Week 2 at New Albany High School!

7A'sWe had a spirited-filled week! Students seemed to be excited about the start of the fall athletic season with golf matches, volleyball and field hockey games, cross country meets, last Friday’s soccer game and our first home football game. Athletics are one of what I call the “7 A’s of successful schools.” Athletics are an important part of the high school experience because they bring people together for a common cause, shared purpose, and unity. It’s what community is all about!

Several teachers continue to share what’s going on in their classrooms using our school hashtag on Twitter or Instagram: #NAHSCommUNITY. During House, our upperclassmen lead the Class of 2019 through a scavenger hunt to learn more about New Albany High School. To get a glimpse of what took place this week at NAHS, click here.

Staff News
I commend our School Counselors for embracing their new role as afternoon bus duty monitors. They have not only embraced it, but they own it, as you can tell by the spiffy hats they just bought! They use this as an opportunity to get to know students and to reflect together about the day. They laugh together, support each other, and share ideas to ensure they are providing the best possible support to students. It’s another great example of creating #CommUNITY!
Bus Boss 2

Bus Boss

Open House is on Wednesday, September 2nd. Open House is an exciting time for families to meet their students’ classroom teachers and to hear about what types of experiences they will have this year. Following are a few general topics that will be discussed by teachers:
General Class Expectations and Procedures
Contact Information: email address, work phone number, website, Twitter handle (if applicable)
Grading Policy
Unique Learning Experiences
Homework Policy
Teacher Core Values, Family, Interest/Hobbies, etc.

Students As Learners
On Wednesday, August 26th and Thursday, August 27th, students attended the State of the Eagles Address during ACT period. The State of the Eagles is an opportunity for the Administrative Team to discuss our academic, attendance, and discipline data with students, celebrate our successes, and set goals for the quarter. It’s also a way for us to establish expectations. This year, we approached it a bit differently. We asked students to organize themselves into groups of eight and to answer the question, “What should we expect of you?” After we reviewed a few items such as the importance of carrying their student ID cards, lunch dismissal, and other housekeeping items, students were given time to generate a list of expectations and then to narrow their lists into four expectations.

State of the Eagles
A loud and proud “Eagle” shout-out goes to Assistant Principal Steve Gehlert for facilitating the State of the Eagles Address on Thursday! I was out of the building, so Mr. Gehlert took the reigns and facilitated nearly 700 students in the activity. Feedback was extremely positive! Our next step is to review each groups’ list, do an affinity grouping, and create a list of the top four expectations. Thanks also go to the School Counselors, Molly Salt, Kevin Reed, and Dr. Domine for assisting with the activity!

Spanish teacher Hannah Macko created an activity to help students demonstrate their knowledge of Spanish vocabulary words. Students used Snapchat to review adjective agreement in Spanish II. After choosing adjectives out of a hat, students demonstrated knowledge of the vocabulary by acting out the adjectives in a variety of selfies throughout the school. They created captions in Spanish to describe each picture and were very creative with their selfie-taking abilities.
Snapchat Wall

Key Club President Sam Malik created an inspiring video and website to help raise awareness and funding for the Solar Panel building that was donated to us by The Ohio State University. He, along with the legendary Bill Resch, presented to the Board of Education on Monday, August 24th to thank them for embracing this partnership with The Ohio State University and support of this endeavor. In order to move the project forward, we must rely on donations to fund the rest of the project. There is a lot of positive buzz about the possibilities of this project and teachers Greg Morris and Ali Laughbaum plan to incorporate this in their classes. For more information about this project, click here.

Humanities teacher Sara Hric held her 8th period class in the courtyard on Friday where her students discussed the meaning of the eagle. Students were basking in the sun, stretched on the benches, or relaxing in the shade as they discussed literary devices. The students were engaged and eager to participate. Sara provided specific feedback to students, which encouraged others to get involved in the discussion. It was an excellent example of differentiating the learning environment to meet the needs of students!
Sara Hric2

Sara Hric

Upcoming Events
Tuesday, September 1st- Bow Tie Tuesday
Wednesday, September 2nd- Open House 5:30 pm
Monday, September 7th- Labor Day, No School
Monday, September 14th-Professional Development Day, No School for Students
Wednesday, September 16th- School Picture Retakes

Articles Worth Reading
Inside the Lives of Digital Teens
25 Alternatives to “What’d You Learn in School Today?”

