Accelerating Learning

 

We have been learning about how to shift our mindset to "Accelerating" learning instead of focusing on remediation.  This mindset shift is important as we work to come out of one of the toughest years in education.   Dr. Fry shares 5 ways to accelerate learning.  Today we will start with her first suggestion: 

1.  Identify skills and concepts that have yet to be learned.  

Fast Facts/Steps: 

       * 40% of what we teach, students already know (not all students know the same 40%) - BUT, if you play your cards right, instead of spending time on what students know, you can use that time to accelerate students forward. 

      * Determine NEED to know vs. NICE to know pre-requisites for the unit you are beginning to teach.  Only focus on NEED to know. 

     * Find a way to pretest students on these NEED to know pre-requisites.  Could be a pre-test, brainstorm of vocabulary or information they know about the topic, data review from last year, etc.  (Can be a quick check.)

    * Determine what students need a quick refresher of the NEED to know skills.  Pull a small group of students to work with you for as little as 7 minutes or so a day prior to starting the lesson or throughout the lesson.  Other students that may not need a refresher can be working on sharing more of what they know during those 7 minutes, reading or practicing skills together, etc.  Small group instruction is one of the most powerful ways students can learn in classrooms - so finding time to do this is imperative for accelerating students.   

This is one of the 5 quick ways we can work to accelerate learning.  I will continue to share ideas throughout the next month!

Important Information: 

SEL/Brain Smart Starts - It is always important to take time to prepare the brain for learning.    Here are a couple Brain Smart Start Idea for this week:  AIR Write - Call out vocabular words or definitions and have students to write the word in the air/ SNAKE SQUEEZE - Tense up your entire body and release one section at a time.  

Special Education Resource - Just a reminder of our special education excel file.  This may be a good, quick reference for you about student accommodations and notes.  Students with 504 Plans are also added to this document.  We need to update a few more students, but we will try keep it up-to-date.  Reaching out to your special education teachers is the most important thing to do!  HERE is the document.  

Coaches vs. Cancer Game - Tuesday, September 28th is our Coaches vs. Cancer Volleyball game.  On Tuesday, we will encourage everyone to wear pink or their Coaches vs. Cancer shirts - and of course, jeans for a donation to the Lasher and Hinton families.  If you would like to make a donation, you can do so in the high school office on Tuesday.  Thank you!  #LEO 

House Teacher Meeting - Reminder we will have a House Teacher meeting on Tuesday, September 28th at 7:30 in the high school library.  Lauren will help us with our lessons for the next month.  We are also getting closer to our first competition!  

Grading Period - End of the Grading Period is October 8th and Report Cards will come out October 15th! 

Indiana College Core Teachers - Teachers who teach a dual credit course that is an option for the Indiana College Core, please mark your calendars on October 5th.  We will have a short meeting at 7:25 a.m. in the library.  More information will be coming soon!

Perry Central Jr./Sr. High School Vision Statement

2021-2022 Vision:  Connect with others, Collaborate with Teams, Continuous Improvement, Create Authentic Learning Opportunities, Celebrate!    

Purpose:  Each student to show one year of growth. 

Goals:  

• Increase ILEARN Pass Rate by 10% Math/ELA  (10 more students)

• 20% of our students will earn an Industry Credential by the time they graduate (17 students) 

• Increase number of students performing at grade level on power standards by 10%  (10-12 students per grade level)

• 100% of our time will be spent loving these students until they learn.  

(You can find the Link to our Vision Story HERE.)  

#LEO

Last weekend, the Perry Central Band played at half time during the IU Football game.  (The poor kids had to learn the IU fight song!)  Regardless, it was a perfect evening, a lot of scoring by the Hoosiers and an enjoyable time.  At the game, someone had a shirt on sitting next to us that said, "LEO".   You could see those three letters everywhere.  After doing some research on twitter, I learned that LEO stands for "Love Each Other" and the IU Head Football Coach, Tom Allan, started the year with this one word in hopes to help his players fight through the pandemic and other losses that had occurred to their football family.  Coach Allen knew that he needed to get his team to lean on other and their own faith (something bigger than us) or the weight of the world can become to heavy.  

Like the Hoosiers, we too have been dealing with our own heaviness with the stresses of the pandemic in our own community.  Also, last week was an even tougher week for our own Commodore Nation.  The loss of Carson Lasher was a blow to our entire community. Luckily, our community embraces the word LEO as well. Like always, our community continues to come together and support each other;  students were leading prayer at our athletic events, our entire gym was painted in yellow for the volleyball game on Thursday night and we continue to hold each other up by checking in with each other and through good deeds.  

I feel so fortunate to live in a community that not only believes in caring for each other but continually
shows their love in many, many ways.  LEO not only goes for the IU Hoosiers, but also for our Commodore Family.   

 **  Tuesday, September 28th is our Coaches vs. Cancer Volleyball game.  On Tuesday, we will encourage everyone to wear pink or their Coaches vs. Cancer shirts - and of course, jeans for a donation to the Lasher and Hinton families.  If you would like to make a donation, you can do so in the high school office next Tuesday. 

