Thank You For Being AWESOME!
This has been the most unique and challenging opening of the new school year imaginable. Our work and our mission to educate every student continues with purposeful thought and creativity despite the challenges of the pandemic. Each and every one of you has risen to this challenge and you are making a difference for our students. Your courage, your hard work, and your grace under pressure is what makes Venture High School an amazing place for students and adults. You are AWESOME and I thank you for the tremendous effort you are making on behalf of our students.
Moving to Yellow
Finally the day we've all waited for - all of our students physically present in the building every day. As we welcome students back into the building full time it's important that we continue to socially distance students (as much as possible) and ensuring everyone is wearing their masks appropriately. The kids have been pretty good about it, but it becomes even more important as we are squeezed together a bit more. Also, the disinfecting of surfaces needs to continue. All of these factors work together to help ensure that we can keep kids in school, full time for the rest of the year.
Thank you for everything you do to make them feel welcome, connected and safe at school!
Evaluations and Homeroom
At our last collaboration we talked about evaluations being housed in Homeroom this year. Here is a video that Mike sent out to administrators: Homeroom Evaluations Mike produced this for administrators, but I think it helps to clarify the process for all of us. Let me know if you have any questions and I will help to find the answers.
Powerful Teaching and Learning
A powerful, researched-based learning strategy worth consideration is Retrieval Practice which is the process of trying to remember information without having it in front of you. This learning strategy is certainly not new. We've all used flashcards and self-quizzes to learn material, but memorization has fallen by the wayside as we focus on more "active learning." Unlike many of the instructional dinosaurs sent to the strategy graveyard, this one is supported by cognitive research.
Often the first time we ask students to recall information is for an assessment. The student answers questions incorrectly and this is usually the first time they know that they don't know the material very well. Retrieval practice is an instructional tool, not an assessment tool and spacing opportunities for retrieval out over time increases the likelihood that the information will make it's way into long term memory. Practice quizzes or other techniques that require students to remember without looking up the answer prior to the assessment can help them organize information into long term memory that will benefit them for the test and help them build a fact base that improves future learning and thinking.
I have questioned whether this practice runs counter to our efforts to develop a culture of thinking. However, thinking requires that we manipulate information to form new concepts, solve problems, or make decisions. That process is hampered if we have to continually look up information that can committed to memory. For example, simple math problems become unreasonably tedious if a calculator has to be used for simple computations.
Despite our widespread scorn of factual knowledge, research suggests that the more factual knowledge a person has on a topic, the more critically and analytically they can think about that topic. Studies also show that poor readers can outperform good readers when they have more factual knowledge about the topic (https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.494.4592&rep=rep1&type=pdf)
Additionally, the practice of memorizing information helps increase the brain's ability to learn in general. It serves as exercise for the brain. Forcing the brain to retrieve information builds neural pathways which is active learning as opposed to listening, reading, or watching that can be quite passive. If thinking is about shuffling information in new and creative ways, let's not forget the importance of memorizing and learning facts as one component of helping our students become better thinkers.
For more information, check this out: http://pdf.retrievalpractice.org/RetrievalPracticeGuide.pdf or this: https://www.the-learning-agency-lab.com/science-of-learning-research-retrieval-practice.html
Wednesday 9/30 Whole group collaboration: Agenda Dept. meetings;
Thursday 10/1:
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