Food for Thought
Happy

Be Great,

Dwight

Be Great,

Dwight

Flipping, Follow Up, Modeling, and Reflection

Flipped-ClassroomAt Gahanna Lincoln High School, several teachers have implemented the Flipped Classroom model. They and Assistant Principal, Aaron Winner (@aaronwinner), shared their Flipped experiences at our January staff meeting and the response was very positive. Their presentation was well-organized, engaging, and reflective of their learning.

Whenever I get a chance, I ask staff about how things are going, especially during informal conversations. I’ve recently asked about professional development needs and a number of times I heard a similar response, “We love all the presentations at staff meetings, but there is no follow up. We get excited about what we see and hear, but we aren’t given any time to try it or to came back later to talk about it.” I appreciate their feedback because they expressed a desire to learn, so I need to provide the conditions for that to take place. This caused me to peruse my notes from the book, 10-Minute In-Service, by Todd Whitaker (@ToddWhitaker) and Annette Breaux (@AnnetteBreaux). I knew I had to do something to address the concerns of a lack of time and a lack of follow up.

Follow-UpMy Dean of Curriculum, Tia Holliman (@Ms._Holliman) and I discussed this in great detail as our March staff meeting approached because I wanted to do more than just talk about the Flipped Classroom as an effective instructional strategy, I wanted to model it. I noticed there is a significant amount time that I or others talk at our staff during our meetings as opposed to us interacting, engaging each other in meaningful conversation, or participating in learning experiences that would excite them to teach the next day. Todd Whitaker and Annette Breaux put it this way, “Teachers should leave faculty meetings more excited about teaching tomorrow than they were today.”

As Tia and I planned the March staff meeting, my goals were to model my expectations for posting learning targets, model the flipped strategy, and model how to bring closure to a lesson with some type of formative assessment. I sent the following details to my staff a day or two before our March staff meeting:

Please take 6 minutes some time before the meeting on March 4th to watch the TEDTalk: 3 Rules to Spark Learning, and be prepared to discuss some of the following questions:
 
*How do you encourage students to ask questions in class?
*“Student questions are the seed to real learning.” What are the implications of this statement?
*How is “the messy process of trial and error” a part of the learning process in your class?
*How do you incorporate reflection in your class?
*Teachers are the “cultivators of curiosity and inquiry.” What are the implications of this statement?
 
You will have the opportunity to select as a group, 1 or 2 questions you want to discuss. Thanks in advance for being prepared.
 

I also shared the TEDTalk with my staff in my weekly Friday Focus blog, but they are not required watch the videos I share or the articles I include. However, as we continue to change instructional practices to transition to the New Learning Standards, it was important for us to discuss this TEDTalk since the presenter shares ways that will help us with this transition.

As the activity began, the following learning target was displayed on the screen:

I can identify two ways I spark student learning in my classroom.

We briefly discussed our target, I explained the directions, and they organized themselves into interdepartmental groups of 8-10 people. I displayed the questions on the screen that are mentioned above and the rich conversations began.

As I walked around the room, I was excited about what I heard. I was also impressed by those who were able to focus on what they could do as opposed to succumbing to discussing barriers to learning (perceived or real). After about 12 minutes, I distributed a 3×5 notecard and gave them two minutes to answer the following question:

What are two ways you spark learning in the classroom?

I collected the notecards and had the responses compiled into a word document, which I then shared with staff via Google Docs within a couple of days. They now have a list of over 100 different ways to spark learning in the classroom. It was a quick 15 minute in-service about effective instructional strategies that can be easily implemented on a regular basis.

Be Great,


Dwight

images:
follow up: http://www.vapartners.ca/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Follow-Up.png
flipped classroom: http://podcast.teachercast.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Flipped-Classroom.jpg

Reflections From A Student Teacher: Edcamp Columbus

At Gahanna Lincoln High School, we have a number of student-teachers every quarter. I take this as a compliment to the quality teachers we have and the desire for colleges to have their student-teachers learn from great practitioners. I’ve been every impressed by one young man from The Ohio State University named, Johnathan Duff (@mrduffedu), because of the way he engages students in the classroom and for his eagerness to learn. He attended Edcamp Columbus, so I’ve asked him to share his experience with us:

edcamp columbus.png2

On Saturday March 1, 2014, the second annual EdCamp Columbus was held at Gahanna Lincoln High School’s Clark Hall. As a student teacher working in Clark Hall, I could not pass up the opportunity to engage other educators and to further my professional development in the very building I have been working in since August.

