http://jc-schools.net/writeaway/vocab.html

http://jc-schools.net/write/deadwords.pdf

Banner County School is currently in the process of developing an updated web page.  As we navigate this process, I am wondering if anyone has any advice about what to include or how to design the page to maximize the potential to improve the educational environment for our students, staff, and community.  Any advice would be appreciated.  Our new domain name will be www.bannercountyschool.org

Currently the site links to our first school webpage.  As we develop a new site, I imagine that we will have a "rollover". 

I hope that everyone is having a great summer!

Travis

When developing your core, common vocab lists, the Marzano book is invaluable.  (Building Academic Vocabualry)  But, if you give the NWEA MAPS tests, also check the Des Cartes service.  It gives key vocabulary words for each of the RIT levels...a big help when trying to align your curriculum and assessment systems.

Welcome to the new Nebraska NWEA User's Group Blog. The notes from the April meeting are posted in the section called "File Storage".  I will ask Jane Stavem from Columbus to post her Spanish version of the Parent Activities page,  if she is willing.  I have learned the hard way that if you click the "Click here to leave the community"--you actually delete yourself from the blog.  Don't do what I did--Use the "log off" to close it totally.

I have found a great source you all might visit to see how you could do similar things in your own school systems.  Remember that we were told about the Poway School System's use of NWEA....their website has a pdf file that tells their procedures--and has some great ideas.  The document is called "The New and Improved Taming Data Tool kit: Interpreting MAP Data for Teachers and Students."  It includes testing and accessing reports, interpreting results, goal setting and lexile tools.  Handy!  My favorite is the "Extreme Academic Makeover Goals"--kid appeal! 

I found it at:  http://powayusd.sdcoe.k12.ca.us/projects/edtechcentral/MAPS/PDFs/9-07%20Toolkit/FinalMAPsToolkit9-11-07.pdf

 The actual document also says it is available at:  http://www.pusdmap.com

 At the same school district I also enjoyed their tech department's support with pictoral directions for teachers on how to do things with MAPS--It even has powerpoints for parent orientation--and a powerpoint about assessment "Of and For".  Look at this site:

http://powayusd.sdcoe.k12.ca.us/projects/EdTechCentral/Training/MAPsGoals.htm

Let's remember that our professional learning community of bloggers is in its infancy.  Yes, we have plenty of room for growing into a more purposeful community.

There are roughly 6.5 billion people on earth, about 2.5 billion in China and India, 300 million in the United States, 1.7 million people in Nebraska, and 90,000 in the panhandle. (please double check my math) 

Let's look at the numbers another way.  We, the population of the panhandle make up 0.00139% of the world population.  That means 99.99861% of people in the world live somewhere else.

In the global society of today, technology, specifically Web 2.0, is a tool for keeping us connected to the rest of the world.

So we may be blogging along with only an emerging, purpose, audience, and voice, but we have taken a meaningful step into the future by joining the professional development blogging community.  Keep the blogs coming

I think that Michelle has a good point about finding meaningful content.  I think that one of the keys to this is that we enter specific keywords when we post so that our posts will be connected to the content we are writing about or need. 

 That being said, I can't help but post one more thing for everyone to scroll through . . . just to make things interesting, I thought I would share my new avatar (cartoonish, online person-thingy) with you.  I saw one of these on the blog site of another school administrator (Melinda Miller) and decided to create one for myself.  You can create your own at www.meez.com or you can click on the following link to see the animated version of mine:  http://images.meez.com/user/4/8/8/6/2/1/5/4886215_bodyshot_300x400.gif   [You do not have permission to access this file]

From the Principal’s Perspective

By Travis Miller

Banner County School recently received a set of posters from the Peter Kiewit Foundation promoting the foundation’s “positive parenting” media campaign.  Several of these posters are currently displayed in the school cafeteria.  However, I realize that many of the readers of the Scratchin’ Post are not able to come to the school and see the messages, so the messages from the Peter Kiewit Foundation are listed below:

• ABC’s Before TV
• Help Them Achieve Their Dreams.  Kids Need 9 Hours of Sleep
• Kids Who Love Reading Live Happier Ever After
• There’s a Reason Pancakes are Always Smiling.  Kids Need Breakfast
• Participation Counts.  Get Involved in Your Kid’s Education
• Share More Than the Meatloaf.  Have Conversations for Dinner

Many of these phrases reflect recent research about the importance of family involvement in education.  For example, by having conversations at the dinner table about what students learned at school, families can help reinforce student learning.  As brain researcher Dr. Robert Sjolseth states, “Without reflection there is no learning, only exposure.”  When students have an opportunity to reflect on their studies and share that information with others, learning is solidified. 

