Wednesday October 13
Randy:
Morning - Most HS students were at the PSAT so middle school and some elementary did a formal writing using the game pocket tanks as the basis. They worked on informative scientific writing "lab style". Elementary also did some of this to a less formal degree.
Nathan also practiced some techniques for a good presentation. We took notes and worked on body language, volume, and conveying of ideas.
Music was positive today and all bands showed progression. The HS band still has to work on how to balance teaching individual parts and playing together as a whole band. I do a music reflection now to Mark each session with updates, successes, and ideas so he can keep a running record of the experience of starting the RRA school in a school idea.
The main concern for the students of course if the new kickball teams in the works. Amy and I will review the teams and help put them together. This sort of activity is really fun because it is the true essence of importance for the kids. Good day.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Tuesday October 12
Tuesday October 12
Randy -
Morning -
We discussed our changes in schedule and that Shanna was leaving back home to Gainesville and Thursday will be her last day.
Block one - Elementary took about 30 minutes to work on projects that they had started before. Trae and Hanna continued work on their Native American topic. Jack made a Pokemon slide show to describe how the story goes. Ellie continued work on her very neat Prezi on her family tree. She will do a formal presentation on this. MS and HS worked on FLVS.
Block 2- MS requested a FLVS day so they could get ahead of their lessons and I agreed that this was fine as long as they work on their PBL tomorrow. HS did FLVS as well and we had a conversation about rigor and the importance of working hard at home as well. They have to be aware that high school students will have 2-3 hours of homework each night and that is normal.
Today we had tennis and after that HS went to work on PBL and writing. I collected the papers and they will be peer reviewed by Olivia's grandma who was a college english professor. These will then be sent to be certified.
Randy -
Morning -
We discussed our changes in schedule and that Shanna was leaving back home to Gainesville and Thursday will be her last day.
Block one - Elementary took about 30 minutes to work on projects that they had started before. Trae and Hanna continued work on their Native American topic. Jack made a Pokemon slide show to describe how the story goes. Ellie continued work on her very neat Prezi on her family tree. She will do a formal presentation on this. MS and HS worked on FLVS.
Block 2- MS requested a FLVS day so they could get ahead of their lessons and I agreed that this was fine as long as they work on their PBL tomorrow. HS did FLVS as well and we had a conversation about rigor and the importance of working hard at home as well. They have to be aware that high school students will have 2-3 hours of homework each night and that is normal.
Today we had tennis and after that HS went to work on PBL and writing. I collected the papers and they will be peer reviewed by Olivia's grandma who was a college english professor. These will then be sent to be certified.
Monday October 11th
Amy:
Today was a day where I got to sit and look at the global picture of what is going on on all levels. My work consisted of checking on students to see about pacing and needs and doing elementary math. I was able to sit and observe what students were doing and how Randy was able to work on things. One of the main things that I see is a lot of differentiation which is amazing. However, what comes with this differentiation for 20 students all working on different things at different paces becomes fuzzy in terms of organization. One thing that I really noticed today is that the students have way too many systems that they are suppose to be keeping track of. They have their own spreadsheet pace charts, a google calendar with their daily goals etc. So my big question is how do we make it simple for them?
The other thing that I really noticed today is that this is wearing Randy down. Ironically it is not the motivation and instruction that wears him down but it is the external expectation that all the students are doing things a certain way and the pressure of the accountability. He is so good at making kids feel good about themselves and motivating them to do amazing work. The biggest irony is that here he has way less freedom and flexibility to make professional judgments as to what the kids need. He is expected to keep them all on their FLVS pace, getting A's and B's while also facilitating a high level of PBL work in different areas while being a high school language arts teacher. He is expected to have all the standards covered for MS science and social studies, high school language arts, hs American history and teach elementary through inquiry. He is expected to contact the language arts teacher to make sure the students are covering the expected content. I realize now that this job for him is not an increase in freedom and trust but an increase in the accountability that so many teachers dread. The reason that teachers dread the accountability is not that they feel that they should not be held accountable but the focus of this accountability is skewed and does not treat them as the professionals that they are.
The students love Randy and will do anything that he wants them to do but he is stuck having to make sure they all are doing things that meet administrative expectations and that can be documented. This pushes things away from student choice driven learning and back towards traditional standards based making sure they all know the same things learning.
