Tag: Instructional Leadership

102 Review, May 14th, 2017: Pizza and Immigration

Posted on by mrkobot in Instructional Leadership, Principal's Blog

THINKING GENERATOR BEST PRACTICE

“Would you rather have two 8″ pizzas or one 12″ pizza?”

The pizza question above is an excellent TG for a lesson on finding the area of a circle. It focuses student thinking on the relationship betweeen diameter and area, it engages everyone (because it’s pizza), it spotlights an important concept in exponents in geometry, and it’s applicable.

However, it’s easy to mistake its elegant simplicity as lacking rigor and come up with something like the following:

“Peter sees that two small 8″ pizzas cost 19.99, and one medium 12” pizza cost 24.99. If he wants to get the better deal, which option should he choose? 

He is sharing with 8 friends. How much should the remaining friends each pay if 3 of them can only offer $1, $.87, and $1.12, respectively?”

Although this could be a great performance task, this is not an effective TG to introduce the area of a circle. If students already know how to solve it, then they learned little new by doing it. If students didn’t know how to solve it, they just wasted 45 minutes NOT learning how to do it. Thinking is productive struggle; blindly guessing not knowing even which direction to look is just struggle.

TGs should make students think specifically about an area that can then lead them to an “aha!” moment. That’s it.

(P.S. A 12″ pizza has more than double the area of an 8″ pizza.)

THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW

MONDAY AFTERNOON: All staff report to the auditorium immediately after dismissal to learn about the school’ promotion process.

IMMIGRATION REMINDER: News have reported that last Friday ICE officers visited a school very nearby to pick up a 4th grader.

The law is the law, and we have a legal responsibility to cooperate with authorities once all documents have been verified.

But we also have an ethical responsibility to minimize the trauma and harm such an incident could have on all of our students. While I’m not going to comment on the authorities decision to pick up a student during school hours, I will ask all staff to be prudent in protecting our students’ emotional well-being as politics spill into schools.

WEDNESDAY, May 17th is Family Night. 4-7PM. Please refer to the staff memo for information.

THURSDAY, May 18th: SHREK OPENING NIGHT

NEW STAFF SPOTLIGHT: Vanessa Wyckoff

STEM Summer Opportunity: 

Back in 2015, NYU Tandon School of Engineering made a pledge to the White House to educate 500 teachers and positively impact 50,000 public school students throughout NYC by 2025. This summer they are offering the following programs to teachers:

Please note that all programs offer teachers a stipend for completing requirements.

Applications can be found at http://engineering.nyu.edu/k12stem/educators/ and if you have any questions please email k12.stem@nyu.edu.

102 Review, April 23rd, 2017: Get to Know the SBO

Posted on by mrkobot in Principal's Blog

Thinking Generator Highlight: Always, sometimes, never: I understand things better when I have to explain/present the answer.

-Ms. Mills

Sometimes that’s all it takes: a TG that puts a tight focus on students to develop the common sense we often take for granted by having them think about it. Remember, it might be the Nth time we’re teaching a certain topics/skill over the years, but for students, it’s very likely the present 45 minutes will be the only time they’ll ever experience the learning.

Writing effective TGs is hard work, and it’s work that’s important for us to get better at. Monday afternoon–when we’re all fried from a day of teaching–just isn’t going to cut it, and I’ve asked our UFT to conduct an SBO to see if we can use a half day in May or June to allow us some professional learning time after we send the students home early.

Tomorrow at 3:30PM we ask all staff to go to the auditorium to learn more about the aforementioned as well as a few other School-Based Options we can vote for.

Until 3:30PM, individual teacher teams not listed below may work on items as they see fit.

K-2: Blended Learning Refresher: Lexia, SmartyAnts, and introducing Mathletics. RM 325

3-5 STEM: Plan for Tuesday’s’ afternoon event. RM 329

Middle School Math: Placement protocol for 2017-2018 RM 405

ICT SPED Teachers: Reviewing students with inadequate progress RM 327

THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW

K-5 DISMISSAL: K-5 teachers please be mindful not to be lax in ensuring you are releasing students to parents. We’re now a school that regularly receive new students, and it is important our dismissal protocols are tight and PERFECT. It only takes one careless mistake for the world to turn upside down–don’t let it happen.

TECHNOLOGY INVENTORY: Mr. Horodyski is working on updating our equipment inventory, and he will be asking students to visit every room to look through all technology items. Please excuse the interruption and they should not take more than a few minutes per room.

