Spaceship Earth

Over Spring Break, I had the honor of going on the PC Band Disney trip with Justin and the rest of the band. While I may never do 4 parks in 4 days and sleep two nights on a bus ever again, it was a great time to be with family - both my personal family and school family. On top of that, the sun was shining and it was warm, a much needed bonus.

One of my favorite rides was in Epcot, Spaceship Earth. It wasn't a thrill ride, but a travel back to the dawn of humanity, when early man painted on cave walls and humans didn't have a great way to communitcate. It then allowed us to navigate all of the changes in communication and watch how ideas spread as humans went from no communication, to writing on cave walls to the invention of the Gutenberg's printing press. As books were printed the wheels of time turned even faster as we entered the age of media, from newspapers announcing the end of the Civil War to the televised broadcast of the moon landing - and beyond. As we traveled, it was evident that society never stopped changing and as education (books/reading) became more and more available our society moved even faster.

This ride really resignated with me as we are living in such a pivital time of change as our information is not even in books but now with the Internet, social media, artificial intellegence, and more. Information that was once at the mercy of a printing press and slow transportation modalitites, is now at our fingertips with our cell phones and Amazon Prime next day delivery! For me, all of that change made me think about two things: 1. the importance of literacy AND 2. the way we engage students in learning. The days of teaching from books and memorizing information are skills of the PAST. Students need purposeful lesson that create meaning, skills that allow students to critically think across several pieces of text and professional skills such as communication, teamwork and resiliency.

We have all heard the quote, "The only thing constant in life is change." and sometimes we get frustrated in education because there are always "new things". But the truth is, education has to change because education is the driving force of the economy and the world we live in. We will continue to try to be intentional and only chase research based change, but as professionals in the field, we have to make sure we are preparing students for their FUTURES, not their past. It can be an overwhelming but exciting/rewarding task - but worthy of the effort.

Speaking of Change - Here are some Design Thinking Examples from Twitter and our own Payton Malone (Payton's students are learning about scientific design through their Workplace Challenge with Anu, vertical grow towers - they are designing a scientific experiment to determine how much water is needed for a grow tower of lettuce. They have each created their designs and hypothesis and are sharing with each other - practicing their public speaking skills and learning from each other):

           

Important Information: 

PLC Meetings:  This week, I will be sending a few agenda items to Science, Social Studies and English PLC teams and will catch up with math, Island and Special Education soon.  My goal is to talk with each group about progress made in our PLC process along with other goals that pertain with disciplinary literacy and discuss goals for the last quarter and next year.    

Advisory Board Meeting:  We will be hosting one of our quarterly Advisory Board meetings on Tuesday morning for community members.  CTE teachers are encouraged to visit our partners from 7:45 - 8:00 a.m. We will ask a few students to share some of the work their work, get feedback on our core values (professional skills grading scale we are developing), and more.  We appreciate our community members and need them to help lead us so we can be preparing students for skills of the future.

Internship Training:   We have been working on making our internship program stronger.  One of our ideas is to host a training for our incoming interns.  So, on Wednesday, March 29th we will be hosting a lunch and learn for junior who have signed up for an internship.  The training will be from 11:00 - 12:30 on this day, so students will be out of 4th period a little early.  Whitney Zellers from Work One will be presenting to students and we will provide lunch for them.  I will send a list of students.

Spring Dates:  I realized that I forgot to prepare a list of spring dates for everyone!  HERE is a link to a google document with upcoming dates.  We will be adding to it.  This helps for your planning purposes.

School Play: The school play will be this Friday, March 31st (7:00 p.m.)  and Saturday, April 1st (2:30 p.m.)   Hope you can make it out to support our students!   

HAVE A GREAT WEEK!

P-Tech Notes

 This past week, we had another opportunity to visit New York's P-Tech Schools.  It was a good trip - a lot of driving in a pretty small bus that was either really, really hot or really, really cold - but we made it.  We visitied  Hamilton Fulton Montgomery BOCES, which is in Johnstown, NY (pretty far north - there was at least 4 inches of snow on the ground there) and then back to Hudson Valley Pathways Academy, which is really an exciting model of what we can do for our students.  We were there with 3 other schools from Indiana who aspire to develop poly-tech programs as well.  

