January 8 Rise N Shine Ms. Harris

Our Mission:  “Educate students for lifelong learning and responsible living.”

Our Vision:  “Provide a learning environment that promotes and develops academic and

social growth.”

Author of the Month:  EB White
Word of the Month: White  Rise N Shine:  Ms. Harris

• Mon. Jan 8 - Fire Drill P.M. weather permitting.  Mentor Meet and Greet after school.
• Tue. Jan 9 - PLC meetings - Review lesson plans with Standards Based Instruction, Performance Test Review.  Faculty Meeting, 
• Wed. Jan 10 - Regular Day
• Thurs. Jan 11 - Popcorn, Lock Down Drill, '
• Fri. Jan 12 - Quarterly Awards during Specials

Benchmark Literacy - Unit 5.  Unit Assessment January 25th or 26th 

Make Connections - Make Inferences

Asking Questions with Benchmark Literacy:  What level of questions are you asking your students?

• Level 2 “Look Closer!” Questions Answers are right in the text but students need to look in more than one place for the information they need. Questions prepare students to: • Identify cause and effect • Compare and contrast • Identify sequence of events or steps in a process • Identify stated main idea and supporting details 
• Level 3 “Prove It!” Questions Answers are inferred or implied. Students must support their answers with clues and evidence from the text. Questions prepare students to: • Make inferences • Draw conclusions • Make predictions • Analyze character • Identify unstated main idea and supporting details • Use graphic features to interpret information 
• Level 4 “Take It Apart!” Questions Answers require readers to think like the author. Questions prepare students to: • Evaluate author’s purpose and point of view 

Technology Updates:

So what is the most popular read book at Coolidge Elementary?  Bone-Chilling Ghost Stories!  117 students have checked out this book, it was been read 133 times, and  1,595 minutes have been spent on this book.  If you look at the number of pages read then The Grin in the Dark wins with 4,050 pages and 2,171 minutes.  It has been read 75 times.  

Adventure books have been checked out the most with 3,603 books followed closely by Favorite Characters with 3,047.   

Third and Fourth Grade are tied with time spent reading - 530 hours and 44 minutes followed closely by 6th grade with 477 hours.  

As a school students have finished 9,417 books and spent 1,982 hours and 7 minutes reading.

This year students have earned 1,044 Lexia certificates.  At the beginning of the school year 93% (470 students) were working below grade level.  6% of our students (32 students) were on grade level and only 1% (1 student) was on grade level.

As of January 5, 2018 83% (417) students are working below grade level.  15% (73 students) are on grade level and 3% (13 students) are working ABOVE grade level.  

Meeting Usage:

Kindergarten  6%

1st Grade - 71%

2nd Grade - 79%

3rd Grade 71%

4th Grade 92%

5th Grade 34%

Imagine Math - Think Thru Math

Congratulations to Ms. Gorman and her 3^rd Block Math class for being the ONLY OKCPS class to earn a free pizza party through the Imagine Math  Ready, Set …Solve! Contest!!  ** see the full list below

Way to work hard, Crocs!! You are getting smarter every minute!

The Essentials for Standards Driven Classrooms

by Carla Moore, Michael D. Thoth and Robert Marzano

Component 1:  Standards Based Planning.  Chose a standard and map out the smaller learning targets that you will use to get students to meet the standard (these are the activities you use when teaching the lessons associated with the standard).  

Component 2:  Criteria for Success.  Create common, standards-based scales for your lessons.  Performance scales allow students to track their own progress, which encourages them to buy into, and be responsible for, their own learning. 

Component 3:  Instruction.  These are the 13 instructional strategies identified by Learning Sciences Marzano most essential for scaffolding lessons to rigor.  

Component 4:  Conditions for Learning.  Establishing rules and procedures.  Recognizing adherence and lack of adherence to rules and procedures.  Using engagement strategies when students are not engaged.  Establishing and maintaining effective relationships.  Communicating high expectations for all students.  

Component 5:  Using Formative Assessment Data for Instructional Decisions.  Data collection is a good way to get good student feedback, and planning instruction based on that data is a way to continue the feedback loop.  

