Social Studies Day

Today we have social studies teachers in for training and discussions about state standards and other teaching ideas.

Harris Payne, the NDE social studies consultant brought excellent resources such as the Standards Instructional Tool (SIT); which links lessons to the standards at all levels.

More information can be found on the following sites

Social Studies NE Wiki
ESU 6 Social Studies Wiki
K-5 Standards Instructional Tool
Middle School Standards Instructional Tool
High School Standards Instructional Tool

Media Network

Lynne hosted a meeting for our media specialists that included great discussion and participation.

Much of the discussion centered around the e-book project; which is a consortium between member schools. The team considered new additions to the collection and processes to improve the e-book project.

The agenda was built by the participants, which really focused on their needs.

Lynne's efforts to make this a success are evident from the collaborative discussions a strong attendance.

More information can be found on the Media Wiki

New Academic Game - Battleship

Academic games are a great way to engage students.  While on some classroom visits, I had the chance to see a new one in a science class by Joel Fritz at Waverly High School - Battleship.

Here's how it works:

• The students play in pairs at their table
• Each positions their ship on a grid - see example below
• They take turns asking questions from flash cards posted on Quizlet - he had 47 ready to go
• If they answer a question correctly they get to guess a battle ship position
• They alternated until one person wins

Here's what I like about this - the focus is on the questions, the actual game doesn't eat up the whole time.  It also allows all kids to play at the same time; too often games can leave kids out as they wait their turn.

Here's a picture of a game in progress:

Principals' Network

We had our Principals in for the final meeting on February 18; with a continued focus on instructional leadership.  April Kelley from our staff did a great job sharing how to have those difficult conversations with teachers.  She provided some specifics about how to deal with "Excuses and Blanket Statements".

I gained a lot of knowledge about how some of our principals are working with their staff to implement an instructional language and to encourage them to try new things in their classes.

Laura Kroll, the Exeter-Milligan elementary principal shared how she uses Google Communities to post challenges for her staff.  For example, one challenge was to share a routine they use at the beginning of class as a bellringer.   This provided staff a way to share in a fun "Challenge" format.

More information about the meeting can be found on our wiki at http://esu6principals.wikispaces.com/

Principals' Leadership Network.

We had an excellent day with principals from ESU 6 today.  We organized the day so we could meet with the elementary principals in the morning and the secondary principals in the afternoon.

Our major question was "How do you discuss, support, and implement effective instruction?"
We had some great discussion and sharing.  You can find more on our Principals' Leadership Wiki.
Our next meeting will be on October 17; with a focus on how to support new teachers.

Here are some of the great minds in action:

New Teachers Day Four

Day Four was a great wrap-up to the first week with new teachers.  Our objectives included:

• investigating classroom management techniques
• determining first day activities
• setting one goal to implement at the start of the year
• communicating with their principal

Dan Ernst, the Executive Director of the Nebraska Council of School Administrators provided a keynote about how to make a difference as a teacher, the importance of building relationships, and servant leadership.

Administrators and building principals had the opportunity to meet with their teachers to review ideas from the training and any other school related information.  We truly appreciate the willingness of our administrators to meet with their new staff AND their continued support of the program.

As always, the information can be found on the EIS Wiki.

The Waverly Crew

Colin provides wisdom to the Centennial bunch.

New Teachers - Day 3!

Day three is all about grading and homework - oh and as always some tech.  Lynne showed how to use google forms and some folks even worked with scripts.

Our objectives for the day were to:

1. understand common grading issues
2. develop a grading philosophy to improve learning
3. develop homework policies to improve learning
4. investigate technology tools

Grading was the central topic of the morning and we probably raised more questions than answers - however the discussion was really beneficial.

Lenny also provided a good session on homework and a lot of information can be found on Lenny's Homework Wiki.

Jill led the group through a tech tool "smackdown" right after lunch.  People had two minutes to show a tool or strategy to the group.  
The following are some of things folks showed:
Remind 101
Glogster
Doodle
Edmodo
Evernote
Prezi

As always more can be found on The EIS Wiki.

The Middle School Group

Marci is excited to talk about grading!

Lynne showing Google Forms

Amanda and Sara playing "homework fact or fiction"