It is interesting to sit on the outside and watch a brilliant teacher be squelched by a system that is supposedly innovative but really holds many more unrealistic points of accountability than the current public school system.
Randy -
In the morning we reintroduced the google calendars and explained that we won't have design this week. During block one I worked with elementary on their spore unit and we did some work with native American tribes. Hanna may do this formally as a project. Ellie worked on here family tree and this will be a formal project for her. MS and HS worked on FLVS.
During block 2 MS and EL worked on letters to chef Nelson and many of the letters look great. HS discussed our writings due tomorrow and their plans for next weeks presentation. Nathan will present this Thursday his project on the Great Depression.
Kickball was fun after lunch but it may be time to redo teams as it is getting a bit too competitive.
In music, HS felt unproductive, but some days are like that. On the other hand, Elementary is getting very very close to being able to play their song. Second music block was split between acoustic girls and middle school boys on electric instruments. Both groups are doing well and should have a song or two ready for the show in November.
Today was a day where I got to sit and look at the global picture of what is going on on all levels. My work consisted of checking on students to see about pacing and needs and doing elementary math. I was able to sit and observe what students were doing and how Randy was able to work on things. One of the main things that I see is a lot of differentiation which is amazing. However, what comes with this differentiation for 20 students all working on different things at different paces becomes fuzzy in terms of organization. One thing that I really noticed today is that the students have way too many systems that they are suppose to be keeping track of. They have their own spreadsheet pace charts, a google calendar with their daily goals etc. So my big question is how do we make it simple for them?
The other thing that I really noticed today is that this is wearing Randy down. Ironically it is not the motivation and instruction that wears him down but it is the external expectation that all the students are doing things a certain way and the pressure of the accountability. He is so good at making kids feel good about themselves and motivating them to do amazing work. The biggest irony is that here he has way less freedom and flexibility to make professional judgments as to what the kids need. He is expected to keep them all on their FLVS pace, getting A's and B's while also facilitating a high level of PBL work in different areas while being a high school language arts teacher. He is expected to have all the standards covered for MS science and social studies, high school language arts, hs American history and teach elementary through inquiry. He is expected to contact the language arts teacher to make sure the students are covering the expected content. I realize now that this job for him is not an increase in freedom and trust but an increase in the accountability that so many teachers dread. The reason that teachers dread the accountability is not that they feel that they should not be held accountable but the focus of this accountability is skewed and does not treat them as the professionals that they are.
The students love Randy and will do anything that he wants them to do but he is stuck having to make sure they all are doing things that meet administrative expectations and that can be documented. This pushes things away from student choice driven learning and back towards traditional standards based making sure they all know the same things learning.
It is interesting to sit on the outside and watch a brilliant teacher be squelched by a system that is supposedly innovative but really holds many more unrealistic points of accountability than the current public school system.
Randy -
In the morning we reintroduced the google calendars and explained that we won't have design this week. During block one I worked with elementary on their spore unit and we did some work with native American tribes. Hanna may do this formally as a project. Ellie worked on here family tree and this will be a formal project for her. MS and HS worked on FLVS.
During block 2 MS and EL worked on letters to chef Nelson and many of the letters look great. HS discussed our writings due tomorrow and their plans for next weeks presentation. Nathan will present this Thursday his project on the Great Depression.
Kickball was fun after lunch but it may be time to redo teams as it is getting a bit too competitive.
In music, HS felt unproductive, but some days are like that. On the other hand, Elementary is getting very very close to being able to play their song. Second music block was split between acoustic girls and middle school boys on electric instruments. Both groups are doing well and should have a song or two ready for the show in November.
Friday October 8
Friday October 8 -
Randy:
Morning - the middle school did a great job on their presentation and their crowd scores were high. The audience was pleased and I was very proud of their efforts. Elementary continued their spore unit doing a combination of story telling and social studies about native American tribes.
PBL second block consisted of meeting with middle school and checking on their new set of projects. They look great and Mitchell even took on an individual project on high pitched sounds and tested it on all of us here at OH. HS was the main focus during this block as we did a writers workshop model to look at our writings, did some reading, and practiced our first reading response. A very busy morning for sure.
In music, we practiced our songs and I think they are beginning to feel that success that comes with practice and diligence with music.
