Indiana Work-Based Learning

 This week, there was a great article in the Indiana Chamber BIZ Voice, the state chamber publication, about Work-Based Learning in Indiana and the goals of redesigning high school requirements.  What made it so great is that they had perspectives from business, education and the legislative body AND they all seem to be moving in the same direction!  

Below is the link to the article.  I hope you have time to look at it.  Teaching in the junior-senior high school, I think diploma requirements and our focus in education is going to continue to shift - it is important that we keep up-to-date and further our own understanding.  

Keep up all of the great work!

Indiana's Work-Based Learning  (Article)

Couple of other things that may be of interest to you.  The Indiana Association of School Principals shared these this resource with us last week: 

GPS Update- Attached is a powerpoint to provide updates to the Graduation Prepared to Succeed portal, which is the new way Indiana hopes to rate schools.  It collects a variety of data and looks at school corporations in a more wholistic view.  The state of Indiana also partnered with Gallop to capture survey data across the state to get parent's perspective on K-12 education.  The powerpoint goes through some of that data.  It is interesting because they will be using this data to make the case for changes in Indiana.  One thing they left off of the slides is that 96% of parents in rural school districts are pleased with their schools!

        Link to GPS Dashboard - you can look up Perry Central or other schools through this link.

Important Information: 

Winners!    I am not sure if we figured this correctly, but we are going with the Science Team as the PU/IU game winners.  They had a 4 point spread for the game and the closest final score.  IU played a good game, I guess!  Lol!  (I am just glad PU didn't get beat by 20!)   Science team, I will get with you for your lunch plans.

Diesel Tech Lunch and Learn - This Friday, we are hosting a Lunch and Learn for our community partners in the diesel industry.  Tim has a lot of great things happening in the shop with our students and we want our partner's feedback on the skills that are necessary for students to be successful.  Some of the students may miss part of a class to present.  Karen Strahl even made all of the students shirts - they will look so professional!

 Design Thinking Training - I set the dates for 1/2 day training for tips on how to design a PBL lesson (things we learned from High Tech High).  We will go with February 13 and 14.  I sent an email to teachers who signed up (The email will show up in your in-box at 8:00 Monday morning.)  If there is anyone else that would like to participate, please let me know. 

         STEM Grant Reminder - Reminder, you can earn $400 for completing either a Workplace Challenge OR a PBL lesson!   Below are a few items you will need to earn your cash!  Also, we will use this Tracking Sheet to keep up with all of our projects.  We will continue to fill it in together! 

      * Workplace Challenges - for WPC, we would like for teachers to fill out a Challenge Card (you will do this with the business partner) and a Reflection Card  (Would love to have 3-4 pictures)

      *  Project Based Learning - for PBL, we would like you to fill out a PBL Card and a Reflection Card  (Would love to have 3-4 pictures)

RESEARCH SAYS. . . . This week, when Laurie Ferry visited, I spent some time with her as well to try to grow in my classroom observation skills.  During my time with her, she shared new research with me (The name of the book is on my desk) where extensive research was conducted on what student grouping structures create the best outcomes.  Drum Roll please . . .

         * The best student results come from groups of 3 students that are purely randomly grouped!  This is because when we create groups for students and try to place them based on their abilities - students pick up on it everytime and they resort to their own beliefs about their ability, causing them to participate less.  Purely random groups (and showing students how you create your groups) will allow students to not feel like they fit in a category, the feel they have a chance to be with friends each time, and they perform better!  

        * What doesn't work is allowing students to pick their own groups.  This causes a lot of anxiety for students - especially as they worry about how they are perceived by their peers.  There are also kids that never get picked by their peers.  Students working alone miss out on a lot of great learning conversations!  

One of the big take-a-ways we had from High Tech High was to showcase the work that our students are doing when it comes to PBL projects.  We are going to try to start modeling this.  The 8th grade team did a Science and English PBL around Environmental Science and created podcasts on Spodifiy about what they learned.  Environmental Science matched science standards and a podcast matched many English standards, including speaking and writing informational text.  This was a great collaboration and project for this group.  

Abbie created QR Codes (Which were HUGE at HTH) so you can link quickly to student's podcasts.  We are going to hang this project in the Library Hall.  Looking forward to adding more projects this school year!