (Classroom analogies, anyone?) And, if you have teenagers, you know that when you start out (hoping you can get going on time), one kid will pay attention (but still sneak glances at her phone), while the other will immediately tune you out and not care if you see that she’s ignoring you, while spending time complaining about the trip on Instagram. And... when you are teaching your kids to drive, it’s terrifying at first. But they have to learn well, or you worry about them even more every time they’re driving on their own. You want them to be proficient at it.
This way of visualizing the process helps me make my way through objective > launch > explore > summary > formative assessment > summative assessment > and why student mastery of critical thinking is so important. I don't want my kids going out and doing a half-bassed job of thinking for themselves. It does no one any good.
Rob
p.s. If you look too closely at my hastily photoshopped Siri, please don’t think that we are going to 7-hour block scheduling...
This way of visualizing the process helps me make my way through objective > launch > explore > summary > formative assessment > summative assessment > and why student mastery of critical thinking is so important. I don't want my kids going out and doing a half-bassed job of thinking for themselves. It does no one any good.
Rob
p.s. If you look too closely at my hastily photoshopped Siri, please don’t think that we are going to 7-hour block scheduling...