Announcements August 28, 2014

I hope you had a great start to the week.  I know that you built some strong relationships with the kids and are laying the foundation for Excellence.  Remember that what we do with 180 days of instruction changes the trajectory of the rest of a child's life.

That being said, I want to remind you that you are #GAMECHANGERS.  

Chase Excellence, Expect Excellence and 

Settle for Nothing Less than Excellence from Every Child Every Day!

Getting to DOK Level 3

We have had a week to challenge ourselves and our kids to think at deeper and more complex levels.  I have been very pleased with our first attempts at writing DOK Level 3 questions.  As we move forward with this idea, we need to lean on one another as we all are trying to get better at getting our students to think at deeper and higher levels.  So to show you where we are at DOK, I included a few DOK 2 & 3 level questions from our fellow colleagues that will really challenge our kids to think.

• Fields at TPS - Try to guess what the poem is about just by reading the title. 
• Mauritzen at TPS - How is the character like you?  How is she unique?  How are you unique?

• Mock at TES - What facts would you select to support the idea that Camilla Cream is self-conscious? (using the book A Bad Case of Stripes)
• Kiraly at TES - (5.6B) - How does the setting impact the conflict faced by Stanley in the story?

• Crim at TMS - How can our classroom rules help students outside of the classroom?
• Rogers at TMS - How do the 5 themes of geography tie together?

• O'Neal at THS - 2A: Using a compass, how would you draw a segment congruent to a known line?
• Galloway at THS - How is the concept of carpe diem reconciled with planning for the future?

Lesson Plan Templates

I know some of you are not able to pull up the most recent lesson plan template because you had written lesson plans prior to the template being changed.  If that is the case, please make sure that you enter DOK 3 questions in the template at the top.  Also, on page 2, we have removed the "Teacher will" statements so you can focus your planning on student outcomes in all parts of your lesson.  If you need more clarification on submitting lesson plans, please see your principal.

TIP (Tech Integration Pic) of the Week

THS English students get acquainted with new Chromebooks