RUNNING ON TV: Did you know our students were featured on New York Road Runner’s latest TV campaign? See for yourself: http://www.ps102q.org/nyrr

(Oh, Ms. Merino just completed the Boston Marathon last week, for fun, apparently.)

2017-2018 Preference Sheets will be handed out tomorrow.

Inaugural 102 Bring Your Child to Work Day will be busier than I had anticipated–and that’s hardly a bad thing. Enjoy!

Report Card Grade Changes: Should grades on the Marking Period 2 report card be inaccurate due to clerical errors (assignment not included the average, typo, etc.), you should request the necessary changes to your AP. Families should have accurate report cards, and we need to fix any inaccurate report cards brought to us from families.

Student vs. Staff Games: Take your pick: Soccer or Basketball. Official dates will be announced this week. Not that this year’s school teams have a bad record or anything, but STAFF CANNOT LOSE. Have fun, of course, and winning isn’t everything, but DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT LOSING.

102 REVIEW, 2017-3-19: MOSL AND MOTP

Posted on by mrkobot in Principal's Blog

Your end-of-year rating from NYCDOE depends on two components, Measure of Student Learning (MOSL aka test scores) and Measure of Teacher Practice (MOTP aka Danielson Framework). Here are some information and thoughts:

MOSL UPDATE 3/20

Tomorrow we’ll meet in the auditorium at 3PM to go through some information about the 102 state test process. After that, we’ll share some information regarding the city’s new way of using test scores in teacher ratings, and we’ll do our best to clarify and answer your questions.

A WORD ON MOTP

Don’t let the Danielson Framework and our City’s ADVANCE observation process distract you from doing the things you know work. DF is hardly a cure-all, and it’s actually not hard to make the case that using it to measure teacher practice is actually making some teachers less effective. It compartmentalizes instruction and reduces a dynamic, complex, and distinctly inter-human process into a checklist of actions to be counted, noted, and quantified, and we all know instruction is so much more about the sum than its many parts.

Imagine what’d happen if we judged other types of artists using the same logic: that to judge the quality of a painting, we simply count how many colors were used, how many shapes are included, and whether the canvas meets the minimum size requirement. And then ignore the feelings and interpretations these paintings can evoke for different viewers–because they are impossible to standardize–even though they were probably the reasons why the painting was made in the first place.

Good instruction is not about how many times we do turn and talks, ask students to show thumbs up or thumbs down, or by asking endless open-ended questions with little regard to student abilities or the learning objective. Good instruction is having a clear focused learning objective and then designing a series of purposeful tasks/prompts that generate the precise student thinking needed to get them there. That’s it.

After the state test we’ll engage in a series focused workshops on this type of work in building a tighter through-line from a lesson’s objective to its Thinking Generator to student outcomes. Until then, do what works.

HIGHLIGHTS

Speaking of through-line from learning objective to Thinking Generators, check this TG one out by the consistently amazing Ms Arlequin:

“How are hashtags after a social media post similar to annotating in the margins of a text?”

(If only she could annotate for everyone the things I write and say…)

From Ms. Mintiens: The amount of writing that the Kindergarten, 1st, and 2nd grade students are producing is staggering.  If you haven’t checked out many of their bulletin boards, please do!  The choice in writing that TC gives them has been so positive. Ms. Monteleone and Ms. Wyckoff took a risk this week when they turned the tables and let the students teach their peers.  While the students were working on their independent writing both teachers pulled small groups. Ms. Monteleone reviewed punctuation with her group, playing a fun game ( Which phrase goes in which bag – ?, . , or !). Then she explained that the students would be turn keying this information to their table mates.  She used a mid workshop interruption to explain what was going to occur to the rest of the class and the students became teachers. This exercise was a first, but empowered the students greatly to take charge of their own learning.  I love seeing the risks teachers are taking to engage and reach their students!

Both Pre-K classes had an interesting visitor this past week.  An animal expert came in and the students got to check out turtles, lizards, rabbits, chinchillas, and more.  The students had a wonderful time, and this was a great learning experience.  Ms. Devito got a great video and and Ms. McLain got some great pictures.  This was a great way to give the students an experience/field trip without leaving the building, which can be stressful.

THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW

Fast and Furious Family Fitness Fun Night is this Tuesday, 3/21 from 4:30-6:30PM. Let me know if you’re interested in participating–it’s a guaranteed good time when Martial Arts and Zumba are involved in the same event.

Surveys: The first class in each of the grade bands to return all parent surveys will receive a pizza party. The first team of teachers to do so will also get a group prize, and a raffle will be done for one individual winner. Please turn your sealed surveys to Ms. Delvecchio or Ms. Falesto.

