Tiger Champions Week In Review 8 - September 30, 2012



UTE GOAL:  Top 15% of Elementary Schools in Kentucky in Reading and Math!!!

 

“For time and the world do not stand still.

Change is the law of life.

And those who look only to the past or the present are certain to miss the future.”

~John F. Kennedy

Education News:

Innovation in Kentucky Education - Dr. Holiday's Blog

The Research - Homework

NEA Takes a Position on Homework

How do you make sure your homework is developmentally appropriate and purposeful for your students?

Instructional Strategies That Work:  Student Goal Setting

All K-5 students should complete their goal setting this week.  Goal Setting correlates well to our October Monthly Happy Habit: "Be Proactive, You're In Charge".

The research shows that students who are involved in their own academic goal setting outperform those who do not feel they have any control or investment in their own achievement.

Campbell, D. J., Koufteros, B. & Foo, Y. (2001). Goal-setting, Competition and Performance: Some Singaporean and American Similarities, Research and Practice in Human Resource Management, 9(2), 3-26.

The results of this study parallel the findings of Study 1, in that competition and goals enhanced rather than depressed performance. Specific, difficult goals resulted in higher levels of performance than easy or moderate goals; and individuals in the Competitive situation significantly outperformed individuals in the Non competitive condition across all goal conditions. Further, in terms of accounting for the results, the questionnaire findings also replicated Study 1. Individuals in the Competitive condition had higher levels of intrinsic motivation; their self efficacy was higher; and they reported higher levels of concentration than those in the Non competitive environment. Finally, individuals with difficult or moderate goals in the presence of competition perceived more anxiety than those with easy goals, which appears to make intuitive sense.

 

Calendar Reminders

~~All students should have time to take advantage of our AR program.  Please work it into your schedule, if you have not already done so.  What are your students doing when they finish assignments?  That's a perfect time to read!

~Don't forget to use Reading A-Z.  It is full of wonderful resources which include:  leveled readers, graphic organizers, reading research findings, best practice suggestions, running record resources, etc...  This site is perfect for your guided reading groups or center work.

~~ Do/Whats should be underway in your classrooms (not K).  The goal is to be completing one per week in each content area by the month of October.

~ We will work further on websites this week during faculty meeting.  I will not expect you to be updating them until you have the time and support during our meetings to get them going.  My goal is that everyone will be indpendently able to update them weekly by the middle of October. 

October Events:

2nd-5th:  Progress Monitoring of 5 RTI rdg students - DIBELS

2 - Special Ed. Reading Academy

3 - Lead Team Meeting, Faculty Meeting

4- Picture Proofs Due, Flu Shots, K&1st Rdg. Academies, PTO Mtg., 9 Wks Ends

5 - EKEA - No School

8&10:  PLC progress monitoring discussion

8 - Budget Committee Mtg.

9 - Angie's Buds and Blooms, Earthquake and Fire Drills

10 - Faculty Mtg.

11 - Report Cards Go Home with All Students, 2nd & 3rd Reading Academy

12 - Lockdown, Service Team Mtg.,

15 - SBDM, Board of Ed. Mtg.

15th-17th - Room Reading Extravaganza Competitions

17 - Lead Team Mtg., Faculty Mtg (Professional Growth Study Teams Meet), Classroom Rdg. Winners due to office

18 - Rdg Extravaganza School Judging, 4th & 5th Rdg. Academy, McTeacher Night

22 - Smiling Schools Dental Program

19 - Rdg. Extravaganza/ PTO Baskets/ Family Movie Night

24 - Faculty Meeting

25 - No School Tchr. Planning Day

26 - No School Mandatory PD

When do we want to have Fall Parties?

Worthwhile Website:

The Daily 5

Tigers on a Roll!

All classrooms have centers up and running!

Mrs. Hargett's students are utilizing their book boxes to make good fit independent reading choices!

2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th Grades are all posting appropriate and congruent learning targets at each center!