EdCamp Columbus comes out of the EdCamp movement that was started in Philadelphia in 2010. EdCamps are opportunities for educators to come together, share ideas and discuss what matters to them, and become drivers of their own professional development. EdCamp labels itself as an “unconference.” Rather that having a pre-determined schedule with session identified well in advance, the sessions held at each conference are determined by the attendees the day of the event. Have a topic you want to present or to discuss with fellow educators? Find an open slot on the day’s schedule (a.k.a. The Big Board) and write it in. Other attendees will see your proposal and those who are interested can attend. It is as simple as that.

A focus of my student teaching and my work as a Masters of Education student at the Ohio State University has been on making connections between my students’ service, their learning, and their understanding of civic engagement. I teach 5 sections of Government and work with all Seniors who have to complete a service component called the Service Activity Project. From a young age, service has always been very important to me. My focus on service learning has allowed me to align a personal passion, the reality of my classroom, and the research I am doing for Ohio State. Coming in to EdCamp Columbus, it was my hope that there would be a session related to service learning or civic engagement. As the time before the first session dwindled, openings remained on the Big Board and there were no sessions on service or civics. Seeing this as an opportunity, I decided to embrace the spirit of the “unconference” and proposed a session entitled “Connecting learning and service towards critical civic engagement.”

I was very happy to find out that I was not alone in my interest on these topics. The session was attended by a range of individuals – elementary teachers, high school teachers, government teachers, science teachers, and even a district’s technology specialist. Gahanna Jefferson Public Schools were well represented with GLHS science teacher, Jason Hardin, and Jefferson Elementary teacher, Ashley Sands, both attending and actively participating.

What is great about EdCamp is that sessions can be more of a discussion than a presentation. To borrow educational terminology, EdCamp is “attendee-centered” rather than “presenter-centered.” I kicked off the session by introducing myself and why I proposed the session – I am a pre-service teacher who is passionate about service and works with students who are doing service. I am interested in ways to connect students’ classroom learning with their service with the aim of getting them to think more critically about their role and engagement in society. Towards this end, I designed a service project in which students spent a Saturday conducting home repairs for an area senior. While successful, I am interested in other ways to improve my practice of connecting learning to service and civic engagement. Other session attendees shared their background and interest in the topics before we turned to the issues at hand.

Throughout the session, discussion flourished. As a group, we discussed the service requirements that exist in our schools and examples of service learning that we have participated in. Vibrant discussion was held around civic education and how it needs to start at a young age and extend beyond just the social studies classroom. The concept of the “common good” is not something that is limited to the study of the social world and thus work towards it should not be limited to social studies.

An item that became a major focus of the session was student choice. Rather than the focus and design of the service being determined by the teacher, attendees agreed that students should be involved throughout the process. Asking students “What do you care about? What do you want to work on?” will empower them and make their service and the learning that accompanies it all the more meaningful. The role of the teacher then becomes to guide and scaffold them through the process. Teachers also play the important part of helping students reflect on their service. Teachers should guide students to reflect before, during, and after their service. This can be done through discussion, writing assignments, and the strategic use of technology. It is important that the reflection that is done is critical and challenges the students to reflect on their lives and the nature of society and its institutions.

As the session was attended by a diverse group of educators, the topic of cross curricular collaboration was heavily discussed. Just as civic engagement can incorporate multiple content areas, so too can service and it need not be compartmentalized – government, science, and english teachers (just to name a few) can all collaborate. Ideas such as having students research the need and causes of the need of service, working with students to write grant proposals, using various mediums to document and tell the story of service all provide opportunities for skills from various content areas to be incorporated into service to others.

EdCamp sessions were blocked out in 50 minute time slots. By the end of our 50 minutes, the discussion was in full swing and participants were not ready to wrap up. It was decided that to continue our conversation, we would move our discussion online by creating a shared Google Doc. Herein lies the great value of EdCamp – not only do we get to come together with like minded educators to share ideas, but the conversation does not have to stop there. Bring a group of passionate educators together and the learning community they develop will extend beyond the Saturday they spent together in Clark Hall.

I applaud Johnathan for not only taking the time to attend his first Edcamp, but for having the courage to lead a session. This is an excellent example of what the Edcamp experience is all about!

