This is my first trip to the WINNS site, and outside of the painfully long waiting periods, I really enjoyed looking at much of the information. For my first glimpse I focused on the WKCE data and found that we performed about where I expected to. What I was surprised to see is a decrease in our proficient/advanced numbers over the last 5-6 years. It has not been a constant decrease, but it looks to my untrained eyes like a decrease. You can see it HERE.
The next step was to identify the why and my first instinct was to look at the sub groups of race or economic status. The first race/ethnicity probably has not had an impact, while our numbers of students in the Hispanic and Black categories have increased our overall number is still very small and therefore has had a negligible impact on our data.
The second group, economically disadvantaged has grown, and what I noticed was that their scoring has dramatically decreased over that time. It would seem to me that with a group a little over 10% of the overall population decreasing significantly would have the effect of bringing down the overall score slowly, but surely.
Now, there could easily be other, more significant reasons to our decrease, but the fact remains, our economically disadvantaged students are being left further and further behind. Now I suppose we identify the problem, solving it should be easy right?
Last point: We don't really do this in our district. My feeling is that we go on and on about being a data driven district, but I don't recall ever being shown meaningful, straight forward data that made any sense to me. I liked this. I found value in this exercise. I couldn't say the same thing when we have had PD's using data in the past. I wouldn't say we are data driven, but I think I would like to be, as long as we become good drivers.
Friday, May 21, 2010
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Leader?
This week's blog deals with leaders in a building, specifically me. Am I a Leader? How do I Lead? Why do some people Lead while others Follow?
The simple answer is that yes I am a leader in my school.
The long answer says not yet.
Am I involved in decisions? Yes.
Do I take active roles in professional development? Yes.
Do I participate fully in committee activities? Yes.
Do I share my views on issues that face my school? Yes.
Do some people value and consider my advice on issues? Yes.
Do I lead our building towards positive and real change? Not yet.
It is this final not yet that results in my long answer being the way it is. I don't view myself as a leader because I have not yet led anyone or any group down a road to positive change. I have been a partner in bringing change, but I would not say I was the catalyst, or the leader. There is hope for me yet, it is early in my career. I'm confident that if I can carry out the visions and plans of my mind I can become a leader in my building, but that is still future tense.
With my current projects in progress for PLP and my MEIT proposal, I see no reason for them not to be ideas that could lead to significant change in our building for both students and teachers. If they are successful and spread, then I would feel more comfortable with the label leader.
My PLP project involves creating online presentation portfolios (sample) for students to reflect and share their work and learning with teachers, parents and other students. Our school previously had these in binder form, and we are actively working to improve the process and bring it and our students into the web 2.0 era.
My MEIT proposal has been discussed in other blog posts, but I feel like it will do for me, as a teacher, what the SLC does for students. It puts my work out there for others, it allows me to collaborate with peers, and it allows my students to expand their understanding of curriculum and their world simultaneously.
As I mentioned before I am excited about both of these ideas. I know it will be a lot of work and there will be setbacks, but I'm excited nonetheless. The last statements go for being a building leader as well.
The simple answer is that yes I am a leader in my school.
The long answer says not yet.
Am I involved in decisions? Yes.
Do I take active roles in professional development? Yes.
Do I participate fully in committee activities? Yes.
Do I share my views on issues that face my school? Yes.
Do some people value and consider my advice on issues? Yes.
Do I lead our building towards positive and real change? Not yet.
It is this final not yet that results in my long answer being the way it is. I don't view myself as a leader because I have not yet led anyone or any group down a road to positive change. I have been a partner in bringing change, but I would not say I was the catalyst, or the leader. There is hope for me yet, it is early in my career. I'm confident that if I can carry out the visions and plans of my mind I can become a leader in my building, but that is still future tense.
With my current projects in progress for PLP and my MEIT proposal, I see no reason for them not to be ideas that could lead to significant change in our building for both students and teachers. If they are successful and spread, then I would feel more comfortable with the label leader.
My PLP project involves creating online presentation portfolios (sample) for students to reflect and share their work and learning with teachers, parents and other students. Our school previously had these in binder form, and we are actively working to improve the process and bring it and our students into the web 2.0 era.
My MEIT proposal has been discussed in other blog posts, but I feel like it will do for me, as a teacher, what the SLC does for students. It puts my work out there for others, it allows me to collaborate with peers, and it allows my students to expand their understanding of curriculum and their world simultaneously.
As I mentioned before I am excited about both of these ideas. I know it will be a lot of work and there will be setbacks, but I'm excited nonetheless. The last statements go for being a building leader as well.
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Free the Ning. Or discount if for educators.
Yesterday I was excited to hear the new Ning report on what their new pay structure would look like. Now that I write this, it seemed like a lot of people were excited to find out, I bet they got a lot of traffic yesterday. Anyway, I was pleased to read that some version of Ning would be provided for free to educators. My initial reaction was positive.