Similarly, the other statements from the Kiewit Foundation correspond to research about student learning.  If you would like more information about any of these statements or would like to discuss how to use this information to support your child’s learning, please contact the school.  As always, if you would like to share success stories about Banner County School or if you have ideas about how we can work together to make our school even better, please call the school or email me at:  travis.miller@panesu.org.

As I glanced at your initial blogs and the meeting minutes I saw that people discussed having "user's group" sessions.  Some that may be of interest in our are are

1.  infinite campus,  2.  Reading programs, 3.  Curriculular models, 4. Math programs

Are these issues that can be handled at a PLACES meeting--or should small sessions be set up that would have specific focus?  COuld DL serve a role so that a very short meeting could be held and people could share issues and solutions and maybe plan together for shared resources?  For example,  the Infinite campus group could meet and one person knows how to do the more complex reports and can teach that to others.  The reading group could meet and could decide to share expenses to bring a trainer to the region. 

Our current structures haven't been able to give much time for this sort of specific needs.

Does anyone want to see that type of specific mini-meetings started?

I should probably add this as a comment to Julie's previous post, but not sure how many people would see it there. One blog site that I am familiar with is LeaderTalk.

The following quote is taken from the "About" section of their homepage.

"LeaderTalk is the first group blog written by school leaders for school leaders. We hope that our insights and resources are beneficial to P-12 administrators and educational leadership preparation programs."

One link from the LeaderTalk page will take you to CASTLE (Center for the Advanced Study of Technology Leadership in Education). This is not a blog site, but does contain links to a few blogs in the left column.

These two sites alone provide access to enough information and links to additional resources to build a solid foundation of blog sites. 

When the STARS project entered our duties as "Curriculum People", it created a time crunch.  A poor non-choice on my part (meaning it just happened without a conscious decision being made), professional reading time was taken out of my daily schedule.  Prior to that, around an hour per day was devoted to reading one article or one chapter of a the book I was reading at the time, or a professional journal is I didn't have a book going.  I'm hoping to use blogging to reinstate some of that professional stimulation in another way, which provides for a new choice....and interesting dilemma.

Which blogs...which communities do we join?  The list of professional journals and books was at least finite, and I knew where to go to select those which would give me the most bang for my buck.  Blog choices, while not yet infinite, appear to be expanding exponentially, and I don't know how to choose the most effective ones for myself.

One thing I stumbled across was the World Cafe Blog (see link below)

http://www.theworldcafe.com/blog.htm

Seems to me the thinking would be cutting edge and creative, so I'll be checking that one out and letting you all know if it was worth the time or not.

Anyone else out there have great suggestions?

I should not have done this, but since Julie is home sick today, I uploaded the meeting minutes for the March 4, 2008 PLACES meeting in the files section of this community. To view the minutes, click the "File Storage" link in the right column, click the "Meeting Minutes" folder, click the "Meeting 3-4-08" file to view the document.

I would like to thank Jim for sharing the evaluation form that he uploaded, and encourage everyone to contribute to the site. The value of this site grows as participants share information. 

 "Staff development needs more follow up."  Yes, it does.  Is your district prepared to make it happen?  Do you have...

1. Scheduled staff development time on school calendar spread out across the school year

2.  A consistent method and scheduled plan for being in classrooms to collect the data of what is happening in the instructional setting (doesn't have to be solely work of principal)

3. A regularly scheduled leadership meeting in which data from the instructional setting and student achievement data are analyzed and used as a springboard for planning staff development (could be the SIP team, should include principal(s), curriculum director, teacher leaders, possibly superintendent)

"Structure is the first step toward organizational maturity."  AdvancEd

Until a district has these structures in place, effective follow up will only be something we talk about.

The minutes of the PLACES meeting were sent out on March 5.  Many of your firewalls block longer emails, or those with attachments.If you did not get yours, let me know.  

Travis, Sandy, Maribeth, Jill, Tom (and who have I missed?)

We're putting together packets of the handouts from the meeting (you missed a good one!) Watch school mail!

In a year from now when we look at our first day of blogging, I wonder what we will think and how we will have grown.

How exciting to be part of community blogging start up.

 Why do I work in education?

