Week 5.5

Celebrate Excellence

STAAR Week will be over on Friday and I would like to thank everyone for your hard work in making this a smooth week.  I would first like to thank our counselors for organizing all of the tests, accommodations and everything else that we necessary to set our kids up for success.  I would also like to thank our principals for leading their campus to success.  Thank you to every teacher, support staff and volunteer for helping ensure that the test went well for every student.  Finally, I would like to thank our cafeteria staff, custodial staff and maintenance staff for all of your work behind the scenes to make sure that our buildings were clean and cool and our lunches were hot and ready for the kids.  This was truly a team effort to ensure that Excellence for All becomes a reality.

Claymation!

Luh Putu Januwati has begun claymation at TES where students are using clay to create characters and tell stories.  To the right one of our students has created a character and is experimenting with how his story might be told.  In honor of the NCAA Basketball tournament that ends this weekend with the final four, here is a claymation of the 1982 Finals.

Do you remember @UNC_Basketball's 1982 title? Enjoy this claymation re-enactment of @GoHeels' win over Georgetown...https://t.co/65B48p9dQf

— ACC Digital Network (@theACCDN) March 29, 2016

Growing Excellence (+10 for ALL) 

As we finish one STAAR week and get ready for the final push to STAAR in May (May 2-6 for THS and May 9-12 for TES & TMS), I want to encourage you to answer this question.

What does your Rigor make Kids Say?

Rigor is a challenge, but rigor with vigor challenges our kids to say "Game On".  With the right rigor kids enthusiastically accept the challenge because they are motivated to aspire for excellence.  Here are 3 ways to encourage all kids to accept the challenge that real rigor provides.

• Make it fun.  If rigor is fun, they will want to play.
• Make it competitive.  When rigor becomes a competition, kids will accept the challenge.
• Make it reflective.  If rigor allows kids to reflect on why they missed problems and how they can improve, they will learn more.

With 4 and 5 weeks left to prepare kids for the next test, don't miss the opportunity to make your rigor fun, competitive and reflective.  Those might be the 3 things that will motivate all of your students to reach their +10 goal. 

College AND Career 

Check out this awesome slide by Erin Shelly that compares the in-state and out-of-state costs of going to college.



 Google Me This 

Find the Word Count in Your Google Doc with this Keyboard Shortcut

Where to Locate and Install Google Form Add-ons

These Two Buttons in Google Drive Will Help Keep You Organized


Upcoming Dates 

• Thu, 4/7 - TELPAS Verification and submission
• Mon, 4/11 - Give Formative Assessments (unless campus has changed date to different week)
• Mon, 4/11 - #LoveMySchoolDay - Share examples of the awesome things happening in your school on Twitter with the hashtag.
• Fri, 4/15 - End of 5th 6 Weeks (Begin Response to Assessment for FA's)
• Mon, 4/18 - Beginning of 6th 6 Weeks
• Wed, 4/20 - Administrative Professionals' Day (Secretary's Day)

 What I'm Learning
5 Creative Ways Schools Can Use Google Forms (That Aren’t Surveys) via @thegooglegooru@thegooglegooru

Week 5.4

Celebrate Excellence
STAAR testing is next week in grades 4, 5, 7, 8, and EOC.  This week, I would like to highlight the teachers who have been working so hard to prepare the students for these challenging tests.  Please take time this week to help me thank the following teachers for all of their hard work.

• 4th Writing - Deborah Johnson and Linda Robertson
• 5th Reading - Andrea Singleton and Melanie Miller
• 5th Math - Kristin Lacy and Mechelle McMichael
• 7th Writing - Saundra Morris
• 8th Reading - Melissa Dixon
• 8th Math - Tracy Roden
• English 1 - DeBranda Bradford
• English 2 - Kevin Grace

I would also like to thank Angie Garcia and Luh Putu Januwati for all of their leadership and support in giving our teachers the tools they needed to help all students succeed in their learning this year. 

Below is a schedule of when tests for next week.

