Monday Mustang Memo

ACPS to move two academies to Center 2

Sorry, there's no easy toolkit for social-emotional learning, but it's worth the work

Want something included on the Monticello Outlook Calendar, the Monticello website, in the PowerSchool Daily Bulletin, schoolwide Schoology accounts, or the student newsletter (viewed by parents, students and staff)? Please use this link https://goo.gl/forms/bIjfJLKokWPcEHx33

Worth Your Time

Tuesday, January 21, 2020

Helping Students Learn About Their Own Motivations

Excellence in Education: Helping Students Learn About Their Own Motivations

I was a borderline student--at best--in middle school. My grades ranged from D's to A's with the A's coming in electives and social studies classes. I struggled emotionally and behaviorally. My mother's attempts to help me fell flat, and may have actually worsened my self-esteem (I hope she's not reading this).

I don't remember many of middle school teachers trying to help me. When they did talk to me it was about my actions and usually it was negatively framed. What are you doing? Are you working to your fullest? Is this your BEST effort?

After a tumultuous middle school experience, my parents sent me to boarding school. While my grades improved dramatically during my freshman year, I attribute that to easy classes, a structured environment, and no social life. It wasn't until my sophomore year, that I had a teacher who made me feel like I WAS IMPORTANT. Mr. Beck, who was both my dorm parent and social studies teacher, asked questions that made me feel valued. What do you want to be? What and who inspires you?

I knew I had someone on my side, but also someone who was going to hold me accountable. When I complained to him about a teacher's grade, I remember him challenging me, Are you being the person you want to be? You talk about being admired for working hard, but are you working to your fullest?

Although I hesitated, because I respected him and trusted him, I told him the truth. He continuously held me accountable for my actions. Do you really want to be successful or do you just want it when it's easy? Today, we'd refer to Mr. Beck as a warm demander.

Like many students, I allowed my relationships with teachers to impact my effort and grades. I acted like the student and person I wanted to be for the teachers I liked, and I allowed myself to put forth a lesser effort in my other classes where I wasn't the person I wanted to be. Like most teenagers, my success was at least partially driven by my sense of belonging and trust.

I was fortunate that my parents had the wherewithal to send me to boarding school, but more integral to my success was how Mr. Beck helped me learn about myself, my motivations, and my locus of control. I often wonder what would have happened to me if I continued down my middle school path. Would I have been identified as an academic failure? Would I have been pushed towards a non-college tract? Would I have been in a perpetual cycle of failure? I became an educator because I believe every student deserves a teacher who believes in them and the opportunity that affords.

8 Ways to Help Students Learn About Their Own Motivations

Give students power and control within your class and over their success. Don't strive for compliance.
Strive to create a sense of community and belonging in your class through cooperative and self-directed learning.
Include behavioral learning objectives and skills as part of your learning targets.
Have students reflect and evaluate their progress in both academic and non-academic matters.
Give students choices that enable them to demonstrate high learning expectations.
Provide students with structure in the classroom with purposeful breaks. This goes beyond, You have five minutes to go to the bathroom and check your phones. Instead, explore ways to use mindfulness, physical movement and peer interaction.
Remain positive and upbeat even when students are challenging you the most.
Like Mr. Beck did with me, help students focus on who they want to be, not who they are.

Tasks, Important Information, Upcoming Events

Tuesday, January 21: Teacher Work Day

Wednesday, January 22: Turn in EXAMS for students who haven't completed We will be sending communication out to these students and families with instructions to plan for a make-up exam next Wednesday January 22^nd and Thursday January 23^rd. Students with an excused absence to a midterm will be provided with the opportunity to complete their exam(s) during the school day in the forum under supervision. Students with an unexcused absence to a midterm will be provided with the opportunity to complete their exams during after school from 4-5:30pm.

In an effort to lessen the burden of retakes, a substitute will be monitoring all exams in the forum throughout the day; please consider allowing those with excused absences the opportunity to make up your exam during class time. Please bring up any exams and or directions, with the students name clearly written at the top, to Ms. Jackson in the main office by 4pm. Thank you for an outstanding 2^nd quarter.

Hope you have a great day, and wonderful weekend.

