Tag: Vision Architect

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 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 10: It’s Still About Student Thinking

Posted on by mrkobot in Principal's Blog

“Learning is not the product of teaching. Learning is the product of the activity of learners.”– John Holt

Congratulations to Ms, Winter and Ms. Green’s classes for participating in our first Thesis Throwdown Thinking Thursday! Students from both classes worked on their own time throughout the week, communicating endlessly and even memorized both sides of the argument. And they did all this not for a grade, not to be compliant, and not because they wanted to please authority. They did it because they enjoyed thinking and learning is fun. Please seek out Ms. Winter and Ms. Green if you are thinking about participating and want to learn more about the experience—I’m sure they’ll be more than happy to share.

You should reach out to Ms. Duke if you’re interested in participating in future TTTT; she has prepared several topics for each grade level and you are also encouraged to come up with your own. Especially for those of you who do not share my love for 90s music, TTTT is an amazing opportunity not just in pushing student thinking but also for winning free snacks. Which is important.

I urge you to reflect on this week’s quote as you plan lessons in the upcoming weeks. Try to shift your attention away from thinking about what you’ll say or do during the lesson to planning tasks and student experiences that can lead students to the intended learning. The human brain simply does not engage in learning when it passive; Learning is a complex process that begins and ends within the individual and no amount of “Do you understand?” and repeating a concept will get a student to understand if s/he is not actively thinking. Humans are not computers—we can’t just upload thinking skills to one another. No matter charismatic or shy, authoritative or collaborative, math or ELA, the most effective teachers in a building are always those that never stops pushing their students to think.

Things You Need to Know:

December 3rd is the International Day of People with Disabilities and our ASD Horizon class is leading several initiative to raise awareness for those who are differently-abled and not disabled. We have two magic shows that day—one at 5:30PM and one at 6:30PM and you are welcome to purchase tickets to attend. Staff are excluded from the raffle. Please remind students in your class to wear blue on December 3rd to support our very own 102 students in Ms. Meenan’s class with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). More information will follow in future announcements.

Morning Announcements: Thank you for your patience as we work out the kinks as we shift to a more student-centric approach to our morning announcements. Please be mindful of the days when your students are assigned to be the pledgers and have them go directly to the office from the yard on that day. We want to make sure announcements are completed by 8:30AM and the pledgers must be in the office by 8:25AM.

Technology Inventory: We are looking to purchase some new technology and I am looking for teachers who are willing to take the lead on adopting the next generation of interactive education products. These products include interactive flat panels (TVs instead of projectors), table-tops (for younger students), polling clickers, as well as integrated software that allows for immediate assessing and feedback. If you have a Smartboard that needs replacing and you’re willing to learn, please email me ASAP and we’ll discuss further. Feel free to read about some potential products here: https://www.prometheanworld.com

ClassFlow has potential.

Afterschool Program for ELA and Math: We are still in the planning phase for our Afterschool Academy and you should reach out if you are interested in teaching. In addition to supporting students who need it most, after school is a precious opportunity for us to pilot curriculum, lessons, and systems and you should take advantage of our Afterschool Program to test out your theories and collect the necessary data.

11/16 Professional Learning: Please meet with your inquiry group to continue your research next Monday. Keep in mind that learning is fluid, and you are always free to edit/ chance your focus as you see fit. Often times I would start with a problem only to find a great solution for a wholly different area. Make it meaningful for you and your students—that’s all that I ask for.

Please email me the titles of any books you’d like to purchase for your inquiry research. Once I approve you can purchase them on your own and I’ll reimburse.

Website: Our website www.ps102q.org has a new look and continues to be a work in progress. Check it out and let me know if you think of ways you or your students can contribute.

Enjoy your weekend!

102 Review, Issue 9: It’s All About Student Thinking

Posted on by mrkobot in Principal's Blog

“When we think about learning, we typically focus on getting information into students’ heads. What if, instead, we focus on getting information out of students’ heads?”

-Pooja Agarwal, Henry Roediger, Mark McDaniel, & Kathleen McDermott

No matter the grade or department, I was consistently impressed by the high-level discourses taking place in each of our inquiry groups. The Problems of Practice 102 generated were thoughtful, meaningful for students, and perhaps most importantly, seemingly impossible to solve. Some may argue that thinking and talking about complex issues that do not have pre-packaged solutions—is a poor use of time. I believe in the contrary: Inquiry focused on authentic and complex problems of practice give us the space to engage in discussion, think critically, take risk, and to self-reflect. In short, it lets us learn.

Much like the children we teach, we are more intellectually engaged in rigorous learning driven by real needs and requiring real thinking. I don’t know what will happen at the end of each inquiry cycle; some teams may succeed in bringing about transformative change, and  while some may fail. The only thing I’m certain of is that at the end of each cycle we will have engaged in deep thinking and reflection about our practices, and we’re better learners, and thus teachers, for it.

Weekly Highlights: 

In schools, some achievements are very public while others may largely go unnoticed. Ms. Bagni’s wok may be of the latter category. Meeting one deadline after the next to submit documents to the DOE for compliance purposes, Ms. Bagni has done an incredible job balancing incredible amounts of paperwork, learning to work in a co-teaching setting, and leading her team as the ENL coordinator. Thank you, Josephine.

Ms. Gaffan’s leadership in her work with student council has, on the other hand, been very noticeable. Student council has taken up the morning annoucement duties and it’s so much better to hear students speak than have their principal grumble in the morning. Additionally, student council has been active during Parent Teacher Conferences talking to parents, giving directions, and even providing interpretation services.

Ms. Gonzalez was able to secure a position at District 79 and today is her last day. My work in D79 serving high-needs students has been one of the highlights of my life, and I hope you will find the experience equally rewarding. Good luck, Massiel!

Things You Need to Know:

Assault Near 102: One member of our families was assaulted near Grand Ave. and Van Horn st. while on his way to pick up his grand child from the school audition after school. The suspect is still at large and I have been contacted by both the victim’s family as well as the police. There may be reporters visiting the school in the coming days and I ask that you respect the privacy of our students and to say “no comment” when questioned by reporters. I will update everyone as things develop.

Lunch forms: We need to collect all lunch forms. The office will be informing you later this week the students in your class who has yet to submit lunch forms and please remind the parents to do so if you see them in person. Our Title I status depend on the number of families qualifying for free/reduced-price lunches, and this matters a great deal. Take a look at the amount of Title I funds allocated in 2015 to nearby schools within the district:

24Q049: #31,841

24Q113: $7,581

24Q128: $758

24Q102: $694,420

Yes, it’s not a typo. If it seems like 102 has a bigger treasure chest than other buildings it’s not because we have a magician working in our budgeting department. It’s because our families need support—let’s get it for them.