You can see from this tweet, that I was initially excited. Just look at my face for proof. After the fact though, I was a little more skeptical.
The Ning that seems like it will be offered for free is the bare bones minimal option, which is not the same as what many of us have become accustomed to since whenever you started using Ning. Problems for me with the free version are the 150 members, no grouping, no interaction with social media. That is the direction I wanted to go with Ning, and why I and my students liked it so much. You can see the side by side comparison here. As I looked at the different levels I can see that the version I would be interested in and would best meed my needs is going to cost me $20/month, or $200/year. That's not cheap. I would really need to have my act together to go in that direction. It also seems like for education the cost is going to be significant enough to discourage many from trying it out. That's too bad.
My only hope is that when we see the effect on educators the $200 dollar option can be brought down to something that is closer to my budget ability. I'm hopeful, but not holding my breath.
Ning Planning to Remain Free for Teachers - http://nyti.ms/cPiI7Y
Jason Symes
jmsymes
You can see from this tweet, that I was initially excited. Just look at my face for proof. After the fact though, I was a little more skeptical.
The Ning that seems like it will be offered for free is the bare bones minimal option, which is not the same as what many of us have become accustomed to since whenever you started using Ning. Problems for me with the free version are the 150 members, no grouping, no interaction with social media. That is the direction I wanted to go with Ning, and why I and my students liked it so much. You can see the side by side comparison here. As I looked at the different levels I can see that the version I would be interested in and would best meed my needs is going to cost me $20/month, or $200/year. That's not cheap. I would really need to have my act together to go in that direction. It also seems like for education the cost is going to be significant enough to discourage many from trying it out. That's too bad.
My only hope is that when we see the effect on educators the $200 dollar option can be brought down to something that is closer to my budget ability. I'm hopeful, but not holding my breath.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Culminating Proposal Assignment
My focus has temporarily shifted in the last few days away from my portfolio, to the culminating project proposal that we have recently been assigned to write. My sense initially is that I'm pushing myself, but at this point I don't really really know. For the project I'm planning on trying to start the roots of a network of teachers for my subject area. I know there are already these networks out there, but for the most part what I've seen are big discussion boards for lesson plans and resources. I want to create a network of collaboration. I'm looking for a small group of teachers to occasionally plan with, have students partner with students, and function as an audience for our independent work. My goal is to get five teachers and their students to join and participate in this network.
This is the part where I feel I've bit off more than I can chew. First, I don't have any contacts. For me right now I'm a bit unsure of how to make them. The second part I see as a challenge is that some place is going to need to serve as our networks hub, and I'm guessing a big part of that is going to fall on my shoulders.
I have a couple of leads:
1. Langwitches Around the World in 80 Schools
I'm going to need to scour this list for potential contacts and perhaps send out some emails.
2. I take students to D.C. at the end of the year, and the company I travel with also employs a lot of teachers of middle school students, so I'm hoping they can help me out, but we'll see.
3. I know a few people in schools in the area, who can hopefully point me in the direction of teachers of like mind and curriculum.
By a few people in schools in the area, I'm mostly talking about my wife and you, reader. If you know a teacher of social studies in your school with maybe 7th or 8th grade students, I would appreciate your help. Or even if you have a cousin who knows a guy, who gets his hair cut by a lady, who has a son, who goes to a school with a social studies teacher who would be interested I would still appreciate the lead.
You could email me any information to jmsymes@wolfmail.stritch.edu
Thanks for your help, or at least reading.
This is the part where I feel I've bit off more than I can chew. First, I don't have any contacts. For me right now I'm a bit unsure of how to make them. The second part I see as a challenge is that some place is going to need to serve as our networks hub, and I'm guessing a big part of that is going to fall on my shoulders.
I have a couple of leads:
1. Langwitches Around the World in 80 Schools
I'm going to need to scour this list for potential contacts and perhaps send out some emails.
2. I take students to D.C. at the end of the year, and the company I travel with also employs a lot of teachers of middle school students, so I'm hoping they can help me out, but we'll see.
3. I know a few people in schools in the area, who can hopefully point me in the direction of teachers of like mind and curriculum.
By a few people in schools in the area, I'm mostly talking about my wife and you, reader. If you know a teacher of social studies in your school with maybe 7th or 8th grade students, I would appreciate your help. Or even if you have a cousin who knows a guy, who gets his hair cut by a lady, who has a son, who goes to a school with a social studies teacher who would be interested I would still appreciate the lead.