Randy:
Morning - the middle school did a great job on their presentation and their crowd scores were high. The audience was pleased and I was very proud of their efforts. Elementary continued their spore unit doing a combination of story telling and social studies about native American tribes.
PBL second block consisted of meeting with middle school and checking on their new set of projects. They look great and Mitchell even took on an individual project on high pitched sounds and tested it on all of us here at OH. HS was the main focus during this block as we did a writers workshop model to look at our writings, did some reading, and practiced our first reading response. A very busy morning for sure.
In music, we practiced our songs and I think they are beginning to feel that success that comes with practice and diligence with music.
October 7th
Thursday October 7 -
Randy -
Morning - Spent some time with Elementary using spore for guided inquiry within the science content of behavioral vs physical adaptations of living things. We were pleasantly side tracked with a website by jibjab - they made short movies using their own faces and some of their classmates. It was neat to see them feverishly figure out how to use the site even though they have not seen it before. Ms and HS were on FLVS. I was able to check in with Olivia during this time also and help her with a technology issue involving turning in assignments.
Block 2 -
MS - We sat and had further discussion about their presentation tomorrow. We did a run through with me stopping them and also another run through on their own. They are excited and nervous and I think that is a good thing. Also, we got further on our ideas of PBL with Mitchell going to do a scientific paper on high pitched sounds that will be really neat. I sent him the steps to a formal scientific paper and a student example. Mason and Davis spent some time on wix.com to see if it is an easy and viable solution to web site construction. It seemed great but had some issues on saving the site.
HS - We did a check up on our formal writing that is due tomorrow. Also, we did a WHIP activity with our books and talked about them. The HS students decided that they would like some scheduled reading time and work on how to do a literary response. I think this is something we will all do together so I will bring my book.
-We had lunch, tennis, and design today but it ended short enough to allow us to catch up on some work and also put in a good blog response. Most HS students were able to get pictures of their books on their blog. Mira had a great blog where she put up videos and pictures of her trip to get her car. This would be neat to share.
Tomorrow we have presentations first thing in the morning so I need to be there extra early. I'm looking forward to it.
Randy -
Morning - Spent some time with Elementary using spore for guided inquiry within the science content of behavioral vs physical adaptations of living things. We were pleasantly side tracked with a website by jibjab - they made short movies using their own faces and some of their classmates. It was neat to see them feverishly figure out how to use the site even though they have not seen it before. Ms and HS were on FLVS. I was able to check in with Olivia during this time also and help her with a technology issue involving turning in assignments.
Block 2 -
MS - We sat and had further discussion about their presentation tomorrow. We did a run through with me stopping them and also another run through on their own. They are excited and nervous and I think that is a good thing. Also, we got further on our ideas of PBL with Mitchell going to do a scientific paper on high pitched sounds that will be really neat. I sent him the steps to a formal scientific paper and a student example. Mason and Davis spent some time on wix.com to see if it is an easy and viable solution to web site construction. It seemed great but had some issues on saving the site.
HS - We did a check up on our formal writing that is due tomorrow. Also, we did a WHIP activity with our books and talked about them. The HS students decided that they would like some scheduled reading time and work on how to do a literary response. I think this is something we will all do together so I will bring my book.
-We had lunch, tennis, and design today but it ended short enough to allow us to catch up on some work and also put in a good blog response. Most HS students were able to get pictures of their books on their blog. Mira had a great blog where she put up videos and pictures of her trip to get her car. This would be neat to share.
Tomorrow we have presentations first thing in the morning so I need to be there extra early. I'm looking forward to it.
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
October 5th and 6th
Wednesday October 6-
Randy:
Morning meeting was fun and we used two questions for the WHIP activity. One was "who is your hero" and it was great to hear their responses.
Block one - Elementary continued their spore unit today with the focus on why are living things shaped differently if they came from the same source? We used the game to continue learning about evolution and this will lead into social studies in later stages.
Block 2 - MS - We watched a video about how to do a strong presentation. They then took some time practicing their presentation in the library first and then in the community room. It is neat to see them take their presentation so seriously and I'm excited to see how they do. HS - We looked at Hunter's writing and discussed our steps in our argumentative writing process. Mira and Nathan are starting their paper today and will check their peers work to see how they started their paper. We set aside 20 minutes to write today and I think that helped everyone get some work done. Our rough drafts are due this Friday.
