High Point News
Week of: April 20th, 2015
********NEWS******************************
Upcoming Dates: Below are important dates for the upcoming weeks. We have had to switch some dates and activities to fit everything in before the end of the year! All of these dates are on the staff calendar but we wanted to make everyone aware!
April 28th
Faculty Meeting/Committee Meeting 2:50
May 4th
Grade level teams meet with Pitchford during planning to review non-negotiables and expectations for 2016 (required only for returning employees)
May 12th
New Student Round up
3-4 p.m.
PLCs in the afternoon
for grade levels
Imagine Learning
Training for ESOL teachers(using the data) 2:30-4:00
May 14th
Staff End of the Year Party 3-5p.m. (no PLCs)
May 15th
F and P due by the end
of the day (K-4th)
Move Up Day PK-2nd
May 18th
2nd grade
meets w/Hess to make class lists (planning and after school)
Move Up Day 3rd-5th
May 20th
1st grade meets w/Hess to make class lists (planning and
after school)
May 21st
Kindergarten meets w/Hess to make class lists (planning and after school)
May 26th
1st day of Post planning: 3rd and 4th
meet w/Hess to make class lists (4th/AM, 3rd/PM)
May 27th
IB Training for teachers and assistants
May 28th
IB Training
**********************************************************
GA Milestones Testing Continues
Please feel free to wear jeans and soft-soled shoes during GA Milestones testing.
Please adhere to the specials and lunch schedules until the end of testing on May 1st. If you have any questions, please see Ms. Alexander.
The schedule is as follows:
Monday - ELA Section 3 Paper/Pencil and Online
Tuesday - ELA Section 3 Online Only
Wednesday - Math Paper/Pencil and Online
Thursday - Math Online Only
Friday - Make- Up Testing
Monday - Science Paper/Pencil and Online
Tuesday - Science Online Only
Wednesday - SS Paper/Pencil and Online
Thursday - SS Online Only
Friday - Make Up Only
**********************************************************
ALL IN LEARNING UPDATE
See below about updates needed if you use All In Learning....
"To continue to use the Plug in Chrome, users will
need to make the changes as directed. This is the first thing they see
when they log in.
For
your own sake, go and make sure you have the latest version of Chrome -
Settings then About Google Chrome.
Then
follow the directions here:
All of
that said, Firefox, Safari, compatible versions of Internet Explorer are not
impacted by this change to the API (at this time) so another solution is just
to log in with one of those browsers and move on down the road."
**********************************************************
Meeting with Hess
As a reminder, all teachers (EIP, ESOL, SPED included) will be
meeting with Sheri this Friday during your specials (the testing schedule time) for a mandatory
F and P Refresher.
You will be meeting in your grade chair’s classroom. Bring
something to write with to the meeting.
**********************************************************
What I've Been Thinking About…
Check out this blog by Washington Post writer Vivek Wadhwa.
***********************************************************
In Ms. Bradshaw’s 2nd grade class, she uses the Book Tweet to help encourage kids to want to read. The students loved the idea because it says “Twitter” in it. There is no use of technology, but it motivates them because they love the idea of “tweeting.” After they finish a book, students think what they need to tell others about then they tweet it out. Students create a hashtag to capture other’s attention and then they let them know the title, author and what the loved about the book – hopefully focusing on the main idea. The kids have a great time reading about books this way!
***********************************************************
*****VISUALS OF BEST PRACTICE******
In Ms. Bradshaw’s 2nd grade class, she uses the Book Tweet to help encourage kids to want to read. The students loved the idea because it says “Twitter” in it. There is no use of technology, but it motivates them because they love the idea of “tweeting.” After they finish a book, students think what they need to tell others about then they tweet it out. Students create a hashtag to capture other’s attention and then they let them know the title, author and what the loved about the book – hopefully focusing on the main idea. The kids have a great time reading about books this way!
