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I’m taking four classes this summer, ed research, teaching models, teachers as leaders, and leopold and loeb (an elective I know nothing about yet)

Even though the classes are online, I’ve decided to stick to a time schedule as if they were an actual class. A schedule will keep me on track. I’m targeting an hour a day at minimum.

I’ve expanded this idea a bit to include personal goals into my schedule. I’ve added home repair for the busy professional, technology and art, and Phys Ed. These classes meet daily for at least 1/2 hour.

Here’s my report for the week.

Home Repair week 1:

fabricated a odd sized switch plate cover for the living room.

installed an outlet for the kitchen computer and TV nook, this cleaned up a mess of cabling that was running to a wall outlet.

layout for new office closet organizer and desk unit have begun.

Tech Art week 1:

This week has been focused on getting the lab back in shape, purge, purge, purge….

Work has also started on RV restoration, the camper has been popped and a plan of action is being developed.

PE week 1:

I’m a little behind in this class, I’m still having a little shoulder trouble. I did get out for a short walk each day.

Rio Week 1:

Still in getting started mode, I did complete a journal entry from an article I found very interesting:

Week 1 – Going beyond state exam scores to monitor student learning

I’ve been in the classroom for 14 years and one thing I’ve learned is that the tides of staff development are controlled by the funding source du jour. We’ve been a high school that works, a a highly effective school, there are others models we’ve tried. Same ideas, new name, different meeting. I was impressed by some of the grounding factors in the interview with Calhoun. She opened the interview by addressing my biggest apprehension of a new staff development model. How do you find a common and obtainable goal as a staff? Calhoun mentions a process I’ve seen over and over in a building with high performing teachers.

“Part of the problem is that a faculty wants everyone to be satisfied, so the school ends up with five or six goals. I’ve seen as many as 11 goals in a school improvement plan.” (Sparks)

The faculty in our building are expected to function as an island 90% of the time. When were brought together in a staff development activity we have a hard time functioning as a team and reaching consensus. As a result we end up with goals that appease the vocal and invested minority while the majority begin to loose interest as they realize that it’s going in the same direction as the last staff development model.

I feel that as a staff we’re guilty of not seeing the big picture, obviously we all want to increase the performance of our students, but how is this best approached? Calhoun makes the following statement:

“There’s a concept I call “seeing through and beyond,” which means looking at all the changes that will be required. The faculty needs to look through the learning goal to the student performances the teachers want to see; teachers need to consider what successful goal attainment would look like for students.” (Sparks)

I agree that this is an obvious and important concept, but the needs of our students are very diverse. It’s an interesting exercise to look at the concentration of different learning styles in a career technical (vocational) high school. Our population is unique and I think that individual staff members have a hard time finding direction. I think if we focused on seeing through and beyond more we could develop a short list of goals that would serve all students. I feel that it’s easy to “loose the forest for the trees” in these situation.

I also liked Calhoun’s approach to using research to reach consensus on goals. It’s common to find an article or journal placed in our mailbox. It will usually have a hand written message in the margin “attn. staff please read before our next staff development meeting”. The information is usually sound, and makes a good sermon for the service. The process Calhoun describes looks to content experts and takes their suggestions and allows the staff to find the “gems” within. This research is then run through a “sieve” in the form of structured response sheets. I think this helps get staff members to invest themselves in the process and clarify values as a team. It transforms the passive acceptance of the data to an active process where individuals have to participate in the goal setting process.

The crux of the article was in the sampling period, how often do we look at data. Do we have to wait until next year? No, look to a single grading period. look to a specific unit of study. These are the critical first steps in reaching the goals that have been set. The idea is a simple one that we use in the classroom every day, take small well thought steps and then stop to look back at what you’ve done. Did it work? Yes? Take another step. Working with small samples of data will create the change that will help the bigger picture goals like state test scores.

Sparks, Dennis (1999) The singular power of one goal: Interview with Emily Calhoun Action researcher narrows focus to broaden effectiveness.
JSD, 20(1), 1-4 from http://www.nsdc.org/news/jsd/calhoun201.cfm