Be Great,

Dwight

They Have A Voice

Vintage-Microphone-Wallpaper-music-28520386-1280-1024Students at Gahanna Lincoln High School never cease to amaze me. Last week, we held our second annual performance of, Diaspora: Voices of An Ever-Changing America. It’s a culmination of student talent, from monologues to spoken word and hip hop dancing. The purpose is to highlight the contributions African Americans have made to the culture of America.

Four staff members worked closely with students to organize the entire show: English teacher, Donja Bridges (@donjab); Dean of Curriculum, Tia Holliman (@Ms_Holliman); School Psychologist, Johnel Amerson; and Family Consumer Science teacher, Keah Germany. They collaborated with students to create a shared vision for the program, develop an action plan, and select the performances. They wanted to not only educate the audience, but to entertain. It’s awesome to see what students can do when they have an authentic audience, supportive staff members, constant feedback, and time to practice.

I was thoroughly impressed by all the presentations and asked two students to share their original poems with me so I could include them in this post. They have a voice. They have something to say, and they want to make a difference. The first poem is by senior, Cymone Turner, and it’s entitled, I’m A Beautiful Colored Girl:
I am beautiful
I am amazing
I am good enough

You think I’m being cocky no I’m just giving back the gallons of confidence I deserve being colored. What am I saying? We’ll let me break It down for you.

I look out into the world today
I see different colors races shades
All mixed together in this beautiful concoction we like to call the 21st century
Why is this such a big deal?
Ha well because back in the day my skin wasn’t right. It wasn’t acceptable.
I was nasty
I was disgusting
I was dirty
I was a foul beast
Now do I look like beast to you?
I mean I might bite but it won’t hurt for that long
Ha it wasn’t right to be Not white
Dark as night
Not shining bright
But your little chocolate bite
It was whack to be black
But I’m telling you it’s lame to be ashamed
I can’t help my skin I was born in
I can’t help that I am black
I’m happy to be Black
Matter fact I’m happy to be Cymone.

The second poem is by junior, Adam Davis, and it’s entitled, Real Life:

I’ve been thinking all day there’s a lot on my mind
And see I would rather say
It in the booth because in person I might hurt somebody’s feelings
And I’m not saying names I’m just speaking how I’m feeling
The truth hurts you can die if you lie
So I try not to reply
To those guys with wicked eyes
I can feel it when our hands shake
I’m not for you
If your man folds under pressure he’s not loyal
See he was just trying to make it to his house wearing a hood
But some how he is misunderstood
But July 13th the jury didn’t understand
That George Zimmerman was a grown man
And that Trayvon didn’t need any hands to help with his own plans
The sky’s the limit I am reaching for impossible
If Obama can be the president then anything is possible
And I’m just speaking for myself I know what I can do
But as long as you have God on your side there’s no stopping you
Young kid with a lot of heart
I was blinded by all of America but its ok because I hear them talk
I hear the whispers in the dark
And since they like to act they can play ground no park
When the sun shines that’s when the bees out
When it rains that when the killers and the thieves out
Blacks get treated like rats that’s why the Government throws cheese out
I was taught to rise above or he is out
And its a sad way of living
Some young brothers is dead some of them locked in prison
Some of them have jobs some of them don’t yet
Some of them still ride some of them switched sets
I’m just a diamond in the dirt
Forget all my people cause family comes first
I wish that was true
But that’s a lie too
Because I have a couple of cousins hating on what I do
How do you think that makes me feel?
Stuff real I have a lot of enemies I’m alone in this field
Death disrupts the streets so I’m thinking about my will
I am sitting at this table breaking bread into a meal
My mind is going crazy so I think that’s why I’m numb
And America being perfect is something its far from
I’m never happy cause I’m living in a stressed world
I’m from where people is dying and they stress girls
I wish I could bring Trayvon back
God if you listening run and tell that
And tell America that the justice system is all wrong
But life is like music its an end to all songs.

The audience was moved by Cymone and Adam’s words because they spoke with such confidence and authority. Their passion was evident and their message pierced our hearts. I am proud of the staff members for creating the conditions for not only Cymone and Adam to use their voices, but for all the participants in Diaspora. #glhsfamily

Be Great,

Dwight

Among Experts

Professional-Learning-NetworkI attended the Ohio ASCD Conference on Tuesday, January 16th and heard former State Superintendent, Stan Heffner, deliver a compelling keynote presentation. He shared the three main correlates of successful schools: instructional leadership, a positive school climate and culture, and frequent monitoring. An example he gave of effective instructional leadership is when teachers share best practices. He said,

“The best professional development in the world is when teachers can collaborate and share ideas.”