Individual Meetings:  The APs and I will begin individual meetings with teachers regarding the success and challenges of this year as well as goals for next year. Many of the systems we introduced this year are working, and it’s time we shift the conversation to how we see ourselves fitting into them now that we’ve seen and experienced it.

3rd Floor Hall of Fame: While the STEAM team takes over the 2nd floor gallery to amazing effects, Mr. Borelli is leading the charge on transforming the 3rd floor gallery into 102’s Hall of Fame. Soon we’ll begin accepting writing entries from classes to showcase student voice; more info to follow.

102 Review, Issue 2017-2-12: Respect for All (and Making Sure It Happens)

Posted on by mrkobot in Principal's Blog

102 Review, Issue 2017-2-12: Respect for All (and Making Sure It Happens)

FEBRUARY 12, 2017 BY PGEBHARDT

“Ultimately, this report concludes that Wisconsin must honor its commitment to make a public education available to all of its students, but must not do so at the expense of the vast majority of pupils who do not engage in disruptive behaviors. Similarly, teachers must be supported and allowed to teach in an environment where their focus can be on student learning, not discipline.”

-Mike Ford, The Impact of Disruptive Students in Wisconsin Public Schools

There was a fantastic study two weeks ago I could no longer find, but the gist of it is simple: children learn how to behave mostly from the way their peers do, and not how the teachers and parents teach them.

When the majority of their classmates respect one another, children reliably learn how to do so. Conversely, when they observe classmates exhibiting disrespectful behaviors, the likelihood of them misbehaving increases.

Unfortunately, children who misbehave draw them most attention, and thus have the most impact. That’s why one hardworking student can never improve the behavior of 29 other students, but one unchecked misbehaving student can absolutely torpedo his/her entire grade.

The solution, obviously, is for educators to check their idealism and pragmatically remove the persistently misbehaving student from the general population. (This is all researched-based, by the way.)  So this Respect for All week (thank you for planning, Ms. Babakitis!), I urge all of us to identify the most-pressing behavior issues still persisting in each grade and let your APs know. The School Climate Team will have a mid-year review of our most critical “cases” this Friday and we’ll escalate our responses accordingly.

HIGHLIGHTS

Ms. Meenan, Ms. Danielski, Ms. Wyckoff, Ms. Monteleone, Ms. Listl, and Ms. Mercado, and Ms. Lee. To watch you expertly attend to explosive misbehaviors as you teach brings back memories of my mother wrangling with her own Hurricane William. Thank you, and your persistence is absolutely vital to the ones who need it most.

THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW

INQUIRY SHOWCASE

AIS, School Events, and TechFlex: You’re Up. All staff please be ready to learn in the auditorium by 3PM.

OPERATION THANK YOU: I’ve heard that the Chancellor’s office were delighted by our Operation Thank You videos. Please upload them here; I’m creating a web gallery and we would like to share all of our photos and videos.

6TH GRADE TEACHERS: Effectively immediately, please direct all 6th grade students to use only the stairway by Ms. Mulé and Ms. Mintien’s office to and from lunch.

DISCRETIONARY SPENDING SEASON: I’ve been meeting with grade teams to determine how best to spend some of our discretionary budget. Instead of allocating funds to each teacher to make little purchases here and there, we’re aiming to be more intentional this time around with our Spring spending. Whether it’s furniture for the School Climate Team, per-session for planning, Whatever the Cohen’s need, TC books, chromebooks, or the Zecca’s Wish(es) foundation, we will take care of it because we are committed to removing as many obstacles from your work as possible. Help me help you. Go ahead, say, “Show me the_________” and I’ll do my best to oblige.

102 Review, 2017-1-22: Effective Thinking Generators

Posted on by mrkobot in Principal's Blog

Of all the things we say about Thinking Generators, here are the two most important things you need to think about as you plan them:

1.) You must first know exactly the thinking you are trying to generate as well as how it will lead to new understanding relating to the target learning objective

2.) The TG is written so that there exist no alternative option for students but to think about what you intended 

Why? Because we can’t learn by listening to a teacher talk or explain; we need to think about ideas to learn them. If you disagree, tell me how much you’ve learned about non-commutable variables after a teacher lectures and tells you to copy this idea in your graphic organizer:

“A function of noncommuting variables is a function defined on tuples of matrices of all sizes that satisfies certain compatibility conditions as we vary the size of matrices: it respects direct sums and simultaneous similarities, or equivalently, simultaneous intertwinings.”