Music Block - The elementary went with the first block with high school and they are getting very close to being able to play "Bad to the Bone". The high schoolers worked on a new son " I love Rock and Roll". Second block MS, the girls tried out some acoustic music today learning Amazing Grace on guitar, banjo and mandolin. It is difficult at first, but they are getting it. The MS boys have a Green Day song started that is going to work well and they might have a high schooler help on guitar as needed.
Amy:
This was one of those days when the things on my to do list quickly went out the window as a new challenge presented itself. I met with Tim to talk about a concern about the schedule and he gave me a heads up that some students were falling behind in their virtual school work pretty quickly. I decided to spend the day working on the scope of the concern meaning how many students did we have starting to fall behind. After going through all students FLVS coursework looking at grades and pacing and their google pace spreadsheets I identified four high priority students needing support and two that were ones to watch. Out of our 16 FLVS students that leaves us with ten doing well and six needing support.
After school I met with Randy and we talked about what he was seeing when he was meeting with students. He identified five of my six students and so we knew that we needed a plan of support.
After our planning work I decided to work on some documentation pieces and now I am a bit too tired to go into much detail. I documented: Our "OH" workshop model of instruction, our priorities and our roles within them and continued working on the daily work of the facilitator and administrator.
It was an interesting day all around.
Tuesday October 5:
Amy:
It never ceases to amaze me how quickly time passes and how little progress gets done when I am doing in depth writing. Today I started working on my ISTE proposal. Not a lot got done because right as I hit my grove it was time to plan with Randy (or maybe I should call it torture Randy).
Anyone that knows Randy knows that he is all about the kids and spending time with them. However, he does not like the minutia of the work in terms of really peeling back the layers of what he is doing. One of my tasks this year is to capture his role as accurately as possible. This is one piece that will allow for the model to be transferable.
We started at 12:45 going over the facilitator's role looking at it division by division in terms of organization, curriculum, community building, technology tools and ended around 4:30 give or take 30 minutes to get the kids organized a the end of the day. There is some really good things coming out of the work. Tomorrow we will continue our work looking at the curriculum plans and time lines. Randy is being a good sport and ultimately when he sees what he is doing in writing I think that he will understand the need for me to continue pucking away at what he is doing every day.
Tomorrow I will get the rough draft ISTE proposal done!
Randy:
Morning meeting was fun and we used two questions for the WHIP activity. One was "who is your hero" and it was great to hear their responses.
Block one - Elementary continued their spore unit today with the focus on why are living things shaped differently if they came from the same source? We used the game to continue learning about evolution and this will lead into social studies in later stages.
Block 2 - MS - We watched a video about how to do a strong presentation. They then took some time practicing their presentation in the library first and then in the community room. It is neat to see them take their presentation so seriously and I'm excited to see how they do. HS - We looked at Hunter's writing and discussed our steps in our argumentative writing process. Mira and Nathan are starting their paper today and will check their peers work to see how they started their paper. We set aside 20 minutes to write today and I think that helped everyone get some work done. Our rough drafts are due this Friday.
Music Block - The elementary went with the first block with high school and they are getting very close to being able to play "Bad to the Bone". The high schoolers worked on a new son " I love Rock and Roll". Second block MS, the girls tried out some acoustic music today learning Amazing Grace on guitar, banjo and mandolin. It is difficult at first, but they are getting it. The MS boys have a Green Day song started that is going to work well and they might have a high schooler help on guitar as needed.
Amy:
This was one of those days when the things on my to do list quickly went out the window as a new challenge presented itself. I met with Tim to talk about a concern about the schedule and he gave me a heads up that some students were falling behind in their virtual school work pretty quickly. I decided to spend the day working on the scope of the concern meaning how many students did we have starting to fall behind. After going through all students FLVS coursework looking at grades and pacing and their google pace spreadsheets I identified four high priority students needing support and two that were ones to watch. Out of our 16 FLVS students that leaves us with ten doing well and six needing support.
After school I met with Randy and we talked about what he was seeing when he was meeting with students. He identified five of my six students and so we knew that we needed a plan of support.
