Jim Knight Training

Whew! Why is it that meetings seem to take SO much brain power - even though all you do is sit through them and try to later regurgitate the info?!?

Today was my first day away from my new home (Chicot!) to attend a training. Today's training was "Jim Knight Training" for instructional facilitators. BTW- I learned today that the Arkansas legislature wants all instructional "coaches" to be called instructional facilitators because they had a hard time distinguishing the difference between the two. Hmm... very interesting!

My training today was NOT by Jim Knight, rather it was delivered by a very nice lady that works for the State Department and then a man that is good at Math, but I don't remember his job title!

The BIG ideas from today's training- focus on the BIG four (content, instruction, assessment, and behavior management) and help teachers through the continuum of the 7 principles (enroll, plan, model, observe, etc...)

If you are interested in learning more about Jim Knight training his website is: http://www.instructionalcoach.org/

I did a little bit of networking- I talked to Watson's new coach, Morgan Ealy, I sat next to Mrs. Michelle over at Hall... they were all doing fine- everyone is still loving their jobs and at the same time learning how to work with the pressures of being a coach!

Well, that's all I have for today! -Ash

Why Pre-K and 1st Grade teachers ROCK!

Wow! My teachers were awesome today! Today was so much fun because today was SMARTboard day! I taught two sessions to teachers today about SMARTboards. I hope they remember two key things: (1) They can find all kinds of lessons on the web (specifically at http://exchange.smarttech.com/index.html#tab=0) and (2) they can find troubleshooting at http://education.smarttech.com/ste/en-US/Ed+Resource/Teachers+Hub/Getting+started/.

Tomorrow is our Math training day at Booker. I am working with 1st grade again- yay! I just can't wait to see them and talk to them again- this is going to be SUCH a great year!

A thought about "Math Land"

Okay- so I KNOW that naming our newly improved trailer "Mathland" is SUPER corny- BUT it does make things sound a little bit more classy!

Who is Danielle you ask?!? Well... she is a WONDER! She will be the new Math interventionist and she is my roomie in Mathland! She brings ALL the passion, excitement, and joy that comes with a new teacher AND all the wisdom and foresight that the best nontraditional teachers inherently have. I am SUPER excited to be sharing my new space with her and CANNOT wait until the two of us really work our magic on our little space.

Other exciting news I have to share tonight, I am beginning to post some Partner Games onto http://lrsdmath.proboard.com/ I have begun first on 1st Grade, because 1st is what I know, but I anticipate this process going quicker and quicker the more I build. If you want to download these go check the proboard and let me know what you like and what I could make better!

I have vision...

Well, I am completely covered in fire hydrant dust! Apparently this summer this was a little incident with a fire hydrant being sprayed by some youngsters ALL over "Mathland" (yes, this is my new nickname for our lovely, dusty trailer) So today consisted of opening a MILLION boxes, and dusting everything. (And trying to not sit down on dust covered chairs.) I learned where the bathrooms, library, book room, office, cafeteria, and gym are located today. All thanks goes to Mrs. Chambers for my awesome tour! I also got to meet the new 2nd grade literacy coach, I think she is AWESOME! I feel a little exhausted, and a lot excited... I can't wait for teachers to come back!

Oh and let me impart this tiny bit of wisdom- if you want to know who the BEST welcoming crew at Chicot is... it is the custodians! They were so helpful today! I had a ton of boxes to throw away, and tons of things to be moved inside to literacy areas, and just generally a few thousand  favors and they were so gracious about everything I needed- EVERYtime! Mr. Lyle (I think that was his name!) even found something to help dry my feet from walking in the rain so I wouldn't slip on the newly waxed floors! 

Ok- onwards to tomorrow!

Registration - Day 1

Well today was a completely and totally exhausting and exciting day!

I spent all day helping in the cafeteria and registered SO MANY families!

Today I met our new counselor, the security guard, the Principal's bookkeeper, the secretary, the new VP, a new 2nd grade teacher, the two nurses, the nutritionist, and oh so many students!

Another exciting detail to add to my day was my first glimpse into my new Math area! It will take a lot of work to organize those boxes... but so many boxes means SO MANY new Math tools- yay! I can't wait to get my Lysol wipes and some soap and water and get the grime out!

I can just imagine an area where:

1. teachers can meet and commune about Math
2. teachers can check out Math manipulatives
3. we can all discuss the Math assessment wall
4. AND still have an area inviting to small groups of children ready for interventions!

Overzealous? Maybe... but I prefer the term SUPERDETERMINED!

Planning for Pre-School PD 2010

Oh man am I excited! Today Patricia, Jennifer, Myrna, Beth, and I met to dicuss our plan for the pre-school pd session. We have decided that teachers need to walk away with "stuff"! We want the first 9 weeks planned, assessments thought through, new rubrucs/report cards understood, all the different lessons understood and planned out... whew!

What DO YOU like to leave a pd session with?

Coach's Retreat Day 2!

8:30 – 9:00 Icebreaker

• Human Scavenger hunt
• Qualities of a favorite teacher 
• Compassionate, energetic, creative, encouraging, interesting, facilitator, positive, fun, challenging, engaging, prepared, share personal strories, high expectations, fair, passionate, knowledgeable, humourous, genuine, caring, nice, motivating, hands-on, intelligent, approachable, clarity, authoritative, not a traditionalist, consistent, enthusiastic, quality

 

9:00 – 10:20 Classroom scenarios

• Building rapport between and with teachers
• Helping a teacher feel empowered when she/he is close to retirement
• Helping a new teacher through her/his first year 
• Karen Rivers is setting up a mentorship program for new teachers through UALR
•  kyrivers@ualr.edu 
• Helping a teacher work through a teaching rut

 

10:20 – 10:25 Math classroom observation protocol

 

10:25 - 11:20 Using teacher data: questions, answers, next steps…

 

• Looking at data and determining “did they grow?” 
• Student CAN gain and meet growth goals, AND STILL can negatively grow 
• We need to show students their scores
• Even if they do not meet growth goal for the year, they can still have a LARGE amount of growth
• Manipulating data is a powerful tool for beginning conversations
• Tinkerplots

 

12:20 – 3:00 Breakout Session with Beth

• Analyzed item by item data
• Designing PD
• Bring in specialists to correlate standards
• Sometimes this can go awry
• Renew everyone/ be positive
• Problem solve- let teachers solve the problem
• Find the things that are common
• Teachers and Coach can pull stuff for specialist
• Think about curriculums for after school tutoring
• Think about getting teachers to choose to do things they like
• Cooking, art, chess, etc…
• Take the data and look at the items that are best/worst
• PD plan for 2010 – 2011
• June 7, 2010 – Report cards, rubrics
• August 13 - backward design for rituals routines and classroom environments
• K – 2 Booker
• 3 -5 Romine
• Feb. 14 – How to move a student to proficiency
• Regional PD 
• AEA Days – Lesson study
• Lesson Study clinics
• Problem types
• Tech
• Set up a leadership team that will be the go to people to help the communication about standards based report cards
• This team will also share at open house
• THEN after parent conferences rubrics will be posted online for parents
• Need to have family Math night
• 50’s night
• Carnival night
• Tickets
• Stickers
• Bank
• Buying/selling
• Sell things kids make 
• Regional meetings
• AEA Days
• Lesson Study
• Proboards/Live Chats – every 2 and 4