March 2

March 2

I heard this on the radio this morning on my way to work. A teacher, Marcey Raymond Kusper, had her students discuss school protests to honor the 17 victims of the Florida shooting. One of her students said, "I think it's stupid. How about you make friends with 17 kids you normally wouldn't instead of walking out of school." She said a great conversation took place in her classroom. Students said smile at 17 people you normally wouldn't smile at, say a kind word to 17 people who might not have someone to speak to, open up your heart to 17 people who might be hurting, offer friendship to 17 people who might have had none. Now that could change the climate of the school. 17 reasons for change . . . 17 reasons to make a difference. What is your 17? I like that slogan. Our students at SV are reporting that students are being mean to them during recesses. How can we teach our students to be kind to each other? BTW this is happening at all grade levels at Suisun Valley :(

Check out this cool report in Illuminate. See Melissa Beck for details. 

Here’s a great info-graphic and acrostic tool to think about high-quality and effective English
learner instruction as you are giving feedback in the lessons you are observing… Thank you
Howard Kornblum for sharing this.

Meta-cognitive learning

English language acquisition (EAL) teachers can enable ELs to adopt the habit of reflecting on the process of acquiring language.  Having students think about how they gain language skills makes them active learners of English and fosters their ability to apply strategies more independently (Hattie, 2012).  Teachers can build this reflection into any activity.

Reading: What strategies did you use to comprehend the text?

Writing: How did you communicate your ideas?

Speaking: What did you do to help others understand you?

Listening: What can you do to understand what others are saying?

These two in-depth articles provide further research that suggests planning metacognitive reflection into instruction.  One is from Teaching Excellence in Adult literacy, and the other is from Prof. Bill Jenkins from the Keck Center for Integrative Neurosciences at the University of California.

We will be evaluating our SPSA at our next staff meeting . Please take the time to look it over so we will be ready to work. We will then gather any feedback to help guide our SPSA plan for the following year =)  I KNOW you're excited about that!!

Here is a link to our SPSA 2017-2018:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B01G0KBLi4LvZU1SQnhGaEo4TGM/view

Observable Fish Moments at SV:

Be There: Be there for your students teach character education every day! It does make a difference! 

Play:  Dr. Seuss day was today! So fun celebrating reading!

Choose your attitude: Have you said anything positive about your students today? A colleague? If you did, let them know :)

Make Their Day:   Make a difference in 17 students lives that you DO NOT know.

THROUGH THE FISH PHILOSOPHY, WE BUILD STRONGER RELATIONSHIPS WITH THE PEOPLE WE WORK WITH, THE STUDENTS WE TEACH AND THE PEOPLE WE LOVE.