Week of September 4

Thursday Thoughts September 4

I have to say that this had been a tough week.  The challenges of finding the highest quality teaching candidates (fifteen days after the start of the school year) are far greater than I imagined.  Although the pressure is there to open the additional classrooms and get the children settled, my ultimate goal is to hire teachers who are highly qualified and share the same values that make the Medlock staff so outstanding.  The bulk of my job requires compromise on all sides.  However, when it comes to selecting the people who will have the greatest impact on our students' future....there is no compromise.  Period.

Staff Spotlight

This week Vaishali Gokhale has been nominated for the staff spotlight by Kendra Deans. Vaishali works with Kendra's students throughout the day and she does whatever is needed to assist them.  This includes but is not limited to working with them on math, going to lunch with the class and assisting at specials.  Kendra is very thankful for Vaishali's patience and the caring way in which she interacts with her class.  Vaishali has been instrumental to several classrooms since the start of the school year.  When she has a few minutes of "down time" she volunteers in the Media Center or any other area where she might be of service.  Vaishali will be the paraporfessional in the new Kindergarten classroom when it opens.  Vaishali thank you for going above and beyond to support students.


 

4C's: Collaboration, Communication, Creativity, Critical Thinking Skills

 

15 Examples of Student-Centered Teaching

by Terry Heick (8/15/2014 from Teachthought.com)

15 Examples of Student-Centered Teaching–And 15 That Are Not So Much

On Sunday, we’re going to release a basic framework to begin to make sense of what “student-centered learning” mean in a modern classroom. (We’d have released it today, but Fridays are slow days in terms of traffic.)

We didn’t get too carried away and progressive with it–our goal was to help clarify for practicing teachers in existing K-12 classrooms a useful definition for student-centered learning. So I piggy-backed on our staff’s work (we’ll come back and update this post with a link then) with examples–15 examples of teacher-centered learning, and 15 examples of student-centered learning.

The text is shown below, but it reads better in the graphic as you can read both side-by-side for comparison’s sake. As always, comments and reactions are encouraged in comments below.

 

Teacher-Centered (Not-Student Centered)

1. Being clear about how to do well in your class
2. Admonishing students to “think”
3. Helping students master content
4. Helping students continuously practice and revise how they perform on one assessment form
5. Creating curriculum and instruction around standards
6. Handing students a rubric or scoring guide
7. Letting students choose the project’s product
8. Choosing “power standards” in a staff meeting in the middle of a summer PD with the other 4 teachers from your department or grade level
9. Allowing students to choose from two novels that are unlike anything they’ve ever seen or experienced in their lives
10. Worksheets, essays
11. Giving struggling readers a few extra minutes to read a 17 page short story
12. Starting class with a standard and target
13. Giving an on-demand assignment even though you just finished a writing piece or unit
14. Think letter grades
15. Grading everything

Student-Centered (Not Teacher-Centered)

1. Being clear about how you will promote, measure, and celebrate understanding
2. Modeling for students how to “think”
3. Helping students understand what’s worth understanding
4. Diversifying what you accept as evidence of understanding
5. Creating curriculum and instruction around a need to know
6. Collaborating with students to create the rubric or scoring guide
7. Letting students choose the project’s purpose
8. Choosing “power standards” from your curriculum after meeting with both students, parents, and community members that voice their unique societal and cultural needs
9. Letting students choose their own media form that reflects the purpose of the reading
10. Choice boards
11. Placing struggling readers in a lit circle that gives them an authentic role that they can be successful in, allows them to hear oral fluency and reading speed modeled, and keeps them from feeling “broken”
12. Starting class with a story
13. Using the on-demand writing prompt as the summative assessment
14. Think feedback
15. Choosing what’s graded carefully, and considering other work as practice

Technology Tidbits

http://wonderopolis.org/- subscribing to this free site will give you access to Wonders of the Day® this may be a great morning arrival activity for students to spark creativity.  Definitely worth checking out.  It may even be an effective tool for writing response journals.

News & Notes

 Congratulations to Traci Fleck who has received a $104 donation from Office Depot for her request for classroom supplies through www.adoptaclassroom.org  Be sure to visit the website and register for free.