CHS 20 Second Celebration

Mrs. Hancock, English IV teacher, is eccentric in her methods of engaging seniors. Recently, students read ode to a greacian urn with a focus on visualization. This ode is a praise of a beautiful ancient Greek urn decorated with figures. John Keats personified frozen images: a boy sitting under a tree, a priest leading a cow, old men and young maidens, two lovers frozen in time before a kiss could happen. Students were to work together to bring to life scenes from the urn.

Our period 3 seniors became "frozen statues" representing the visuals on the Greacian urn. Following this activity, Mrs. Hancock had her seniors find evidence of the 5 senses in the ode. Students quoted stanzas, identified which one of the 5 senses, and then justified their responses. Fun and learning was had by all!

Technology Infused

Today I had the honor of see our students in speech put their technology skills to work. Our speech teacher showed students a variety of online videos. Students utilized answergarden.com to note non-verbal body language used by the individuals interviewed. Students saw their answers grow. The top non-verbal body language noted was "no eye contact." A few answers were reviewed with justification provided as a class discussion.
Next, students transitioned to powerpoint to demonstrate learning of non-verbal body language (pictures with explanations). After students completed their powerpoint, each student uploaded their final product to Edmodo where students were asked to view a minimum of two and respond with constructive feedback.

It Says, I Say, and So

It Says, I Say, and So is an instructional strategy for reading and answering questions about any content (core or non-core). This activity can be utlized to make inferences, make connections, and synthesize. Start by having students fold a sheet of paper into quarters labeling each section. (Students love to use colored paper for this activity.)


Step 1 (section 1)
Write the question
(created or provided)

Step 2 (section 2) It Says - What does the text say?
Find information from
the text that will help
answer the question.

Step 3 (section 3) I Say - Restate textual information in your own words.
Think about what you
know about that
information.

Step 4 (section 4) and So - Answer the question in Step 1
Combine what the text
says with what you know
to come up with the
answer.

http://www.readingrockets.org/pdfs/inference-graphic-organizer.pdf

Rethinking the Use of Blogs

Today during staff development administrators were asked to rethink the way we are using blogs and how we are getting our blogs out to others. Many ideas were shared. I have been using blogs primarily as a means to share instructional strategies. Blogs can also be used to brag on students and teachers and to share teachable moments. In regards to sharing my blogs, I currently tweet my blogs. Other ideas are to utlize Pinterest, include link on weekly electronic newsletters, and to include hashtags when tweeting. The possibilities of building your digital footprint are endless. Have fun!

Think, Pair, Share

As we continue our work at CHS to improve the amount (quantity) and quality of student discourse, this week our staff worked on a strategy to implement in every classroom - Think, Pair, Share. During our training teachers were asked to think about the following questions:

Based on the title and images, predict what Think, Pair, Share strategy entails.
Why is Think, Pair, Share important?
How can you make it happen (in your classroom)?
How can it (the strategy) stretch students' thinking?

As teachers answered these questions, the Think, Pair, Share strategy was implemented with a variety of ways utilized to share out.

Three key components:
Think - provide opportunity for individual's to reflect on the question or statement
Pair - provide opportunity for two students to share their own thoughts and ideas (both partners need to share)
Share - provide opportunity for partners to share out with entire class and provide opportunity for other pairs to extend or add to.

Wht is Think, Pair, Share important?

•Students need many opportunities to talk in a linguistically rich environment.

•Increases communication necessary for students to internally process, organize, and retain ideas

•Additional benefits

–Positive changes in students’ self-esteem

–Opportunity to learn higher-level thinking skills from peers

–Extra time or prompting needed

–Gain confidence

–“pair” ensures no student is left out of the discussion

Research has shown three benefit of the Think, Pair, Share Strategies for secondary students:
1. student participation increased,
2. number of long explanations given by students increased, and
3. students confort and confidence when contributing to class discussion also increased (Sampsel, 2013).

The Use of Scaffolds for Teaching High-Level Cognitive Strategies by Rosenshine & Meister

Teaching higher-order thinking continues to be a hot topic in education. This is no different in CISD. This year we have introduced Instructional Rounds. After our first site visit, the CHS leadership team developed a Momentum Plan. Part of this plan requires a "study." We chose the article entitled The Use of Scaffolds for Teaching High-Level Cognitive Strategies by Rosenshine and Meister.

In this article, the authors note that higher-level questions do not occur naturally in the process of instruction. Therefore, higher-level questions must be purposefully plan. At CHS, we have found that planning questions does not ensure the execution or delivery of questions written and documented in lesson plans. Therefore, we have developed questions stems to help teachers move a question at the lower level of Blooms to a higher-level - scaffolding of questions. Each department generate a list to best fit the content area.

After reading this article, teacher were asked to bring 5 keys learnings from the article to discuss within their PLCs.

Red Ribbon Week: October 27-31

Red Ribbon Week is scheduled for October 27-31 at Castleberry High School. Red Ribbon Week is a nation-wide drug prevention campaign and serves as a vehicle for communities, schools and individuals to take a stand for the hopes and dreams of our children/students through a commitment to drug prevention and education. In addition, Red Ribbon Week gives students at CHS an opportunity to make a personal commitment to live drug free lives.
Red Ribbon Week commemorates the sacrifice made by DEA Special Agent Enrique Camarena, who died in Mexico while fighting the battle against drugs to keep our country and children safe. In honor of Camarena's memory, friends and neighbors began to wear red badges of satin. For more about the story behind the symbol and Enrique Camarena, please access the link below.

http://www.defense.gov/specials/drugawareness/rrstory.html