Raising a community of givers

For me the excitement of the holidays has always centered around giving something special to those I love and care for. It was always so much more important that I do something really special for others, regardless of the funds available to me. This spirit of giving does not just blossom out of nowhere. It is taught. In my case, my parents always gave of themselves to Habitat for Humanity, The Salvation Army, National Public Radio, even to elections and political campaigns. I grew up knowing that if I wanted a better world, I had to be the one to make it that way. Gandhi said, "Be the change you want to see in the world." I have tried and am still trying to meet that expectation.

As we look out over our classrooms this week, realize that we have an awesome power to assist in the shaping of these future citizens of ours. We can help them see the world around them as a place that can get better. They can become empowered by the notion that what they do does matter! Sometimes, teaching this lesson is challenging. That's why I love The League ( http://www.leagueworldwide.org/ ) This website provides lessons and events around which to center our instruction. This website helps students use their competitive nature for making the world a better place. The lesson plans are excellent, providing handouts, additional links and ideas for reflection after the lesson is complete.

Let's get The League started here. Let's teach our students the joy of giving.

I am available to model a League lesson on the following dates and times:

Jan 3 (Thurs) 3, 4, 5, and 6th periods

Jan 9 (Tues) 1-6th periods.

I will model the lesson for 1 to 2 periods and then leave you with all of the materials you need to continue on your own. Please take me up on this! I just know this will be the kind of fun activity that stays with he students for years to come.

What is your song?

As we wind down 2007 and look toward the new year. I am struck by how excited I am to come back from winter break. Sure, I am excited about the vacation, but am even more driven to get this IB program up and not just running, but fabulous. I know its going to be work, but I am totally up for it.

Something you might not know about me is that I am a music junkie and almost always have some song or another stuck in my head. For the last few weeks the song was Under Pressure by David Bowie (Vanilla Ice sampled this song for Ice Ice Baby). Right now, I am making a conscious effort to change my internal channel. Doing new things can be stressful. Doing new things under a time crunch even more so. Sometimes I think that we focus on the stress we are under rather than the excitement. We let that stress rob us of the opportunity to feel the joy of learning that we are trying to teach our students.

So that's why I am singing (in my head for the sake of all around me) Let's Get It Started. Let's get the excitement started, Lake Shore. Let's step out of our comfort zones and embrace the new; embrace the challenge! Below you will find a list of links. These links will take you to things that other schools have done with the IB MYP. There is a wealth of information out there.

What is your song?

http://www.aisb.ro/secondary/myp.pdf This is a general guide to the Areas of Interaction.

http://www.corningareaschools.com/ib/index_files/Page1975.htm Link to IB lessons in the classroom.

http://194.82.135.197/myp2006-01/myp_8_techn_guu_0601_1_e/2 WOWWIE!! If you didn't think our ESE babies could do this, click here and scroll all the way down!!!

Meet Your Coaches

Your School Instructional Coach--Kathy Frink




Kathy has been teaching for fourteen years in Hopewell, Virginia, Charleston, South Carolina, and now in Jacksonville, Florida. Kathy has been an instructional coach for two years and has had extensive experience with Compass Odyssey and NWEA. She is a huge fan of Smartboards as well as other classroom technologies.

Your Curriculum Integration Specialist--Sarah Byrd Tierney

Sarah has been teaching for 11 years most recently with three years as your reading coach. Now as the CIS, she will be focusing on making the IB program at Lake Shore Middle School the premier magnet program in Duval County and across Florida.

Collecting and Using Data

This week our focus is on data collection and interpretation. Not only do we, as teachers need to check our students' progress, but we also need to know how to change our plans to address what we learn from the data.

Data is all around us. Every observation that we make about our students is data that we are gathering, if we notate and record it. Many times, however, we focus on student behavior rather than academic noticings, or we collect the academic data, but do not change our planned lessons to meet the needs of our students.

This year, at Lake Shore Middle School, we are very fortunate to have the NWEA testing data to help guide us toward lesson planning decisions. Here are some questions that will assist when planning instruction:

1. What is the reading requirement for this lesson? How much reading will you have the students do? If this lesson is reading intensive and your students scored low on using the reading process, you will need to provide them with some level of assistance.
2. Is this lesson vocabulary intensive? If students have a low level of vocabulary knowledge, you may need to do more with the vocabulary ahead of time so that time spent on the lesson is effective.
3. What are you asking the students to produce? If you are asking your students to take notes or summarize, be aware that students on the lower spectrum of the RIT score have difficulty with these tasks. Be prepared to provide them with assistance so that they will be able to be successful.
4. How will you assess student learning? First, you have to create an assessment. This can be something as simple as an exit slip or can be as complicated as a written report. Regardless of the format, the assessment should tell you whether or not the students understood what you were trying to convey. Once you know how to tell if your students "got it" determine what to do if they didn't. Sometimes, you may have a student who flies through the work because the work the rest of the class is doing is too easy. What can you plan ahead of time to keep him or her busy? After every lesson, the process starts all over again.

Here are some links to visit to read more about assessments:

http://www.foridahoteachers.org/instructional_strategies.htm

http://honolulu.hawaii.edu/intranet/committees/FacDevCom/guidebk/teachtip/askquest.htm

http://science.uniserve.edu.au/school/support/strategy.html

http://www.idecorp.com/assessrubric.pdf