SLC Scheduling - New Insights!

From our research into SLC Best Practices, we have come to understand that one of the biggest challenges schools face when implementing Smaller Learning Communities is scheduling. Traditionally schedules tend to be built more around teacher preferences for courses and prep periods rather than around principles related to quality programming. Recently, key members of the Academy Design Team and the Administration team spent the day with Mike Neubig, widely regarded as smartest SLC scheduling guy around. Mike helped us understand that there are three principles we should prioritize as we move forward in our planning.

COMMON TEACHERS

COMMON STUDENTS

COMMON PLANNING TIME

We were glad to learn that we are on the right track with our design thinking! Focusing on the above three principles will help us ensure that teachers work together to INTEGRATE curriculum and to SUPPORT groups of students. We spent time planning out course sequencing for potential SLC's and discussing optimal scheduling and staffing models. As we went through the day, we had some other KEY insights and recommendations from Mike.

1. A 7 period schedule is key. Mike recommended a 5 on 7 schedule with first period meeting daily, all classes meeting on Monday and three periods (2,4,6 and 3,5,7) meeting on alternating days Tuesday - Friday.
2. For our school size, we should have two umbrella academies with 4 or 5 SLC course sequencing options in each. The 10th graders should be in the academies.
3. We should think of courses in one of three groupings. They are tagged as either a. SLC Pure (only for SLC students) b. SLC recommended (recommended for SLC but others can take) or c. Global Classes (anyone can take).
4. Teachers should be dedicated to the 9th grade teaching teams or to one of the umbrella academies. This will make it easier to schedule both students and teachers.
5. We should avoid halfway implementation - no piloting or having half of our students in academies and the other half not in academies.

Mike will be back to work with us on August 24th and to present these ideas to our entire staff. Before he returns, our Academy Design Team will be reviewing and refining the work we completed on June 21st with Mike with specific focus on course sequencing for each SLC.

Probably the most important thing we learned is that we need to stick to our vision and avoid caving in to special interests that go against the priorities mentioned above. We need to focus on: COMMON TEACHERS, COMMON STUDENTS, COMMON PLANNING and ALWAYS think about what is best for ALL kids as first priority.

Drive: What Motivates Us?

As we begin our journey down the Smaller Learning Community path, our teachers and school leaders have had many rich conversations about how to improve student engagement, attendance and achievement. We see all three factors as critical to student success. One area that has triggered very spirited discussion and more questions than answers revolves around the idea of homework and grades. How do we ensure that our homework is meaningful and relevant? How do we inspire students to do their homework? How should we grade homework? What should we do about students who don't do their homework? The traditional view is that homework is an important way to reinforce academic content. However, recent research does not really back this up. In fact, the only subject where homework seems to improve achievement is Math. Homework advocates argue that homework is a very effective way to teach responsibility and discipline yet some students appear to have a great deal of trouble finding the motivation to do their homework. It's a complex topic with passionate arguments on both sides of the debate. In the spirit of inquiry and furthering our collective thinking and understanding, we'd like to share an RSA Animate based on the work of Daniel Pink, the author of several provocative, bestselling books about the changing world of work. According to his web-site, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, is based on 50 years of behavioral science to overturn the conventional wisdom about human motivation and offer a more effective path to high performance. The RSA animate is about ten minutes long and well worth your time. We hope you enjoy it!

Twenty First Century Skills and SLC's

I love this graphic as I think it really captures and exemplifies how learners, 21st century skills and subject area content can all be fused together to create dynamic programs that produce ethical citizens and engaged thinkers who possess entrepenurial spirit. Through different types of training afforded by our Smaller Learning Communities initiative such as AVID, Project Based Learning, Inclusion, Differentiation and Rigor & Relevance, we will all strengthen our ability to see these connections and to reach our students more effectively. Reactivating and strengthening our Teacher Learning Communities in SY 2011-2012 will really help with this effort. We are currently in the process of designing a professional development plan for SY 2011-2012. Suggestions are most welcome and can be given to department chairs, Beth Pemberton or Lisa Mireles.

Source:http://georgecouros.ca/blog/archives/1948via Alberta Education

Summer Bridge

Goal 1 of our SLC Grant is to provide stronger, "ACADEMIC AND STUDENT SUPPORT INTERVENTIONS FOR TRANSITION TO HIGH SCHOOL.". This year our Summer Bridge program has been redesigned to do just that! Summer Bridge is a 4-week program during June & July for incoming 9^th grade students. The program is designed to ease the transition from middle to high school by reviewing the key “elements” of high school: organization and study skills, mathematics and literacy, and the social awareness needed to succeed in high school. Skills will be brought together in the program as we explore the real elements around us: fire, earth, air, and water.

