Sunday, August 25, 2013

Cougar Communication: August 26

Good morning. For those of you who are new to my supervisory, every Monday I send out a Cougar Communication (I couldn’t come up with a catchier name). I use this as an opportunity to share some of the excellent strategies, techniques, and more that I see in my classroom visits. I’ll also try to share other instructional ideas, tech tools and more.

This year, I’ll be posting these on a blog, so that you can always go-back and find any ideas, suggestions, techniques, etc. at a later time. Obviously, I’ll edit out anything that the public shouldn’t know.

My Goals
In the interest of transparency—after all, you’re required to share your goals with me—I’d like to take a minute to share my goals with you. I’ve actually written them in the SMART format, but I’ll save you from having to read all 3 pages of my goals. So, here is the Cliff Note version.
1.     I’ll communicate with and engage parents, students and community on school issues.
2.     I will be a lead learner and instructional leader.
3.     We will grow our collaborative model in our inclusion classes.
4.     Every day I will make a colleague better.
5.     Every day I will make myself a better lead learner.
6.     I will create relationships based on respect, trust and mutual understanding. I will support and engage those with whom I work and always act with the utmost integrity. I will listen and learn.
7.     I will provide timely feedback to all teachers and staff.
8.     I will encourage teachers to go beyond the standards.
9.     I will work with struggling students to improve their academic performance.


Ideas for the Classroom: Parent Engagement Through Remind101 and Portfoliyo
Countless studies prove that increased parent engagement leads to higher levels of student achievement and improved student behavior, regardless of other factors. Parental involvement is the greatest predictor of student achievement. Building relationships with parents requires that we exert the necessary time and effort to communicate openly with parents. Remind101 and Portfoliyo enable teachers to easily communicate with parents and teachers.

Some possible uses/texts?
·      I’ve updated grades on Blackboard.
·      Reminder that the unit project is due on Wednesday.
·      Please be sure to bring your textbooks to class tomorrow.

Remind 101 is a great—FREE—tool that allows you to text/email your students and/or parents in blast fashion. Sign-up is easy. Parents and students don’t see your phone number. You can send your text/emails through an app or using your computer. The only downside to Remind101 is that your students/parents cannot text or communicate with you. We have several school accounts with several hundred of followers.

Last fall, I met Harsh Patel, the founder of porfoliyo.org. Portfoliyo is very similar. Unlike Remind101, followers can communicate with you. It is still secure with users never seeing your personal info. There is no app that I know of at this time and parents cannot sign-up for emails.

Both websites have simple, step-by-step sign-up directions. It only takes a minute.

This might be something that you want to share with parents tonight!

Administrative Notes
Positive Referral Link: Again for those of you who are new, a positive referral is for a student who shows Courage, Character, or Citizenship or embodies our mission.  You can “write” a positive referral for any student (doesn’t need to be in my alphabet).  I’ll call the student who receives the positive referral up into my office, congratulate him/her, give him/her a homemade treat and follow-up with a phone call to the parent. This is a great way of recognizing students and it really means a lot to the student and the parents. Please try to write at least one referral every month. Occasionally, I’ll require a positive referral with a certain theme.

Meet the teacher night tonight from 7-8:15.

Faculty meeting tomorrow after school or Wednesday morning.

Field hockey has home games on Monday and Wednesday. First football game of the year is Friday.

On August 27 at 7pm, Daniel Pink, author of Drive and To Sell is Human, joins #edfocus for a twitter chat. If you’re not familiar with Daniel Pink, Drive is a must read book on motivation. Check out this video explanation http://goo.gl/o5kO . If you’re not familiar with Twitter or Twitter chats, here’s a brief primer http://goo.gl/kTWcQh .

Stat of the Week
ACT reported that 31% of all high school graduates who took their test were NOT ready for ANY college coursework requiring English, science, math or reading skills. The other 69% of students met at least one of the four subject-area standards.