Thursday, January 23: Meet with CRT Teams

Friday, January 24: Class Meetings During Mustang Morning

Club Sponsors: If you would be so kind to check this to see if your club is accurately reflected on this spreadsheet. We've had many new club changes, so we want to make sure we have an accurate list and locations for next week. Please email Reed and Corey with any changes or update it yourself.

January 24: Schoology Survey , Grades Due, Special Education Progress Reports due https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_a03rfc85GiZ8i_Q_PsjlJxspkuaktWIoIKWWCjvEJ0/edit?usp=sharing

If you have not contacted a student with a D/F family (see below), please do so. Please also be sure to request D/F students for Mustang Morning.

Per interim period

Assign student to Mustang Morning.
Discuss action steps in PLCs.
Communicate with case managers, if applicable.
Student has a D: Contact family via email or phone call.
Student has an F: Contact family via phone call.

Marking period:

In addition to A-C, speak to any parent of a student with an F who you have not yet contacted.
Communicate with student’s school counselor

Intent to return. Intent 2020. Please complete by 2/21/20.

Field Trips

Birthdays

January 20: Jennifer Turner-Warren

Useful Information

Bell Schedules http://bit.ly/MustangBells

Seeking volunteers? ACPS is attempting to expand volunteer outreach and help teachers find volunteers. Here’s a form that takes a minute to complete.

Morning Announcement Stream: http://streaming.k12albemarle.org/ACPS/links.htm

Marin parents divided over end to A-F grading

Niche's Top Districts in Virginia

Relationships are important. How do we build them effectively with kids?

Worth Your Time

Sunday, January 5, 2020

My Favorite No

Excellence in Education: My Favorite No

My Favorite No is an instructional strategy that combines formative assessment and feedback. It can be used as a starter, during learning, or as an exit activity.

Each student gets an index card to work on a class-wide problem.
After a set amount of time, the cards are collected and quickly reviewed by the teacher (right/wrong)
The teacher then selects one of the wrong answers to become the "Favorite No."
Teacher writes/copies the student work without identifying the student's name. Teacher share
Teacher says something along the lines of "This is my favorite no. What has the person done right? Where did mistakes occur? Be ready to explain and justify.
Talk about what is right as a class. This can be a powerful discussion tool. Alternatively, students can do this in groups.
After examining what is right, dissect what the student got wrong.
End with a positive affirmation statement like "We can definitely see why this problem tripped some of us up. Together we were able to do some great work to help our classmate."

Why?

Even those with wrong answers, include correct information. Even the little focus on the "what's right" builds student confidence.
It creates dialogue and meaning as well as providing feedback.
It can build a growth mindset in students by enforcing "not yet," and that mistakes are nothing more than a learning opportunity and by working on the incorrect answer in groups or as a class, it shows students that we're all in this together.
By talking through the problem, learning becomes visible.

Tweaks

While My Favorite No was created for use in a math class, it lends itself to any closed-answer type of question with multiple parts to the answer. What are five reasons...What is the difference between...Why did...

The instructional strategy was shared on Teaching Channel https://learn.teachingchannel.com/video/class-warm-up-routine

What are some instructional strategies you use to provide timely feedback to students and instill a growth mindset in our students?

Tasks, Important Information, Upcoming Events

Friday, January 10: A-day, club period

Week of January 13: SAT School Day Registration (see Ms. Gaskins)

Friday, January 17: 1/2 Day, End of Marking Period

Monday, January 20: Martin Luther King, Jr Holiday

Tuesday, January 21: Teacher Work Day

Enter grades by:

Please enter exam grades by January 13
Please enter marking period/semester grades by January 24 at 9am

Golden Apple Awards: Read more from this post

Field Trips

January 9: Many seniors will be attending UVA Law Trials

Birthdays

January 1: Jessica Eisenhauer
January 10: Burton Inman

Useful Information

Bell Schedules http://bit.ly/MustangBells

Seeking volunteers? ACPS is attempting to expand volunteer outreach and help teachers find volunteers. Here’s a form that takes a minute to complete.

Morning Announcement Stream: http://streaming.k12albemarle.org/ACPS/links.htm

Why white school districts have so much more money

America's schools are more diverse than ever. But the teachers are still mostly white.