Tuesday, 3/29/16 STAAR Grade 4 Writing STAAR Grade 5 Math STAAR Grade 7 Writing STAAR Grade 8 Math STAAR EOC English 1

Wednesday, 3/30/16 STAAR Grade 5 Reading STAAR Grade 8 Reading

Thursday, 3/31/16 STAAR EOC English 2 Make up testing for all tests

Friday, 4/1/16 Make up testing for all tests

Growing Excellence (+10 for ALL) 

The Texas accountability system is largely focused on 2 things:  student growth and advanced performance.  In the table below, I have listed some approximate scores that students will need to earn in order to pass the test, earn a college-ready score, and earn an advanced score.  As you visit with your students about STAAR, you can use the scores below to set attainable goals for students just below passing. You can also create "stretch goals" that push students to strive for college-ready performance and advanced level performance.

Test	Grade	Passing	College Ready	Advanced Level
Reading	3	54%	75%	85%
Reading	4	55%	75%	86%
Reading	5	59%	78%	87%
Reading	6	59%	77%	88%
Reading	7	57%	76%	86%
Reading	8	58%	77%	87%
Reading	Eng 1	57%	64%	83%
Reading	Eng 2	59%	66%	87%
Math	3	48%	74%	89%
Math	4	48%	73%	83%
Math	5	46%	72%	86%
Math	6	35%	60%	81%
Math	7	37%	61%	80%
Math	8	43%	64%	86%
Math	Alg 1	40%	63%	78%
Science	5	62%	80%	91%
Science	8	60%	76%	87%
Science	Bio	40%	61%	83%
Social Studies	8	54%	73%	83%
Social Studies	US	45%	63%	79%
Writing	4	55%	70%	84%
Writing	7	57%	69%	83%

College AND Career 

Have you or your students ever wondered what it takes to pursue a career as an athletic trainer?  Check out this Google Slide by Alannah C. in Melinda Qualls' Health Science class.

Google Me This 

What do Raspberry Pi, Legos, Animation, Engineering and Robotics have in common?  They have lots of STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics.  At TISD we have tons of opportunities for our students to unleash their creativity.  Check out this video to see what our kids are creating through the use of technology.  Thank you to Cristi Whiddon and Cindy Haston for sharing pics of these new technologies that connect kids to school.

 Upcoming Dates 

• Fri, 3/25 - Bad Weather Day / Good Friday
• Tue, 3/29 - Fri, 4/1 - STAAR Testing 
• Tue - 4 & 7 Writing, 5 & 8 Math, English 1
• Wed - 5 & 8 Reading
• Thu - English 2
• Fri - Make-up Testing
• Thu, 4/7 - TELPAS Verification and submission
• Fri, 4/11 - Give Formative Assessments (unless campus has changed date to different week)
• Fri, 4/15 - End of 5th 6 Weeks (Begin Response to Assessment for FA's)

What I'm Learning

The 8 Best Chrome Extensions As Chosen By Teachers (#7 is my favorite)

The biggest indictment of our schools is not their failure to raise test scores by Scott McLeod

Reflective Teaching Questions: A Challenge For Teachers via @TeachThought https://t.co/nH3mKxm0oA pic.twitter.com/rQe95yEyJw

— John Wink (@JohnWink90) March 20, 2016

Week 5.3

Celebrate Excellence

 

TPS Makerspace

This week, I would like to highlight all of the learning possibilities our libraries are providing to kids.  As libraries around the country are becoming more than an inventory of books due to the introduction of e-readers, computer-based programs and videos, our MITS have begun to explore new and different ways that students can see an even bigger reason why the library is the hub of learning for the school.  

Throughout the district, students are coming to the library to "make".  In other words, students are using the library to create, experiment and explore.  Students at the primary are making new worlds like the one you see to your right.  Elementary students are learning about coding, stock markets, the history of Tatum and other technology based tools, and middle school and high school students are learning how to use Raspberry Pi's to make robots, and Sphero's to learn how to code in a meaningful way.

Our libraries are doing a great job meeting the kids where there interests are and offering opportunities for students to create products that you won't find on a test.  Thank you to Jennifer Day, Cindy Haston, Veronica Wilkerson, and Cristi Whiddon for all of their hard work. Stay tuned next week, as I share a video highlighting the progress of our Maker-movement.