Important Information: 

Grade Level Meetings (PLEASE NOTE DATE CHANGES BELOW) - This week (week of September 20th), we would like to shake our PLC time up a bit.  We are going to meet by grade level - this way our special education teachers can stop in and you can talk with your peers about students you have in your classes and brainstorm solutions.  Below is a schedule.  If you teach students in the grade level listed for the day, you are welcome to attend.  If you have special education students in the grade level, please attend so you can keep up-to-date on these students. We will meet 11:45 - 12:24 or as long as you can make it work in your schedule.  

PLC Grade Level AGENDA

       7th Grade - Monday, September 20th  Health Lab   (MOVED) to Friday, September 24th

       9th & 10th Grade - Wednesday, September 22nd   Health Lab

       8th Grade - Thursday, September 23rd   Health Lab

**  Due to the funeral on Monday, we are canceling all PLC meetings Monday.  We will start grade level meetings on Wednesday.  Please talk to your lunch partner for WIN coverages.  If you both need to attend, please let Jody know and she will find coverage for you!

Faculty Meeting Change:  Due to a training on the 21st, we would like to move the faculty meeting to Wednesday, September 22nd.  We will meet at 7:25 a.m.  Mark your calendars!  Breakfast will be served!

College Go! Week:  This week is College Go! Week and teachers are invited to wear jeans and their favorite college gear.  It is a great week to share your college experiences with your students and talk to them about opportunities they have beyond high school.  Thanks to Dana for putting together a fun week.  Students will also have an opportunity to get help filling out their college applications this week.  

     College Fair - Tuesday, September 21st (8:30 a.m.-10:00 a.m.) at Ivy Tech, Tell City -   We are very lucky to have a college fair, right here in Perry County!  Each year we try to send students so they can talk to college representatives and be thinking about their future.  This year we are focusing on 11th grade students and a few seniors.  Here is the list of students so far (more 11th graders will be joining pending the submission of permission slips).

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1LCt5Tfg8G2BGDL6s5a23RuBV1r6Atw0b/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=102292190392160915858&rtpof=true&sd=true

After School Tutoring:  We are trying to increase the number of students who get tutoring after school.  Tutoring is a great idea, but takes a lot of coordination.  Typically a struggling student shows up to tutoring begrudgingly - and has no idea what they need to work on!  :-)  Michelle Duncan has offered to help us try to fill that gap by increasing communication between the student, the tutor and the teacher.  

      If you recommend a student for tutoring after school, please let families know that the student needs to check into CIA (sign-in) in the high school commons area and they will help them find the tutor.  Below is our tutoring schedule: 

           3:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.

       Monday - Abbie Brockman

       Tuesday - David Walters

       Wednesday - Emma Hanebutt

        Thursday - Grant Doyle

      

Perry Central Jr./Sr. High School Vision Statement

2021-2022 Vision:  Connect with others, Collaborate with Teams, Continuous Improvement, Create Authentic Learning Opportunities, Celebrate!    

Purpose:  Each student to show one year of growth. 

Goals:  

• Increase ILEARN Pass Rate by 10% Math/ELA  (10 more students)

• 20% of our students will earn an Industry Credential by the time they graduate (17 students) 

• Increase number of students performing at grade level on power standards by 10%  (10-12 students per grade level)

• 100% of our time will be spent loving these students until they learn.  

(You can find the Link to our Vision Story HERE.)  

Grow Student's Trust & Respect

We continue to focus on building trust among students and with our co-workers.  I found this great article from Edutopia.  I thought I would share.  

Also, please know our doors are always open if you have something on your mind that you are struggling with.   We know we are not always looking at situations through a teacher's perspective and communicating is very important so we can all be on the same team.  

I hope all of you had a great weekend!  

Working to Grow Student's Trust and Respect

Important Information: 

Grade Level Meetings - Next week (week of September 20th), we would like to shake our PLC time up a bit.  We are going to meet by grade level - this way our special education teachers can stop in and you can talk with your peers about students you have in your classes and brainstorm solutions.  Below is a schedule.  If you teach students in the grade level listed for the day, you are welcome to attend.  If you have special education students in the grade level, please attend so you can keep up-to-date on these students. We will meet 11:45 - 12:24 or as long as you can make it work in your schedule.  

7th Grade - Monday, September 20th  Health Lab

9th Grade - Wednesday, September 22nd   Health Lab

8th Grade - Thursday, September 23rd   Health Lab

10th Grade - Friday, September 24th     Health Lab

**  I skipped Tuesday because I will be out of town for an Early College Meeting.  We will schedule high school another time.  Most of the time high school students start coming into their own!

Faculty Meeting Change:  Due to a training on the 21st, we would like to move the faculty meeting to Wednesday, September 22nd.  We will meet at 7:25 a.m.  Mark your calendars!

Grades:  We are at mid-term for our first quarter!  Can you believe that?  Please remember that feedback about student learning is important - and keeping your grade book up to date is as well.  We want to communicate well with students and parents.  If you have concerns about any of your classes or grades, please let me know and we can brainstorm solutions together!

