Monday Mustang Memo

Report: Minority, Disabled Students Suspended More Often

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

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

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

Worth Your Time

A means to support black boys in high school...This is interesting; lots of things that make you go mmmm.

Grades vs Comments: Research on Student Feedback...Gold Star work regarding Standards-Based Learning

Sunday, October 20, 2019

Involving Students in the Assessment Process

Excellence in Education: Involving Students in the Assessment Process

One of the hallmarks of high-quality learning is encouraging students to become independent. If our students graduate from Monticello and they are solely dependent on us evaluating them, we’ve missed a great opportunity to instill in them self-responsibility through self-evaluation. It is vital that we engage students in the evaluation process throughout the learning continuum.

At the beginning of the learning process

At the beginning of the learning process and throughout the learning unit, teachers must share the learning intention and criteria with students. These are the I can...statements that are aligned to Bloom’s Taxonomy, Webb’s DOK and Costa’s Level of Thinking. To further engage students in this process, teachers can provide a rubric, have students construct a web diagram and, most importantly, reference these learning intentions frequently throughout learning and have students reflect on their progress.

Learning Focused Study Guides

Study guides or rubrics like the one below help students and teachers by encouraging reflection, self-efficacy, self-assessment and feedback. Students (and teachers) can use study guides/rubrics like the one below to assess their own learning. These can be referenced throughout the learning process (it may help to number them for easy reference) and students can self-assess their level of mastery and take appropriate steps and actions to ensure learning.

Greek Unit Targets
Knowledge Targets	I can describe how Greece’s geographical features contributed to the rise of Greek city-states I can explain Greek mythology and describe the role it played in the culture of ancient Greece and explain the role of the gods Zeus, Hera, Apollo, Artemis, Athena, and Aphrodite.
Skill Targets	I can locate the following on a map (Aegean Sea, Mediterrranean Sea, Black Sea, Dardanelles, Asia Minor, Athens, Sparta, Troy, Macedonia) I can define the following (polis, monarchy, aristocracy, tyranny, democracy, direct democracy, agora, debate, oligarchy) I can locate and define the boundaries of Alexander’s Empire I can identify the following: Delian League, Persian Wars, the Peloponnesian Wars, Pericles, Solon, Draco, Philip of Macedon, Alexander the Great, Hellenic culture, Golden Age of Athens I can identify the contributions made by the following: Aeschylus, Sophocles, Homer, Herodotus, Thucydides, Phidias, the 3 Greek columns, Archimedes, Hippocrates, Euclid, Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle I can identify Hellenistic Culture and describe its importance to the modern world
Strategic Thinking Targets	I can describe Greek social structure, the role slavery played in ancient Greece I can compare and contrast Ancient Athens and Sparta I can describe the development of democracy in Ancient Athens and the roles and responsibilities of Greek citizens I can complete a cause-effect chart on the Persian and Peloponnesian Wars
Extended Thinking Targets	I can prepare a presentation that includes gathering evidence to support arguments and conclusions that Athens’ greatest contributions to the modern world were in the field of government or arts? I can analyze and argue how Athens was and was not a democracy. I can critique and analyze the role of Alexander the Great.

Assessment Tracking

Traditionally, assessment has been of learning; we should strive to use assessments for learning. Assessments shouldn’t be summative (final) until we--both students and teacher--are satisfied with the results on assessments. Students should be involved in assessing their own learning. For example, on projects, students should self-assess using the rubric. On tests, students should reflect on their learning …

Option 1

Greek Unit Test Test Score
Topic	Section	Value	Earned	Mastery (Yes/No)
Greek Geography	Map	12
Greek Identification (Political)	Matching 1	10
Greek Identification (Culture)	Matching 2	10
Greek Society	Multiple Choice 1-6 and Short Answer 1	10
Greek Politics	MC 7-20 and Short Answer 2, 3	20
Greek Wars	MC 21-31 and Short Answer 4, 5	15
Hellenistic culture	MC 32-35 and Essay 1 and Map 2	10

Reflect on your learning for this unit.

Did you complete your study guide for this unit? Reason.

What could you do to improve your learning for this unit?

Option 2 (This one works great for math classes) has students identify whether or not their answers were correct or incorrect and identify what caused the error (Was it a simple error/something they know now how to correct/or a lack of understanding?) Students analyze each question and identify the error (simple error/I’m not sure what to do). See Scenario 2 for more information on this.

Regardless of the process, requiring students to analyze their learning encourages student responsibility and efficacy. By engaging students in such a manner, we increase student engagement and shift learning from teacher-directed (teachers do to students) to a collaborative process (teachers with students).

Other ideas/tips:

Frequent formative assessments (ungraded quizzes, for example)
Peer analysis and scoring (especially for student work)
Students create practice versions of tests
Practice tests
Students can chart their progress on skills and learning throughout the learning process (adding to K-W-L charts, concept webs, etc.)

Tasks, Important Information, Upcoming Events

Monday: Student picture make-ups

Student Lunch Sign-Ups Students will now sign-up to eat the library/media center through Adaptive Scheduler. Students are only able to sign-up on that day.