You could email me any information to jmsymes@wolfmail.stritch.edu
Thanks for your help, or at least reading.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
555 Portfolio
My biggest question that I've had with this project is what am I going to do with it, when I leave the friendly confines of Cardinal Stritch? I'm assuming that I'll be able to transfer it to my regular home version of Google Sites, but that's an assumption, and we all know what happens when you assume. Can I save it, move it, use it, because if I can't then that's going to put a serious damper on my enthusiasm. I say that honestly, because I am pretty excited about this idea. Especially after seeing that all my artifacts don't have to come from my Stritch work, they can come from my work work. I'm excited to share and put out some of the work that my kids have done. I'm proud of the products they have created with me. This year I've enjoyed, perhaps more than ever some of the new ideas we've worked on. I'll show you one here,
www.7oreligion6.pbworks.com
www.7oreligion4.pbworks.com
It is a wiki that each section of my class worked on after our religion unit. WARNING: It is not perfect, it is clearly the work of 7th graders, who were new to religions, wikis, and deadlines, but it is still pretty cool how they came together to create something. While there are things I'm not particularly pleased with how each wiki turned out. I am happy with their effort, and I'm convinced that this was a good first step for them to take in this area of content and delivery.
I have some other projects that I'm excited to share on my portfolio, but I haven't gotten permission yet from some students.
Final Note: I have some pretty good luck generally, things typically work out for me in the long run. This year I've been pretty down on myself because I started a Ning with my class, we were enjoying it, the kids were excited, but I've failed as a Ning master. I guess I wasn't quite ready or prepared to implement it, then today this link came across my Twitter page. Ning is no longer going to offer free sites. While I still consider this a failure on my part, I don't feel so bad about it, because I wasn't willing to pay for it. It feels like I'm even Steven.
www.7oreligion6.pbworks.com
www.7oreligion4.pbworks.com
It is a wiki that each section of my class worked on after our religion unit. WARNING: It is not perfect, it is clearly the work of 7th graders, who were new to religions, wikis, and deadlines, but it is still pretty cool how they came together to create something. While there are things I'm not particularly pleased with how each wiki turned out. I am happy with their effort, and I'm convinced that this was a good first step for them to take in this area of content and delivery.
I have some other projects that I'm excited to share on my portfolio, but I haven't gotten permission yet from some students.
Final Note: I have some pretty good luck generally, things typically work out for me in the long run. This year I've been pretty down on myself because I started a Ning with my class, we were enjoying it, the kids were excited, but I've failed as a Ning master. I guess I wasn't quite ready or prepared to implement it, then today this link came across my Twitter page. Ning is no longer going to offer free sites. While I still consider this a failure on my part, I don't feel so bad about it, because I wasn't willing to pay for it. It feels like I'm even Steven.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
The Portfolio Continues
I'm on spring break this week, but in my own self interest I've been trying to move ahead with the portfolio project for my most recent class. This week I've created vision and mission statements, as well as identified standards that I will be holding myself to. The mission and vision were difficult in that I'm pretty comfortable with the values that I aspire to in my class, but finding a concise, less than cheesy way to communicate them can be hard. I spent the better part of an afternoon writing, watching a movie (Ali), then going back to do some editing, more Ali, and finally finishing up the assignment. If you want to take a look at what I finally came up with, they are here. I would appreciate any feedback. If you could care less about my portfolio you can watch a great movie intro to a period in history. Even after this exhaustive editing/movie watching experience, I'm still not 100% comfortable with the writing.
The second part of the project has been to identify standards that you work with, then supply artifacts that demonstrate your competency in them. I went with the NETS standards for both students and teachers and I'm beginning to have my doubts. The problem I'm having is I view these standards as a goal for my classroom, so as a result I don't yet have artifacts to demonstrate some portions. Or the artifacts I do have are from my class, and not so much the Stritch program. I need to get in touch with the professor to check on the status of moving forward in this manner. I'm hopeful, because as I mentioned before I really like the NETS standards and feel they offer me more guidance and support than my curricular state standards.
Finally, I'm looking forward to Easter and the end of Lent. This year for Lent I gave up sweets, with mixed success if I'm to be honest, which I think I should be on the topic. I have however done very well in giving up Cadbury Creme Eggs, which are by far, without a doubt the greatest little treat out. Needless to say on Sunday morning and throughout the day I plan on downing quite a few of those delicious little eggs.
The second part of the project has been to identify standards that you work with, then supply artifacts that demonstrate your competency in them. I went with the NETS standards for both students and teachers and I'm beginning to have my doubts. The problem I'm having is I view these standards as a goal for my classroom, so as a result I don't yet have artifacts to demonstrate some portions. Or the artifacts I do have are from my class, and not so much the Stritch program. I need to get in touch with the professor to check on the status of moving forward in this manner. I'm hopeful, because as I mentioned before I really like the NETS standards and feel they offer me more guidance and support than my curricular state standards.
Finally, I'm looking forward to Easter and the end of Lent. This year for Lent I gave up sweets, with mixed success if I'm to be honest, which I think I should be on the topic. I have however done very well in giving up Cadbury Creme Eggs, which are by far, without a doubt the greatest little treat out. Needless to say on Sunday morning and throughout the day I plan on downing quite a few of those delicious little eggs.
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