Author: mrkobot

102 Review, Issue 15: 21st Century Instruction Isn’t About Making Powerpoints

Posted on by mrkobot in Principal's Blog

January 8th, 2016

“The advocates of 21st century education cited in this chapter are not urging us to rashly reinvent curriculum around technology or group projects…They are not proposing that students need to spend less time learning content and more time making movie previews, video skits, wikis, silent movies, to clay animation figures…”

-Mike Schmoker, chapter 2 of Focus: Elevating the Essentials to Radically Improve Student learning

Happy new year, 102! As much as I enjoyed a much needed break, it was great to see everyone back together Monday. Please welcome Sarah Cohen to the 102 family as she assumes the reins of leading 5-321. It’s no small feat to follow Ms. Vicario’s footsteps—midyear no less—but I’m confident we’ll see amazing things from Ms. Cohen once she settles in. Feel free to drop by her room when you have a chance; I’m sure she’ll appreciate any support you can offer or just a simple hello.

Also taking on a new challenge, Yanil Rodriguez is transitioning into her new role as 102’s new parent coordinator. The most effective parent coordinators are those who mediate and build bridges, and we are very fortunate to have someone like Yanil who can leverage her experience in the classroom, as a parent, and as a veteran “other-centered” 102 staff to see from different perspectives. Please reach out to Yanil if you need assistance in connecting with families regarding behavior, grades, needs, anything—it’s her job to support you.

Weekly Highlight:

Thank you Ms. Gaffan for your efforts in leading the student council to raise funds for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. It is a wonderful cause and a great teaching tool. See here for more information.

Things You Need to Know:

New Discipline Referral Process: Please carefully review the memo placed in mailboxes today regarding discipline referrals to learn more about our new protocol for teachers to document and refer persistent student misconduct to the assistant principals and guidance counselors. The process is not designed to burden you with unnecessary paperwork but to bring transparency and objectivity to the school’s approach to discipline. A uniform, codified, and consistent response in addressing misbehavior is vital in supporting students to develop positive behavior skills, and we ask all teachers to be diligent in reporting persistent low-level infractions. Theresa in the main office will be able to provide you with more copies of the form or you can download and print it here.

Formal Observations: Formal observations will begin this cycle. Teachers electing to have formal observations should consider the following items to prepare for their pre-observation conference:

1. Which CCLS standard(s) is targeted and measured for this lesson?

2. How will you check for understanding throughout the lesson?

3. How did our students perform on the state exam last year for the target learning standard? What adjustments will you be making this year to improve student outcomes?

4. What are some potential hurdles for students during the lesson? How will you address them during the lesson?

5. What data are you using to group students?

Six Flag’s Read to Succeed (aka students-log-6-hours-of-reading-to-get-a-free ticket) Program: 102 is now signed up for Six Flag’s reading program for our K-6 students. Our librarian Ms. Bridges has set up teacher accounts for all grade 3-5 teachers and she will be reaching out to you shortly. A memo with more information will be in your mailbox Monday with a letter to parents to follow. Teachers in grades K-2 and 6 who are interested should reach out to Ms. Bridges and/or your assistant principal.

Releasing K-5 Students During Dismissal: If you have to be absent and have students requiring additional attention during dismissal (order of protection, student prone to wander, unique pick-up arrangements, etc.) you must leave explicit directions for your covering teacher. Please continue to dismiss children with caution as we work to simplify our dismissal protocol.

1/11 Monday Professional Learning: Information regarding book club groups and meeting locations are in your mailbox. Please report to your assigned location by 2:50PM.

102 Review, Issue 14: We’re a Happy School

Posted on by mrkobot in Principal's Blog

December 18th, 2015

“This is a happy school.”

–a district 24 principal

 Of the many glows and grows we received today from some of the best principals in New York City, perhaps none struck me as much as the one above. Yes, assessment matters, instruction matters, and rigor matters. We know that and we’ll discuss them soon. But teaching is far more than just a series of skills that can be learned and mastered simply through repetition. Teaching is like trying to solve a rubik’s cube with infinite squares that change color as you go—it’s as complex a task as can be. Good teachers are great because they are able to find the motivation to fall short and try again and again, day after day. And it’s almost impossible to try when unhappy.