Summer Bridge Students will:

1. Jump start success by attending high school classes focused on academic, social, and study skills.
2. Earn credit toward graduation.
3. Attend on and off campus activities.
4. Receive introductions and invitations to join various student clubs and organizations.
5. Work with teachers that will help them grow as individuals, as well as students.
6. Get to know teachers and staff members at Kapa'a High School.
7. Gain the confidence and skills to begin freshman year on the right foot!

The program will take place from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. from June 13 to July 11, on the Kapa’a High School campus. Incoming 9^th grade students who want to improve their chances of success in high school algebra by strengthening their math skills and getting a head start on their high school experience. Enrollment will be first come, first served. Enrollment preference will be given to students with failing grades, but all students may apply and everyone can benefit.

Applications are available at Kapa'a Middle School from the counselors. Turn in your application to the drop box in Kapa'a Middle School's main office or to your counselor by the May 20^th deadline. For further questions or concerns, please contact the Summer Bridge Coordinator, Fawn Perry, at Kapa'a High School.

Email: Fawn_Perry@notes.k12.hi.us

Tel#: (808) 821-4400 ext. 175

Have schools forgotten they were supposed to prepare kids for success in the world?

I came across this excellent post from the Innovative Educator and thought I would share it since the author is suggesting that schools move in the direction that our Smaller Learning Community grant seems to be taking us! Here's a brief snippet from the post,

"Why is it that artificial, meaningless-to-real-world tests and grades are the way we think we prepare students??? How about preparing students by providing real-world opportunities to explore careers through internships, apprenticeships, and/or part-time jobs? Why not assess students on their experience and what they learned rather than test them in their ability to memorize and regurgitate facts which in many cases don’t matter and aren’t remembered? "

You can read the entire post here....

Happy Reading and Thinking!

Developing our 9th Grade Program!

Wow! What a fantastic day of professional development! Today’s work was facilitated once again by Michelle Swanson and dedicated to developing our 9th Grade Hui Program. The Hui teaching teams were supported by Vice-Principal Diane Ayre, Counselor Terri Christensen, Special Ed Department Chair, Fred Rivera, our PCNC, Nancy Borilez and Mason Chock from Leadership Kaua’i.

After introductions and questions/concerns were discussed, Michelle shared a Ted Talk by Sir Ken Robinson making the case for a radical shift from standardized schools to personalized learning and creating conditions where kids' natural talents can flourish.

From here, the group jumped into thinking about student outcomes and norms to guide our collaborative work. We broke into teams, brainstormed and reported our findings out to the larger group. After lunch, Michelle recommended that we break into three groups. One would take charge of creating a working draft of norms, one would take a stab at drafting student outcomes and one group would work with Michelle to learn about ConnectEd. They provide a wonderful curriculum mapping tool to facilitate more effective and collaborative cross-discipline curriculum planning.

The student outcome group came up with the following working draft to guide our work. This draft will be refined as we move forward.

Student Outcomes

By the end of 9th grade, our students will:

1. Be active and respectful members of our academic community.
2. Meet literacy standards across all subjects.
3. Have a purposeful sense of direction.
4. Actively contribute to the greater community by completing a service project.
5. Demonstrate self-direction, self-management, self-monitoring and self-modifying skills.
6. Be comfortable using a wide variety of technology tools in an ethical manner.
7. Problem-solve and think critically.
8. Articulate how they are nurtured, supported and valued.

Teacher Norms – The 3 P’s

Professionalism
• Honesty and respect with empathy
• Communication and interaction with humor
• Honor each other’s strengths and challenges
• Limit Multi-tasking

Preparedness
• Structured planning and collaboration
• Spirit of collaboration with a sense of purpose to contribute to the group – “Giving Your All”
• No complaining without solutions
• Step Up/Step Back: No Hogs or Logs

Purpose
• Establish Expectations
• The heart of our work is guided by the best interests of the students.
• Consensus drives decision-making keeping the mission of the Hui in mind.
• Meaningful Meetings


As the day drew nearer to a close, we began some rich discussions about how we would frame our program by coming up with agreements in the areas of assignments formats, student materials & organization, homework and late work policies, and classroom behavior norms/expectations.

Michele closed the day by sharing a new lens through which to view curriculum planning and design in order to better achieve our college and career readiness goals for our students.

Much to think about and consider but we finally feel like we are taking concrete steps and moving from talk to action. We are really hoping Michelle can come back and help facilitate the continuation of our work on our two planning days scheduled for May 16th and 17th. Mahalo to all participants for an inspiring and productive day!

