I have visited some classrooms lately and I am starting to think that some people are starting to lose sight of the importance of lesson planning. It concerns me when I ask someone for a lesson plan and I see one to three sentences, if that, summarizing what will take place during a 42 minute period. There are so many questions that run through my head. The last thing I want to do is to interrupt a lesson to find out if some of the planning was not written down or what the person expects to take place the entire period. The first impression, which I try to avoid knowing the great staff we have, is I think to myself that the adult was not concerned enough to prepare for their students. This is a discerning interpretation because our children, with their vast range of reading levels and basic skills, need a thorough plan.
The reality is that our students deserve the best. This comes when a plan is laid out on how you will teach the lesson for a single session with our children. Several times we have been accused of lacking academic rigor. When I look at some of the lesson plans developed for our children, I understand the perspective of these people. When a person “wings” a lesson or “shoots from the hip”, he or she may have some success but imagine if he or she prepared a more in-depth plan. How would one measure the growth of this lesson? Since no plan was laid out to find out if the students reached a goal (if a goal was developed), then how will a teacher know if they were successful. Not only that, when there is no plan then the goal of the period shifts from raising student achievement to making it through the period without getting caught without a plan or without making a mistake. The mentality shifts from achieving a goal to avoiding a disaster. Once the period is over, success will be felt by the teacher avoiding 42 minutes of disruptions and chaos, but what kind of standard is this person holding him or herself to? If our goal is to survive a day of school how do we expect our children to become better students?
If I entered this school with the goal to survive a half year or year, we never would have reached a level of “well developed.” Each year, the cabinet, administration, and I set up goals for us to achieve each year. We set up steps to achieve our goals, assessments to see if we were working toward them, and systems to make adjustments if progress was not being made. The attendance committee is a perfect example of that. We set up a system at the beginning of the year along with a goal. We constantly assessed the process. When we hit a wall, we made adjustments such as the raffle in the morning, the class attendance bulletin boards, contracts with parents, daily phone calls, home visits, and so much more. What about classrooms? If a plan for a 42 minute could be summarized with two sentences then I am concerned of when you are assessing student progress, when you are working with a set of students, if you are following the standards, what you plan to accomplish with a mini-lesson, and more. Two sentences could probably cover two of those concepts.
The reality of the situation is that lesson plan formats cannot be dictated by administration unless a teacher receives an unsatisfactory on an observation. It’s unfortunate that a punitive process needs to be used to persuade someone to be more detailed in their lesson. Nevertheless, professional development is a method used to encourage staff to try a new process. For instance, when the Think, Pair, Share and the Mini-Lesson are written out it stimulates the author to take into consideration all aspects of the classroom and levels of the students participating. It persuades the teacher to become more creative to find a way to motivate engagement in the lesson.
When I was a teacher, I would review the lessons a week in advance by looking through the text. This would allow for the topics to linger in my head. I would get my ideas by watching TV, walking down the street, interacting with people, or anything else that crossed my path. Anything that help me help the students interpret the language I offered them to learn would quickly be collected whether it was Dr. Evil and Austin Powers, Jay-Z, or a video game. As you all know, most of my analogies fall into sports. I try to step outside the box as much as I can but it is my fallback. What I would do is immediately record the ideas and map out my mini-lesson (which I always found to be the most difficult to plan part with the timing, focus, and maintaining your audience). The independent/group work would be born from the mini-lesson (anything I thought would help the students capture the concept or apply the lesson to various scenarios). Regardless, the more thorough my plans were the more successful I would be. Of course, there were lessons I poured my heart into that blew up in my face. The most important step for those lessons is to reflect. There was a pivotal point when the lesson fell off its course. It’s vital to find that moment to make sure it does not happen again. Just the other day, my focus during my mini-lesson was too big. I ended up only giving my students about 10 minutes to apply what was shared in the mini-lesson. I was lucky to be able to make it through the mini-lesson without interruptions. It’s within, what I consider the beginning of the year so the students are still feeling it out. If this lesson was delivered in late November or early December, I would have had a huge fight for their attention on my hands. My reflection was important. I am still adjusting to a 37.5 minute period. I am reaching a point where I know how much I can fit into a 10 minute mini-lesson. The faster I get done and the more the students understand, the more successful my independent/group work will be.
The lesson planning process is an important one. Do not let the lessons that crashed deter you from being thorough with the process. I once spent 12 hours planning a station moving lesson only to have the students completely reject it. It was heart breaking because of the blood, sweat, and tears I poured into it. I was unable to reflect right after because of the frustration burning up inside me. I blamed the class for their disruptions. Threw out a nice Jewish guilt trip noting all the work I put into them to have it thrown back into my face. I gave up on the stations for a while only to realize months later if I shortened the amount of time the students had at each station and provided a little more accountability in my homework and research stations, I could have been much more successful. Details support transitions (vulnerable points of losing the classes’ attention) and eliminate unpredicted scenarios. How do you want your lessons or counseling sessions to be?
