Resource of the Week
The resource this week comes from a weekly summary of educational research that I get called the Marshall Memo. The research highlights how to improve the retention of information of our students, and strategies to solidify this retention. You can read a brief summary and takeaways of the research below.
"Use It or Lose It: The Value of Retrieval Practice in the Classroom" - retrieved from the Marshall Memo 3/24/2020
In this article in Education Update, Pooja Agarwal (Berklee College of Music) says that at the beginning of her classes, students have their heads down, writing furiously. Why? “Typically, educators focus on getting information into our students’ heads,” says Agarwal. “But in my classroom, and in line with my research as a cognitive scientist, I focus on getting information out of my students’ heads… Too often we teach, students learn, they take a test, and we move on.” Frequent retrieval of learned information is a highly effective way to improve retention and foster higher-level thinking. She suggests these quick, low-prep, low-stakes ways to apply the concept:
• Start classes with retrieval. Instead of saying, “Here’s what we did last week” at the beginning of a class, ask, “What did we do last week?” and have students jot down what they remember, followed by a quick discussion. The prompt could also be on the board.
• Try retrieve-pair-share. Instead of the time-honored think-pair-share routine (the thinking part is usually given short shrift), have students silently retrieve what they know about the question just posed and write it down, then talk with a partner, then engage in whole-class discussion. “This works particularly well for English language learners and students who are less comfortable speaking up in class,” says Agarwal.
• Swap note-taking for retrieve-taking. Teach students a more-effective way to take notes: after reading a textbook passage, listening to a lecture, or watching an instructional video without note-taking, students close the book or pause the video or lecture and write down the key points. Retrieving what was just heard consolidates and strengthens the learning – and reveals what students thought they would remember and didn’t.
“Powerful Learning Is All About Retrieval” by Pooja Agarwal in Education Update, March 2020 (Vol. 62, #3, pp. 1,4), https://bit.ly/2WK61po; Agarwal is at pagarwal@berklee.edu.
Remote Learning Update - 3/27/2020We start back up with our Remote Learning Plan on Monday morning! It looks like we will be in this mode for a while. A couple of updates and reminders:
-Please plan for about a 1/2 hours worth of work each day for your students in your class. Please have things ready to go for your students each morning of the week.
-Last week during our staff meeting, we discussed Infinite Campus, attendance and grades. We'll continue to use the Spreadsheets shared to track attendance concerns, and I made a Master List for students of concern in order to track our contacts. If we are struggling to connect with students or their families, we need to provide further effort to connect in order to ensure we are engaging with EVERY one of our students. Mrs. Morton is one to connect with for students that you are struggling to connect with, and should be invited to your weekly team meetings, along with myself.
-For Infinite Campus assessments, you should go ahead and post assessment results, however, you do not need to track an overall grade at this time. You do not need to track attendance in IC either at this time.
-During the remote learning period each day, we must be responsive to our students, providing them feedback, answering their questions, and setting up virtual meetings if necessary to work with them to make the most out of this experience. Remember, this is a huge opportunity for our families to get a front seat view at the impressive work that you all do each day.
3rd Quarter Grades
As a reminder, grades and comments should be posted by the end of the day on Tuesday, 3/31. We'll work to print them off and mail them out starting next week Wednesday. Please let me know if you have any questions about this process.
BW Meetings and Dept. Meetings
We will continue our BW and Department Meetings throughout the rest of the school year. I'll keep the BW Meeting times as they are on my calendar, if you'd like to reschedule, or set up a different time, just let me know. We will meet virtually, and you can use the Google Meet link that is posted on the Calendar invite itself. Let me know if you have any questions about this.
Room Cleanings
Starting this past Monday, Troy and his staff have started to deep clean classrooms. When a room has been deep cleaned, a note with the date it was cleaned has been stuck to the door. We are working hard to ensure that each surface at school is disinfected and remains that way for as long as possible. If you need to access your room, you must inform me and Troy, so that the room can be cleaned again, and the date on the sticky note updated. Since the Governor issued the "Safer at Home" order, access to the building should only be if it is absolutely necessary.
Virtual Staff Meeting on Wednesday at 12:30
During this time we are away from each other, it's still vitally important that we stay connected. The trust and quality of relationships that we have as adults are the cornerstone for school culture. Continuing to grow those bonds will be the goal of our time together on Wednesday. You'll start meeting with one other person, then that group will grow to 6, and then we'll meet as a whole group afterwards. I will share details either later today or Monday.
Staffing Updates
As we look ahead to next year, there are a couple of updates that are exciting. The district Social Worker position has been posted and the hiring process is hopefully wrapping up soon with a great candidate. At their last meeting, the School Board approved the addition of a 5th Grade teacher, so the hiring process for that position is underway as well.
As we look ahead to next year, and the opportunity to have one building dedicated to our Middle Level learners, it's an opportunity to review all aspects of our school operations, and take a look at research-based systems to ensure ALL of our learners are successful. I believe we have the ratio, capacity, and commitment to excel in this area. There is certainly a lot of work to be done yet, however, we'll be in the midst of those conversations constantly from here till the first day of school next fall.
Images from the Week
my view from the home office...
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