Academy Design Update

Today we were fortunate to have our Academy Design Team spend the day working with Michelle Swanson, our SLC Design Consultant. She started the day by asking us our burning questions and issues, which ranged from “How does Math fit in to all of this?” to “How do we decide which academies we should have?” Michelle then gave us an overview of key issues that we will have to consider moving forward including the following:

1.Defining our structure for 11th and 12th grade is only 30% of the battle. The other 70% includes improving instruction. In most schools there is too much low level input and not enough high-level output. How do we know our students are passionate about learning?
2. Maintaining a focus on rigor & relevance. We need a curriculum that does not hold anyone back while not letting anyone fall through the cracks. At the same time we need to teach kids that both effort and ability matter. In high school, we tend to reward just effort and then students get to college and drop out when they realize effort isn’t enough. They should be able to demonstrate the skills and knowledge needed to succeed before leaving high school.
3. SLC’s are about college AND career readiness, not one or the other. We are developing SLC’s to ensure that ALL students are ready for BOTH college and careers.
4. We need to be thinking big. We have never really asked teachers to think outside of the box, their classroom or their department before. This is tough work.

After some discussion, Michelle then walked us through our six CTE pathways against the academy certification criteria set out by Linked Learning, an organization that supports the development of academies. Together we analyzed whether or not each existing CTE pathway at Kapa’a High School met the criteria in the areas of:

1. Enrollment - Does the pathway have enough students enrolled in it at this point?
2. Personnel - Do we have the staff to expand the pathway and offer a full academy in this area?
3. Kaua’i Office of Economic Development Target Industry Clusters - Are the programs in the pathway aligned with these clusters (Food/Agriculture, Energy, Arts, Technology, Sports & Recreation, Health & Wellness)
4. Partners - What are the potential and existing partnerships with local colleges and businesses?
5. Projects - Is there potential for interesting, student-led projects?
6. Connecting Subjects - What other subjects could support this academy?
7. Pathways - What other CTE pathways could support this academy?

After this exercise, it became clear to the group that we should start with the four most developed pathways when creating our academies. Our best thinking at this moment is that we would have two broad academies with two main pathways in each academy. The pathways could have more than one program. The two remaining CTE pathways would be embedded into the all of the other pathways for something like this:

	HOPES (Health Occupations, and Public, Entrepreneurial Services)		IDEAS (Industrial Design, Engineering, Arts & Sciences)
Primary CTE Pathway	Health Services	Public and Human Services	Arts & Communication	Industrial & Engineering Technology
Program (s)	Health and Wellness	Hospitality & Culinary Arts	1. Fine Arts 2. Performing Arts 3. Digital Media & /Graphic Design	1. Auto 2. Building /Drafting 3. A+
Connecting Subject Areas	Science PE JROTC Health Business	Science Social Studies Business	English Social Studies Business	English Math Science STEM Business
Partnerships	Mahelona Wilcox UH American Red Cross	KCC	KCC Hoike HMSA Business Partners	KCC Cisco
Kaua’i Economic Cluster Area(s)	Health & Wellness Food & Agriculture Sports & Recreation	Food & Agriculture Sports & Recreation	Arts Technology	Technology Energy
COMMON TO, AND EMBEDDED IN ALL ACADEMIES	ENTREPENEURSHIP
	NATURAL RESOURCES/SUSTAINABILITY
	WORLD LANGUAGES

Our steps are for the Academy Design Team to reflect upon and develop this framework more fully. Ultimately each Academy will have a mission and vision statement, a description and course sequencing recommendations from 9th – 12th grade that will include both overall academy and specific program requirements. Once this has been developed, the Academy Design team will present this to the Smaller Learning Communities Leadership Team for review and approval. At the same time, we will also be working with Mike Neubig who is a Smaller Learning Communities scheduling expert on May 24th to ensure that we can indeed make this model work on a schedule. One big piece of successful SLC’s is cohort scheduling. This means teams of teachers and groups of students get to work together in the academies. We will be striving for purity, meaning that students from the same program in each academy will be scheduled together for at least 50% of their day (4 classes on a 7 period schedule) starting in Fall 2012 with our 11th graders.

Our day ended with a visit from Christel from the National Academy Foundation. Christel is friends with Michelle and spent the morning at Kaua’I High School. She shared with us about the possibilities and potential benefits of partnering with the NAF. She is working with several other schools in Hawaii so we were happy to make a connection with her.

All in all a great day and I want to thank everyone for their professionalism, hard work and dedication to ensuring that all students at Kapa’a High School are college and career ready.