I couldn’t agree more. For example, still to this day, the best professional development I ever experienced was being a facilitator for our school’s Critical Friends Group, which was a group of teachers who were given four periods a month to research curriculum, instruction, and assessment strategies, review lesson plans, and reflect on our daily work. It was energizing, relevant, and job-embedded professional learning. I’ve been able to recapture this through the use of social media, but it’s still not quite the same.

One of my goals as a building principal is to use our staff meetings as learning opportunities because it’s one of the few times we are all together at the same time. Admittedly, I have not been as successful with this as I want to be. However, the other day at our staff meeting, the teachers were engaged in meaningful conversations about their best lesson from first semester. Assistant Principal, Tim Gagliardo (@TimGagliardo1), did an outstanding job facilitating this activity. He used story, imagery, and video to introduce the activity. He shared a powerful scene from Dead Poet’s Society to set the stage.

Following the video and introduction, we divided the staff into groups of 8 and asked the following questions:

What was your best lesson/unit from first semester?
What did you enjoy most about it?
What did the students enjoy most about it?
What did the students learn and why?

Once the groups were created, a scribe was assigned per group, and questions posted, the room was energized by the examples being shared, questions asked, laughter, and positive reinforcement. Some examples shared by the scribes are:

Geometry teacher, Tyler Winner, uses Lesson Summary Sheets to increase students’ meta-cognition skills. These were created because numerous students and parents were unaware of their poor grades 2nd quarter. This Summary Sheet has increased attendance to the Pass Room as students can earn 1% on assessments if they get teacher help outside of class. This is helping students develop good study habits and helping the teacher to keep students more accountable.

A.P. Literature, Chris Wagner, helped students put their egos aside and avoid just looking at their essay grade by having students rank all the essays in class. Essays were listed by ID numbers instead of names to keep anonymity and help students to be more critical. Students were very engaged and paid attention to their peer feedback!

English teacher, Becky Rice, designed a lesson devoted to helping students find independent reading material in Honors English 10, which has led to a Google Doc the class uses to share book recommendations and a blog about favorite reads!

One teacher has implemented “Listening Quizzes” to help students pay attention better in class and not just regurgitate what’s in the book or notes, but participate in class discussions more.

Chinese teacher, Mike Kralovic, does a lesson on bargaining. The classroom is set up with little shops and the students are taught how to bargain for the items they want. This exposes them to the language and culture.  While they are doing this they call it “Barguing.”

During the Industrial Revolution unit, American History teachers had students look at an invention and figure out why that invention was needed, how it was inspired, and where will it be in the future.

Choir teacher, Jeremy Lahman, uses SoundCloud to record student performances and then posts it on Twitter. The students can assess themselves and this increases engagement because they have a large authentic audience.

There were many more examples shared and it was exciting to take some time to celebrate what is going on in classrooms every day at Gahanna Lincoln High School.

Be Great,



Dwight

Who’s Responsible for Making Learning Relevant?

learnWe have some great teachers at Gahanna Lincoln High School. They are not only passionate about teaching and learning, they are committed to making GLHS a place where all students have a sense of belonging. Many of them use our Graduate Profile to plan units that stretch our students.

One of our classes is Senior Project Composition and I’ve asked the two teachers who teach the course, Danielle Morrison (@morrisondani) and Donja Bridges (@donjab), to share their experience of teaching the class.

When we were first approached about teaching Senior Project Composition, a project-based senior English course, we were immediately excited for the opportunity to try something new. We had seen the impact the class made on students, but what we didn’t realize was how much it would impact us as teachers. As a result, it changed the way we taught not only this course, but other courses as well. The following are three things we’ve learned as a result of teaching Senior Project Composition that we feel every teacher can implement.

1. The best method of instruction is oftentimes just getting out of the way.
Trying to teach a project-based course through direct instruction is nearly impossible. With each student doing a different project, most of the course is individualized and student-directed. When we began teaching the course, we had to eliminate the mindset that the only way to teach was to provide direct instruction. We had to begin to see ourselves as “project-managers”, meeting with the students on a regular basis to conduct check-ins, helping the students figure out what they needed to learn next, and providing guidance and support as needed. We no longer needed to be experts in teaching content area; we needed to be experts in teaching students how to self-direct learning. By shifting the focus to teaching students how to learn, rather than teaching content, students were able to learn far more. Getting out of the way doesn’t mean not getting involved; it means shifting from teaching in front of the class to teaching beside the student.

