Rainshadow Community Charter High School Vol.

III Issue 4

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To Do L Accred Battling Upcom e ist Review m 1 itation 2 2 4 5 5 5

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Attendance, Attendance, Attendance! How Incentives are Impacting the School

students more at 8 a.m. than we were prior to this incentive. Individual classes have made great strides. Overall, the freshman have averaged 70% attendance. The juniors with English first have improved their attendance from 35.5% in week one to 55% in week four. The juniors with history first have improved from 33.75% in week one to 74.3% in week four. The seniors with English first have improved from 58.75% in week one to 61$ in week four. The seniors with math first had 80% attendance one day, and are hovering around 50% attendance on average. Finallly, the sophomores with science first started at 53.75% and improved to 65.3% in week four. Overall, there have been many successed. Whats Great About This?! In looking at how we are progressing as a school, we should make it our goal to have at least 70% attendance in the morning. We are improving. Often, we think that interventions we choose to implement wont work. It is clear that this is working. Keep being positive with

What the Data Shows From the Last Month Rainshadow has implemented an attendance incentive over the course of the past month. Random rewards and incentives have been distributed, as well as a class by class competition to win treats every Thursday. Overall, the data has shown schoolwide improvement. The first week of the program, attendance for 8 a.m. throughout the school was 52.25%. After the fourth week, attendance at 8 a.m. has been averaged at 59.44%. That is an increase of over 7%. On average, we are bringing in 7

Rainshadow Community Charter High School

2012

Creating Empowered Community Members Through Real World Education As staff and faculty, we work hard to expose students to a variety of experiences in the local community. We want our students out learning from the world and feeling empowered to have an active voice in changing the world. Our students should be out there getting their hands dirty and their minds active as they grow as young adults.

To Do List For This Staff Development...

22 January 2012
your students. Find ways to recognize these improvements! Success breeds success. Watching Students Throughout the Day In addition to the attendance incentive, we are also monitoring attendance throughout the day. If a student comes to school, then misses one or more class, he/she will attend a detention during lunch. This detention is a focused one, and the structure begins with having students write a letter to their parents. It also allows for time to set personal goals. As an added bonus, more students are eligible to earn credits because they dont want to have a detention and therefore are getting their absences excused. We are all doing a better job of taking good attendance as well. Beginning second semester, students who come to school late without an excuse will also be on the lunch detntion list. Each student will have 24 hours to make sure they get the tardy excused, or else they will lose their lunch priviledges, and will have a focused detention with the administration. For all of these incentives and penalties, the key is that the focus is very specific. The only

AYP and the Achievement Steering Committee (Steve West) Leadership Team Upcoming Events (Alissa Wilmet) Curriculum Goals: Positive School Climate Ideas and Attendance Incentives (Toby Wiedenmayer) Accreditation Review (All Staff)

Benchmarking the School, Intervention Time (All Staff) Student Engagement and Motivation (Toby Wiedenmayer) Eliminating Barriers for Learning (Alissa Wilmet)

reason students currently get detention is related to making up time for missing classes. In addition, we may add in the fourth quarter tardies to this list of reasons to get a lunch detention, or refocus time. Math Academy Rainshadow is implementing a new program this spring. It is a program meant to intervene on student difficulties and phobias with math. The ultimate goal is to support students to pass their math proficiencies. The system will be highly incentivized. Students will be able to earn rewards for participation in class, being the most improved in the class, having the highest scores in the class, and even completing homework in class. Accreditation Review Rainshadow is in year four of the accreditation process, and as it is the start of the year, its important to review some of our goals for this year. We have achieved many of these goals already, yet it is time to evaluate how well we have met the goals and what we can do to improve them further. Take a look at the above chart and think about what weve done already, and what we still need to do. The key areas of focus from 2

a curriculum standpoint include: 1. Improving the rigor of the portfolio system, including some inter-rater reliablity measures on our portfolios. 2. Enhance interdisciplinary units so that the focus is on higher level thinking (Depth of Knowledge, and finishing the matrix for the four-year Rainshadow plan.) Improvement is an ongoing process, and one that we as a staff and faculty are consistently working to improve. That is what makes Rainshadow such a dynamic place to work. As you have time, please feel free to e-mail me your curriculum and portfolio changes so I can update these items in our curriculum matrix. Thank you all for all your hard work! We have certainly come a long way! What we are working toward will both be helpful to the school as well as the accreditation process. If you are new to this process, check out the Northwestern Association of Accredited Schools. You will gain some insight into the accrediation process, which we will be undertaking in a year.

Student Engagement: A Review of Battling Boredom Battling Boredom is a short text that features some engaging activities that will help you to reengage your students. The book features strategies to begin a lesson, to end a lesson, strategies for independent and group work, strategies for partners and small groups, strategies for movement, and finally strategies for reluctant learners. It is available for download to all Rainshadow teachers. An important feature of student engagement is student learning time. Honoring the time that you

have with students, and valuing what you are planning to do with your class, are important concepts to ensure that your students see the importance of your class. Structure your class in such a way that you have many smaller activities in your repertoire that get your students to be more actively engaged. Some Tips to Try Get up, out of your desk, and greet students at the door. Be engaged in them, as opposed to your computer or whiteboard. If you feel comfortable, try shaking hands or smiling and giving good 3