-Book report posters that include real mouse poop in a zip loc baggie

-Lists of famous painters including DaVinci, Michealangelo, and Bob Ross

-Explanations such as, " I know the book's genre is fiction because an alien wouldn't wear braces."

I chose to work in education because opportunity for all children is at the heart of our work and because the English major I started out in got too irritating when my interpretation of the Dog poem (that it was about dogs) wasn't literary enough. 

I thought about a new career after six years in this work when I looked around at my noneducator friends who had no college degree who were buying airplane tickects, houses, cars, and clothes.  The newspaper advertised for an executive secretary who could write grammatically correct correspondence.  So after teaching a morning of spring break school to some fourth grade English language learners, I headed to an office building on the classy side of town for an interview.

"How glamourous,"  I thought, "to work in such an impressive looking building, to wear clothes and not be concerned about marker washability, wire notebook snags, or sticky hand prints."  Then I opened the doors.  No love poured out.  No laughter. No original artwork.  By the time I got to the office on the third floor, I was whispering "sucker" everytime I passed those sorry employees in the hall.  Afterall, I had just come from a morning of work where I had seen eyes light up over learning how to use a Spanish/English dictionary.  Who in this office knew the joy of discovering that burgers and mocos were the same thing? 

I went home proud to be in education and still broke.  As if business were really for me anyway.  Estimation is how I balance my check book, I am already looking forward to my tax return, and if the school children need something, I tell someone and they buy it. Besides, education is about kids learning, not money.  Right? 

Last week I went to a meeting of school "finance people." So what I think now is that I need to study up on school finance in addition to personal budgeting. 

To think that finance is separate from school improvement and curriculum is inadequate.  Without knowledge of school improvement and curriculum going into financial decisions, how can we be sure that our money and our teachers are working toward the same end?

Learning for all children is what our work is about whether our specialized knowledge is finance or school improvement and curriculum.

A Bit about Assessment

By Travis Miller, Principal

                As the school year continues into the second semester, we will enter into what many educators call “testing season.”  This is the time of the school year when students will be taking a variety of assessments, ranging from classroom quizzes and tests to state required tests and nationally standardized tests.  During this “testing season” teachers, parents, and students often find themselves frustrated by the amount of time that is dedicated to taking assessments.  However, it is important for all of us to remember that assessment is an important part of the educational process, and there are many purposes for assessments. Therefore, I dedicate this month’s article to the topic of assessment.

What is Assessment?

Assessment is the process of collecting, synthesizing and interpreting information to aid in decision-making.  As stakeholders in the education of the children of Banner County School, it is important that we recognize that there is much more to assessment than simply administering tests to pupils. Banner County School has designed a comprehensive assessment system, which is coordinated across the various grade levels and uses multiple sources of information when important decisions are to be made about students, curriculum, and instruction.

According to the Mathematical Science Education Board, there are three fundamental principles of assessment:

·    The Content Principle: Assessment should reflect the content that is most important for students to learn.

·    The Learning Principle: Assessment should enhance learning and support instructional practice.

·    The Equity Principle: Assessment should support every student’s opportunity to learn important content.

Different Types of Assessment for Different Purposes

The Banner County Public School assessment system includes multiple assessment opportunities to determine what students know and what students can do.  Here is a brief overview of terminology that is often used by educators when talking about assessments:

Formative Assessments are intended to help students and teachers make decisions about instruction. (Assessment for learning)

Summative Assessments are intended to help teachers determine whether students have reached desired levels of academic achievement.  (Assessment of learning)

Norm Referenced Tests (NRTs) are large-scale assessments that are often used to determine student achievement relative to other students at the same grade level.  Often these scores are reported in percentiles or in Rasch units (RIT Scores).

Criterion Referenced Tests (CRTs) are assessments that are used to determine student achievement relative to a “criterion” or goal.  In the case of the state standards tests we use at Banner County School, the criteria are whether students have met the Nebraska State Standards.  Students’ scores on CRTs are often reported in terms of how the student tested in relation to the standard.  Banner County Student results are published as Beginning, Progressing, Proficient, and Advanced.  On this scale, students in the Proficient and Advanced scores are deemed as having met the state standard.

My Philosophy of Assessment

It is my philosophy that assessment is a tool which educators use as part of the teaching and learning cycle.  This cycle is perhaps best described as the relationship between curriculum, instruction, and assessment.  Assessment is a vital link in this cycle, as quality assessments provide data and information which lead to more informed decisions about the education of every student.  In short, quality assessment is critical if we are to achieve our mission of preparing all the children of today for the world of tomorrow.