Worth Your Time

Sunday, December 8, 2019

Review Strategies to Include ALL Students Learn

Excellence in Education: Review Strategies to Include ALL Students Learn

With midterm exams around the corner, I thought I'd share a couple of review strategies that can be used to ensure all students are participating AND learning. Of course, they can be used at any time of year and distributed practice far outweighs cram sessions.

Numbered Heads Together

Students are placed in heterogeneous/mixed ability groups of 4 with each group member assigned a number 1-4.
Inform students that all group members will need to be able to answer/present the group's answer/response.
Provide all students with a question.
Options: allow students time to work individually, write down their answers (on own paper or whiteboard).
Students share their response and confirm their answers.
Call out a number for the team member who will present for the group. At this time they cannot receive help from their group. This could also mean having students clear their whiteboards and write down the answers with 1 member of each group being responsible for holding up the board.
Tips/Alternatives: vary the level of questions, keep score, use a radomizer/spinner to determine which group and/or number to call on; provide the questions visually and orally.

Categories

Provide students with cards with names, items, etc.
Ask students to sort the cards into piles based on common characteristics.
Have the students rationalize (written, verbally, using technology) why they grouped the cards as they did.
Often there are multiple ways to categorize the cards, so students can be challenged to re-do this.
Tips/Alternatives: This can be done individually, in partners/groups, or in a combination of both.

Networking Carousel

Prepare a series of prompts or questions and post them on bulletin board paper. Alternatively, this can be done digitally/electronically.
Place students in partner/groups.
Have students work together to write down as much as they can about that topic (either using or not using notes/resources).
After a pre-determined amount of time, ask students to rotate to the next board/question.
Repeat by having students add and edit.
Tips/Alternatives: Provide students with note cards or use their notebooks to write down the information (pre-write and post-write) to use this information to study.

Last Person Standing

Prepare questions in advance. Questions that work best for this are lists or require multiple parts.
Put students into heterogeneous/mixed groups.
Provide students and groups with information that they will be responsible for knowing (time to review).
Working in their groups, students review.
Have all students stand. Randomly call on two groups to face off. For example, groups 1 and 2.
Alternating between groups and individuals between groups, each student is responsible for providing one new piece of information about the topic. 1A-1B-2A-2B-3A.
When someone gets an answer wrong, the last person to correctly gets an the answer right gets to knock out any student in the class. This often means the best students are knocked out early on, but they can still participate in the group review (step 4).
Tips/Alternatives: In stage 4, allow students to write down notes. Allow students to review or even use their notes for stage 5. Another option is to provide a question, allow students to work in groups and then proceed to stage 5. Then give another question/topic and repeat 4 and 5. Use chips or another marker to know which student to start with.

Donut/Concentric Circles

Provide students with review questions.
Students form two concentric circles with equal numbers of students in both the inner and outer circle.
Students stand in concentric circles and with their partner they discuss their answer to one or more questions.
After set period of time, students rotate. Usually, just moving the outer circle.
Tips/Alternatives: You can be strategic with how you put students in the circles. Allow students to review their work with their previous partner so they can add or correct information.

I think of many review strategies that I used especially games like Jeopardy! or today just using Kahoot! don't require all students to learn and such. What I like about the above is how they engage all students in the learning process and are beneficial to all students. What are some techniques/strategies that you use?

Tasks, Important Information, Upcoming Events

Midterm Bell Schedule: bit.ly/MontMid

Wednesday at 4:30 Winter Faculty Social at Timberwood 5th Street

Ugly Sweater Contest on December 19

Friday: B-Day, Club Day with Club Pictures

Hour of Code is coming up the week of December 9^th-13^th.

The Learning Technology team will be curating resources for this event. Our goal this year is for students to engage in 5000 hours of code throughout the week. If you pre-register through ACPS for this event we will send swag for your students and the chance to win amazing prizes for your school!
Link for registration
For more information click here

Golden Apple Awards: Read more from this post

Field Trips

Birthdays
12/15: John Skelton

Useful Information

Bell Schedules http://bit.ly/MustangBells

Seeking volunteers? ACPS is attempting to expand volunteer outreach and help teachers find volunteers. Here’s a form that takes a minute to complete.

