Vocabulary

Last week, I attended another training session for IPLI (Indiana Principal Leadership Institute).  The speaker, Dr. Philip B. Warrick a co-author for Marzano's Leading A High Reliability School, spoke about the importance of developing a guaranteed and viable curriculum.

One of the areas he spent some time on was the importance of vocabulary.  He started the session by asking us three important questions:  Why should we teach vocabulary?   What vocabulary should we teach?   How do we teach it?  The questions seem easy to answer, but I was reminded of the shear importance of ensuring it is a viable part of our curriculum as he answered:

1.  Why Should we teach vocabulary?  Vocabulary is the gatekeeper for learning and memory.  Without a strong vocabulary, our brains do not know where to sort and save information (Fluid Intelligence).  (Remember students from poverty have only heard 13,000 words vs. 48,000 for middle class children before they have started school.  Also, it is interesting to know that the SAT/ACT is about 85% vocabulary - and probably ILearn and ISTEP - where does that leave or poverty students?)  

2.  What vocabulary should we teach?  Guaranteed Terms:  20-30 a year that are necessary to learn your content area/    Verbs that represent the mental processes students must use to perform the standard (Infer, compare, describe, contrast)     * These should be vertically aligned!

3.  How do we teach vocabulary?   We must touch all areas of the brain in order for children to remember new words:  Receptive Vocabulary - from reading-literacy/ Productive Vocabulary - from speaking and writing.  When we use both of these strategies, it can bring a lot of the brain to the party! (Marzano's 6 Step Process is a great resource.)   It is important to spiral words throughout the year (remember, you are only really doing this for 20-30 a year) by periodically revisiting the words and allow students to discuss them.  There are many games and strategies students can use! 

As you reflect on these questions/answers, be thinking about how you can become more intentional about teaching academic vocabulary in your classroom! We will be talking more about this in the next few weeks!

"Don't be clouded by your circumstance, but driven by your vision."   - Horst Schulze

Important Information: 

Tip of the Week:  When offering constructive criticism to students, research says we should remember the 1:5 ratio; for every 1 negative we need to provide 5 positives.  When students have to be redirected/serve consequences - just do not forget to catch them being good! 

Meet one of our Mentors:  This week in a conversation with another teacher, I realized that I should do a better job communicating some of the extra people that you may see around the school!  Many of you may see Mick Hetman wondering around the school occasionally with Ray Niehaus.  Mick is an very talented industrial designer who owns his own business, Hetman Design (If you google this, you can see his amazing web page.  Mick has been working with some of our engineering students as they are utilizing CAD and our 3D printers to create prototypes of toys that Mick has designed and he has found himself as a mentor for some of our art students.  We appreciate Mick and what he has invested in our school and look forward to continuing to work with him! 

Surprise and Delight Challenge -  Many of you are familiar with Buddy Berry and the "Surprise and Delight" opportunities he encourages.  February 3-7 will be Surprise and Delight (SAD) week!  He encourages all of us to provide an opportunity in our classroom for our students and make sure to share it on social media!  You can find great ideas for how to incorporate SAD activities into student learning by searching #surpriseanddelight or following @BuddyBerry.   Looking forward to some great activities for our students!!!  

(Hint - you may find your own Surprise and Delight in the high school office this week!)  

Faculty Meeting Change of Date - Due to being out of town on the 18th, we are going to move our faculty meeting to Wednesday, February 19th!

Math Team - The math team has been working with math consultant, Laurie Ferry, over the past two years.  She will be "in the house" on Tuesday again!  We appreciate the math team and their hard work!  Their outcomes have been very positive!!

ISTEP Practice Test - On Wednesday during 4th period, all 10th grade students will take a practice writing test.  Our goal with this practice test is to provide students the opportunity to take the test with a 60 minute time frame, like on the test that is coming up!  English teachers will be working hard to table grade the assessment and provide valuable feedback to our students.  Thanks to them for all of their work and collaboration!

Counseling Week - If you see our school counselors this week, please pat them on the back as it is National School Counseling Week!  We are so blessed to have such caring individuals who help our students navigate life, better their social/emotional skills, help students determine their college-career paths and so much more!  We love them!

Scheduling - Dana is starting the scheduling process this month.  Our first step is to go through transcripts and provide students with notes about what classes they need to take and should take.  We will be collecting their interest and from there we will utilize the numbers to help us determine the master schedule.  It is a long, tedious and fun process!!  Please be patient with us!