In Ms.Rattray’s TAG class, the students reflect on their work at
the end of each day and then rate themselves using the rubric. Students are
getting more practice writing more than, “I did good today”. The rubric
encourages them to further explain their thinking, evaluate their own work, and
create connections.
*******MATH CORNER*************
Strategy 3: Offer Regular Descriptive Feedback During the Learning
Effective
feedback can be defined as information provided to students that results in an
improvement in learning. In our current
system, most of the work students do is graded, and marks or grades may be the
only formal feedback they receive.
Unfortunately, marks and grades deliver a coded summary evaluation
without specific information about what students did well or what their next
steps in learning might be.
Effective
feedback identifies student strengths and weaknesses with respect to the
specific learning target(s) they are trying to achieve in a given
assignment. It helps students answer the
question, “Where am I now?” with respect to “Where do I need to be?” And it points the way to “How can I close the
gap?” With those answers in mind, offer feedback instead of grades on work
that is for practice and offer students opportunities to act on it before
holding then accountable for mastery.
Giving students time to act allows them to grow with guidance. Also, providing this kind of feedback models
the kind of thinking you want students to engage in when they self-assess and
identify next steps.
Involve
students as peer feedback-givers.
Research literature includes promising learning gains attributable to
peer feedback (White & Frederiksen, 1998).
To offer each other useful feedback, students must understand the
intended learning targets, objectives, or goals (Strategy 1); be clear about
how to distinguish levels of quality (Strategy 2); and have practiced with
protocols for offering feedback in a controlled situation (Strategy 3).
Note: Make
sure you have introduced the language of the rubric in advance of using it to
offer feedback. Students will understand
your comments better if you have also given them practice with evaluating
strong and weak anonymous work samples, which helps them internalize the
concepts of quality described in the rubric.
The Strategy In Practice: Two Color
Highlighting
This
strategy works well for projects that have a rubric. Students mark with a yellow highlighter the
phrases on the scoring rubric they think describe their work. They turn the highlighted scoring rubric in
with their work, and you mark with a blue highlighter the phrases that you
believe describe it. Where you and the
student are in agreement, the phrases are green. Phrases that remain yellow and blue represent
areas where you and the student differ.
Then you can
offer additional written comments for those students whose judgments vary
significantly from yours, or you can meet with them individually or in small
groups, depending on the instruction they need.
Students can also highlight a developmental continuum or other graphic
display that describes elements of quality, as long as the wording is
student-friendly and does not use negative evaluative labels, such as “failing”
or “far below standard.”
From Chappuis (2015), Seven
Strategies of Assessment for Learning,
Pearson Education, Inc.
*****WRITERS' GALLERY**********
The writers' gallery/pledge is hosted by Ms. Barnes' class this week.
The writers' gallery/pledge will be hosted by Ms. Wright's class next week.
******CALENDAR OF EVENTS*******
Monday, April 20th
GA Milestones Testing
Tuesday, April 21st
GA Milestones Testing
2:30 - Mandatory Meeting for SPED and Admin Team
(No NKOTB)
Administrative Professionals Day (Thank you Jenna, Jackie, Marie, and Rhodope!!!!)
GA Milestones Testing
2:30 - Mandatory Meeting for SPED and Admin Team
(No NKOTB)
Wednesday, April 22nd
Earth Day!Administrative Professionals Day (Thank you Jenna, Jackie, Marie, and Rhodope!!!!)
GA Milestones Testing
Thursday, April 23rd
GA Milestones Testing
2:50 - PLCs
2:50 - PLCs
Friday, April 24th
GA Milestones Testing
F&P Refresher with Hess During Specials (1st - 5th)
Send your tickets down and change your Student of the Week!
GA Milestones Testing
F&P Refresher with Hess During Specials (1st - 5th)
Send your tickets down and change your Student of the Week!
******BIRTHDAYS! ****************
Happy birthday to Rebecca Gersten on April 23rd and Renee Kozlicki on April 24th We hope you both have a wonderful birthday!!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment