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"

New Teachers - Day Two

Day two - we have everyone back - plus one.  Today we are focusing on instructional routines and brain based learning. The objectives include:

• learning brain based strategies
• identifying strategies to boost retention
• applying active participation techniques to engage more students

We strongly believe that schools need to develop and use a common language of instruction.  Our training stresses the importance of naming the strategies, describing the strategy, and determining how (and when) they can be used.

Today Lenny will be providing some really good content on brain based learning; with most of it based on David Sousa's work.  See Lenny's Brain Based Wiki for more resources.

Some of the strategies we will demonstrate today include:

• Give one, Get one
• Clock Partners
• State Changes 
• Response Boards
• 5-4-3-2-1 Countdown - to refocus the class
• Interaction Sequence

More information and strategies can be found on our Craft Knowledge Wiki.

Lynne will provide training on how to use twitter and the subsequent clients and how to use hashtags as a search tool.

The agenda for the day can be found on the EIS13 Wiki.

Clock Partner Discussions

Table Discussions

Lenny demonstrating how to group students

EIS - Day One

This is day one of our new teacher training - the "Effective Instruction Series" (EIS).  We have 36 teachers who are new to their districts - some new to the profession - some with experience.  This is one of the best experiences we offer and are proud to have teachers from the following distrticts:
Centennnial
Crete
Dorchester
Exeter-Milligan
Friend
Heartland
McCool Junction
Milford
Seward
Waverly
Wilber - Clatonia
York


The objectives for today are for participants to understand:

• who is in the class of 2013
• the importance of building relationships with students
• the structure and goals of EIS
• "The Art and Science of Teaching" as a framework of instruction
• Technology tools - specifically Kidsblog for reflection

The goals for the series are for participants to:

• Utilize assessment, reporting, and grading practices based on current research and literature.
• Utilize instructional routines and strategies based on current research and literature.
• Implement classroom management practices based on current research and literature.

More information can be found on our EIS Wiki.

Chris and Jake  getting into the blog

Andee - flamboyant is the word!

Melissa will be teaching Spanish at Waverly

New Administrator Day

We are having a great day with the administrators new to ESU 6.  Our team is hosting a get to know you day that is proving to be very successful.  

We have three goals for today:

Build relationships with new administrators

Showcase ESU 6 PD Programs

Provide resources for an effective start to the school year

Let's introduce the folks that are in attendance:

• Alyson Dickinson from Friend Elementary School
• Jessica Dominey from Seward Elementary School
• John Schwartz from Seward High School
• Christine Radcliff from Wilber -Clatonia Elementary School
• Mark Fritch from Wilber -Clatonia High School
• Ross Ricenbaw from Waverly Middle School
• Cameron Soester from Milford High School
• Aaron Veleba from Fillmore Central Elementary School

In addition we are fortunate to have the expertise from practicing administrators lending their knowledge to the day.  Our team of experts include:

• Mitch Kubicek - Dorchester Superintendent
• Laura Kroll - Exeter Milligan Elementary Principal
• Josh Fields - Seward Public Schools Curriculum Director
• Brandon Mowinkel - Milford High School Principal

More information can be found on our wiki page for New Administrators on our Principal Wiki.

Aaron and Mark working with Google Hangouts

Ross and Brandon pretty much have it figured out.

Day Two of ESU 6 Flipped

Full house again today - will be working on some recordings.  Brian Bennett from TechSmith - the creators of Camtasia is showing some cool stuff.

It should be pointed out that the participants get both Camtasia  and Snagit through their registration to the Academy - they should be ready to go!

Screencast O'Matic is a place to start:  http://www.screencast-o-matic.com/ to capture a powerpoint or other screen shot with voice over. However there is a Java plug-in that you need, but very simple to use once I had the plug-in.  There is no editing feature so you are live - not a bad place start - oh yeah and it's free.

Another free one is ScreenR http://www.screenr.com/ - looks simpler to use.

