School: Multidisciplinary Student Service Organization

What if "school" expanded to a multidisciplinary student service organization that included learning experiences, therapies, recreation, the arts, and health/dental care? What if your child attended a campus-like educational organization where he/she could learn the basics, problem solve, engage in meaningful projects, get his/her health needs met, participate in the arts, and engage in recreational activities? What would this school look like? How would this benefit children, families, and the community? Is this a vision we want to embrace?

Who Does What? Seeking Synergy

Sometimes in the school house, there can be finger pointing. We can wonder why he/she didn't do this/that when needs and opportunities arise. When this happens, there typically is a realization that more or better can be done and a quandary about how to do that. It's much easier to finger point, blame, or expect another to do the task than to truly sit down together and analyze the situation with the questions, Is this need a priority and how can we best synthesize our time, expertise, experience, and effort to meet this need?

Our team is tackling this question with regard to the math program. We have a number of great online/offline resources, experienced educators, and good goals, and the question remains how can we best utilize this rich environment to move students ahead in engaging, empowering, positive ways?

We've begun to draft a service delivery map that includes multiple targeted services and materials including targeted tech work, home study expectations, in-class supports, and learning experiences. We will be thinking more about this synthesis in the days to come. I'm excited about the potential this learning map making and service delivery holds, and welcome any ideas you may have as we grow this approach.

Growth vs Status Quo

Years ago an administrator upset me when he said that we didn't need to change anything since the system was in great shape. I was dismayed by his lack of a growth mindset and view towards betterment. Yet, now as a person who is always looking to make change and develop, I realize it's time to stay where we are for a while with some refinement but no big, big changes ahead. Why?

First, we've worked alongside many colleagues and administrators diligently to make our shared teaching model successful. The model, overall, is a great success for multiple reasons including the following:

• Lots of positive teacher share and collaboration
• Good results with regard to learning/teaching measurements
• Overall happy students
• Engaged families who all share a common program for their fifth grade children
• A positive schedule and routine focused on good priorities related to teaching/learning
• Good, deep curriculum and learning experiences

Rather than make any big changes right now, I'd like to take a few years to refine this model by digging into the current curriculum and refining it, updating the learning environment/routine as needed, and deepening our collaboration and collective efforts more. 

Sometimes it's okay to improve the status quo rather than make big changes, and I'm feeling like that's a good direction now. I have a chance to think about this with colleagues soon during an upcoming professional development day. I'll be interested to hear what they think. 

Teaching/Learning Priorities: November 2017

Unlike other years, the curriculum is the least of my concerns this year as I'm always eager to dive in and update curriculum efforts to meet students' needs. This area of school life is going very well. The challenge lies in the teaching/learning environment and procedural/administrative tasks. So as I look ahead, here are the jobs to do.

Teaching/Learning Environment Updates
In the days to come, I'll rework the STEAM center, math supplies area, general supply areas, sign-in area, classroom library, sports equipment, and files areas. I'll try to do a little each day.

Procedural/Managerial Tasks
I'll reorganize the files and desk area to support better completion of all these expectations.

Curriculum
I'll continue on the good path set for math teaching/learning, and start our new science study as time permits for planning and execution.

This is a truly classroom-focused year with lots of needed time to update systems, organization, and materials to teach well. Onward.

Materials Management

Part of a classroom teacher's job is materials management. With today's multiple ways of teaching and learning, we use lots of materials. I'm fortunate to have a healthy supply of paper, pens, whiteboards, markers, colored pencils, tape, science materials, math manipulatives and more. I thought I had a fairly good organization system going, but as my past posts have pointed out the addition of more students and less support, has me rethinking materials organization. Someday soon when I get a burst of good energy, I'll spend several hours reorganizing the set-up to better organize and manage all these good materials for student learning. Onward.