2. It’s not the teacher’s job to make lessons relevant.
In a traditional classroom setting, teachers work hard to ensure that each lesson is relevant to the students. However, with thirty different students in a classroom, it is nearly impossible to make a single lesson relevant to every student. With the increased amount of student choice, it’s the students’ job to make learning relevant. Because the students’ choice makes learning relevant, the teacher’s job is to help them(students) to help themselves tie their learning into the course content.

3. The process offers more than the product.
Students learn more in the process of developing their project than they do with the final product itself. We have had students create amazing products, but we have also had students create products that can be considered “failures”. What we have learned is that students learn just as much, if not more, from the failures as they do the successes. In other words, the quality of their product does not always reflect the level of learning. A major component in our course is students being able to display a “learning stretch”. When we ask our students what their learning stretch is, many of them respond that they have learned better time management skills, how to collaborate with others, and other skills needed to be successful in their futures. Isn’t that what we want students to learn? The process is where the learning takes place; the product is what the students get to do as a result of their learning.

I appreciate Danielle and Donja for giving us a glimpse of the learning process in Senior Project Composition!

Be Great,

Dwight

A Path to Career and College Readiness

Career and College ReadinessA common phrase in education and the news today is “career and college readiness.” Schools have developed graduate profiles, mission statements, and strategic plans to ensure students are career and college ready. However, this really isn’t anything new. We at GLHS, like most schools, have had a focus on career and college readiness for decades. We’ve become more intentional in our efforts and one way is by providing a three hour delayed start schedule for students to take the PLAN and PSAT.

On Wednesday, October 16th GLHS is offering the PLAN Test for our sophomores and the PSAT/NMSQT for our juniors from 7:35-10:25, and an all-day ACT Boot Camp for seniors. Freshmen students will have a specific program that day which will be outlined in another post.

The ACT PLAN is essentially a practice ACT to help sophomore students identify their academic progress and strengths midway through their high school career. In addition, it’s an exploration of career and training options. The results of this test will help sophomore students develop a plan for the next two years of high school to ensure they are career and college ready. So far, about 400 of our sophomore students are registered to take the PLAN. Our goal is 100%, so if you would like your student to participate, please contact the Guidance Office at (614)478-5508 to get more information. There is a $12 fee to take the test.

The Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT) is for junior students. The purpose of the PSAT is to measure students’ critical reading skills, math problem-solving skills, and writing skills. Some reasons why it’s important for students to take the PSAT are to:
• “Receive feedback on your strengths and weaknesses on skills necessary for college study. You can then focus your preparation on those areas that could most benefit from additional study or practice.
• See how your performance on an admissions test might compare with that of others applying to college.
• Enter the competition for scholarships from NMSC (grade 11).
• Help prepare for the SAT. You can become familiar with the kinds of questions and the exact directions you will see on the SAT.” -(CollegeBoard, 2013)

Currently, nearly 340 juniors have signed up to take the PSAT. If you want your child to participate and he/she has not signed up, please contact the Guidance Office as soon as possible. The registration fee is $14.00.

For seniors who are scheduled to take the ACT on Saturday, October 26, we are offering a six hour ACT Boot Camp in the Commons Area on the 3rd floor of Clark Hall. The focus of the camp is test taking strategies and it has a proven track record of improving students’ scores in other Central Ohio districts. The camp costs $45 and it’s facilitated by Test Prep Seminar, an ACT/SAT Prep organization. The number of our students who take the ACT has steadily increased over the last five years so we want to provide another way for them to be successful on this test. Through the Boot Camp, each student receives a workbook with twenty-seven practice tests and detailed answer explanations AND a test-taking strategy guide. Seniors who are interested should register by October 14th. To do so, please return the registration form that was sent to you a few weeks ago along with a $45 check made out to Gahanna Lincoln High School. One of the benefits of this camp is that it’s offered during the school day.

For sophomore, junior, and senior students who are not taking the PLAN, PSAT, or participating in the ACT Boot Camp, first period will begin at 10:35. It’s a normal school day for freshmen who are to report to first period at the regular time.