Morning Announcement Stream: http://streaming.k12albemarle.org/ACPS/links.htm

Report: Minority, Disabled Students Suspended More Often

Why Deeply Diving into Content Could Be the Key to Reading Comprehension

Worth Your Time

Sunday, December 1, 2019

Catching and Recognizing Students Doing Good

Excellence in Education: Catching and Recognizing the Student Doing Good

As educators we must purposefully try to connect with each of our students. With some, the bond occurs almost effortlessly--the hard-working, charismatic, teacher-pleaser, the student with whom we have much in common. Connecting with others, however, proves much more difficult. It is with these students that we must initiate more purposeful actions such as catching and recognizing their strengths.

To connect with all students, requires you to use the tool you know best--yourself. When I took over a very unsuccessful girls basketball team at Fauquier High School, during every practice I spent five minutes talking to one student-athlete. The previous coach and the players were disconnected, so I promised changes. Included in the promise was that I would meet with one player for at least 5 minutes during practice and these conversations could not be about basketball. For the first week or so, many of the conversations fell flat, especially with students with whom I didn't know. The conversations were superficial and uncomfortable silences.

If I hadn't promised or committed to the athletic director, parents, and the players that I was going to do this all season, I may have stopped. I prepared questions (I committed them to memory, thinking that if I had written them down and referred to them during the conversation, it would be more like an interview) and shared my own personal stories. As the season progressed, the conversations became more natural but for 1 or 2 players, they still seemed forced. Not content, I began focusing more on student strengths--even seeking information from their teachers, teammates and families. The focus was always on building connections. By the end of the season, we were a tightly-knit team.

Undoubtedly, these conversations made me a better coach, and it made us a better team and--I hope--helped each player become a better person. Additionally, I realized I needed to build better relationships with some of my students with a particular focus on positive attention.

Here are some action steps that I took:

I created a spreadsheet for each class with each student's name. Every week, I looked over the list and jotted down student strengths. I challenged myself further to think about each student without looking at the list; believing that the students I forgot were the ones I needed to most focus on. I'd review the list before classes to ensure I focused on student strengths and would take purposeful and deliberate actions to connect with these students.
Catch the good behaviors and draw attention to these. Sometimes this would be done privately and other times it would be recognized in front of the entire class.
I set a goal to make more positive phone calls to families.
Every week, I committed to writing one positive letter to a student.
I set daily praise goals for myself. Today, I will provide genuine positive praise to at least 10 students in each class. (I often videotaped my classes, so I would also pay attention to this as I reviewed the video, paying specific attention to which students received positive interactions, who received negative interactions, and who received neither.)

What are some ways that positively interact with students? How often do you comment on the positive versus the negative? Does this differ from student to student? What would explain the differences? What are some strategies you could use to increase positive interactions?

Tasks, Important Information, Upcoming Events

Wednesday, December 4: Curriculum Expo
I'm in the process of organizing our annual Curriculum Expo. The Expo will be held on Wednesday, December 4th from 6-7pm in the gymnasium. The Expo provides an opportunity for 8th grade students, current MoHS students, and families to explore course offerings at Monticello. In the past, each teacher will set up a table to advertise or explain their class and a representative is there to answer questions from students and families. Feel free to make it your own by bringing visuals, student work, handouts and student representatives to help attract students and families to your table. Please take a moment and fill out this form so I can get the layout set up. For those heading to the game either tonight or tomorrow afternoon, STAY WARM! Goodbye, fall & hello, winter! ~Laura Massey

Friday, December 6: Interim Period Ends; Grades in PowerSchool by 9am

Hour of Code
Hour of Code is coming up the week of December 9^th-13^th.
The Learning Technology team will be curating resources for this event. Our goal this year is for students to engage in 5000 hours of code throughout the week. If you pre-register through ACPS for this event we will send swag for your students and the chance to win amazing prizes for your school!
Link for registration
For more information click here

Golden Apple Awards: Read more from this post

Field Trips

Birthdays
12/4: Matt Pearman

Useful Information

Bell Schedules http://bit.ly/MustangBells

Seeking volunteers? ACPS is attempting to expand volunteer outreach and help teachers find volunteers. Here’s a form that takes a minute to complete.

Morning Announcement Stream: http://streaming.k12albemarle.org/ACPS/links.htm