Thursday, October 30, 2014

Listening to Understand

This past Friday our students had a half day. The half day schedule at the middle level can be a scheduling challenge; do we have super short periods or do we cut certain periods out of the day? Essentially, how do we maximize the time we have and make it meaningful and relevant? On the half-day our focus was exclusively on strengthening our positive school culture with a morning program dedicated to an Olweus Classroom Meeting which included an assembly and classroom activity. Our building level Olweus Anti-Bullying Team has worked incredibly hard over the course of the last three years to incorporate terrific activities and classroom meetings for all of our students and staff. Friday was no exception. It was terrific!

The overarching theme of the morning was that all of us need to start doing a better job of listening to people. And not just listening to what they say. We often listen to others in an effort to form a response to what they say, but we really need to all do a better job of listening to understand. We need to listen with our eyes, listen with our ears and listen with our hearts. As we start to listen to people and develop a true understanding of their perspective and how they feel, we start to build empathy. That is incredibly powerful. And that results in more students and adults standing up and speaking up when we hear, see or feel that something isn’t right or when someone needs help. We are making a difference and our students are stepping up more than ever.

 
Friday Night Hoops
 

On Friday night we had a PTA sponsored school dance and 3 on 3 basketball tournament. It was a terrific evening and a great opportunity for our students to be active and have some fun on a Friday night.  Yes, it is possible to have fun without looking at a screen! We had 27 teams participate in the basketball tournament and an equally large group of students in the cafeteria dancing and jumping around to DJ ‘J9’, one of our physical education teachers who volunteered her time. I am very appreciative of the great turnout of volunteers who helped make this night a success. We had parents, teachers and former students involved in chaperoning, refereeing and doing anything else we needed.  As a school community we will continue to create opportunities for our students outside the scope of the school day.
 

Family Fun Night
Next Friday, November 7th is our annual Family Fun Night at West Genesee Middle School. As we have done the last several years, our West Genesee Middle School staff will be playing basketball against some of our Camillus First Responders representing the Camillus Police, local fire departments and WAVES ambulance. Doors open at 6:30 PM and we jump it up at 7:00 PM. The good news is that emergency responders are actually playing in the game should anyone, like the building principal, need emergency assistance. This has evolved into a wonderful community event to not only bring our parents, students and staff together, but also to recognize and thank the men and women that help to protect and keep all of us safe. We hope to see all of you next Friday.
As always, thank you for your continued support of our students and staff.
Continued Success,
Steve Dunham
@Sdunhamwgms

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Meeting the Learning Needs of All


Over the last few weeks I have had really good conversations with some parents about how we approach meeting the needs of all of our students. In a standards-based classroom of students with a wide range of abilities, strengths and weaknesses, the concern is how do we create opportunities in which everyone is challenged and pushed to grow? It’s a great question and one that those in education grapple with continuously. In a perfect world we would create twenty-five pinpointed lessons that meet the specific individual needs of each and every student walking into our classroom. But there are the limitations of time, scheduling, resources, the need for sleep (now and then), and an array of other obstacles that prevent that from happening to that level all of the time. But, that doesn’t mean we are not meeting the diverse learning needs of all of our students. In fact, I think we are meeting the wide range of needs of today’s students better than we ever have by differentiating what we do and how we do it.
 
Differentiated Instruction
The phrase ‘differentiated instruction’ gets thrown around by a lot of people and everyone who uses the phrase has a version of what they think it means or should mean. Sometimes I think people believe that by just saying “differentiated instruction” we magically meet the learning needs of everyone at the snap of a finger. Just “differentiate” already! It isn’t that simple and there is no magic methodology to making it happen. Meeting the needs of all of our students requires tremendous planning, incredible collaboration, and great creativity and innovation on the part of our teachers. 

Differentiation is about knowing our students so that we can provide opportunities for all of them to learn and grow (not just to get grades…good grades do not necessarily equate to learning, but that’s another blog for another time). It starts with using formative assessment to identify strengths and weaknesses of our students. What are areas and skills that they have mastered and what are areas or skills that they need additional help and practice? Using that as a starting point we can then differentiate how our students obtain information and how they demonstrate their learning. Two of the most common and effective (but not the only) ways that we routinely differentiate is in how we group students within our classes and by giving students choice and voice.
 
Grouping
By occasionally organizing groups of students by learning needs we can facilitate the learning experience by giving each group a different task or inquiry-based question or Essential Question to answer. By changing the type of question and level of rigor associated with the task each group is responsible for, you can meet the diverse needs of all of the students in the room and challenge all of them based on what you know about them as learners. If some students already know the answers to the questions we are asking to most of the class then we can simply ask them a different question. 

Choice and Voice
When we offer students a choice in their literacy experiences (what they read or the writing task) or in the tasks and projects they complete and we give them a voice in their learning, we build student motivation and ownership of that learning. We routinely offer students a few options or even allow them to propose an idea of how to demonstrate their learning. When we give students choice and voice we are empowering students. Their interest and motivation can play a key role in driving their individual learning needs.
 
Differentiation is really about creating opportunities for all students at different times to be truly challenged. Whether it is the finished product they produce or the question that drives their inquiry, differentiation can be both incredibly simple and unbelievably effective for students at the same time. We strive to create opportunities in which all of our students are challenged and pushed to grow. Those moments of struggle are opportunities. Allowing students to struggle, to persevere and support them as needed is critical. It is out of struggle that we often see the greatest growth. All students deserve to be challenged and in order to prepare them for their future they need that.
 
Consistent Practice, Not Lip Service
Great questions drive great conversations. While talking to those parents and explaining ways in which we work to challenge all of our students, my mind instantly jumped to all of the different things I see in classrooms, some obvious and some very subtle, that help all of our students learn and grow. Those consistent, effective practices aren't just ideas in my head, it's actually what happens live and unrehearsed with students every day. What I see on a consistent basis is outstanding, but like any other skilled professionals, we continue to reflect on our practices, look for resources to help us do our jobs more effectively and mix creativity and innovation into our daily practices. We’re really good at what we do, but we're always looking to get better.

Continued Success,
Steve Dunham
@Sdunhamwgms