COVID:  I know the quarantine situation has not been fun this year.  We are in a tough spot because we are not providing official on-line learning opportunities but we also have students that are required to be out of school.  Please know that you can use your professional judgement to determine what students need to make up and what lessons they need to have re-taught.  You can use your WIN the best you can (I know it is hard when every teacher needs the student) or we have tutoring after school Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.    Learning Lunch can be an option, but please remember that if students missed the instruction it is difficult for them to do the work.   Most students are only missing a week, but we do have some students that have been in double quarantines - please reach out if you need to brainstorm some solutions for students who miss.

Have a great week!  

Teacher Credibility - Trust

We have been learning more and more about the importance of Teacher Credibility, what that is and how it affects student learning.  Today, we will focus on trust.  Trust is a cornerstone component of an effective classroom.  There are five elements that ensure you have created a culture where students can trust you or others in your classroom: 

       Benevolence:  Confidence that one's well-being will be protected. . . the assurance that others will                               not exploit one's vulnerability or take advantage of them when the opportunity arises

       Honest:  A person's character, integrity and authenticity. . . acceptance of responsibility for one's                                 actions and doesn't shift blame to others

       Openness:  Openness signals reciprocal trust

       Reliability:  Consistency of behavior and knowing what to expect from others - one's needs will                                    be met in a positive way

      Competency:  Ability to perform as expected and according to standards appropriate to the task at                                       hand

Trust is not only important for a classroom setting between teacher to student but also it is important to build trust when working with your co-workers.  Trust is necessary for strong teams to be able to work together and reach collective efficacy.  

On Tuesday, during Deliberate Learning Sessions, teachers will be given a trust survey.  This survey will help us gauge the level of trust that you feel is in our culture at Perry Central.  Heidi, Brennan, Sean, Abe and Abbie have all been attending an Accelerated Learning program that started this past summer with the SIEC.  The goal is to learn more about how we can bring more teacher credibility and collective efficacy to the table to improve learning at Perry Central.  This team has set a goal to create opportunities for all of us to get to know each other better and in turn build more trust among our team.  

Building trust is not an easy element, but if you can work hard to do it, you will find a lot of success.  I am looking forward to building more and more trust with all of you and our students!  

Important Information: 

Professional Development - Tuesday, September 7th is our Professional Development Day.  The agenda for the day was sent out earlier, but you can find a copy HERE as well.  Looking forward to a great day!  Please remember that I would like all teachers to attend at least one of the Deliberate Practice Sessions!  

Learn and Leave Room - Many of you are aware that Shane McIntosh is running our Learn and Leave room.  This room is for students who may need a different learning environment or some extra help with their classwork during the class period.  (If you haven't heard of this room, let's talk separately).  To help this room run efficiently, it is important that teachers do the following: 

        * Before you send a student, stop in and talk to the L&L staff and let them know of names you may be sending. 

        * Create a system for how you will communicate with the L&L staff for the work that needs to be accomplished (Will it be by email, note you send with student, google classroom or other?)  

        * Communicate with the student the expectations you have for using the room and what work you want completed.  

        * Check to see if student has an IEP - if they do, stay in communication with the Special Education Teacher to make sure other accommodations/modifications do not need to be made.  

College 101 Night - Dana is hosting high school students and their families on Tuesday night to discuss the steps necessary to going to college.  She has many guest speakers that will share their expert advice.  Thanks to Dana for all of her hard work for this important program.  

MTSS Meeting - We will be meeting soon with our admin and counseling team to discuss  students who are struggling.  If you have a student you are struggling with, please send their name to Jody so we can brainstorm options for students.  Turn in their names by Thursday morning before school. 

Education Foundation Ribbon Cutting - Many of you are aware that Perry Central started an Education Foundation to help generate funds to help support our programs that in turn support students.  This Friday night at the Homecoming Football game, we will be hosting a ribbon cutting for this organization.  If you would like to donate to the Education Foundation, please see Jody and she will get you a form.  You can have it automatically withheld from your paycheck if you would like!

IU Band Day - The Perry Central Marching Commodores will travel to IU on Saturday to play at half-time.  Good luck to the Commodores and thanks to Andrea for providing opportunities for students to perform outside of our stadium.  (I feel bad for them having to learn the IU fight song!!  Poor kids!  LOL!)   

It is homecoming week!!  Good luck to all of the Commodores this week - both athletics and band!

Perry Central Jr./Sr. High School

2021-2022 Vision:  Connect with others, Collaborate with Teams, Continuous Improvement, Create Authentic Learning Opportunities, Celebrate!    

Purpose:  Each student to show one year of growth. 

Goals:  

• Increase ILEARN Pass Rate by 10% Math/ELA  (10 more students)

• 20% of our students will earn an Industry Credential by the time they graduate (17 students) 

• Increase number of students performing at grade level on power standards by 10%  (10-12 students per grade level)

• 100% of our time will be spent loving these students until they learn.  

(You can find the Link to our Vision Story HERE.)