February 19, 2010

PLC Gut Check - Monday's visit from Anthony Muhammad was my "PLC Gut Check" and, at least for me, a very needed February pick-me-up.  :)  A few items I noted are below - I am strongly encouraging teams to revisit Dr. Muhammad's presentation and information during this coming week's PLC time.  What should your team's next steps be?  Building?  K-5?  District?

Back to the Basics - A Professional Learning Community is a group of educators committed to working collaboratively in ongoing processes of collective inquiry and action research in order to achieve better results for the students they serve. PLC’s operate under the assumption that the key to improved learning for students is continuous, job-embedded learning for educators

Nine Core Beliefs - Starting with, "Schools are places built for the education of children, not for adult employment," Dr. Muhammad's list of beliefs made me think differently about what our mission really is.  We are here to serve our students, parents and community - not vice versa.  I've decided that revisiting the core beliefs on a regular basis would be important.

I should slow down - sometimes :) - As Dr. Muhammad discussed Levey MS's three year process, I kept thinking about my impatience and "change things now!!" attitude (someone from the table confirmed my thoughts - thanks, Jeannie).  Research, collective inquiry and experimentation should be placed before implementation and I will assist teams as best I can to consistently use this process as we move forward.  How would the Tiger Behavior Plan look if we had run it through this process?  Not that what we have is 'bad,' but maybe something we can run through the process as we move forward.



Vocabulary Instruction - In Marzano's "Getting Serious About School Reform:  Three Critical Commiments," he spoke about six steps for effective vocabulary instruction (p35-38).  For those of you involved in Reading First, this reinforces our own prior learning.  MISIC standards and benchmarks identify the vocabulary terms necessary to building those the background knowledge vital to the academic success of students.  On ASCD, Marzono has additional suggestions about which of the steps are key to effective vocabulary instruction and give a great example using the terms mutualism and symbiosis.  This is a short article and well worth the read.

PT Conference Data - I still need conference data from 4 teachers (you know who you are!). Please turn it in to Steph today!!

Monday's Board Meeting - The board will be making final decisions about 2010-11 staffing Monday night. They are welcoming input from staff, parents and community members so please attend if you want to share your thoughts. The meeting begins at 6:00 pm.

Observations - As mentioned, some teachers have 1 observation to complete before Spring Break which is only three weeks away. If you're not on cycle, you must still complete one formal observation and it is your responsibility to schedule the observation.



Gifted Conference – Thursday, I attended the first day of the NAG’s (Nebraska Association for Gifted) annual conference. In addition to some great information about encouraging achievement in the 21st Century (parent workshop coming!), humorist, T. Marni Vos spoke about the research on creativity, humor and laughter. I wanted to leave you with a few of her quotes…

- Research shows that when people fall in love, their immune system is at it’s highest.
- When people love what they do, they have a much higher immune system.
- Studies show the most common time for a heart attack to occur is Monday morning (heart attack victims usually indicate a dissatisfication in their work)
- Students indicate humor in the classroom helps them learn better.
- In a recent study, 284 teachers were evaluated. Those that ranked at the top in teaching ability averaged 3.95 on the humor scale. The poorest teachers ranked 2.36. Through incorporating more humor into the classroom, both teacher and student will benefit. It is not just about a subject. It’s about relationships.
- Stress is not an event, it is how we choose to perceive an event

Upcoming Dates:
Feb 24 - 2 hr early out - Bldg PLC
March 3 - 2 hr early out - Bldg PLC; 5th Grade Speech Contest
Mar 12 - 2 hr early out (Indv PLC)