ANNOUNCEMENTS FROM THE DISCIPLINE COMMITTEE
The discipline committee meets every week from 3:15 to 4:15 to address issues surrounding the structure, implementation, and effectiveness of the school-wide discipline code.
- JOIN THE COMMITTEE: Members of the discipline committee are eager and excited to work with new staff members and veteran staff members interested in improving our school's culture. Please join us at this week's meeting on Thursday in Ms. Quiambao's room.
- ANTI-BULLYING CAMPAIGN: Please be on the lookout for any signs of bullying in the school. Expect resources from the discipline committee regarding this issue in the coming weeks. Please document all incidents on an anecdotal form.
- UNIFORM POLICY: Students may not wear non-school hoodies. Students may only wear solid sweaters.
COMMUNITY CORNER
This Tuesday is our Open School Night. It is our debut to our families in forging a strong partnership in providing the best support for all of our students. We need to tap into all of our resources to set up a grand opening to our community. The night’s festivities and welcoming will be remembered by all who attend for the remainder of the year. We are hoping to set up the warmest feeling for all who enter the building that night. The grade teams are working diligently to make sure as much information is shared as possible and the families have a strong understanding of what their child’s day will look and feel like. This is the largest whole school initiative we have put together since last year. With our goal of increased parent involvement, we are confident it will be a night to remember.
Short-term goals for community building
1. Building a sense of pride in the school and community
2. Developing a welcoming environment
3. Establishing trust between both parents with staff and staff with parents
4. Maintaining strong communication with our families for both celebratory and informative reasons
5. Researching and constructing a schedule to meet with parents that will support their working day and our instructional day
Long-term goals for community building
1. Provide quality medical support for the families of our community
2. Develop a partnership with our families to maintain strong student attendance and the best instruction possible
3. Rebuild the school image in the eyes of our families and the outside community
4. Establish the school as a resource to our families for education, job readiness, job placement, and crisis management
5. Create more opportunities for our families to participate in the day-to-day decision making
ATTENDANCE
Congratulations to our attendance committee for breaking new ground for J13. We reached over 90 percent attendance in the month of September. With the numbers so low, we will be able to maintain the same percentage to the end of the year. We will continue to call home when a student does not make it into school. We will flag the students who begin falling below 80 to 90 percent. We will begin the conferencing with parents from this point forward to build a team effort with the families to keep the students in school.There are many things that can be done within the classroom to help maintain attendance. First, we can let our students know they were missed. If a student is out one day, call home or greet the student the when he or she returns with a warm welcome and a clear message that their presence is appreciated (even if they are a difficult student). Second, maintain student engagement. If your students are into a class, then they will want to come back.
Right now, many of our seventh graders are anxious to return to Dr. Schultz’s class to see what experiment they are going to do next. If learning is fun for the students, then they are going to want to come back. As much as discipline has been stressed in the past, if that is the major factor to the learning going on in the classroom, it will be difficult to expect students to look forward to returning (especially for the students who are already well behaved). Third, maintain communication with the counseling team and your grade team to monitor students who are out for more than a day. Let’s make sure someone is checking in with the student to make sure the family is not enduring a crisis or the child or family member is severely sick.When it comes to attendance, it’s the small things that make a difference. Posting the attendance of your independent reading class to urge a better effort as a group, decorating your room to make it feel welcoming, creating a strong community in your classroom to make your students feel safe, and perfect attendance awards or bulletin boards in your room, to name a few.
CHILD STUDY
Our Child Study Team continues to fine-tune our systems of accountability and feedback so that recommendations and planned interventions can be communicated to the faculty, to the student and to the student’s family. Once I submit a yellow referral form—What happens? What is next? How do I know ‘”if anything is being done”….The primary goal of fine-tuning our communication loop is to help us to create ongoing follow-up and support that is consistent, transparent and meaningful.
An intervention planned and agreed upon “in September 2008 ” , for example, may need updating and reconsideration “in November2008”, and maybe again in “…April, 2009” as the student’s needs and circumstances change, and as the interventions and supports that we as an educational community have implemented have yielded (we hope and expect!) positive results and meaningful change.These kinds of results, this kind of change cannot happen if valuable discoveries and recommendations sit at the table once our Wednesday Child Study Team meeting is over. Once our Child Study Team meeting ends, the next part of our collaborative work begins:Implement….Strategize…Revisit….Communicate…Collaborate…Share new information… Ask new questions…Fine-Tune….REPEAT.
Our collaborative efforts are exciting opportunities for us to deepen our work with our students and to offer them the best opportunities for success.Our Child Study Team is excited to greet our first Autumn here at Central Park East….We look forward to an awesome year as we serve our educational community.Working together is success.
BIRTHDAYS:
Daughn Lee September 30th
Vivian Doles October 7th
Ishrath Azad October 19th
Joanne Tu October 29th
Jerome Young October 31st
Quote of the Week:
“Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible.” –Frank Zappa
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment