3/26 Arcade, WGHS

Started the day with 8th Grade science and Hudson Elementary.  Students loaded up their electricity projects and brought them over to Hudson Elementary.  Images below:

Headed over to WGHS to:

• Meet with 2nd year planning team to plan after school meeting.
• prep for 2nd year meeting after school tomorrow
• respond to emails.
• finalize budget emails.

3/25 Avery Arcade, WGHS

Started the morning with Hixson Middle School and the students at the Hixson Arcade.  We packed up the games and headed over to Avery.

Headed back to the office to:

1. Work through email (100+)
2. set up 2nd year teacher meeting(s)
3. finalized 2nd year teacher location
4. set up meetings for the week.

Met with Discovery Education and Assistant Supt to discuss Techbook.

4/5 Hixson, Avery, Edgar Road

Started the day at Hixson,

I helped students load their games into a box truck

We took the box truck and two buses of students over to Avery for the Hixson Arcade.

Went back over to Edgar Road afterwords to work on:

• Finalizing schedule for next week
• Plan Hudson Vertical teaming
• Work on Collaborative space
• Emailed Clark about inventory day

Then met with Webster University Undergrads and prospective students as a part of a Alumni Panel.

3/28 Hudson Arcade, Edgar Road

Started the day over at Hixson.  We loaded up projects in the Box truck, loaded students in the buses and took 8th graders from Hixson to Hudson.

The projects they took over were arcade projects.

The students were inspired by the video Caine's arcade:



Caine's Arcade from Nirvan Mullick on Vimeo.


The project highlighted their learning in Electricity but more importantly they were able to demonstrate how fun learning can be in Science.

Here are some images and videos from the day!

What the photos/videos don't capture:

• Older kids caring for younger kids
• kids advertising their game
• pride in their work
• older kids helping younger students
• desire for the older kids to want their game to be the coolest
• When a project breaks the frantic nature for which the older kids were trying to fix it so it worked like it was suppose to.

Afterwords went back to Hixson to clean up.  I then went back to Edgar Road.

I worked on a presentation on Next Generation Assessments: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1PX5O-R6pLAYfZMv6xgRLV2zq-3P7YSALjxd3lselcfU/edit#slide=id.p

I finalized notes from the Vertical Team meeting: https://docs.google.com/a/wgcloud.org/document/d/1mdOSL8xxQ1hel5nmjcQKRW59YNg65DOs92kUP401L_A/edit#heading=h.gy2cnbuh97ew

3/12 Office day, lots of planning

Met with Fine Arts Coordinator to transfer images from ipad to PC.  Tried:
email, simple transfer, box and dropbox.  Email worked best.

Scheduled Computer school/Steger day on 3/27: https://docs.google.com/a/wgcloud.org/document/d/1W4Eq0GpMLoqrJ4WIxnqs-qn_XpduvyfmIKgwFvdn62U/edit

Wrote document for Arcade day at the elementary school:
https://docs.google.com/a/wgcloud.org/document/d/1OU5yuZLn46C1pUHgOBjM_KANJRvfsFvSXPOigYGVMiw/edit

Met with District Tech Director

Searched for 5th grade materials for replenishment of Bristol Social Studies Kit

Tweeted out some resources for using and finding primary source documents in social studies:


Was published in Daily Edventures: http://dailyedventures.com/index.php/2013/03/12/mcgee/

Sent proposals to PDC regarding possible future presentations:

• 1.  Monthly SMACKDOWN (or appy hour) - Learn, share, listen, connect with WG and surrounding BEST edtech integrators 4-5pm once a month.  Resources shared documented.
• 2.  Standards to assessments - Retooling assessments to reach targets and higher order thinking skills (3-4 day workshop)
• 3.  The Power of evidence.  CSI themed look at student assessment and non-traditional ways to formatively assess student learning (quarterly after school)
• 4. Google tools in the classroom - Monthly after school meetings with built in tasks and assignments for educators to fully integrate WGCLOUD into their workflow.
• 5.  The Gift of the Orator. Skills tips and tricks to giveaway successful (in class or out) presentation every time. (in collaboration with Jason Heisserer, he doesn't know this) provide resources for teachers to improve and make interesting their direct instruction.  (quarterly after school)
• 6.  The flipped classroom:  Using digital tools to rethink classroom procedures. (4 day workshop) to include complete integration
• 7.  The 21st century textbook:  A look into the new role textbooks play in student learning.  (3 day workshop) include adobe indesign and google tools to curate resources to create students own digital text.
• 8.  Finding new levels of student acheivement through standards-based grading (4 day workshop)  Learning about standards based grading, getting sample work from students and walking through how to grade using SBG model.  Invovles workdays to collect evidence, converse LG and PfS 

Crafted email for Vertical Team meeting:

You are invited to a Vertical Team meeting of educators committed to the improvement of Science and Social Studies education in the Webster Groves School District.

Who:

All interested parties that teach or support learning from preschool to graduation.  A desirable “quorum” would be educators from Pre-K, Primary, Intermediate, Middle and High School, as well as coordinators, teacher assistants, coaches, administrators and others that support instruction.

When:

SOCIAL STUDIES - March 27th from 3:45 - 5:00

SCIENCE - April 3rd from 3:45 - 5:00

Where:

Central Office Board Room

Why:

• To have a team of people charged with the desire to define what it looks like for students to learn Science and Social Studies through both content and process.
• To vision what the future of education will be for statesmen and stateswomen.
• To continue to align the learning of concepts, skills, and outcomes preschool through graduation.
• To continue to define our expectations at each grade level PreK-12.
• To develop mentorship model across specialities.
• To build community.
• To build a cohesive team of educators.
• To increase communication and eliminate isolation.

What:

SOCIAL STUDIES topic for conversation:

From GLEs (Grade Level Expectations) to CLEs (Course Level Expectations): 

Focussing on the "WHAT" in "What" we teach

SCIENCE topic for conversation: 

Investigate the new NGSS (Next Generation Science Standards)

 How to read them, where to find them, what do they mean for us in Missouri...

Interested:

Please RSVP here: http://wgsdsciss.blogspot.com/2012/11/register-for-vertical-team.html

Read/Proofed Gifted Grant application for WGSD Foundation