Dear Staff,
We hope you have had a wonderful and restful Thanksgiving break with your families! We had a great Thanksgiving, eating too much and taking a hike in the woods of Jeff's brother's home in Galena, finding turkey feathers and tracks of the wings ruffling in the leaves. The day ended with about 8 wild turkeys walking up the hill of the woods in their backyard and then one-by-one running to get lift and then flying up in their backyard trees close to their home. Just an amazing sight of these portly yet graceful toms and hens.
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| On Thanksgiving Day our Marching Band represented us well in the Philadelphia Thanksgiving Parade and also visited sites in Philly and New York. |
The weekend ended with a great OSU victory over TTUN (That Team Up North) yet bittersweet with the loss of another starting quarterback. Hard to believe. We had over 20 friends who flew in from all over the US meet on campus as the old Buckeyes reminisced about this greatest college rivalry, back to the days when only one Big Ten team went to a bowl each year-- the Rose Bowl, and the winner of the OSU-Michigan game determined who would go to the Rose Bowl and who would stay home with the rest of the Big Ten teams. Bitterly contested games.
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| The Sankey family tradition lives, going onto the field after a Buckeye victory over *ichigan! Even the new Buckeye baby enjoyed it! :) |
The video is inside the new team tunnel leaving the field as we all sang our favorite Buckeye song. :)
This week we start winter sports and getting ready for exams Dec. 16-19 (Tuesday - Friday). This year we have a Friday exam. For lunch on Dec. 19 the admin team is providing a staff holiday luncheon before Winter Break.
PD recommendations for this week: Please try to take time to read these two remarkable and short articles: What kind of mark are you leaving? and the Importance of doing work that matters. These two articles do an excellence job of highlighting the importance of the work we do, as well as the work that we are choosing for our students to complete. Do our students believe the work we are assigning them is significant, or is it just a worksheet to complete? Have we asked them? Can we make sure that the work that we assign them does matter?
This Week:
Monday: Central office sent us a draft copy of a PARCC calendar for input over break and we will meet as an admin team to review it. As we get more info we will share it with you.
Tuesday: Adjusted bell schedule for 20-minute extended homeroom. We will complete one of our required safety drills in homeroom, watching a video on safety. You will receive more information from Andy.
Wednesday: Working Wednesday. Thank you for your continued input on Working Wednesdays. Please use this time to continue to align as a building same-subject team on preparing students for exams and creating a quality common assessment.
Please remember that your building same-subject team should employ PLC practices to also come up with a same-subject team approach to these important 3 aspects of the exam.
1. Common exam preparation strategies and materials. These should not vary by individual teachers on a team as it will affect your exam data. Be sure your team is very tight on exam preparation so that it is fair for ALL students in your subject, not just the students in your room.
2. The exam itself. Please make sure the exam is common as well as anything else that may affect the exam testing environment, materials etc. For example, all teachers on your team should use the exam class period prior to the exam time itself for targeted preparation based on your formative data on the learning targets. In addition, decide as a team what materials, such as notecards with formulas, calculators, visual aides, journals, etc that all students in your subject should be able to use on the exam. This should also not vary on your team.
3. Followup to the exam. Again, start planning how your team will follow-up with students after the exam as a team. The entire team should be very tight on going over the exam with students, providing extra time and support for students who do not perform well, data analysis of questions to decide the validity and reliability of the exam etc. In full-year courses, the exam should become formative assessment to inform you of the quality of your instruction and drive instruction second semester.
Please incorporate these talking points into your same-subject team time.
Thursday: Department Chair Meeting 7:15 in media center. Please let me know how items you have for the agenda.
Friday: YPA Breakfast. YPA students will miss the first two periods of school.
Have a terrific week! We appreciate all that you do. Dublin Jerome: A school where every student counts or nobody counts.
Cathy
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