Our Mission:  To assist each student to reach a progressively higher level of academic achievement and social and emotional development

Tiger Champions Week In Review 5 - September 9, 2012

Tiger Champions Week In Review 5 - September 9, 2012



UTE GOAL:  Top 15% of Elementary Schools in Kentucky in Reading and Math!!!

If you educate a man you educate a person, but if you educate a woman you educate a family.
Ruby Manikan

Education News:

K-3 Program Review 

KDE has announced that elementary schools will be required to complete a primary program review as part of their 2012-2013 Next Generation Accountability.  Please take time to read and respond to the review that can be found at the link above.

The Brighter Brain Bulletin by Eric Jensen

The Research - Student Effort

Here is what the research tells us about effort: there are many causes, each requiring many different solutions. But let's cut to the chase. Kids who grow up with exposure to chronic and acute stress (without the coping skills) typically have more of a sense of the "world happening to them" (vs. having a strong locus of control). They either display anger (one symptom of a stress disorder) or helplessness (another symptom of a stress disorder) at school. Research suggests stress specifically impairs attentional control (Liston, et al., 2009). Children living in poverty experience significantly greater chronic stress than do their more affluent counterparts (Almeida, Neupert, Banks, & Serido, 2005). This means you'll see kids who look like they're either trying to "get in your face" or trying to "quit on you." We also know low childhood SES (socioeconomic status) correlates with chronic stress exposure and reduced working memory (Evans, et al., 2009).

The relevance is simple; to engage kids who have had serious adversity (financial or other stress issues), you'll need to provide a trusting relationship. Trusting relationships with both teachers and other adults are ranked as a top-ten student achievement factor (JA Hattie, 2009). Show kids how much you care first, before they care about you. Also, you'll want to provide more of a sense of control for the students in school. Reducing anxiety in kids has a strong correlation with student achievement (0.40 effect size contributing to student achievement). Both relationships and sense of control mitigate the effects of stress disorders. If your kids don't fit into this particular description, the next paragraph is for you. In fact, the next seven factors are each a separate jewel.

Practical Applications

You can have very active kids this year. Even at the secondary school level, there are kids who are inert in one class and very engaged in another. As a teacher, you have more to do with how your kids behave than you give yourself credit for. Here are seven more strategies, in addition to developing trusting relationships and allowing students to have a sense of control (see above).

1. Show more passion for learning and your content (the student brain's "mirror neurons" may get activated by your passion, and mimic your excitement for learning)
2. Use specific buy-in strategies to hook in students (build relevance)
3. Make it their idea (inclusion, choice and control)
4. Lower the risk (making failures part of the learning process and providing better support for ELL)
5. Build the Learner's Mindset ("I can grow!")
6. Increase Feedback ("It's the best motivator")
7. Stair-step the Effort (Baby steps work)

Your passion will "hook in" more learners than most strategies. Use body language, voice inflection and facial expressions to augment passionate words about the new learning. Additionally, use "buy-in strategies" to build some of the "hooks" that keep students interested. Make it their idea (inclusion, choice and control). Lower the risk (appreciate every hand that goes up and every student's effort, whether the answer is good or not. Say, "Thanks very much, who else?") Build the Learner's Mindset (Tell kids that their brain can change and whatever they did last year, this year can be better). Increase Feedback; it's the single best motivator. Use affirmations, quality content feedback, peer feedback, mini quizzes, partner-developed quizzes, and verbal feedback from you on their strategy, effort or their attitude. Finally use the stair-step strategy. When asking students to do a complex activity, have them do it in small parts that are easier to say "yes" to. Yes, baby steps work if you move fast!

Tigers on a Roll!

Nancy Withrow for getting WTNN, Tiger Nation News going with our fifth graders.

Keri Flannery and Cymilee Napier for sharing their students with me during writing time.

Peggy Young for taking the time to be supportive of her teammates.

Debbie Gee for wearing many hats.

Keri Flannery for having very organized and rigourous centers.  See pictures below.

Learning Target at Center

Students Using a Tool to Create Complex Sentences and then Write Them

Learning Target for Writing Center

!Leigh Williams for engaging students in rigorous, hands-on, engaging math activities.