After our planning work I decided to work on some documentation pieces and now I am a bit too tired to go into much detail. I documented: Our "OH" workshop model of instruction, our priorities and our roles within them and continued working on the daily work of the facilitator and administrator.
It was an interesting day all around.
Tuesday October 5:
Amy:
It never ceases to amaze me how quickly time passes and how little progress gets done when I am doing in depth writing. Today I started working on my ISTE proposal. Not a lot got done because right as I hit my grove it was time to plan with Randy (or maybe I should call it torture Randy).
Anyone that knows Randy knows that he is all about the kids and spending time with them. However, he does not like the minutia of the work in terms of really peeling back the layers of what he is doing. One of my tasks this year is to capture his role as accurately as possible. This is one piece that will allow for the model to be transferable.
We started at 12:45 going over the facilitator's role looking at it division by division in terms of organization, curriculum, community building, technology tools and ended around 4:30 give or take 30 minutes to get the kids organized a the end of the day. There is some really good things coming out of the work. Tomorrow we will continue our work looking at the curriculum plans and time lines. Randy is being a good sport and ultimately when he sees what he is doing in writing I think that he will understand the need for me to continue pucking away at what he is doing every day.
Tomorrow I will get the rough draft ISTE proposal done!
Monday, October 4, 2010
October 4th
Yikes Monday!
Monday October 4,Amy:
Today was a good day of clarity as I met with Tim and planned for priorities in the work we are doing. He asked me about my dissertation research which was a nice way to start the conversation. I know that he is thinking of pursuing a doctorate degree as well. I think that the more questions he asks of people the better decision he will make in terms of this being a good path to take.
As for "OH" things he provided me with a good outside voice looking in. With his experiences from last year in his mind he was able to suggest ways to be proactive about communicating with parents about what we are doing with curriculum and why we are rolling things out this way.
We also thought through the Costa Rica trip, writing an ISTE proposal, parent meetings and other things that we are trying to document. It was a long but productive meeting. It gave me clarity and a renewed sense of direction.
After the meeting I went up to school and had lunch. After lunch I really enjoyed my block working with the elementary students. They spent some time on math and some time working on their spore project. This project is highly engaging to them.
After school Randy and I planned and debriefed my meeting with Tim. We set out some goals for our planning time tomorrow which should help clarify all the tasks and roles the facilitator is asked to do daily. There is an amazing amount of things to managed while motivating and keeping track of student work. It can be done with deliberate systems for the facilitator (notice I did not say students) to manage their time. These systems also need to be flexible to allow for all the things that come up during the day. One concern that I have is that people will start gravitating back to the role of the traditional lecture driven teacher. I am hoping that by documenting Randy and I's work that we can make it transparent how not to succumb to these tendencies.
Finally, we met with Mason and his mom. Mason is doing really well this year and is amazingly fun to have around. I set out two things for him to think about: 1. What field experience would he like to do? and 2. Next time one comes up that he is not necessarily interested in I challenged him to go!
It was a good start to the week and I know it was partly due to my trip back to Gainesville over the weekend. I had the time to meet with other professional educators that I admire which fed both my professional soul and my friendship soul. The hardest part of my journey is not having a lot of people to collaborate with in terms of hearing their thoughts on things. This is also the part of the journey that I think is good for me because I am forcing myself to think deeper about things. I also have to have solid evidence for my thinking which requires lots of reading and reflecting about the work I am doing.
Randy:
The major changes and introductions today included the writing component in high school and the presentation rubric in middle school. Elementary also decided to to a unit on Evolution using the spore game.
High School - We went over the particulars of persuasive writing today and looked up some sites that can help guide us. They picked a due date of this Friday for their rough draft and a final paper due on Tuesday next week. I will do a check in on Wednesday to look at possible introductions to this paper.
Middle School - They received their rubric for public presentations. We discussed the importance of proper dress, voice inflection and other ideas that will make their presentations stronger. Our plan is to present formally this coming Friday including an audience of parents, students, and possibly students from another school in the state using skype.
Elementary School - Began a unit on Evolution using gaming, specifically the game Spore developed by Will Wright (developer of the SIMS). Their formal writings are involved with this as they did with their morning inquiries and will include both science and social studies. I have plans to introduce this game to middle school as well to cover science and social studies.
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