Great new article from my colleague, Susan Moore Johnson from Harvard through the Economic Policy Institute. Susan presents research around teacher effectiveness, and the manners in which we recruit, support, and enhance their expertise. It's a different perspective on the meaning of "Teacher Effectiveness".
How best to add value? Strike a balance between the individual and the organization in school reform
Monday, October 26, 2009
Pumpkin Bowling!
Pumpkin Bowling!
Today, our students rotated through various math and science activities using pumpkins. My groups did "pumpkin bowling" using 4 different sizes of pumpkins- in costume of course! Students practiced graphing, predictions, basic addition and subtraction, and scientific observations. Take a look!
Today, our students rotated through various math and science activities using pumpkins. My groups did "pumpkin bowling" using 4 different sizes of pumpkins- in costume of course! Students practiced graphing, predictions, basic addition and subtraction, and scientific observations. Take a look!
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Learning... hands on science without bubblesheets!
To coincide with our study of life cycles and holidays (Kindergarten state standards), we were fortunate to have Bob Alarid (President of DCTA-Retired)come today and root coleus plants with our class! The kids LOVED it, and were at the window throughout the day looking at their plants.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Stress, Control, and the Deprofessionalizing of Teaching By Thomas Newkirk
Check out this Ed Week article:
Stress, Control, and the Deprofessionalizing of Teaching
By Thomas Newkirk
Thoughts??
Stress, Control, and the Deprofessionalizing of Teaching
By Thomas Newkirk
Thoughts??
MSLA...How's it going??
The question I hear every day! It's truly great!! I like my job, my students, and colleagues. How many people go to work and actually enjoy it?? I have not been blogging that often, because nothing seems out of the ordinary to me. As I talk to others, they're really intrigued by what we're doing at school, so I'll do my best to blog more often. I'm going to follow up this post with an article I wrote for the DCTA Slate, that wasn't published this month due to space. Enjoy!! ~Kim
Teacher Leadership, Redefined
By: Kim Ursetta, NBCT
Math and Science Leadership Academy
The stares, half smiles, people wondering WHY I was there…
Imagine how it felt for the former DCTA president to attend the Principal’s Institute. So why was I there?
Our school does not have a principal; but we do have two lead teachers that teach part time. We all assume different leadership roles. Teachers are divided into four teams: professional development, curriculum and instruction, culture and climate, and peer assistance and review. At our weekly early release days, we rotate leadership roles based on the content area expertise that we have chosen. We also have an elected School Leadership Team that makes decisions as outlined in the Agreement. We also share leadership by taking turns attending the principal, assistant principal, and facilitator institutes.
Our school’s motto is “Where everyone is a learner, teacher and leader”. We all move in and out of these three roles, and encourage our students to do so as well. It’s a very empowering feeling to be able to look at what our students know and are able to do, and to create lessons and units to meet their needs. We are not married to checklists, nor do we follow every page of the planning guides. We are deeply committed to creating units that allow teachers and students to work as learners, teachers, and leaders while ensuring that our students meet the state standards.
This past week, we began service learning. Each teacher has a multi-aged group of only 15 students and will be creating their own service-learning project for the next eight weeks. Students shape the projects by determining the means by which our objectives are accomplished. It’s so exciting to see the students respond when allowed to be creative and find ways to integrate their learning with real life applications.
As we go through our daily business here at MSLA, it shouldn’t seem that strange. Back in “teacher school”, we were trained to teach the curriculum in our own way that was relevant to the needs and interests of our students. We are caught in this standardized testing frenzy across this country that is limiting our ability to teach in ways that encourage critical thinking and problem solving skills. Our school is unique, unfortunately. Hopefully, our model will encourage others to dare to do things differently; to challenge the status quo hierarchy that exists in US schools, and to allow our students to lead their own education by meeting standards through thought provoking, rigorous curriculum. If the teachers don’t lead education reform, we will continue in the same path we have followed for 150 years. Dare to think outside of the box… teachers are leaders, too!
Teacher Leadership, Redefined
By: Kim Ursetta, NBCT
Math and Science Leadership Academy
The stares, half smiles, people wondering WHY I was there…
Imagine how it felt for the former DCTA president to attend the Principal’s Institute. So why was I there?
Our school does not have a principal; but we do have two lead teachers that teach part time. We all assume different leadership roles. Teachers are divided into four teams: professional development, curriculum and instruction, culture and climate, and peer assistance and review. At our weekly early release days, we rotate leadership roles based on the content area expertise that we have chosen. We also have an elected School Leadership Team that makes decisions as outlined in the Agreement. We also share leadership by taking turns attending the principal, assistant principal, and facilitator institutes.
Our school’s motto is “Where everyone is a learner, teacher and leader”. We all move in and out of these three roles, and encourage our students to do so as well. It’s a very empowering feeling to be able to look at what our students know and are able to do, and to create lessons and units to meet their needs. We are not married to checklists, nor do we follow every page of the planning guides. We are deeply committed to creating units that allow teachers and students to work as learners, teachers, and leaders while ensuring that our students meet the state standards.
This past week, we began service learning. Each teacher has a multi-aged group of only 15 students and will be creating their own service-learning project for the next eight weeks. Students shape the projects by determining the means by which our objectives are accomplished. It’s so exciting to see the students respond when allowed to be creative and find ways to integrate their learning with real life applications.
As we go through our daily business here at MSLA, it shouldn’t seem that strange. Back in “teacher school”, we were trained to teach the curriculum in our own way that was relevant to the needs and interests of our students. We are caught in this standardized testing frenzy across this country that is limiting our ability to teach in ways that encourage critical thinking and problem solving skills. Our school is unique, unfortunately. Hopefully, our model will encourage others to dare to do things differently; to challenge the status quo hierarchy that exists in US schools, and to allow our students to lead their own education by meeting standards through thought provoking, rigorous curriculum. If the teachers don’t lead education reform, we will continue in the same path we have followed for 150 years. Dare to think outside of the box… teachers are leaders, too!
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