eye contact. This shows the students you are genuinely in the moment, and ready to devote the next 60 minutes to them. Be ready with something right at the start of class, something that gets them thinking. Whether it is a journal prompt, or an activity, finding ways to immediately engage students will help tune them in for the rest of your class. Plan specific strategies, activities, lessons, and techniques to engage a variety of learners. Demonstrate enthusiasm about the content being learned. as

well as the methods for learning and instruction. You should exude a genuine belief that the learning and the content are valuable and meaningful. Make learning authentic. Communicate to students the relevance of the material everyday. Students want to learn material that is relevant to their lives, interests, and future. Celebrate successes, big and small. Success breeds success, and it can be both catchy and motivating to students. A couple of great strategies that you can put into your next lesson: 1. Relay races: on index cards, write some questions/problems/ vocabulary words. Students will be placed into teams. Cards will be in the front of the room at a table. On the go, one student from each team goes to the table and brings a card back to be solved. When it is solved, the instructor checks the card and the student can go back for a new card. Game is over when the first team gets 5 cards correct. (This strategy employs movement, collaboration, teamwork and competition, and student choice.) 2. Whats in the bag: Instructor places something related to the objective of the lesson in the bag, and presents the bag to the class. Instructor then asks students what they think is in the bag, after revealing the objective of the lesson. Finally, class can play 20 questions to figure out what is in the bag.

3. Find my rule: On index cards, write words that relate to the subject of your lesson. When class begins, have each student select a card and sit down. When you wish, you can state find the rule at which point students will select one other person with whom they believe their card is most strongly linked. Partners can discuss, and then share with the group. This strategy can be modified in many ways, such as placing a constraint on the groupings. As important as it is to begin a lesson strong, it is equally an art to end a lesson. Here are a couple of ideas to help you end your lesson: 1. Whos missing: On a post-it note, note card, or similar, have students write a note to students who have missed the class with the key points of what they missed. 2. 6 Words or Less: Students will brainstorm key learning points and their own thoughts for the day, and try to write a sentence that describes what was learned. After the sentence is written, they will try to condense the sentence to 6 words or less, and share. 3. Ticket Out and Muddiest Point: There is always something in a class that may not be clear. This is your students chance to share their issues with the lesson in an anonymous way. They can write their muddiest point on an index card and give it to the teacher as a ticket out. This will provide instant feedback to the instructor. 4

Take a look at the strategies in this book as tools for you to combat boredom. Keep your students moving, active, and engaged. They will be more focused on your activities.
Battling Boredom: 99 Strategies to Spark Student Engagement by Brian Harris. 2011. Eye On Education.

Using Anchor Activities to Keep Students Engaged Sometimes no matter how youve planned your activities, it seems there are still those who finish early. One method to both eliminate this issue, and to hlep students become more engaged in the unit, is to incoporate an anchor activity. An ANCHOR ACTIVITY is a strategy that allows students to work on an outgoing assignment directly related to the curriculum that can be worked on independently throughout a unit or semester. An anchor activity is a logical extension of learnign during a unit, an elaboration of important goals and outcomes that are tied to the curriculum and tasks for which students are held accountable. There are many ways to do this. One of my favorites is to create a student choice board, or a tic-tac-toe board, or assignment menu. All are similar. On a grid, develop several activities related to your unit. (Try thinking of the different learning modalities when creating.) Students can choose between the options on the menu to personalize the learning experience. The activities can be activities they only work on when they have completed the daily assignments.

Upcoming Events:

February
20
Presidents Day

22

January
22 27
Professional Development Day

End of Third Quarter, Half Day

March
5
Professional Development

Student Art Opening Night at Hobson Gallery

6-8

HSPE Testing

Technology Apps and Sites

Cool Apps! (many with websites as well.)
Toontastic: Students can create their own cartoons while learning about story maps. Awesome! 7 Billion: What will our world look like when we reach 7 billion people? National Geographic special with articles and images related to this concept. Color Uncovered: Exploratorium exhibit focused on how we see color. Fun for a class starter. Youth Group Games: Team builders galore! Check it out for descriptions of all kinds of team building experiences and ice breakers.

Dont Sweat the Small Stuff...

Remember You Become What You Practice Most

Repeated practice is one of the most basic principles of the meditative path. What you practice most is what you will become. So, if you practice compassion, patience, kindness, humility, and peace, you can continuously bring forth those qualities from within yourself.

Pearltrees: Create mindmaps of your favorite webpages organized by theme and Likewise, be careful what you topic. Embed these maps on your website! practice. Be conscious of your

Cool Websites
10 Great History Lessons: http://zinnedproject.org/posts/12353 Math Skills in Science Lessons: http://go.hrw.com/hrw.nd/gohrw_rls1/ pKeywordResults?HS5%20MW-TOC Geometry and Algebra: www.geogebra.com 10 Minute Lesson Plans (Eric Jensen brain-based lesson planning tool): www.10minutelessonplans.com Real-Time Classroom Updates to Parents: http://snappschool.com Online Textbooks for Free!! (all subjects): www.ck12.org/flexbook/ Sierra Nevada College Classes, lots of resources!: snceducation.weebly.com

own habits and thoughts towards what you do and how you do it. Be aware of your motivations and intentions. Envision yourself to be the best teacher, and see how you can make that happen, and you will be just that. After all, practice makes perfect.
Carlson, Richard. Dont Sweat the Small Stuff and Its All Small Stuff. (1997).