If you are in education long enough, you are bound to experience change. Just about the time you think you have mastered a program or system it changes as quickly as it was implemented. For some people, this can create stress, confusion, and uncertainty. Others might see it as an opportunity to grow or challenge themselves or others to become better in whatever it is they might do. I experienced a little bit of both before we began our In-service Friday. I knew the implementation of the NEE was going to be something that would allow each of us to grow professionally, but I also knew there would be some bumps in road as we got started. I think the single best thing that happened Friday was not that many teachers were able to get a solid rough draft of their PDP completed. For me, it was the quality of the collaboration that was occurring building-wide as I visited each group. Teachers were completely engaged with the task at hand and the quality of conversation was top notch. What impressed me the most was that there were many collegial conversations occurring in many of the rooms I visited. The conversations were on topic and had student achievement at the heart of them. In order for our Professional Learning Community to exist and succeed, we need continue to engage in more collaborations and conversations like the ones that transpired today. I want to think everyone for their hard work and their willingness to take on a new challenge. TURN UP THE HEAT!!!!
On Wednesday during collaboration, many of us got our first glimpse of the Network for Educator Effectiveness (NEE) that our district will be implementing this year for teacher evaluations. There are few things if any that will get a group of educators fired up more than a meeting about teacher evaluations. Just like many of you, I have been curious to see how this new system will work and be implemented. After watching the videos and listening to the conversations that we had about the standards, it seemed to me that the common themes shared by the teachers that were scoring high was their ability to engage their students with the types of questions that stimulated discussion and their frequency of checking for understanding. While these two strategies are not the only two standards teachers will be judged on, your effectiveness as a teacher will increase dramatically if you can improve in these two areas. Ineffective questions involve recall or a simple yes or no to answer. On the other hand, effective questions are open-ended and involve higher-order thinking skills such as analysis, interpretation, prediction, and evaluation. Checking for understanding can and should be completed using various techniques. A couple of techniques used effectively in the last video were using whiteboards and cards. As the school year continues, experiment and explore with different questioning styles and checking for understanding techniques to elevate your level of instruction.
I wanted to begin by saying thanks to everyone for making this first full week function as well as it did. It can be very challenging to come in after a long break and be attentive and engaged for three days of meetings. Throw on top of that Open House and this has been a very busy week. With that being said, I believe we have the systems in place to make this a great year at Excelsior Springs Middle School.
As we begin to settle in next week for our first full week of school, remember to maximize as much instructional time as you can during the class period. It’s always a good idea to be over-prepared these first couple of weeks so that you can avoid any down time that might lead to student problem behaviors. As you begin introducing lessons and start to actively engage students in their learning for the year, periodically take some time at the beginning of the hour to share with your class things that you have learned recently or over the summer. One expectation we have for all of our students is to be life-long learners and one way we can model this for them is to share learning experiences we have recently engaged in. This doesn’t need to be something that takes a huge chunk of time, but students respond positively when they see that their teacher is constantly learning as well. You can use this time to share something you have learned with them and move on, or you can use what you have learned to start a class discussion. No matter which you decide to do, try and make it a habit of sharing new learning with your students. |
AuthorI'm Ben Rubey, Instructional Coach at Excelsior Springs Middle School. Archives
April 2015
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