Tuesday, October 13, 2015

Progress Made at Oct. 13th In-Service

Today we made some great progress in terms of our next steps.

Below is our big picture thinking....working backwards from the Student Led Conferences we enhanced the format and process of how students prepared for their conferences.  





We discussed and decided that we would lead students in goal setting using the following options:

Option #1:  Take Hopes and Dreams and develop them into SMART goals.
Option #2:  Passion goal (for smaller faction of students that are more passion related)
Option #3:  Other (Teacher influenced & supported)

We then broke up into 3 groups to support our efforts to support students:
  • Advisory System  (Jean B., Amy, and Carol)
  • Tech Integration Menu for Documenting Learning  (Doug & Allison)
  • ELA & Wellness on Tuesday (Lesson Planning)  (Cristal & Jason)

Tech Integration Plan for creating a menu for documenting learning:  (Allison & Doug)
On Tuesday, October 22, Allison (and Doug) will introduce the Google Site and have students copy and create their own site. They will also learn about the different tabs located on the site. The last thing for that day will be to review the location of the videos that will show students how to imbed a Google Doc, a photo and a link to a blog post. The following three Thursdays, during TFlex Time, will be reserved for students to being working on this site at their own pace utilizing the videos.

Proposed Advisory System: (Amy, Carol, & Jean)
Purpose of Advisory/Use of Advisory Time:
  • Near future: establish SMART goal, identify first steps
  • Ongoing times: small group facilitation, blog and verbally (reflection word bank)  reflect on progress, share out on progress/next steps/ celebration
(Because we are a Responsive Classroom School, community-building occurs during Morning Meeting.   The purpose of our advisory time will be to to support student PLPs, not community-building.)

Advisories: All advisories will meet on Tuesday’s from 9:45-10:15
31 students in the 5th/6th grade
7 Advisors/Advisories
4 groups of 4 and 3 groups of 5

Students can use Flex time for ongoing work on their goals, although their advisor may not be available to work with them during Flex Time.

Action Steps:
  • Set up a Google Doc for advisees that would be used by classroom teachers to direct how students spend their time during flex time (so teachers know what students’ goals are and where they are in the process of working on goals each week.)
  • GROUPING Kids:  We should make this decision as a team.  Questions to consider:
    • Do we want advisories to be mixed grades OR just 5th grade/6th grade?
    • Do we want advisories to be interest-based (similar goals grouped together)? If so, kids would need to  identify goals before placement in advisory groups?  OR Should we just plan advisory groupings based on our knowledge of kids (kids who would work well together or kids who shouldn’t be together, etc.)  
    • All IEP kids not in one group, but at least one IEP student in each case manager’s group.
  • Proposed Use of Time
    • 10/20- initial brainstorm with SMART goal worksheet template. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aDWC6JJADXiCV6--gCkQplZZqwBljJxbHwiYiTFjAqg/copy This could be done in small groups but not necessarily in set advisory groups.  We could then do an affinity mapping exercise during the PLP planning time to group kids with similar goals into advisory.  
    • 10/27- Update on goal setting/share out, I-pad time for entering SMART goal into PLP templates
    • 11/3- Completions of entering SMART goals, Check in, Reflection on goal setting/ blog entry??
    • 11/10-
    • 11/17

ELA/Wellness Lessons (Cristal & Jason's work)


Things to do
Talk to Allison about Children’s Books
Ask for LA times to be extended on 11/24
Print cards for Boss vs Leader
Allison to set up Web Sites on 11/17
Send Survey home on 11/3 (Jean)
Allison to do a mini lesson on resources 11/3
Talk to Jean about 11/10 - does he want to be involved
Allison to help with video on 12/10

Day 1 (10/20)
Small Group Work (45 minutes)
How do we define a leader? (chart paper)
What values should they epitomize?
Share out

Book Characters
Students (small group) analyze picture books in which the main character exhibits one or more leadership traits. Students make an artifact that illustrates the leadership qualities of the main character.


Blog Post
Who are the leaders in your lives? What values do they exhibit?
How are you a leader in your community? What values of a leader do you possess? How have you demonstrated these values (be specific)?

Writing Piece in Language Arts (Introduced on Wed)
Choose a character from a popular fiction novel, a leader. What values do they exhibit? Provide examples from the book.

Day 2 (10/27)

Blog Post
Identify times in your life when you have been a leader and/or a boss.


Day 3 (11/3)
Social Studies Report - Leaders in Mesopotamia - Using values as a thread, provide a brief biography of this person’s life, and times when they demonstrated values associated with leaders and bosses.  

Allison to do a mini lesson focused on resources for research

Day 4 (11/10)
Mesopotamia leader/boss continued (in addition to LA time throughout the last week)

Day 5 (11/17)
Set up Web Site
Cristal to share her Identity piece
Identity (paragraph with photo)
Some students may move on to poem, Wordle, one minute video etc.

Day 6 (11/24)
***Start Language Arts/Wellness at 9:45, afternoon class 12:35-2:00
Inside Out Movie

Day 7 (12/1)
Lesson related to Inside Out  
Writing Piece

Day 8 (12/8)
Relationship Web
Jean’s Survey

Day 9 (12/15)
Multiple intelligences (You’re Smarter Than You Think)
In small groups study one particular intelligence and create an artifact to share with the class
Students take an assessment
Blog Post

Day 10 (12/22)
Natural High (decisions involving drug and alcohol abuse)
Video & Book
Students identify their natural high
Class video (Allison to help)

Day 11 (1/5)
Natural High lesson continued

Other Potential Focuses for Jan-Mar
Bullying
Developmental Assets

Goal Setting

Last week, students began to work on goal setting. Some students have a pretty solid idea of what goals they have for the year while others are just beginning to think about the prospects.

It's not the goal setting that I want to focus on here, but on the goal setting process. Jean presented kids with a SMARTIES challenge which helped them discuss goal setting strategies. Kids related the SMARTIES challenge to how to set good goals, how to modify goals after reflection, and how to work towards your goals.

The students seem jazzed to begin working on their own focus areas...





Thursday, June 25, 2015

Day 5 Agenda

DAY 5: Friday, June 26th:

8:45-9:15   Finish PLP Template w/ Blogger (involves some whole group decision-making)  
Decide whether to use Montpelier’s Learning Expectations OR AOE Transferable Skills that will be tabs on our PLP template/tags on blogger

          9:15-9:50   Revisit Scope and Sequence to identify priorities for individual tasks

10:00-11:00: In pairs/small group draft a few lessons and develop supporting materials based on scope and sequence --ready to go

          11:00-11:45 (Jean, Carol, Cristal) develop sample PLPs to share with staff at 
in-service Action Research--Time for Jason, Allison and Amy to meet to work
on AR project, submit google form with title & abstract to MGI
      Afternoon:
  • Schedule anomalies to resolve  
  • Future task delegation

Teacher Advisory to support PLPs


Here are some take-aways from the choice break out session: Dynamic Advisories for Enhancing Personalized Learning as we think about the possibility of using a TA format to complement the roll out of PLPs.
  • TA as an essential component for adolescent development
  • As a school come up with a guiding philosophy for the vision/purpose of TA so it is clearly communicated and shared with students
  • TA has the power to be a culture changer- start with common belief, engaging in purposeful activities that are interactive and personalized can move toward a common goal (Not homeroom, not a time for passing out papers, going through checklists etc.)
  • Characteristics for Effective TA’s
    • addresses issues of community
    • promotes open communication
    • strong advisors know and care about their students
    • supervises academic progress
    • support problem solving skills through guidance and advice
  • Elements that can be included in Teacher Advisory
      • academic check-ins
      • team-building activities (build relationships) and/or movement activities
      • service- design activities that have a cause (e.g., writing letters to veterans); importance in adolescent development to feel part of something greater than themselves
      • personalization (recognition of achievements in and out of school, birthdays)
Lots of great ideas from the Goal-Setting presentation with Don and Laura.
My take-away:

  • Encourage quick, "in the moment" self-reflections of performance and projects that are not assessed.  Could be written or audio/video/image reflections.  
  • Couple that with forma self-reflection document for PLP conferencing, assessed for written or oral expressive proficiency.
They talked about linking and labeling blogs and self-reflections to goals, but was kind of lost on me logistically, but it makes sense to do.

Kids required to set one academic goal and one personal goal ----> both end up incorporating transferrable skills (by default).

Examples of personal goals:  become ambidextrous, be a better beat boxer

Goals

I am looking forward to helping students create wellness/social/emotional goals and meeting with them regularly (i.e., during advisory meetings) to reflect on their progress towards reaching their goals.


Setting Meaningful Goals- Linking goal setting to Transferrable Skills


Reflection: Informal vs. Formal

Formal vs. informal reflection-  What is the goal of reflection?  To reflect informally can lead to more periodic formal reflections.

Goal Setting


Wednesday, June 24, 2015

We're Famous!

Today we came full circle and tied the beginning to the end. I love the goal setting - reflection - revision process and am incredibly eager to continue to work on our PLP project.


Creating Space for Personalized Learning

Today I attended a choice session on creating space for personalize learning.
Here are some questions that were posed and links to resources shared during this session:
What does it mean to have a learner centered environment?
How is space used?
What choices do students have about how/where they learn?

Scope and Sequence for PLPs at FES

Today we worked on mapping our our scope and sequence for roll out of our PLP plans.
Here is a table that we created that highlights our progress thus far.
Fayston School - Personalized Learning Plans - Scope and Sequence


Introduction
Date
Goals
Student
Staff
Resources
Aug-Sept
Introduce PLPS and roll out to 5th/6th grade

Follow up with Doug to discuss work during MGI
PLP Resources
Aug In-Service
Model goal setting via PLP template

Develop survey PLP Understanding
& Engagement





Inservice:
Share sample PLP template
Test Survey and receive feedback from staff (Reflection of understanding & measuring student engagement) for AR project
See if someone has a survey and/or use climate survey questions from last year.

Communicate with broader FES audience

FES News article introducing Act 77 and MGI team work on PLPs




Parent information night - 1:1 rollout and PLP/ePortfolios

Oct 6th

Students share progress on ePortfolio and goals.
Open House

Sept/Oct


School board presentation



Bootcamp


1st week of school

Students take survey
Obtain baseline data on engagement & understanding for AR



Introduce Google Sites ePortfolio. Students create ePortfolio from template.

Identity and Citizenship
Dates
Goals
Student
Staff
Resources
Sept-October
About me
Students create About Me page on ePortfolio.
Students write PLP biography and upload self portrait.
Students create 30 second introductory video - Three Things You Need to Know About Me -or- I Am Poem

Optional:
Personal timeline - past
Genealogy project
Staff would share their About Me page with students.
Compass points
Interest surveys


Principles and values


Goal setting
Setting goals - short-term, long-term
Personal timeline - future
Bumper stickers - students create stickers reminding you of your goals
Pre-Teaching -What is a good goal

FES team needs to create a goal setting protocol that is engaging

Asking the right questions to self-reflect
Reflection strategies (Jean to link resources)
Strategies for teaching about goals (SMART?)

Relationships
Relationship web - Google drawing, ePortfolio post
Characteristics of positive relationships
Review relationship web - post on community page







Career exploration
Career exploration

November

Student-led conferences
Student and parent input survey
Review student and parent survey results



Passion projects