Growing Excellence (+10 for ALL) 
Motivation can add 10 points to a test.  It can take 10 seconds off of your long distance run, and it may just add 10 years to your life.  When we are motivated, we get more done and we get it done more enthusiastically.  To put it another way, motivation is exponent of life.  The more of it we have, the more fruitful our life will be.

Well, what if you're not motivated?
Bill Ferriter shared an interesting article by @MindShift about the brain research behind motivation and it revealed that if we psyche ourselves up and focus our thoughts on being successful, we will ignite the neurons in the part of the brain that controls motivation.  So the evidence is conclusive, we can motivate ourselves if we want to.

So what if our students are unmotivated learners?
After reading the article, I was drawn to a @MindShift article called 20 Strategies for Motivating Reluctant Learners.  The piece highlighted Kathy Perez an educator and consultant who shared her ideas to fire up the neurons of our unmotivated students.  She pointed out that motivated learning requires lots of action and excitement.  Here are a  couple of reminders that we must never forget if we want to fire up our kids for learning.

• Student attention equals 1 minute per year of age.  For example, 8 years olds have an attention span for any given activity for 8 minutes.
• Boredom is Motivation's Kryptonite - If you don't respond to student boredom, they will lose the motivation to learn.
• Goal Setting is Essential - If we want kids to stay motivated, they must help set measurable and attainable goals that will keep them focused on the learning for the day.
• Group Collaboration with short time limits - As opposed to allowing 5 minutes to do group collaboration, Kathy recommends using seconds, like 72 seconds, to collaborate. The short amount of time actually focuses kids on more active learning.

In order to motivate the unmotivated, it requires us to matter to kids.  It has to be learning that it attainable, but most importantly it has to be safe. The biggest turn-off to learning is not just when the learning is boring.  It is when the learning makes kids believe they can't learn the content.

Motivated Learning is SMART.

If you want more kids excited about the learning in your classroom, you have to determine if the learning faciliates the SMART mentality.

• Specific & Stimulating - Does the learning have a specific goal, and is it introduced in a way that piques our students' curiosity to want to know more about it.  
• Meaningful & eMpowering - Do we find a way to make the learning meaningful to our kids, and do we create learning opportunities that empower them to make their own meaning of learning. 
• Attainable & Applicable - Do we stretch our kids to reach attainable short-term goals along the way, and do we allow our students to apply what they learn in predictable and unpredicatable situations.
• Results-Oriented & Real-World - Do our learning tasks yield tangible results that students can use to drive their next steps in learning, and does our learning apply to real-world that our students know and understand.
• Time-Bound & Targeted - Does our learning optimize time and give kids a clear target to shoot for at all times?

The best part of my reason was this video that I found at the end of the second article.  It clearly articulates what kids need to be motivated to learn. 

College AND Career 
Check out this TNT video by Tori Robinson on how Annie Thompson's Grad Point class is helping students reach their College and Career goals.

Google Me This - Slides

Google Slides are for more than presentations.  In this video below by +The Gooru you can use slides to create a wide variety of newsletters or newspapers for your classroom or campus.  Beyond using it for teacher or leader purposes, students could use this tool to make all kids of products to show their learning.  Here are just a few ways that you can have your students use Google Slides as a formative assessment.

• A history class could make a newspaper from a time period that they are studying.
• Science or math classes could make a study guide over a unit of study and embed videos they find on YouTube or other sources.
• English classes could make a newsletter from a novel they are reading together as a class.
• CTE classes could make a want ad for careers they are studying.
• Foreign language classes can make a vocabulary or conjugation study guide and add videos they create to show proper speaking of the language.

Google slides are too cool not to incorporate into your instruction for a number of reasons.  First the layout provides so many more opportunities for graphic creativity.  Second, images and videos are easy to embed into the document, and last, there is no one correct way for kids to show their learning. The teacher can assign each student or group of students a page for them to edit and when the students are complete, you have a multitude of pages where students have shown their thinking.  Google Slides help students learn from one another's work as they create evidence of their learning.