Be Great,

Dwight

Creativity: Day 1 Reflections from the Jostens Renaissance National Conference

JRNCI’ve attended the Jostens Renaissance National Conference many times and each year I walk away feeling inspired and enthused about my purpose as an educator. While some of the faces in the leadership team are new this year, the foundational principles are still very much alive: relationships, collaboration, sharing ideas, learning, engagement, and fun.

As always, the keynote presenters, featured presenters, and breakout sessions leave the attendees excited to implement something new in their classrooms, schools, or school community. What’s unique about this conference is that about 30% of the attendees are students! Students who attend are either formal or informal leaders at their schools. They are just as engaged as all the educators and bring a certain level of energy that is contagious.

As I reflect on day 1, the word that comes to mind is CREATIVITY. Presenter, Kevin Honeycutt (@kevenhoneycutt), is an expert on meaningful learning and he shared several tidbits of information that piqued my interest. His presentation was creatively engaging and he stressed how we can harness the power of technology and relationships to make learning more meaningful for ourselves and for our students:

“Administrators have to create a culture that appreciates teachers who try new things.” We are all creative and simply need the freedom to put a creative idea into action, reflect on the results, and try again. It’s easy to criticize what’s new and it takes courage to embrace, empower, and enthusiastically share what risk takers are doing. Protect the risk-takers from the naysayers by publicly recognizing, rewarding, and reinforcing this behavior. The result: more risk-taking behavior by teachers!

“Emotion+Learning=Forever Learning.” I think about the most favorite teachers at GLHS and who comes to mind are the ones who make learning meaningful by making emotional connections with the content through song, performance, meaningful projects,by creating a supportive and collaboration classroom environment, and setting high expectations. The students respond by being loyal, working hard for the teacher, and removing any walls that would prevent learning from occurring. As a result, students stay after school for hours and on weekends working together to solve problems, complete quality projects, or to perfect a performance. It’s amazing to see!

“We have to teach kids how to love to learn.” We are all creative in our own way and the more we foster creativity in our classrooms and schools, the more we will inevitably help students to learn how to love learning like they used to in their primary years. This is the type of culture we ought to strive to create!

The keynote presenter, Erik Wahl (@erikwahl), moved the crowd! His story not only resonated with many in the audience, but it was one of triumph. He demonstrated how we can unleash our own creativity and the creativity of our students by learning how to “UNTHINK”. Following are a few nuggets I gleamed from his presentation:

“If we take ourselves too seriously, we block ourselves from performing under pressure.” The ability to perform under pressure not only sparks creative problem solving, but it opens up more opportunities for personal growth and opportunities to help others. I have a tendency to take myself way too seriously at times and it’s during these times that I am less creative, less effective, and become almost paralyzed with insecurity. I look to my Savior, my wife, my administrative team, and my PLN during these times to help me let go and just do. Eric reminded me of this today as shared passionate, creative stories that fed the audience.

“We are capable of so much more than what we have been preconditioned to do.” Mandates, accountability, and standardization squelch creativity. One would be hard-pressed to find an educator who doesn’t believe this statement. However, we have to break through these mandated, or often times, self-made barriers to be remarkable at our craft. This resonated with me becuase it’s one of the reasons I continue to participate in the Jostens Renaissance National Conference and connect with others via social media.

I am still processing all of the events of day 1 and have not settled on specific ways to fully tap into the creativity of our students and staff at Gahanna Lincoln High School. We do, however, have pockets where creative lesson design and learning experiences for students and staff abound, but I want more of it; for the sake of our students and our school community. So, what are you going to do to unleash the creativity in your classroom or school?

Be Great,

Dwight

Blended Learning at GLHS

The concept of blended learning has become a hot topic in a relatively short time. As more states are looking at ways to make technology integration a part of the learning process, blended learning has gained momentum. This momentum has been created because of our need to adapt to a technologically connected and digital world in which we now live.

In June, 2013, Ohio Governor, John Kasich, chose Gahanna Lincoln High School’s Clark Hall to announce his blended learning initiative (Ohio SB 316). We were chosen because Governor Kasich recognized Clark Hall as a hub of blended learning and 21st Century learning. So that we are all operating with the same definition of blended learning, following is how blended learning is described in Ohio SB 316:

“…the delivery of instruction in a combination of time in a supervised physical location away from home and online delivery whereby the student has some element of control over time, place, path, or pace of learning.”

