PD April 26, 2013

Professional Development in the library

Mr. Watson went over the inaccurate PD Dates and Topics handout and then amended the previously distributed agenda. (Yes, a tad confusing).

Mr. Watson then discussed the displacements and expected staffing for next year. We have 19 positions available for next year. 

He then talked about the April 30th meeting and response from the Westwood community schools,  Saturn families, and our school community. 

We talked about how to make sure our sixth and seventh grade students are clear about what going charter means. 

The agenda will look like: 

Watson discussing what it means to be an affiliated charter. 

PACE will help convey that this is a community effort.

One LA will be there, offering translation and advocating for the current feeder pattern. 

Academies will then present who they are. 

We then broke into academies...

April 9, 2013

We are meeting in Ms. Parker's room. We started with announcements. There will be no charter co-location at Emerson next year. Departments need to get supply requests in asap so orders can be made.

Parents: Feldman and Bolinger made some announcements about the message going out about the charter development.

Then Ms. Parker spoke about her manifesto and moving toward a community school.

We then moved into our groups for charter development.

After our meetings we met in grade levels.

March 19, 2013 PD Meeting

We started in the library with Mr. Watson thanking everyone for attending the period by period faculty meetings.

Ms. Farhamand announced that there would be a meeting for eighth graders the Thursday after the break. Also, Ms. Shanley's students will have a special meeting this Thursday.

We then worked in smaller groups on the charter.

PD on Charter Writing

We met in the library after our charter meeting with Michelle Bennett.

Our agenda consisted of Michelle Bennett debrief
Timeline update
Announcement letter
Work groups

Michelle Bennett has recommended an outside writer. We then discussed the meeting with Michelle Bennett and what people took away from that meeting. Ideas mentioned included doing something we are passionate about, improving communication with feeders and parents, clarity and transparency in the process, keeping in mind our dream school, parent role, freedoms in the charter and accountability.

We then looked over Mr. Watson's letter to the community and started looking at Academies. Mr. Watson suggested PLE and SLCs with four different academies.

PD on the Teaching Framework: Self-Reflection

Can you believe we're back? It's been almost a year. Babies have been born and grown, students have graduated and a whole new group of students made their way into our rooms. And yes, we have sat in many a PD but we haven't been blogging.

At the end of last year there was quite a bit of work on the common core standards.

So far this year we have worked through district PDs on the master plan and teacher evaluation systems.

We have explored active reading strategies such as SQ3R and 3Rs. This led to note-taking strategies like Cornell Notes and then writing strategies like Step-Up to Writing.

Today we are looking at the LAUSD Teaching and Learning Framework, but first we had a slew of announcements: Hastings on ESA activities, on GATE training, the CST writing test, classroom moves, and an upcoming science assembly on quantum physics. Also, CST testing will start April 22.

Then we reflected on our levels of questioning in our teaching practice.

My group discussed the various levels of questioning from an SDC class, to English, to PE. Some pertinent questions to emerge, were why the rubric doesn't reflect the various ways students show their learning other than a discussion.

During the ensuing discussion teacher brought up how we reflect on our practice and how a particular lesson might show up differently on the rubric for Standard 3: Delivery of Instruction, Component 3b: Using Questioning and Discussion Techniques. We also looked at how time consuming and often painful engaging conversation.

We then looked at the Individual Growth Plan and specifically the SMART goals which means they need to be: Specific, Measureable, Attainable, Relevent, and Time-based.