The joy in our work shone through in our collective response today to a significant challenge. We brought it and we should all head into the holidays with our heads held high. It was a good day—more info to follow.

Weekly Highlights: Our 8th graders enjoyed a night to remember at the winter ball. My only request to Ms. Eliades and Ms. Zecca was to make it bigger and better than last year. Done and done. Also thank you to all the teachers who chipped in to help set up and chaperone. Mr. McManus: extra thanks to you for being the ultimate team player in assisting any way you can. It’s no accident our basketball players develop such great character year after year.

Even though she kept saying she was nervous, Ms. Henriquez showed our visitors some of the best qualities of 102. Her students were deeply engaged and took great pride in their efforts during a math lesson. By unpacking the thinking necessary in solving a word problem as a series of steps, Ms. Henriquez prepared her students for success during work time. Their confidence is a testament to your continual thoughtfulness, and you have much to be proud of.

Ms. Green and Mr. Gebhardt made magic in their collaboration on the posters you see hanging in our hallway. Game for any task and ready to meet deadlines at a moment’s notice, the duo elevated what achieving at 102 can and should be in one fell swoop. Incredible job.

This is the last issue of 102 Review in 2015. I wish you all a great week next week and a wonderful holiday. See you in 2016!

102 Review, Issue 13: Preparing for Principals Meeting

Posted on by mrkobot in Principal's Blog

 

December 11th, 2015

“What are you thinking?”

-All 40 district 24 principals to our students next Friday

Exciting news: 102 will be hosting the December principals meeting next Friday on the 18th, and all 40 principals from district 24 will be visiting our classrooms along with Superintendent Chan and her team. As a teacher I’ve always relished the opportunity to show the world what my students were doing and learning, and I am just as excited now as principal to open the doors of 102. Great things are happening here and people need to know about it.

In teams of 5-7 during periods 2-4, our guests will visit classrooms across all grades and subject areas to observe instruction at 102. To focus this work, I will be asking our guests to think about one question as they go from class to class: “What are the students thinking?”

Students learn best when they engage in activities that allow them to construct new understanding themselves through active inquiry and thinking, and not when they passively take notes or parrot information given by the teacher. It is crucial that you plan for every lesson, every day—not just next Friday—activities that facilitate the learning process via student thinking, discussion, and deep understanding. See Ms. Green’s exemplary practice of this approach below in the “Weekly Highlights” section.

Active student thinking is an effective approach to ensure core academic subject mastery, but it is perhaps the only viable method to help students develop a host of critical 21st century skills such as creative thinking, emotional intelligence, and teamwork. Our instructional focus for the school year reflects our commitment to support this work.

PS/IS 102 Instructional Focus

All students will acquire both core academic subject mastery as well as critical 21st century skills by engaging in rigorous thinking tasks that explicitly target the development of metacognitive skills in creative thinking, problem solving, teamwork, emotional intelligence, and civic responsibility.

2015-2016: DEFINE thinking rigor through common tasks, assessments, and projects in each grade and subject area. Inquiry groups will research, create and/or select exemplar tasks for each content area in every grade.

2016-2017: DELIVER instruction that attends to the instructional shifts necessary in providing access for all students to engage in rigorous thinking tasks. Inquiry teams will review student outcomes to discover effective teacher practices in promoting CCLS and 21st century skills.

2017-2018: DETERMINE a uniform set of best practices and curricula to support rigorous thinking in every lesson. Administration will align all school systems and expectations for teachers and students to create an environment designed for active learning through thinking.

We will come back in January to unpack this work in inquiry groups. More information to follow.

Weekly Highlights:

After assigning her students to use new vocabulary word “variant” in a sentence for homework a day earlier, Ms. Green expertly facilitated a small-to-whole class discussion activity to monitor student understanding and to scaffold learning for the students who need it. Patient and astute in her approach, Ms. Green guided her students to learn through discovery as they attend to her questions and counter-examples, building on one another’s understanding and thinking deeply about the term variant in meaning, form, and connotation. Her students were given the opportunity to construct new learning themselves and will have far greater retention than if they had learned by passively listening to a teacher’s explanation.

