Monday Memo 10.28.19

Happy Monday!

The character parade was so much fun!  This is such a wonderful tradition at DCE that our students and families love. It could not be pulled off without the help of our office staff that fielded phone calls and questions, our custodial staff that set up sign in tables and also helped lead the parade, our paraprofessional staff that signed in and directed visitors, and our teachers that helped plan and facilitate the event.  The day continued with our 3rd graders enjoying their Field Day, fourth graders presenting their Tacky Tourist research projects, and some first graders learning about genres through a Bakery Book Tasting event.  DCE is truly a great place to be!

Weekly Schedule:

This week is a bit quieter.  Take a peek at the schedule below.  Don't forget your yummy pumpkin treat to share on Thursday!

PD: Element One- Learning Goals, Scales, and Rubrics

Thank you for participating in our first professional development session on Element One.  We hope that the information was helpful.  We have been excited to already see some of you jumping right in to using your new learning to improve student clarity on what they are learning and how they will know when they have learned it.  Many of you have even mentioned that you have started collaborating with other teachers on techniques that they are using and that you are sharing and tweaking ideas too.  This type of collaboration and eagerness to improve our instructional craft is what makes DCE great!  Below are some pictures of element one in action in some of our classrooms!  

Ms. Belous gave standards ladders a try!  Students reflected on their location on the ladder after completing an independent practice problem.  Ms. Belous was able to talk with them about how their success or need for assistance on the problem impacted where they fell on the ladder. 

Mrs. Kisiday also visited in some of our classrooms on Thursday.  She was able to pop into a classroom that also used the ladders.  She asked a student to share why they had three stickers and then another student to share why they only had two stickers on the ladder.  The students were able to explain that they were able to do that level of the skill on their own while the other student still needed more practice of that type of problem.  It was powerful to see these students in control of their learning in this way!

Child Study:

This Thursday will be our next Child Study meeting during your grade level planning period.  Please be sure that your team makes an agenda prior to the meeting of which students need to be discussed.  All students discussed at a Child Study meeting should have a Child Study form completed in EDIS by their teacher.  In addition to talking about specific kids, it is important to use this time to also talk about classroom topics that impact the success of students in the classroom.  Think about having discussion on the following questions if time allows...

• How is our iii time going now that we are a few weeks in?  How do we know that it is going well or not going well?  Are there any particular students that are failing to respond to their intervention?
• How are we supporting students at the high end of our class range?  Are these students demonstrating growth?  Are their opportunities and resources for challenging them to go deeper in the standard even though other students may not be ready to do so?

As you begin to have these types of conversations we look forward to receiving some feedback from you.  Please do not hesitate to let us know what is and is not working for you.  

We hope that you have an amazing week!  November... here we come!

-Keli and James