I think every week I say that we have a busy week ahead and this week is no different. Tomorrow we will have our KPREP celebration and Pod day. All the details for that day were sent in the earlier email.
Tuesday we will host staff members from Cumberland, Clinton and Monroe counties for our annual instructional rounds. This is a chance for us to offer a problem of practice and receive feedback from other educators.
After discussing in PLC's last week - we decided on the following focus for our instructional rounds:
Problem of Practice- Key Resources for Classroom Instruction
CCES teachers have diligently worked to align instruction and assessments to the Common Core standards. We continue to see growth at all levels that we feel is a direct result of this work. However, we realize that we must continue to work to keep our instruction rigorous and require students to think and perform at high levels. Although staff is convinced of the need to increase rigor, students are easily frustrated and quickly give up. The staff is struggling with ways to provide the kind of scaffolding to students that will increase their sense of efficacy and result in their exhibiting perseverance in pursuing higher order tasks and answering questions involving higher order thinking. Teachers express difficulty in finding ways to keep instruction rigorous while reaching those students who are not performing at grade level.
New research from The Opportunity Myth shows us that:
- Most students do what they’re asked in school— but are still not ready to succeed after school.
- Students spend most of their time in school without access to four key resources: grade-appropriate assignments, strong instruction, deep engagement, and teachers who hold high expectations.
- Students of color, those from low-income families, English language learners, and students with mild to moderate disabilities have even less access to these resources than their peers.
- Greater access to the four resources can and does improve student achievement—particularly for students who start the school year behind.
How can this learning lead us to provide better, more rigorous instruction for our students?
What are our strengths in regards to the four key resources?
What are our weaknesses?
Focus Questions:
1. Is the assignment grade appropriate?
2. What evidence is present of strong instruction? Are clear learning objectives provided? Is learning scaffolded? What level of discussing, questioning, thinking is being required? Is feedback being provided to students?
3. What level of engagement is being demonstrated by the students? Are students compliant, passively engaged, actively engaged, cognitively engaged?
4. What level of expectations does the teachers have for student learning in the class?
Teams will be visiting classrooms from 9:00 until 10:30 on Tuesday morning for 15 minute visits. Please make students aware that the visitors may ask them questions about their learning or tasks.
Feedback from the rounds will be shared on Wednesday afternoon at the action team meetings.
Congrats to the House of Perseverance!
Wednesday we will celebrate our first nine weeks house winner - the House of Perseverance! We are declaring a Red Out Day. Please encourage your students to wear red in support of this great house.
To celebrate - we will have a short parade on Wednesday morning immediately following morning assembly. Members of the house of Perseverance will stay in the gym while everyone else goes and lines up in the front hall.
Little things that you can do during the day to celebrate are encouraged!
Wednesday we will also be doing our 1st nine weeks awards in the gym. Parents are welcome to attend and will enter at the side gate.
Check the living calendar for all the events going on this week. I have highlighted important things here but keep a check on the calendar!
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