domingo, 7 de octubre de 2018

October 8, 2018

KARCHER STAFF BLOG


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Kudos
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  • Thank you Jon Nelson for assisting this past week and filling in for Ryan Heft.  There was a lot of behind the scenes going on and we appreciated the help!  Jon will be filling in for Ryan through Wednesday with Ryan coming back on Thursday, October 11!
  • Kudos to staff for doing a great job participating in the safety training at the high school this past week.  We will be conducting a similar training at Karcher during our October 26 inservice day for just Karcher staff.  
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Video this week:  How to know what to believe
Great for all classrooms, especially our Social Studies classrooms.  

 Great, short, article to assist our students...

Teaching Learning-to-Learn Skills

Teachers can accelerate their students' learning by explicitly teaching them learning-to-learn skills, said Bobb Darnell, director of staff support services for District 214 in Arlington Heights, Ill. "We typically call these study skills," he said, "but actually they're learning skills."
According to Darnell, research and experience have shown that high-performing students tend to 
  • Establish goals.
  • Determine essential information.
  • Find patterns and "chunk" information.
  • Plan and manage time (prioritize).
  • Seek help when necessary.
High-performing students also use efficient memory strategies, Darnell said, such as "distributed practice." For example, when memorizing words for a spelling test, a good student won't attempt to learn all 20 words in one night. Instead, she will memorize six words the first night, another six words the next night, another six words the following night, and then memorize the last two words (and review the most difficult ones) the night before the test.
When teachers teach all students to use these kinds of strategies, Darnell said, they see improvement in student performance within just a week or two. These strategies can be taught as early as 2nd grade, he added.
Darnell emphasized that learning-to-learn skills should be taught concurrently with content, not as an add-on. "Research shows that people don't pick up on these skills unless they're taught in the context of content," he said. For example, teachers can teach the skill of comparing as students learn about photosynthesis, he suggested, or they can help students master note taking as they learn about transition statements.

Skills Are Lacking

Too often, students lack these learning-to-learn skills, Darnell said. When teachers discover that students lack strategies for academic learning, they tend to blame the students—"You should know this already"—or lower their expectations, he said. For example, some teachers accommodate their students' inability to grasp textbook readings by giving them handouts and study guides, rather than teaching students how to extract information from a textbook chapter.
Although some teachers may think it takes too much time away from the regular curriculum to teach these strategies, they will save time in the long run if they do so, Darnell contended. "You may spend more time up front, but you will accelerate the learning once students get the strategies," he said—whereas remediating eats up far more time.
People don't realize the impact that teaching students these strategies can have, Darnell asserted. "A child who studies yet fails thinks: ‘I'm dumb, the teacher is dumb, this task is dumb,'" he said. These students come to believe that their failure is unchangeable and see themselves as "helpless victims." They are reluctant to take risks in the classroom.
However, if these students are taught learning-to-learn skills, they develop "a sense of self-efficacy," Darnell said. By using these strategies, students gain a deeper understanding of content and are "more empowered to take risks in learning," he said. "They get hooked on improvement."

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Information/Reminders
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  • New information regarding custodial staff on-call outside of school hours. 
    • After 3:00 until 6:30am in the morning and throughout the weekends there is a district number to call if you notice any concerns within the building.  It will not always be Harvey as they are rotating who is on-call at night and on the weekends.  But to help with consistency for staff you are simply able to use the same phone number and then the custodial staff on duty at that time will respond to your call.  
      • Phone number to call:  262-930-3038
    • If no one responds then call myself or Ryan Heft.
  • Monday, October 8 - Student Council field trip to Camp MacLean. 
    • Departing at 7:45 and returning at 2:30 
    • Stephanie Rummler and Brad Ferstenou will be sharing the list of students attending.  
  • Monday, October 8 - K-12 Essential Skills Committee meeting in the Karcher library from 3:45 - 5:15 
  • Tuesday, October 9 - iTime groups... using these groups still. 
    • Teachers... if you are doing any rotating of students please change your names at the top to reflect where each group of students will be located for the main office to know.  
  • Wednesday, October 10 - PLC in the library focused on understanding and learning more about our iReady data as a team.  
  • Friday, October 12 - 7th grade School Forest field trip.  
    • Departing at 10:00 and returning at 1:30.  
    • Questions... ask Barb Berezowitz or Andrea Hancock.  
Looking ahead... 
  • Tuesday, October 16 - Parent/guardian/teacher conferences 
    • From 4:00 - 7:00 in your rooms.  
    • Please send out an email to families via Skyward inviting them to come in.  Those of you that are coaching or assisting with the basketball game make sure you let your student's families know that you will be in your rooms after 5:30 if they want to see you (if that is the right time to tell them, for example).  
    • This will be an open conference setting for the duration of conferences where you can meet with one parent/guardian at a time with seating available in the hallway for parents waiting.  This is how I explained it in the parent/guardian blog.  
    • There is a referendum meeting then at 7:00 in the Karcher library that I encourage you to inform families about as well.  

Pictures from this week! 
8th grade Danish Invasion!
















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