Right.

Likewise, for some 6th grade students, the following “knowledge”  can be as confusing as the prior example was to you:

“To clearly defines how a word or complex term is being used in a reading, both denotative and connotative meanings should be considered. Because of subtle differences in both denotative and connotative meaning, a reader’s misinterpretation of the author’s intent may undermine their ability to navigate the nuances of the text.”

So how can we use a Thinking Generator to help students really learn connotation? Let’s use Mr. Goldin’s class as a case study for aTG mini how-to guide.

THINKING GENERATOR HOW-TO: 6th Grade ELA:

(V)TG: To help his students appreciation the purpose of connotation and learn how to use it, first-year teacher uses the following vocabulary Thinking Generator: “How old does an artifact need to be in order to be considered ancient? How old does it need to be to be considered prehistoric?”

By asking students to consider the many degrees of “old”, he allows his students to internalize through a thinking experience that words with similar meanings are not interchangeable because of their implied intensity. This is  an effective thinking generator that does its job to help students think to learn.

Thinking Generators are effective when they are specific: teachers should be able to explain in great clarity exactly what they intend their students should cognitively wrestle with for each and every TG. In this example, Mr. Goldin wanted the students to recognize connotation as a tool for communicating varying degrees of a definition. However, to fully appreciate connotation, he also needs to teach his students that connotation is not just about degrees of intensity: one of the most common mistakes students make as they build their writing vocabulary is using words with inaccurate or unintended positive or negative connotations.

If Mr. Goldin’s target objective for the lesson is for students to consider connotation in their writing, he should pre-emptively address this misconception with the following THINKING GENERATOR:

TG 1: “Mr. Ko is childish” and “Mr.Ko is youthlike”. Which one would make him more angry?”

To differentiate and/or extend the TG:

TG 2: “Find at least 3 more pairs of words that shows the same difference between childish/youthlike”

To differentiate even more by adding a subtext of social studies:

TG 3: “Some people who live abroad are referred to as “expats” or expatriates. Some are called immigrants. How do we determine who to call which? Does it matter?”

With each of these examples, the teacher did none of the thinking for students. However, the teacher knows exactly students should and would think about. TGs cannot possibly be effective without this level of specificity because impactful lessons leave nothing to chance.

HIGHLIGHTS:

From Ms. Mulé:  Without solving, how can you tell that 7x= 3x +4x will have multiple solutions? This question leads students to consider more than simply solving the problem in a traditional way.  Students have to determine what possible solutions are to the problem before they come up with the answer.

From Mr. Borelli: Part of being a skillful reader is adapting to different styles of writing and an article presents a host of challenges: more hyphenated words, charts and graphs placed in the middle of a text that do not always align with the paragraph, and cryptic subheadings. Thinking about the style of writing and what challenges lay ahead can prepare a reader for a stronger understanding of the text. Ms. Buiyan’s TG “Does the layout of an article have an effect on the reader, how?” does exactly that.

From Ms. Mintiens: I had the pleasure of visiting a few Kindergarten classes this week. In Nancy Hafkin’s class the students were learning how to add those tricky vowels to words in their writing, in order to make their writing easier for readers to read. She used a piece of her own writing and made the Exersize interactive asking students to help her. She also brought out her word study vowel chart. These small moves subtly show students how what they’re learning in one part of their day seemlessly helps them in another.  Kindergarten students writing is soaring in part to strong practices such as these.

THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW

Progress Reports: See this parent-facing memo for more info on Progress reports. With the exception of grades K and 1, all reports should go home by the end of January. NOTE: The purpose of these progress reports is to spark parental involvement: be ready for it.

Mid-Winter Intensive: Teachers who are interested in teaching 2 days, 4 hours each day, should email me to confirm. We are keeping the exact dates flexible, and will confirm once we have a core group of teachers.

Inquiry Groups Check In Tomorrow: Tomorrow we’ll get back to our inquiry work to prepare for our Showcase on 2/6. DO NOT OVER-PLAN for the presentation: Each group will have 10 minutes to describe their work, its implications, as well as take comments and questions. Groups will be able to schedule professional workshops for their colleagues at a later date; this Showcase is simply about sharing what you are working on, and what they can expect from you should there be a follow up workshop.

THINKING GENERATOR WALKTHROUGH: We’ll have our 4th TG walkthrough this week. We are getting better at delivering feedback, and we found that feedback is meaningless unless it is anchored to a shared learning objective. From now on we’ll note the IO in addition to the TG as we walk.