Thursday: Faculty CRT Teams

Friday: extended 1st block for Peer Nomination Survey

Diabetes training

If you are going on a field trip with a student who has diabetes, a chaperone on the field trip is REQUIRED to be diabetes trained. Training is a combination of online (4-5 hours) and includes a one time hand-on portion. The latter is being offered from 4:15-5:15 on October 21 at Center 1/Seminole Place. You will not be able to go on a field trip if you have a diabetic student and no diabetic-trained chaperones. List of students attending field trips should be provided to Ms. Tomlin 3 weeks prior to the field trip. For a helpful field trip checklist, click here. See Ms. Tomlin for more information.

Once an employee completes the training and passes a test at the end, he/she will be issued a certificate of completion that counts as being trained. Recertification credit will be granted.

October 31: End of Quarter; 10th grade field trip to Career Expo (will miss 1st period, Mustang Morning and 2nd period)

Grades due Nov 8 @ 9am

Field Trips

October 23-24: 1st Period Drama with Cale and In-House Performances

October 30: Pumpkin Launch

October 31: 10th grade Career Expo (all 10th graders)

October 31-November 3: Theater Trip/Competition

Birthdays

October 22: Paige Pippin and Jeremy Dove

October 24: Claire Keith

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

Worried about that student in your class? Just remember these 5 things

Worth Your Time

Clothespin Bumper Cars

Possible changes to 1) De-emphasize student test scores in teacher evaluations; 2) Changes to Standards of Quality; 3) Graduation and more as part of the Commonwealth’s Board of Education Agenda

Sunday, October 13, 2019

TQE Reading

Excellence in Education: TQE Reading

Stealing this one from Marisa Thompson.

What is TQE?

Thoughts-Questions-Epiphanies. A discussion-based reading comprehension that enables students to show mastery.

How’s it work?

Students critically read and annotate the reading assignment with Thoughts-Questions-Epiphanies.
Small group discussions for approximately 15 minutes. At the beginning of the year, as this is a new approach, you may need to provide question stems.
Next, groups place top 2 thoughts, lingering questions and epiphanies on the board.
Whole class discussion of TQEs.

Tips:

Students who don’t read, read in the hallway or class while those who did read participate in the discussion.
Good TQE’s typically include the author’s name.
Lingering questions should not be plot-based.
Groups can try to guess/answer questions they come up with.
Groups should expect follow-up questions based on what they write on the board.
Students should take notes on their group and class-wide discussion.
Additional resources here and here.

Why does it work?

Less teacher talk, prepared questions
Students do the heavy lifting and learning
Learning becomes more organic and relevant
Increases student responsibility

I find this strategy to be very similar to Socratic Seminars. While it was designed by an English teacher for use around reading novels, it can easily be used for any deep critical-thinking reading. This could include charts, graphs, lab reports, editorials, etc.

Tasks, Important Information, Upcoming Events

Mustang Morning. Kate Casady has been working diligently to make sure students are signed up for Mustang Morning. We are assigning lunch detentions to students who haven’t signed up or are skipping.

As Mr. Vrhovac alluded to on Thursday’s V-TV, we are going to be stepping up our proctoring of students who do not sign-up by mass assigning them to “Unassigned During Mustang Morning” in the forum. Students will be kept in the forum, required to sign up for Mustang Morning and will receive a lunch detention. We will complete this mass assignment at 9:30.

Please assist us by ensuring students are signed up for Mustang Morning after the announcements.

We’ve looked at closing the portal for students at 9:30 but this doesn’t work because of students coming in late and because we’re trying something new with lunches. Most strategies to deal with these issues are very labor intensive, but we value Mustang Morning and most students are using it appropriately. We’ll continue to work on tweaking the system to maximize Mustang Morning’s efficiency.

Student Lunch Sign-Ups Students will now sign-up to eat the library/media center through Adaptive Scheduler. Students are only able to sign-up on that day.

Flu Vaccinations: October 15 from 12-4:30 For more

This Wednesday is PSAT, CWRA testing. Please see the schedule below and review your responsibilities/duties.

Friday is an A-Day with Clubs.

Parent-Teacher Conferences: Thursday 10/17 from 4:30-7:00.

Diabetes training

Once an employee completes the training and passes a test at the end, he/she will be issued a certificate of completion that counts as being trained. Recertification credit will be granted.

ACPS AVID is hosting a Fall Workshop on October 22-23. If you are interested in attending this workshop, please click on the link below and submit your names in the attached Form.

To be considered AVID trained and receive recertification points participants must attend both days (there are 5 topics discussed).

For those deciding to attend, please request your subs early. If you are unable to attend this workshop there is a second workshop in February. The February workshop is the same as October.

AVID Fall Workshop Sign-Up

October 31: End of Quarter; 10th grade field trip to Career Expo (will miss Mustang Morning and 2nd period)

Field Trips

October 23-24: 1st Period Drama with Cale and In-House Performances

October 30: Pumpkin Launch

October 31: 10th grade Career Expo (all 10th graders)

October 31-November 3: Theater Trip/Competition

Birthdays

October 14: Jackie Perry

October 20: Terry Tomlin

I missed Jo Ann Harris-Burch’s birthday this past weekend.

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