Truly Preparing Students For What’s Next
This short piece is filled with my personal opinions.
For a significant portion of my teaching career, I held a misconception about preparing students for the next level, usually college. I wanted my students to be prepared for college, and I made statements like,
- In college, they’re not going to accept late work, so I need to teach my students accountability.
- I can’t give retakes and allow redos. They don’t allow them in college.
- It’s important that students know how to take final exams because exams are going to be a big part of college grades are calculated.
- In college, the parents are notified when their child is failing. It’s the student’s responsibility.
So what’s wrong with these beliefs?
Most of our students--heck, most of us--live in the present and by fixating on the future, we do so at the expense of the present. To best prepare students for the future, whether that’s the next grade, college or a career, we must meet students where they are now. Not only is this developmentally appropriate, it’s why we became high school teachers, not professors.
Ninth graders are quite different from tenth graders and tenth graders are quite different from eleventh graders. Even within grades, we see tremendous variation in social, emotional and executive functioning skills. Each level and each student is unique, and we must do everything necessary to ensure mastery of the current curriculum within their capabilities and needs. In doing so, they will be better prepared academically and, in every other way, for whatever’s next.
A New Tech Tool: Teleprompt
This is a pretty cool tech tool for students who are giving speeches. It’s an online teleprompter that uses your computer’s built-in microphone to listen to what you’re saying and then scrolls as you speak.
Possible uses:
- Mock newscasts
- Public speeches
- Recording a scripted podcast
- Narrating a video or other digital presentation
How to use:
- Go to https://teleprompt.me/ while in Chrome. It only works in Chrome.
- Type some text or, more likely, paste the script into the window on the far right.
- After entering the text, edit its size and color.
- Begin reading. When the site hears the entered words it will start scrolling. It keeps pace with your voice, which is a really nice feature because it goes at speaking pace and not at a pre-established speed.
Blog/Newsletter
Maeve Connaughton, a junior, is starting a student-run newsletter for our community, including families, students, etc. The address is http://lists.k12albemarle.org/mhsstudentnewsletter/.
What do we want to include? Maeve is interested in journalism and is thrilled about this opportunity. We also want to use this to celebrate and brand all the great things that are going on in our school, and it will also be used for information dissemination. Some examples: field trips, class activities, forms/deadlines, etc.
You can also have your own students submit something to me for inclusion (please vet before submitting).
https://goo.gl/forms/bIjfJLKokWPcEHx33 Use this for inclusion in the newsletter, the daily bulletin, the Monticello calendar, or our webpage.
Important Information: Exams
Please make sure to use the date 1/20/19 for your exam grade regardless of when you give the assignment. Doing so will place it in the E2 category. Please see Corey with any questions
Important Dates and Information
January 18: ½ day (see below for schedule) more information to come on the grading conversations. We will be sending all CATEC students to CATEC for the entire day. At 2pm all ACPS high school teachers will start off in the auditorium and then break off into groups for a discussion protocol around grades and the survey teachers took last year. Here’s the link to the groups.
January 21/22: No school for students/teacher work day on 22nd
January 23 @9: Grades due
January 25: Faculty “meeting” stop by during your planning period. This replaces our traditional faculty meeting.
February 14 (Lovefest) will be an anchor day. Friday will convert into a B-Day.
Field Trips and SOLs
See Cindy’s email and Monticello calendar
January 30/31: Help Save the Next Girl Symposium (tentative)
February 15: Drama @NSU
Birthdays
None this week
Shout Outs
A H/T to Ms. Streit and our leadership team for taking the lead on creating an opportunity for our students to showcase all of the excellent work that all of you and our students do! Email mstreit@k12albemarle.org with any suggestions you have. She’ll also be telling you more about it and answering questions when you stop by the forum during one of your planning periods on the 25th.
Useful Information
Bell Schedules : http://bit.ly/MOHSbells
Morning Announcement Stream: http://streaming.k12albemarle.org/ACPS/links.htm
We’ve got something new! Want something included on the Monticello Outlook Calendar, the Monticello website, in the PowerSchool Daily Bulletin, or the student newsletter (viewed by parents, students and staff)? Please use this link https://goo.gl/forms/bIjfJLKokWPcEHx33
Worth Your Time
To get into college, it helps black students to have a black teacher early on I’ve linked to this research before. I encourage you to look around on the 18th when all the high school teachers are together and note the racial/ethnic makeup of that group. There’s also a local news piece featuring some familiar faces http://www.nbc29.com/story/39691872/aatf-12-24-2018 that you might want to check out.
Stop celebrating low level learning An educator reflects on his own teaching (celebrating) and use of technology
January 18 Bell Schedule
As a reminder, all bell schedules are viewable at http://bit.ly/MOHSbells .
½ Day Bell Schedule
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8:55-9:45
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1B
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9:50-10:35
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2B
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10:40-11:25
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3B
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11:30-12:50
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4B
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On January 18, all CATEC students will be at CATEC ALL day. Return by 12:25 for lunch.
On March 28, all CATEC students will remain at Monticello ALL day.
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