Wednesday, January 4

Today's Content:

• Instructional Strategies for ELLs:  Z Charts and Canva

• Special Education: Teacher Swap in Co-Teaching

• Falcon Way: #WheelchairChallenge and Other Empathy Building

Happy New Year!  And what a year it's been so far! Has this semester flown by as quickly for you as

it has for me?  With Falcon Way and the many other systems we have built up for our students and our campus, it has been a whirlwind.  Many have dedicated their time and effort (did I mention time? and effort?) to make a difference for our kids, and there are countless stories of the changes that are taking root.  I can’t possibly do you all the justice you deserve in my (incredibly overdue) blog post, so I’m just going to hit three of the areas where a lot of work has already made a difference.

Falcon Focus: Instructional Strategies for ELLs

The SIOP team has been hard at work this year identifying and putting into practice several different strategies specifically designed to improve the learning of our ELL students.  Most recently, the team has worked on Z Charts as key strategy.  Several teachers have already used these graphic organizers in all classes to facilitate the reading, listening, speaking, and writing of our students, with a lot of success!   

The best part about SIOP strategies is that they represent best practice for all of our students, providing opportunities discussion, collaboration, and differentiation.   

Most recently, SIOP members used Z Charts themselves to jigsaw the six key SIOP instructional features using Canva (as taught by Rashel Larson last week), Google Slides, and Power Point.  The six key features include:

·       Content Objectives

·       Language Objective

·       Age-Appropriate & Educationally Appropriate Content Concepts

·      Clear and Meaningful Supplementary Materials

·       Adaptation of Content to Student Proficiency Levels

·       Meaningful Activities That Integrate Language Practice

Click on the Prezi below to learn about the six key SIOP Instructional Features and check out the professional Canva graphics created by our teachers.  

If you have any questions about how these features would work in your own classroom, please ask Regina Walker or Mary Terry.

Falcon Focus: Taking Risks in Co-Teaching

Many of our teachers have been working hard is in our co-teach classrooms this semester as well.  Even though our we do not have the ideal co-teach structure in place, the cohort's goal is to create the best possible co-teach environment for our students.  Through our Google classroom, co-teachers are learning more about the six co-teach models and collaborating with their co-teacher on ways to make the models work for them.  A few teams have worked as target teams, opening themselves up to trying different co-teach models in less-than-ideal situations – and making it work like gangbusters!  I’m very excited about the conversations going on in our Google classroom and the resulting learning in classrooms. 

This past week, two of our teachers took it a step farther by doing a teacher swap.  Yes, you read correctly – a teacher swap. 

What's a teacher swap, you ask?  Well, in this case, it was Jonie Dodson and Teresa Davis trading places to gain a better understanding of the expectations facing the other teacher.  With the hope of establishing a clearer path to co-teach collaboration, Mrs. Dodson and Mrs. Davis took a risk and gave up control of their schedules for the day.  In the video below, check out the hard work being accomplished in Ms. Dodson's class, with Mrs. Davis at the helm:

Both teachers appreciated having the opportunity to truly see what some of the constraints are, and gained some perspective.  According to Mrs. Davis, "To step into Jonie's shoes for a day, I realize what she's been telling me...and what most of my other co-teachers tell me...that the co-teach class functions and performs much differently than the other classes, even though it is the same lesson.  So for them, in a very real way, the co-teach class is the first time they've taught that lesson each day."

Building empathy for the others in our building is the first step to true collaboration, and we are well on our way.

Falcon Focus: #WheelchairChallenge

Speaking of empathy, hats off to Sarah Peltier and the Acceptance House for the creation of the #WheelchairChallenge.  We had 9 volunteers so far, and all have told of sore arms, unexpected challenges, and surprise (occasionally overextended) kindness.  

As we continue our work to build the Falcon Way, I hope you've found the challenges to be rewarding and look forward to many more celebrations in the new year!  Enjoy some of the celebrations from the the fall semester in the video below.  (Spoiler alert: There's a video of Mr. V participating in the #WheelchairChallenge towards the end!)

If have any questions or would like some help implementing these or other strategies, please let me know.  And remember...

It's a great day to be a Falcon!