Things You Need to Know:

  • Staff Spotlight: The first installment of our “Staff Spotlight”is up! To help the community better get to know our amazing staff, students will interview teachers for this bi-monthly series. Please feel free to nominate a colleague you feel is deserving of the “Spotlight”. See here for an interview with Ms. Zwillickby Laura Umana of class 8-409.
  • Kind and Caring Wednesdays: The “Caught Being Kind and Caring” campaign is up and running. An initiative for students and teachers in grade 3-5, three students will be celebrated each week on “Kind and Caring Wednesdays” over the PA in the morning. Throughout the week students will be filling entries for classmates who have been caught doing something kind and caring, and we will randomly select three to highlight.

 

  • Write-Ups After Going on Trips: Please email me a blurb of any trips you take with your class along with some photos. 102 provides students with such a well-rounded and rich learning experience and I want to share your hard work with the community. I will use the write-up to create an entry on our website. See here for an example: http://ps102q.org/category/student-life/

102 Review, Issue 12: Strategic Planning and Magical Night

Posted on by mrkobot in Principal's Blog

December 4th, 2015

“For some people, the term strategic planning brings to mind a disciplined and thoughtful process that links the values, mission, and goals of a school system with a set of coherent strategies and tasks designed to achieve those goals. For others, the term induces a cringe brought about by memories of endless meetings, fact-free debates, three-ring binders, and dozens of objectives, tasks, strategies, plans, and goals—all left undone after the plan was completed. As one frustrated administrator said to me, “When do we get to stop planning and start doing?”

-Douglas Reeves, In Leading to Change/ Making Strategic Planning Work

It took a great deal of collaboration and effort, but our 102’s inaugural celebration of the International Day for People with Disabilities on December 3rd was a massive success by any measure. Initially pitched as a information booth during parent teacher conference, the event morphed over the months into a full day extravaganza completed with levitating students, balloons that turn into doves that turn into bunnies, a school community united in wearing blue, a dance performance, free iPads, fresh popcorn, and even a movie-worthy-against-all-odds-come-from-behind-overtime win by our first ever girls basketball team. It was a truly magical day for the students in Ms. Meenan’s ASD class, and I am fiercely proud of our school community in coming together for a great cause.

However, when compared with the challenge of planning and implementing instruction to support high-need students, sawing a principal in half no longer seems so impossible. Impactful inquiry work involves attending to endless variables and thinking about the unknown, and as a result can be a frustrating process for the very same reasons that give it potential to be transformative. Your feedback from November 23rd tells us as much. You tell us that you are supportive, sees potential, but that you need more structure and guidance. Out Professional Learning Committee is already making the necessary adjustments to better support this work, and we will briefly meet next Monday, December 7th to clarify expectations. All teachers please report to the auditorium after dismissal and you will be released to engage in inquiry work with your respective teams.

Weekly Highlights: 

Ms. DeVito lead her students in the 2nd grade ASD class to perform a dance number in front of a packed house, and they captured the hearts of everyone in just a few hip shakes. The dance—no longer than maybe 3 minutes—must’ve involved months of practice, patience, and most importantly, compassion from their teachers. Thank you Ms. DeVito for exemplifying the qualities all our students should aspire to develop.

Things You Need to Know:

 Discipline: Please inform your direct supervisor immediately–cc’ me if via email—to report student misbehavior outside of the classroom. We need all staff to be alert in protecting the orderly climate here at 102 and our assistant principals would appreciate your help in identifying target students and their behavior.

We are also working on a referral form for misbehaviors that take place in the classroom, and we hope it will clarify to the community how teachers and administrators are to respond to different types of incidents. This work is grounded in the recently revised discipline code, and you should review it if you haven’t already done so.

After School Program: We will be offering after school programs for ELA and math and you should email me ASAP if you are interested in teaching. All teachers are welcome to apply.

Smartboards: I will be reaching out to the teachers who have expressed interest in piloting new technology. Some existing Smartboards will be removed from these classrooms and can be repurposed for another classroom. If your Smartboard has any issues please let me know immediately.