I asked our team to reflect on our visit, sharing their biggest take-a-ways.  The first word that came to all of our minds was COMMUNITY.  To build a program and meaningful learning experiences for our students we have to develop a strong, collaborative and creative community.  I have been thinking about it all weekend and then I listened to a podcast today with Andy Stanley and the former SVP from Apple, Angela Ahrendts, that really solidified that for me.  The SVP really changed the business model of Apple and did that by looking outward - how can Apple serve the greater community. And just like Apple, if we can do this, we can humanize learning experiences and energize each other and our students about learning!   The process of harnessing this power begins with unlocking trust, which then unlocks intuition and ulitmately establishes belief in the organization, allowing everyone to achieve and thrive to their full potential!  (If you want to listen to the podcast you can find it HERE.)  Also, when we think about building community, how do we do that with our high school students - I feel like our House system in the junior high is a start, but how do we create opportunities that will put COMMUNITY in the forefront?  

The other big take-a-way at Hudson Valley, they always remind us that your schedule should highlight your values.  For example, they spend two hours of their week working on building communities in their schools (SEL).  Building community, allowing for student voice and helping students gain these valuable skills are important to them so they make sure it is embedded.    They also make time for teacher collaboration and student collaboration.  I think we start small, but we can't stop thinking about how we can make our day look different - we don't have to teach in 7 periods everyday, the time is ours and we can make room for what is important to us!

Other take-a-ways: 

     * There isn't a wrong way to perform PBL, except to do the work for the students! 

     * Design Thinking is moving away from student regurgitation (students giving you what they think you want to hear) to purposeful learning for an authentic audience.

     * The learning process and progress is just as important as the end product

     * We have to realize we are LEAD LEARNERS - it is okay to learn with students.  We don't have to know everything and are not expected to know everything - we just need to be passionate about learning and a model for what learning looks like!  When we let go, our students shine.

    * Principles of Significant Learning Experiences Provide:  Adult world mentor, Authentic context, Relevance, Connected to Family and Friends, Pursue a Passion, Expert Advice given to students, Interdisciplinary work, meaningful product, (real) High Stakes

Important Information: 

Equity Meetings:  Just a reminder we will have students join us during our PLC team meetings this week.  Please use the WIN document to find coverage for your WIN groups - if you need help figuring it out, please let me know.  We are using the following schedule: 

        Monday, 2nd WIN - Math and Island Team (Library)

        Thursday, 2nd WIN - English & Special Education (Alyssa's Room)

        Friday, 2nd WIN - Science & Social Studies  (Vanessa's Room)

Faculty Meeting:  We will have a faculty meeting on Wednesday, March 15th at 7:25 a.m.  A light breakfast will be served.  

House Competition:  Junior High Houses will have their Quarter 3 Competition on Friday during 6th and 7th periods in the gym!  

Surprise and Delight (Faculty & Staff):  Larry Lautner will be delivering one of our favorite meals for luch on Wednesday:  Chick-Fil-A Chicken Sandwiches!  It will fuel us up to get through the rest of the week!  Also, I think it is a great week to wear jeans.  Please remember to dress them up and look professional!  

Surprise and Delight (Students):  Phil is working on a plan to surprise students with pancakes Thursday morning!!!  Should be fun.  He will send details soon!

National Honor Society Induction:  Tuesday, March 14th @ 5:30 p.m. 

Parent Vape Session (opportunity for the community to learn about vaping trends):  Tuesday, March 14th @ 6:00 p.m.  

