This is an exciting time of the school year: our modified
sports teams are wrapping up their seasons, final concerts of the year dot the
calendar, and our students prepare for end of the year activities and
assessments. It is a busy time of year to say the least.
Last week we had our first official ‘Peer Observation Week’
at WGMS in which teachers opened their doors to their colleagues and people
were able to get into different classrooms to see their peers in action. The
best professional development that anyone in education will ever receive is
observing amazing teachers in action. ‘Peer Observation Week’ was another step
in strengthening our Professional Learning Community and further nurturing our building
culture that embraces the practice of individuals learning from one another,
where instructional support and expertise comes from our colleagues within, and
where people are comfortable to try new things and take risks instructionally. The
feedback from our teachers was very positive and we look forward to making this
a natural part of what we do.
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| Teamwork, competition & sportsmanship #awesome |
Of all of the many things happening in our building, the
most exciting to me are the authentic, meaningful experiences our students are
having in our classrooms. While in classroom the last few weeks I have seen our
students creating a planet project video using a green screen in 6th
grade science, a building-wide service learning project, ‘Project Wildcat’, involving
research and oral presentations for many of our students in mathematics and
reading, authentic research questions driving research for an English and
Social Studies cross-curricular project in 7th grade, engineering
challenges in many of our science and technology classes throughout the
building, and last Friday, the culminating Greek Olympics for our entire 6th
grade. All of these experiences take a great deal of planning on the front end
by our teachers, but are exactly the types of learning experiences that we want
for our students; authentic, relevant and meaningful.
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| Greek Olympic Champions: Sparta |
Thank you for your continued support of our students and
staff. We are looking forward to a terrific month of June ahead!
Continued Success,
Steve Dunham
@Sdunhamwgms