4th Grade Students Playing a Multiplication Array Game

Lynsey Varney for bravely tackling the CIITS lesson planner!

Instructional Strategies That Work!

This website is a teacher who blogs about instructional strategies.  She has many great suggestions and best practice tips of the trade.  I particularly like her observations and suggestions for B,D, and A reading strategies.

Before, During, and After Reading Strategies

 I also would like to share a great before reading strategy that I used regularly in my classroom.  Its a game called "vocabulary buzz".  If you would like for me to share it with your class, just let me know when.

Calendar Reminders

~~Turn all PLC agendas and minutes in outside my door weekly.   PLC Agenda and Minutes Template

~Lesson plans should be on your desk or emailed to me by  Monday morning each week using our plan format from last year unless using CIITS. (If you are already using CIITS for lesson planning, just let me know in an email.

~ Parent Curriculum Night has been postponed until we get the grade level Curriculum Maps to share.

~2nd-5th Don't forget to have your students complete the Fall Automaticity Assessment which should be sent to me in the electronic chart no later than September 10th.

~ Do/Whats should be underway in your classrooms (not K).  The goal is to be completing one per week in each content area by the month of October.

~ You should have your website set up and being updated weekly by the third week of this month.  We will get started on them at faculty meeting this week.  I will begin randomly checking them in October.

 

September Events

10:  PLC 1st, 4th, K, and 3rd

10,11,12 - Grandparents' Day

11:  Severe weather drill @ 9:30

11:  STAR FORCE Sound Off Introduction - K-2nd 12:30 and 1:15

12:  PLC 2nd and 5th

12:  Faculty Meeting @ 3:30 - Professional Growth, Classroom Websites, KEA

13:  3rd Rdg. Academy @ 8:30 and 2nd Rdg. Academy @ 12:30

13:  FRC Parent volunteer trainings @ 2:00 and 5:00

14:  Service Team Meeting - If you have concerns about the attendance, basic, or emotional needs of a students, please let Dianna, Regina, David, Debbie, or myself know before this day.

14:  1:00-2:30  Aides RTI strategies training in the cafeteria (Sarah, Denise, and Debbie)

14:  7:00 PTO family movie night

19: Leadership Team Meeting @ 2:30 and Faculty Meeting @ 3:30.

24:  SBDM Meeting @ 3:30

 Worthwhile Websites

CIITS

If you are not familiar with CIITS, you need to take some time to get to know the program.  We will be entering lesson plans there beginning next month.  We will have a faculty meeting about it with some training before that time.

Our Mission:  To assist each student to reach a progressively higher level of academic achievement and social and emotional development through the cooperative endeavors of responsible students, caring parents, dedicated educational staff, and an involved community

Good rainy Sunday afternoon!  This week I am only giving you calendar reminders.  No need for you to respond.  Spend your extra day off enjoying time with your family.  Happy Labor Day!  See you Tuesday!

Important September Events
3rd - Labor Day - No School
4th - Special Education Reading Academy 8:30 - 11:00 @ CO
5th - Leaderhip Team Meeting 2:30   Faculty Meeting, 3:30
6th - K Reading Academy 8:30 - 11:00, 1st Academy 12:30-3:00 @ CO
10th - K/1 Grandparents Day, Budget Committee Meeting @ 3:00
11th - 2/3 Grandparents Day, Severe weather AND fire drill
12th - 4/5 Grandparents Day, Faculty Meeting @ 3:30
13th - 3rd Reading Academy 8:30-11:00, 2nd 12:30-3:00
17th - SBDM 3:30, Board Meeting 6:30
19th  - Leadership Team 2:30, Faculty Mtg. 3:30
20th - 4th Reading Academy 8:30-11:00, 5th Academy 12:30-3:00


Reading Academy Assignment - Read chapters 1 and 2 of Strategies That Work.

Words of Wisdom from Stephen Covey:
"The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing."

Our main thing is student achievement and we are creating champions!