March 5, 2016

Daylight savings time is this Saturday and St. Patrick's Day is just around the corner.  The forecast for the week is sunny we may reach a temperature of 60 degrees.  I don't know about you, but I am excited for spring!  Have a great week and maybe even get outside for lunch.

Great Things Noticed:  

In Amy Steven's 8th grade ELA class the students were involved in a Socratic Circle.  The students were engaged in a civil debate with one another.   They challenged each other's ideas and pushed one another to support their reasoning.  We are always pushing students to support their writing with evidence from the text, and it is great to see students do this while speaking.

In Dawn Boyer's Algebra 1 class the students have activity lists created by the teacher that include videos for the students to watch, and problems for the students to solve.  The ownership for learning the material is shifting teacher to student as the students are the ones checking to make sure they understand the material and 

In Charlie Best's class students were evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of a debate.  Instead of calling on just a few students or having the students write down their answers, Charlie had the students turn and talk with a partner as they evaluated the debate.  It seems simple, but it was so important for students to hear from one another and to share their ideas, especially for our more introverted students who might keep their ideas to themselves.  

#ShadowaStudent

It was great for both Tim and I to feel what it is like to be a student at Byram.  If we were in your classroom thank you for making us feel welcome, if not perhaps we will see each other next year.  Here were our take-aways from our #Shadowastudent experience.

Take Away 1:  We Felt the Love!

In every class it was wonderful to see teachers give individual attention to students.  Teachers had conversations with students not only about activities within the class but their interests outside of class as well.  Teachers in our school work hard to develop a report with the students and respect them as people not just students.  With the demands on standards, state tests, and grades our teachers realize they are more than just teachers of math, english, science, or social studies etc.  You are teachers of kids and young adults.

Take Away 2: Middle School Students Take in a Lot
In every class they are provided information they need to learn.  The information that stayed with us after the day was over, was not the information that came directly from a teacher speaking, it was from conversations with another student, a hands on learning experience, or even something we had to figure out on my own.

Take Away 3:  The longer we sit the more tired we become.  
By the end of the day we were tired.  Part of this is because I am way out of shape and Volleyball combined with Gym equals more physical activity than I normally get.  The other reason was because there were periods of time when we had to sit for an extended length of time.  

Take Away 4: Breaks between classes interrupt the flow of learning.
This is something I know has been brought to our attention before, but when we experience it as a student we noticed it again.  Over the summer Tim and I will revisit the schedule to see if there are tweaks we can make to have less interruptions to teaching and learning. 

Nuts and Bolts:

IDE - Our IDE program will be continuing next year and we have only 2 spots left that will open for teachers.  This program centers around shifting the balance of responsibility from the teacher to the student within the classroom.  Every month Rowena, a consultant from IDE comes in to work directly with the teachers and provides feedback and suggestions for teachers to improve their craft.  I love this program because it is not a quick fix, or a silver bullet, it is a process.  There is a week long training at the end of June you would have to attend that you would not be paid for.  The district will pay for the training.  If you are interested in learning how to move your class in this direction next year please give your name to JoAnn in the office and she will add your name to the list. 

#StuConnect - On Thursday, March 10th at 10:30 there will be Twitter-Chat on what citizenship means to students.  It is a great opportunity for our students to see what others from around the country are handling the issues of citizenship.  If you are interested in having your class participate at that time we would love it!  Our last chat we had a few teachers join us including Jess Taylor, Bonnie Spring and Brian Hamer.  If you are curious about it feel free to contact them or reach out to me if you would like some help setting this up.  I know it can be scary the first time, but I would be happy to help.

Reminder for grade posting:  If you see students on a daily basis for a subject a good rule of thumb would be at least one grade per week, and this does include interdisciplinary.

• Conferences:Will be by teacher request first, then if parents request a meeting do to a concern/issue they will be allowed to request one.  Will send information out to parents about this March 12th. -- Teachers will contact you by next Friday
• All students who are in danger of failing should have a conference as well as other students who might have behavior or academic issues.
• Please share your conference schedule with Tim and John

• Move to Genesis will have training at the end of the year during our In-Service Days
• In-Service days present an issue at the end of the year.  We have asked if the BOE would consider giving us Friday May 27th off if we have no Snow Days.  This would make the last day of school June 15th and allow for the In-Service Days to be completed before the last day of school.
• May 27th as the Genesis Training Day. The other option which we have asked the BOE for was a great idea from Mr. Gallagher to have the students off on the 27th and teachers would come in to learn Genesis. We will wait to hear how they would like to handle this issues.
• Get in to see Greatness
  

  
• We have an amazing staff!  The biggest problem is we don’t have time to watch each other in action.  One day next week cancel your team meeting and go visit another teacher to see them in action.  Before you leave, write them a note about what was great in your classroom that you would like try and bring back to your class.  If you do not have team time please let JoAnn know which teacher you would like to see, we will compile a list and let you know which day we will have a sub come in to provide you with the time you need.
• 5th Grade - Tuesday
• 6th Grade - Friday
• 7th Grade - Monday
• 8th Grade - Wednesday
• RST Scoring 2 Days next week
• 5th Grade - Tuesday - Friday
• 6th Grade Thursday - Friday
• 7th Grade Thursday - Friday
• 8th Grade - Thursday - Friday

• PARCC Testing
• The whole school will be testing at once starting April 25th
• After testing we will begin our Delayed Opening Schedule
• Grades 6-8 will have one less day of testing.  For this reason on day 7 of testing we will be running a regular schedule and when 5th grade has finished their testing they will jump into whatever period we are having at that time.
• If the testing time runs long we will pick up with the period that the students will be in due to their delayed opening schedule.  We will also make an announcement to inform everyone what time it is.
• Training will be provided at the April Faculty meetings April 4th and possibly April 11th.
• Reminder: No homework or movies this week. If your grade level would like to modify activities and have grade level learning opportunities you can do this. Please just let us know so we can reserve areas like the Annex Cafe, APR, or even the fields outside.

PARCC Testing Times

Grades 4-5	Grades 6-8
ELA Unit Times Unit 1 - 90 min Unit 2 - 90 min Unit 3 - 90 min	ELA Unit Times Unit 1 - 110 min Unit 2 - 110 min Unit 3 - 90 min
Math Unit Times Unit 1 - 60 min Unit 2 - 60 min Unit 3 - 60 min Unit 4 - 60 min	Math Unit Times Unit 1 - 80 min Unit 2 - 80 min Unit 3 - 80 min Algebra I, Geometry, Unit 1 - 90 min Unit 2 - 90 min Unit 3 - 90 min

Up-Coming Events:

March 7 Faculty Meeting

Lincoln Financial Visit

March 8 PNC Bank Visit

March 10 I & R S Meeting

March 11 BIS Spotlight

March 14 Faculty Meeting

March 16 BOE Meeting

March 22 & 23 CAP Program – 6th Grade

March 22, 23 & 24 Parent Conferences – Early Dismissal

March 25 – April 1 Spring Break – School Closed

Tech Tips:

Mystery Skype:  What is a Mystery Skype?  Mystery Skypes are Challenge-Based Learning episodes where students in one classroom try to guess the name of the school, city, and/or state of students in another classroom using only Yes and No questions.

Achieve the Core - Resources for Math and ELA teachers

Paired Text Sets -- Resources for Social Studies and ELA teachers