No matter how well trained people are, few can sustain their best performance on their own. That’s where coaching comes in.

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/10/03/111003fa_fact_gawande#ixzz1ZRt7mk7T

Dr. Sharon Friesen - Why should we focus on engagement?

It is how people learn best, a requirement for society,a factor in school success, it is in our hands.
Students need to make connections, see patterns. A sudden epiphany - fosters motivation.
Engagement leads to intrinsic motivation; engaged students learn more.
Learning how to learn; learning how to live ethically and respectfully.

Students need to be able to solve real problems; to know they can make a difference in their world
The role of teacher is more important than family background.
Engagement is hard fun.
(Dr. Friesen spoke at the Tell Them From Me symposium September 26, 2011)

Five characteristics of an effective 21st-century educator
http://www.eschoolnews.com/2011/09/09/five-characteristics-of-an-effective-21st-century-educator/print/
One of the most common responses from readers was that 21st-century educators must be lifelong learners … and should be willing to learn not only from their peers, but from their students as well.

Assessment
We are working with the last seven elementary schools to learn Teacher Logic and the elementary report card system.
Condor - Thursday, September 29th at 11:30
Aurora - Thursday October 6th at 3:30
Breton Elementary - Wednesday, October 12th at 3:30
Caroline - Monday, October 17th at 3:30
Eldorado and DCS - Tuesday, October 18th at 8:15
Pioneer?

Student Involved  Assessment

In the medical profession,treatment is tailored to individual patient needs; at times, more than one
intervention is needed to effectively treat a patient.
Similarly, educators need to test mixes of intervention elements to find the ones that work best for students
with different needs.

E F F E C T I V E   S T R AT E G I E S   T O   I M P R O V E
W R I T I N G   O F   A D O L E S C E N T S   I N   M I D D L E 
A N D   H I G H   S C H O O L S
By Steve Graham and Dolores Perin
http://www.all4ed.org/files/WritingNext.pdf

Assessment
 Principles for Fair Student Assessment Practices
for Education in Canada, developed by the Joint Advisory Committee, Centre for Research in Applied
Measurement and Evaluation, at the University of Alberta

Provincial Achievement Test results and Accountability Pillar Survey results are available to administrators on the Extranet.  I hope your staff will have some time on September 23rd to begin looking at this data.  

Galileo
Alberta Education http://education.alberta.ca/admin/aisi/themes/inquiry.aspx
Effective inquiry is more than just asking questions. Inquiry-based learning is a complex process where students formulate questions, investigate to find answers, build new understandings, meanings and knowledge, and then communicate their learnings to others.  In classrooms where teachers emphasize inquiry-based learning, students are actively involved in solving authentic (real-life) problems within the context of the curriculum and/or community.  These powerful learning experiences engage students deeply.

Assessment
Classroom assessment is changing! http://www.teachers.ab.ca/Publications/The%20Learning%20Team/Volume-14/Number2/Pages/Assessment.aspx
New research into how the brain works and how students learn best has helped educators rethink the purpose of classroom assessment and how to make it more effective. Educators today know that assessment is a process of gathering ­evidence of student learning. It is not limited to a single event; rather, it consists of a series of events that take place over time. Although assessment may include formal tests, it more often involves different ways of obtaining feedback on work in progress. Assessment today is less focused on marks and more focused on learning. It involves students at all points along the way.

Smart Learning
 Information Inquiry Approaches to Information and Communication Literacy
The 8Ws of Information and Communication from Virtual Inquiry

• Watching (Exploring)

• Wondering (Questioning)
• Webbing (Searching)
• Wiggling (Evaluating)
• Weaving (Synthesizing)
• Wrapping (Creating)
• Waving (Communicating)
• Wishing (Assessing)         http://eduscapes.com/tap/tap3.htm

Slempie!!
Check out my new post on Blogging:  How to get started. If you want help figuring out how blogging can work for your class contact me and I will gladly come out and give you a hand with planning.http://wrsdtech.weebly.com/pick-of-the-week.html

"The fact is that given the challenges we face, education doesn't need to be reformed -- it needs to be transformed. The key to this transformation is not to standardize education, but to personalize it, to build achievement on discovering the individual talents of each child, to put students in an environment where they want to learn and where they can naturally discover their true passions."
                   -Ken Robinson


Galileo

Isidore Rabi, winner of a Nobel Prize for physics, was once asked why he became a scientist.
 He replied:
“My mother made me a scientist without ever knowing it. Every other child would come back from
school and be asked, ‘What did you learn today?’ But my mother used to say, ‘Izzy, did you ask a good
question today?’ That made the difference. Asking good questions made me into a scientist.”

Smart learningCaine and Caine's (1994) Mind/Brain Learning Principles for the principles with brief descriptions, the longer descriptions, or to Caine's Website for a diagram. The principles are:

1. The brain is a complex adaptive system.
   
2. The brain is a social brain.
   
3. The search for meaning is innate.
   
4. The search for meaning occurs through patterning.
   
5. Emotions are critical to patterning.
   
6. Every brain simultaneously perceives and creates parts and wholes.
   
7. Learning involves both focused attention and peripheral attention.
   
8. Learning always involves conscious and unconscious processes.
   
9. We have at least two ways of organizing memory.
   
10. Learning is developmental.
    
11. Complex learning is enhanced by challenge and inhibited by threat.
12. Every brain is uniquely organized.

The nine brain-compatible elements identified in the ITI (Integrated Thematic Instruction) model designed by Susan Kovalik include: Absence of Threat, Meaningful Content, Choices, Movement to Enhance Learning, Enriched Environment, Adequate Time, Collaboration, Immediate Feedback, and Mastery (application level).




Assessment
With any decision- we must ask ourselves: am I taking the easy road that works for me right now or am I taking the more difficult road that benefits others in the future?
It’s easy… to give a number, letter (grade) or descriptor to a child as a way to mark or judge the work.  It’s more difficult to provide ongoing coaching, descriptive feedback and formative assessment that will improve the child’s learning.   Read more at:  
http://www.connectedprincipals.com/archives/3971


Elementary Schools that have not used teacher logic for their outcomes based report card need to set up a time to have Susan Campbell and myself work with their teachers.  This session takes about 1 hour. It will need to be done before or after school or at noon.  We are not available on September 23 or October 28th.

Meeting Date for Instructional Coaches Wednesday, September 14th 9:00-11:30  Division Office