Snagit is another screen capture tool from TechSmith; you can get a 30 day trial at http://www.techsmith.com/download/snagit/  This has more features and editing capability, and I love the way you can take a screen shot, add some captions and automatically add it to a powerpoint.

So the question is what content or processes lend themselves to video recordings?  One idea is to use the recordings for some lower level procedural skill demonstrations.  For example - if kids need to convert measurements for the lesson;  the steps could be made into a video they could watch ahead (or at any time).  Abstract concepts are most likely a bad idea for videos - Lenny elicited a good quote: "don't use video as a hurdle to the benchmark - use it as a step to the first hurdle."  Brilliant.

Now for the main event - Camtasia.  There are so many features - I think it will take some time to play with everything.  But I can see that we can use this to provide some upfront training/information to various groups.  We kicked around the idea of linking videos to our Google Tools training and potentially setting up some modules for people to complete.

The great thing about today is that we had a chance to really work with the tools and put some demo things together.  Oh and spending the day with my wife (see picture below) priceless!

Cindy working on her projects!

The ESU 6 Flipped Academy

We are fortunate to have Kristin Daniels present at our "Flipped Academy".  We have 35 participants which include teachers from all over the state - Dorchester to Bellevue, staff developers from ESU 9 as well as a Wesleyan University instructor.  We even have a grad student that is attending this as opposed to another class!!

Kristin shared the Pillars of Flipped Learning

• Flexible Environment
• Learning Culture
• Intentional Content
• Professional Educator

As I look at the flipped model - one thing that struck me is how it can align with what we are currently doing with the Marzano instructional model.  One of the issues teachers seem to encounter when they flip is pushback from having students access the information outside of class rather than directly from the teacher. "So, instead of teaching, my kid just watches a video" - might be a comment.  

I think to address this - we must design our instruction based on a sound framework.  The MRL model addresses content through the following design questions:

What will I do to help students interact with new knowledge?

What will I do to help students practice and deepen their knowledge?

What will I do to help students generate and test hypothesis?

In a flipped class, the students are interacting with new knowledge on their own rather than with the teacher - most likely with a video.  We still need to use sound principles - such as previewing content, accessing prior knowledge, and chunking information.  So my recommendation is to still utilize sound design when introducing new content;  even if it is through a video rather than a face to face experience.

This is just "flipped 101", so I have much more to learn!

The following links to a google site Kristin provided for flipped learning:

ESU 6 Google Site

The flipped learning network is at http://flippedclassroom.org

There is also a flipped twitter chat on Monday nights at 7:00 using the hashtag #flipclass

Developing a Language of Instruction

Mitch Kubicek from Dorchester is known for how he conducts walkthroughs using a Google Form. Administrators all over Nebraska have latched on to using his form - which collects data on the walkthrough and sends an e-mail to the teacher - really cool stuff.

But it's not the Google Form that makes it work - it is very simply administrators who are trusted by their staff, use a common language of instruction to provide feedback about teaching. This might sound simple, but the process takes time and commitment.

The first step is to build a language of instruction with the staff.  Observation protocols and evaluations fail when they don't include the teachers.  As a matter of fact - don't even talk about observations or evaluations - talk about good teaching.

• Here's how to get started developing a language of instruction (or sometimes called Principles of Learning):
• Get the staff together and talk about good teaching.  You can use a prompt such as "Think about the most powerful learning experience you have had as a learner.  What made it so powerful?" You also might use the Seinfeld Teaching History as a fun way to look at instruction.
• Create a list of good teaching practices - you now have a list that you can put into categories.  The Dorchester list is organized into the following categories:
• Relationships
• Routines and Rules
• High Expectations for All
• Introducing Content
• Practicing Content
• Learning Objectives
• Questioning
• Monitoring Progress
• Engaging Students
• Continue to edit the language with teacher input - you may add things or edit on you own, but keep them in the loop.

The key will be to use the language in walkthrough observations, for feedback, peer observations, and goal setting. 

You can see Mitch's Prezi on this at Collect and Use Data to Improve Instruction