Component 6:  Collaboration.  Collaboration doesn't only help lighten the load on individual teachers but multiple perspectives lend themselves to multiple insights.  

Crosswalk:

Marzano Focused Teacher Evaluation Model & Marzano Essentials for Achieving Rigor

Marzano Focused Teacher Evaluation Model	Marzano Essentials for Achieving Rigor
Standards-Based Planning
Planning Standards-Based Lessons/Units	Standards-Based Planning
Aligning Resources to Standard(s)	Standards-Based Planning
Planning to Close the Achievement Gap Using Data	·         Standards-Based Planning ·         Using Formative Assessment Data for Instructional Decisions
Standards-Based Instruction
Identifying Critical Content from the Standards	·         Providing Rigorous Learning Targets and Performance Scales ·         Identifying Critical Content
Previewing New Content	Previewing New Content
Helping Students Process New Content	·         Helping Students Process New Content ·         Helping Students Record and Represent Knowledge
Using Questions to Help Students Elaborate on Content	·         Helping Students Elaborate on Content ·         Managing Response Rates with Question Sequence Techniques
Reviewing Content	Reviewing Content
Helping Students Practice Skills, Strategies, and Processes	Helping Students Practice Skills, Strategies, and Processes
Helping Students Examine Similarities and Differences	Helping Students Examine Similarities and Differences
Helping Students Examine Their Reasoning	Helping Students Examine Their Reasoning
Helping Students Revise Knowledge	Helping Students Revise Knowledge
Helping Students Engage in Cognitively Complex Tasks	Helping Students Engage in Cognitively Complex Tasks
Conditions for Learning
Using Formative Assessment to Track Progress	Using Formative Assessment to Track Progress
Providing Feedback and Celebrating Success	·         Using Formative Assessment Data for Instructional Decisions ·         Celebrating Student Progress
Organizing Students to Interact with Content	Organizing Students to Interact with Content
Establishing and Acknowledging Adherence to Rules and Procedures	·         Establishing Rules and Procedures ·         Recognizing Adherence and Lack of Adherence to Rules and Procedures
Using Engagement Strategies	·         Using Engagement Strategies when Students are Not Engaged ·         Managing Response Rates with Question Sequence Techniques
Establishing and Maintaining Effective Relationships in a Student-Centered Classroom	Establishing and Maintaining Effective Relationships
Communicating High Expectations for Each Student to Close the Achievement Gap	Communicating High Expectations for All Students
Professional Responsibilities
Adhering to School/District Policies and Procedures	N/A
Maintaining Expertise in Content and Pedagogy	Collaboration
Promoting Teacher Leadership and Collaboration	Collaboration

Classroom Management Techniques: 

Secret Admirers and Classroom Management

A simple activity can reduce friction in a classroom by guiding students to focus on each other’s strengths.

By Elena Aguilar
December 15, 2017

Although my first year of teaching was more than two decades ago, I clearly remember how my second graders returned from Thanksgiving more settled and focused. I was teaching at a public school in Oakland, California, and as December began, I was hopeful, energetic and increasingly confident about the learning routines I’d established in my class. Yet cliques had formed among some of the girls, and too often kids were not nice to each other. Another teacher had given me a book called Tribes, a guide to building a safe and caring learning community in the classroom. I wholeheartedly adopted it.

Committed to addressing student dynamics, I found an activity in Tribes to try out. One day in our morning circle, each student drew the name of a classmate and became that person’s secret admirer for the day. The rules included that you couldn’t tell anyone which name you had chosen, and you had to observe that classmate all day and find behaviors to appreciate. At the end of the day, we squeezed back into our tight circle on the rug, and students revealed the person they’d been watching and shared appreciations: “Oscar gave Manuel his soccer ball during recess,” and “Lizette walked quietly to lunch,” and “Billy helped Tomas with math.”

Secret Admirers: A Simple Yet Powerful Activity

As students offered and received appreciations, their expressions shifted and revealed pride, joy, and connection. I was surprised at how astutely these 7-year-old children had observed each other, identifying specific, admirable behaviors in a classmate who may or may not have been their friend. When we debriefed and wrapped up the activity, Tomas asked if we could repeat the activity the next day, and the whole class echoed their approval. “Sure,” I said. “Why not?”