Book Studies:  

       * In Search for Deeper Learning - Tuesday, March 14th - 7:25 a.m. High School Library  

       * 5 Dysfunctions of a Team- Junior High English Team, Thursday, March 16th 1st Lunch

Visitors: 

     * Tuesday, a few teachers from Crawford County will be visiting to talk to junior high math and English teachers about block classes

     * Last week:  Josh Craney hosted Conexus Indiana, a state organization that helps promote manufacturing across the state of Indiana.  Our students gave a wonderful presentation and we are one of 15 schools in the state of Indiana in the Student Based Enterprise Coalition, Conexus Student Industries.  

Professional Development Day, April 10th - Rough Draft

Perry Central Poly-Tech

This week, for our Poly-Tech Grant, I had to fill out a one pager for our Perry Central program. It really helped me wrap my head around how to describe our program - so I wanted to share it with you!  The whole idea of poly-tech programs is to provide students with deep work-based learning opportunities, project based learning experiences, opportunities to not only learn rigorous standards and professional skills and in the end have a credential of currency!  Most schools are starting their poly-tech programs with a small group of students.  With all of the programs all of you have already started, we feel we are in the unique position to provide poly-tech to ALL of our students.  We are trying to adopt a WHOLE school model, which is very innovative.  

I have provided a copy of the one-page outline that defines Perry Central Poly-Tech.  I wanted to share it with you.  I believe our biggest challenge and opportunity is to impelement more project based learning and workplace challenge opportunities to our students.  It sounds easy, but it is going to be a lot of hard work for all of us.  We are going to have to UNDO the structures we find normal in a public school and keep pushing ourselves to think outside of the box.   We are going to fail and even cuss a bit, but I believe that the outcomes will be worth it.

Perry Central Poly-Tech One Pager

Why am I passionate about Workplace Challenges/Project Based Learning?  I posted a few pictures below.  I think you can fill in the narrative, especially when you see the types of students it touches most!   Sometimes, I think it is easy to think Project Based Learning/Workplace Challenges are for our best students. . . sometimes I think we miss an opportunity to change the trajectory of others by not being willing to change how we teach all students!!   I believe that changing how we conduct school will change lives - it already has with YOUR leadership!  Keep it up!  You are doing great things - why stop here??

       High School Students Speaking to 8th grade parents on scheduling night - talking about their pathway and the benefits of it and what they do!                   

  

Students participating in off-campus contests and winning scholarships!

Students presenting to adults outside of our school and sharing their work.  (They signed up to do this, by the way - they wanted to share!!)

Students presenting in Indianapolis to a state-wide network about school enterprise to state business leaders!!

If you have questions about any of this work, please reach out anytime!

Important Information: 

Grading Period:  Due to our "storm day" on Friday, we are going to move the end of the grading period back two days, in case you needed some time to catch students up or finish a test for this quarter.  The end of the grading period will be Tuesday, March 7th, grades are due Friday, March 10th at midnight and we will pass out report cards on Tuesday, March 14th.  If you have a grade you want for the 4th quarter, just date it after the 7th.    Please let us know if you have any questions! 

WIN:  We will begin the new WIN locations this Monday, March 6th.  Phil will send out a PBIS lesson for you to go over with your students 4th period and they should report to their new locations that day.  A few reminders:  (Here is the WIN Document)

     * Assistants, check your assigned locations on the document again.  Other teachers may ask you to help them at different times, but this will be your base location. 

     * Skyward has been updated so teachers can take attendance.  Assistants, I have added you to grade books that you are assigned to.  

     * You can still pull students for WIN (and are encouraged to).  

     * We are sure we made some mistakes making a change this quickly, so please let us know if you find them.  

     * THANK YOU for your flexibilty and feedback.  We will see how this goes the last quarter. 

Upcoming Dates: 

March 13th - Math & Island Team - PLC Learning (Students visit)

March 14th - In Search for Deeper Learning Book Study  7:15 a.m. HS Library

March 15th - Faculty Meeting 7:25 a.m. / Surprise and Delight Lunch!

March 16th - English & Special Education - PLC Learning (Students visit)

March 17th - Science & Social Studies  - PLC Learning (Students visit)

Thanks to the boys basketball team for a great season!  Their moms did a little pep session for them Friday evening before they left!  #good2bgreen