Even though Clark Hall is a model of blended learning today, our blended learning journey began about seven years ago when we had two teachers who designed their courses (an English 11 course and an Accounting course) in such a way that students did not have to attend class every day. They solidified a grant to get a set of laptop computers, designed a course on Moodle, and were free to explore. Students had to earn the right to use flex time (time outside of the normal class period) by meeting the agreed upon standards (grades, attendance, etc.) and they excelled.

Fast forward to the last two years, several GLHS teachers (Ryan Kitsmiller @rkitsmiller, Dwayne Marshall @marshall133, Katie Anderson @kpa12, Fred Donelson @mrdglhs to name a few) have created blended learning environments by using Google Apps or Moodle to house their course content. This fall, five teachers, including two previously mentioned, took a class to learn how to develop an online course. Through this class, they either enhanced their skill or learned to develop an engaging and rigorous course beyond just making worksheets digital. Three of the teachers have recently launched their blended courses. We will soon have several courses where students will have the option to take it completely as an online course.

The key components of blended learning include:
*Connectivity- access to web with a mobile device is essential because it makes learning an anytime, anywhere event.
*Relevant course content-student voice and choice in how they want to learn and present their learning.
*Engaging material, such as videos, blogging, inquiry-based questions.
*Collaboration- the opportunity for students to work together to solve problems and assist one another anytime, anywhere digitally.
*Feedback- teacher and peer feedback on blogs or other web 2.0 sites
*Time Management-students must plan according to maximize their time

Blended learning is not just the future of education, it’s our current reality as we have integrated technology, provided relevant professional development, and created an environment that is focused on learning.

Be Great,

Dwight

The New Ohio Teacher Evaluation System-Updated August 2014

A couple of weeks ago, I spent three days at the Ohio Teacher Evaluation System (OTES) Training with a number of district and other Central Ohio administrators. The days were long, but the information was well presented and the process was very collaborative.

The new evaluation system is based on 50% teacher performance and 50% student performance (growth). Because the student performance aspect of the evaluation is not yet determined, the training focused on teacher performance. I was encouraged by the training because our current evaluation system is very similar to the OTES model. Following are my takeaways from the three days:

· OTES is a GROWTH model to help teachers improve. This is not a “gotcha” framework, but a model that relies on vetted, tested, and analyzed best practices.

· The rubric is a holistic scoring of teacher performance, which means it includes the observation, the pre and post observations, information observed through walkthroughs, PLC/department collaboration, etc.

· The rubric is comprised of three Organizational Areas: Instructional Planning, Instruction and Assessment, and Professionalism.

· Evidence for each organizational area is based on ten standard areas:

o Focus for Learning
o Assessment Data
o Prior Content Knowledge/Sequence/Connections
o Knowledge of Students
o Lesson Delivery
o Differentiation (major definition change for us all)
o Instruction and Assessment
o Classroom Environment
o Assessment of Student Learning
o Professional Responsibilities

· The three organizational areas and ten standards are very similar to our current evaluation system, so this should not be a significant change.

· The model has four ratings: Ineffective, Developing, Skilled, and Accomplished. Proficient is where a vast majority of teachers will be, which is a “rock solid” teacher.

· Every teacher will be evaluated at least twice per year, once per semester. Teachers that earn “Accomplished” will be evaluated every other year, while “Ineffective” teachers will be evaluated three times a year.

· Every teacher will have a plan. It will either be a growth plan (developing, skilled, or accomplished) or an improvement plan (ineffective). Again, the purpose is to help every teacher improve.

· Pre and post conference are best practice for the most effective way for us as educators to reflect on the planning, teaching, learning, and assessment process. Personally, I thoroughly enjoy the post-observation conferences I have with teachers.

· It’s extremely important for us all to learn the language of the rubric so that we are on the same page in terms of expectations. We should start having informal and formal discussions about this now.

· During the post-observation conference, we are to focus on two areas: reinforcement, which is a celebration of what went well and then refinement, which is an area for improvement.

Linda Romano, one of the OTES trainers, made two very profound statements about how OTES will impact the role of educators:

“The highest priority of professional development is helping teachers get better.”

“Helping teachers get better is the greatest priority of an instructional leader.”

I truly believe these two statements capture what most districts are about. This will help us have an even greater focus on instruction, learning, planning and assessment. Don’t get me wrong, this is probably one of our greatest challenges we face due to the number of evaluations we have to do. However, we are up for the challenge! Feel free to share comments, questions, or concerns.

Be Great,

Dwight