“WE CAN DO ANYTHING BUT WE CAN’T DO EVERYTHING”
Winfield Middle School Staff Blog - September 29, 2016
Good to Great?
Process or destination?
I am seeing so many great things going on in our building. Jim Collins writes Good to Great describing what it takes to get to the #nextlevel. I think we might be poised to get “there.” You are building connections with students. They share and work “with” you as much as they work “for” you because of the relationships you’ve begun. This metaphor describing the quest for getting “there” is only partially correct. Great is not a destination! It is not a final location or place to end up but in fact a way of doing things along the way. Thus, becoming “great” is more of a phrase describing an action. It is our methodology or way of doing things that takes us to the next level. We do not arrive and quit once we become great. Here’s one...
My MOBY MAX Dashboard
#RTI or just busy work???
Will RTI like this help? Questions and lessons seem to be adaptive to the student’s needs, abilities and current level of expertise. This is the dashboard I see. I have responded with a few positive “VIBES” to student that have begun the process. It would be interesting to know if students received and how they responded to them. Additionally, we have another formative tool… eValuate.
eValuate during 2016-17
Here’s where we were at the end of last year… Let’s look for growth and shifts.
2015-16 yearly overview
Our current snapshot is below. This baseline give us room to grow. What ways can we use the tool for student feedback? Should we review the results quickly after the assessment or wait? What does research say?
September 2016-17
Last year, our first group looked like this as displayed below in the GREEN BOX. I changed the Site Year in the top right back to 2015-16 to gather this data. INTERESTING…???
September 2015-16
October 3rd - 8th
This week
Monday
- Practices
- Check out the NEW ANTI-BULLY SHIRTS
- Jeans are OK if you wear the ANTI-BULLY SHIRTS
Tuesday
- Football @ Montgomery County
- Softball @ Wright City (5:30)
- AND
- Volleyball @ Wright City (5:00 & 6:30)
- Culture/Climate PD in Gracey’s room.
- Is a start time of 7:15 enough time for us to address the PD details of the month?
- Last Tuesday, PBiS Tier II met and worked on the HOT Sheet intervention process to align it closer to the FLOW CHART completed by the RTI Team. Stay tuned! We want to get that to staff by Oct 5th PD
Wednesday
- Early Release - 7th grade hosts?
- No football practice
Thursday
- Cross County @ O’ Farm
- Jana Schmidt
- Binders: DR STEFFES PLANS ON ATTENDING
- Content Team Goals needed from Binder Teams See BSIP
- We will tune our BSIP to include more details
- Action Steps currently in place or just underway, such as
- MOBY MAX or
- How we encourage proper use the student Chromebooks?
- RTI, FlowCharts, HOT Sheets…
- NIE
- eValuate Data and test administration and comparison to last year, beginning and end
- Grade Reports - Any/Every F grade needs a parent contact
Friday
Saturday
- Winfield Campus 5K FUN run
Ongoing
- Brunswick - Oct 19 - Guest list required
Self Directed Learning
While visiting a classroom, I overheard a discussion about “self directed learning.” I wondered how the students did, left up to their own devices? Able to pick their own project or do what they thought they wanted to do, I considered if we all prefer self-directed learning?
For instance, at the beginning of the year, I wrote out a huge document, almost a manifesto, on what I thought the building should be. The document even needed an introduction page, called Page One, and a Table of Contents. I discussed word-walls, data-walls, student reported grades, weekly updates in SYS, post cards going out with positive comments, blogs, committees and subcommittees, templates, Summer Reads, Ac Lab procedures, HOT sheets, Tiers and layers of interventions, Planners, and helpful hints. Then, I wondered why we couldn’t ALL do everything perfectly! My own insecurity lead me to believe I could control, mandate and direct us into all being robots with duplicated little classrooms and anything less was just a failure.
Then I stepped into a room and the teacher was reviewing the PBiS matrix and it hit me. We are not all going to agree on everything. In fact, we agree on little. However, we can all agree on a few things and build on those items of consensus. I do see data walls. I hear less sarcasm and more authentic praise. I hear second chances and compassion. I see mercy offered and justice deferred while we re-teach behavioral expectations.
In fact, Mr R reminded me that I am a culprit as well, especially when I say to him, “It’s so good to see you today!” something he interprets as “What a surprise!” The misconstrued interpretation is amazing. His interpretation was the furthest thing from my mind, yet he heard that every morning when I stopped by deliberately for a greeting! He thought I was being sarcastic and I thought I was being politie.
As I step back now, and reflect on what we have done so far I have come to a few realizations. WE CAN DO ANYTHING BUT WE CAN’T DO EVERYTHING! Ms Hoff drags her family up to school on a sunday afternoon to try get everything done. This lead me to wonder if there were frustration levels increasing, negativity happening and a general feeling of overwhelmedness, because there is not enough time. Let’s consider this. Like our Youtube clip of building a plane in the air, we have many great things in motion, affecting children and influencing our community. Let’s keep what we have going and focus on consistency. Research tells us what works! Let’s do those things.
Parent communication
Student Feedback
Data walls
KAGAN Activities
Word walls
Lectures & Direct instruction
Hattie methods
Notes
Foldables
Learning Styles
MobyMax
Student reported or reflecting on their grades and learning
Workbooks
Self-directed learning
Close reading
Reading logs Reading Counts Quizzes
Homework or No-homework
SBG
Let’s consider what is best for students. What really works and what can help these students learn to read, think and truly become self-directed? How can we continue their growth?
What follows is brief summary of highlights from the
Intermediate school and their scores last year.
How do we stack up???
Here are overall snapshots from the Middle School
Science
Proficient and Advance in 2014, 2015, 2016
Science Index Scores
The index uses a formula to get the relative score.
1xBB + 3xB + 4xP + 5xA = Index
BB is the percentage of students that scored BELOW BASIC on the MAP TEST.
B is the percentage of students that scored BASIC on the MAP TEST.
P is the percentage of students that scored PROFICIENT on the MAP TEST.
A is the percentage of students that scored ADVANCED on the MAP TEST.
MATH
The percent of students scoring advanced and proficient.
The index scores, out of 500 statewide
ELA
The percent of students that scored advanced or proficient.
Here are the grade level index scores from the past 3 years in each grade.
Learn to read, then Read to learn!
Improve reading, improve learning.
Learn to write, then Write to learn!
Improve writing, improve learning.
This process is a continuum of growth in each and every person. As we develop in the areas of reading and writing, we develop in our ability to think deeply and more abstractly about concepts and applications, leaving the simple DOK levels and progressing towards advanced thinking of DOK 3 & 4. The more we read and write about it, the better. Start small and grow into longer and more complex pieces. I know at the Intermediate, they spend 90 minute a day on reading AND an additional 50 minutes on writing and grammar. Students come to the Middle School and we offer 6th graders an period of grammar and another period on reading! Then, in the 7th and 8th grade, we blocked their reading & Grammar into ELA a longer period. How can we increase that reading instruction? How can we keep the growth and progress growing through this building?
#thoseTeachers at #thatSchool for #everyStudent
Serving students and staff
Tom McCracken
Links
Maybe I should leave this section here so we can refer to it as a bookmark page???
- Binder Team Notes - If you want editing rights, please request
- Committee Progress - (Report back during Next PD)
- Culture/Climate - PD Early Release Archives
- HOT Sheets - maybe a work in progress