Upcoming Dates 

• Thu, 3/24 - Deadline to enter Mock tests & FAs into DMAC
• Fri, 3/25 - Bad Weather Day / Good Friday
• Tue, 3/29 - Fri, 4/1 - STAAR Testing 
• Tue - 4 & 7 Writing, 5 & 8 Math, English 1
• Wed - 5 & 8 Reading
• Thu - English 2
• Fri - Make-up Testing
• Thu, 4/7 - TELPAS Verification

What I'm Learning

A Bigger Vision by George Couros

Movenote is a great way to use technology to do a virtual presentation.  It can connect directly to your email and you can create and share your presentation to your kids.

Week 5.2

Celebrate Excellence
Texas Public Schools Week has been a hit in Tatum.  Here are just a few hits from the week around the district.  Check out our Twitter feed or Facebook page for more great events.

TPS welcomes mom's for muffins in celebration of Texas Public Schools Week. pic.twitter.com/thcW33zRcy

— Tatum ISD (@tatumisd) March 1, 2016

5th graders @TES_Eagles get ready to present their history of Tatum project #TexasPublicSchoolWeek pic.twitter.com/Lf0wcp0BNL

— Tatum ISD (@tatumisd) March 1, 2016

Nolan Nail, Dillon Taylor, Makayla Martin and Kristin Smith observe a 3D printer at LeTourneau's Engineering day. pic.twitter.com/wpu1i0Z3XK

— Tatum ISD (@tatumisd) March 1, 2016

Growing Excellence (+10 for ALL) 
Spring is in the air and that means one thing, spring cleaning.  It's time to clean out the closets and garages and get the house spruced up.  While I know that spring cleaning takes a lot of work, I also know that it is well worth the effort.  It makes my spring so much more enjoyable.

Well let's apply that idea to your classroom.  What are your plans to clean out your classroom.  I'm not talking about cleaning your room or even cleaning out the drawers and closets.  I'm talking about your routines, procedures, and processes that help all kids learn at higher levels.  As you are getting ready for spring break, ask yourself these questions?

1. Where is student behavior doing well, and what routines should continue?
2. Where is students behavior lacking, and what do I need to change to address it?
3. What activities promote higher levels of engagement, and how can I get more of these activities into my instruction?
4. Where is engagement lacking, and what do I need to do differently to reengage my students?
5. Where and how can I ramp up the rigor for high achievers?
6. Where and how can I give more support to struggling students?

The answers to these questions will tell you what you need to address and what you need to clean out of your practice.  Why do you need to do this before break?  The answer is pretty simple.  When the students return from spring break, they will be fresh.  Upon their return, they will most open to new routines, motivational strategies and higher expectations.  They will also be more receptive to more challenging activities that require more movement, interaction and conversation, and they will more flexible than at any point in the year simply because they will have been out of the "school" routine for 11 days.  

Spring weather brings with it a desire to be more active which is why behavior often gets more exuberant than usual.   It is important to remember that without a specific plan to adjust to the "spring" behavior that will return after break, instruction has a strong chance of suffering.   Don't miss this "once a year" opportunity to do some spring cleaning in your classroom.  It may be just the thing that will meet your kids where they currently are and take them to where they need to be.  

 College AND Career 

Learn about Wanda Risner's Paxton Patterson Lab from this TNT video by Sha Matter.

 Google Me This 

CK-12 Free Textbook
Are you looking for another resource to help your kids learn?  Check out CK-12 which is a free site for you to find more tools to teach your content.  Thank you to Cindy Haston for finding and sharing this resource.

The Evolution of Technology in Sports by D'Torian Smith from the TNT class

 Upcoming Dates 

• March 7 - 11 - Spring Break
• March 13 - Daylight Savings Time (Spring Forward 1 Hour)
• Wed, 3/16 - Early Release for STAAR test administrator training.  See principal for details.
• March 15 - 18 - TELPAS Testing
• Thu, 3/24 - Deadline to enter Mock tests & FAs into DMAC
• Fri, 3/25 - Bad Weather Day / Good Friday
• Tue, 3/29 - Fri, 4/1 - STAAR Testing 
• Tue - 4 & 7 Writing, 5 & 8 Math, English 1
• Wed - 5 & 8 Reading
• Thu - English 2
• Fri - Make-up Testing

What I'm Learning


Turn Feedback into Detective Work by Bill Ferriter

Read this article on Design Thinking by John Spencer and check out his video below.  This is a great framework to push students to higher levels of rigor and embed STEM or STEAM in instruction.