102 Review, Issue 11: Asking the Right Questions in PLC

Posted on by mrkobot in Principal's Blog

 

November 20th, 2015

“Why did students struggle with this? How do we re-teach it?”

After 46 days of instruction, it should be clear to teachers who are their struggling students and what they each struggle with the most. However, knowing “who” and “what” is only one half of the equation in planning effective interventions for students in desperate need of them.

The article “Asking the Right Questions in PLC” argues that teacher teams should ask and answer four key questions when analyzing student outcomes:
–   What do we need to re-teach?

–   To whom do we need to re-teach it?

–   Why did students struggle with this?

–   How do we re-teach it?

Over-stressed and often lacking time to meet with colleagues, it’s easy for all of us to focus only on the first two questions and not allocating sufficient time to fully address the “Why” and the “How”. As we dig deeper to find ways to support students, consider the following questions when analyzing student work:

–   What do you think made some items difficult for students?

–   What are some possible sources of confusion?

–   What do students’ wrong answer choices tell us about their errors and misconceptions?

–   How did we originally teach this concept? What worked? What didn’t work?

–   What are the best strategies for addressing the misconceptions?

–   What are the best curriculum resources?

–   How do you think students will respond to an alternative instructional approach?

As we continue to plan for and deliver interventions for struggling students both during the regular school day as well as before/after school programs, we must be mindful of the fact that giving more of the same is not effective intervention. What didn’t work the first time will most likely not work the second or third time around; there’s a reason why each student struggle and intervention is all about finding out why.

Weekly Highlights:

Ms. Zecca, leading the charge once again in directing our school play, is working tirelessly to teach, model, organize, and support our amazing group of young actors’. It’s a tremendous undertaking to put a play together with professional adults, and I cannot imagine the weight Ms. Zecca carries AFTER a full day of incredible math instruction. Ms. Zecca, I bow to no one but you and Simba.

From Mr. Borelli: This week Mrs. Giampapa, Ms. Beceiro, Mrs. Chin, and Mrs. Foley put a Problem of Practice to the test.  The ReadyGENvocabulary portion was not engaging enough for their students to create the link between seeing the word and knowing the word.  Working together outside of our Monday PLCs, the 1st grade team, including Mrs. Khatibi and Mrs. Pera, have implemented several methods to move away from the passive “3,2,1” assessment to an active classroom where students are discussing attributes of words like “proud” and “enormous” through the use of small group Circle Maps, visuals, and pushing students to have a rationale for their thinking.  Each one of these classes looked different in their approach and in their results due to the authenticity of feedback from students. This was a great demonstration of purposeful planning and the willingness to seek new avenues of learning to bring out the best in our students.

From Ms. Atkins: Mrs. Le Roy invited Ms. Allen’s class into her classroom to share her “African Animal Dioramas”. Mrs. Le Roy shared her “Thin and Thick” question formulation strategy with the visiting class and the teachers then created student groups where host students guided their guests in a question and discussion session.

Mrs. LeRoy and Mrs. Allen teamed-up to incorporate strategies that engage students to learn through purposeful discussion and collaboration.  Their teamwork exposed students to diverse perspectives allowing them to learn from various points of views.

From Ms. Mulé: Ms. Merjave is working with class 6-309 to create a content based project in the computer lab.  Not only are the students in the class researching Inventions of Ancient Civilizations, they are learning how to put this information together on a PowerPoint presentation. In this lesson students not only acquired information they could apply in the Social Studies class, but added to the foundation of math skills that will prove useful in the coming years.

Things You Need to Know:

Attendance: As a professional courtesy, please try to email me as well as your immediate supervisor when you find out you have to take a sick day. We understand the many things that may prevent you from coming to work, and we want to appropriately plan for your students to learn in your absence. Please try and email us when you call sub-central to give us some time to coordinate coverage. Thank you for your understanding.

Thesis Throwdown Thinking Thursday: I’ve heard through the grapevines that a challenge will be broadcasted to a class Monday morning. Stay tuned!