At the end of the second day of secret admirers, I got the same request. “Why can’t we do this every day?” asked Elizabeth. And so we did. Day after day, the kids pulled names from the hat. Sometimes we had “challenge days” where everyone drew two or three names. Other days were “Me too!” days—students also had to identify their own behaviors for which they wanted recognition. We created and posted lists of the student behaviors that kids were most proud of or most liked observing—those reflecting kindness, cooperation, personal responsibility, courage, and so on.

The day before winter break started, we reflected on the school year. I told them that during the break, I’d be planning for the rest of the year. I asked what would they like more of, or less of, and what suggestions they had for our class overall. The secret admirers activity was unanimously endorsed. “All year!” they chanted. Oscar, who had to exert a great deal of energy to regulate his behavior, said, “I love coming to school now, and every day I think, ‘I can’t wait to get caught doing good things!’” “OK,” I said, “we’ll keep doing it.” Their cheers attracted the attention of my colleague next door.

As I observed their excitement, I noticed that my behavior chart on the wall hadn’t been used in weeks—not since before we’d started this routine. I’d always had mixed feelings about this classroom management device—every time I asked a student to turn his or her card to orange or red, it only seemed to exacerbate his or her behavior, and the element of public shaming made me uncomfortable. When I walked into my classroom on the first day after winter break, I took it down.

In January, my students settled back into school routines, and I held my breath in the hopes that all would continue to go smoothly. And it did. Secret admirers continued throughout the year. The kids didn’t seem to tire of it, and the behavior chart never went back up. It was like a switch had been flicked in my classroom and the unpleasant interpersonal behavior between students declined considerably. Our community felt good. At the time, I didn’t know why this activity worked so well, but I was thrilled to be avoiding many of the classroom management challenges that my new-teacher colleagues were dealing with.

A Shift Toward the Positive

Some years later, I learned why the secret admirers activity worked: We focused on strengths, assets, or bright spots. This is an extensively researched approach in psychology, organizational change management, and neuroscience. And researchers in all those fields agree that focusing on the positive not only feels good but works when you’re trying to change or want others to change. If there are factions or tensions I sense in a group of adults I’m working with, I’ll use secret admirers or other community builders to surface the strengths and assets in the group. Whether you try this with toddlers or teens, or even adult learners, know that some may resist at first, but as with any activity or teaching strategy we give a go, keep at it, reflect after, and modify if necessary.

As you reflect on how this fall has been and how you might want to start next year, consider opportunities to focus on bright spots—in yourself, in your students, and in your community.

Growth Plans in I-Observation – Mid Point Check.  I will be completing MidPoint Checks by January 25th.  Remember this is a "learning year".  Next year Growth Plans will be required for all staff (unless something changes).  

Go to Growth and Plans.  Make sure you have Completed the Action Steps on your Growth Plans. 

Thank you for all you do.

Melissa

To Develop Every Child Into a Reader:

• Everyday a child reads something they choose to read.
• Every child reads accurately
• Every child reads something they understand.
• Every child writes something that is personal and meaningful daily.
• Every child talks with peers about reading and writing.
• Every child hears an adult reader read fluently.

Coolidge Elementary Academic Goals for 2017- 2018

• All Students WILL achieve academically.
• Reading:  Increase reading proficiency by at least one grade level, and know their current F & P level.
• Math:  Increase math achievement by 10% with 80% mastery of math facts on grade level.  
• Writing:  Increase writing proficiency by 15%
• Student Attendance:  Increase student attendance to 98%.
• Increase Faculty Attendance to 98%

OKCPS Literacy Standards

          1^st Grade

          2^nd Grade

          3^rd Grade

          4^th Grade

          5^th Grade

          6^th Grade

OKCPS Math Standards

          Pre-K

          Kindergarten

          1^st Grade

          2^nd Grade

          3^rd Grade

          4^th Grade

          5^th Grade

          6^th Grade

Melissa Brett | Principal

Coolidge Elementary School | Oklahoma City Public Schools

5212 S. Villa, Oklahoma City, OK 73119

(405) 587-2800

(405) 208-1581 (cell)