Let's measure our progress

As you prepare for parent-teacher conferences next week, you might want to have students complete a brief self-reflective piece that will help focus your conversation with parents. An adaptation of a form used by Shalaunda Spencer last year can be found at this link:

http://fhn.fhsd.k12.mo.us/swillott/studentselfeval.doc

It is a word document, so you should be able to access it and edit it to your liking.

This blog is all about sharing best practices, including those that are backed by research. Remember that the first post to the blog dealt with homerooms and getting to know students in your homeroom. Research indicated to the FHN family that a homeroom would be a beneficial addition to the day because students who find an anchoring adult in the building tend to perform better overall. Research also indicated that it was important to maintain homerooms intact throughout the high school years, rather than shifting and balancing numbers annually, in order to maintain a sense of community and the connections built between the students and the homeroom teacher.

The R&D PLC wants to know how your homeroom is shaping up. Have you taken the opportunity to call students over to discuss grades? What has worked for you in homeroom and what hasn't? Has your homeroom developed a focus on improving academics and a sense of community? We want to know how things are going. Remember, you can comment anonymously, if you choose to do so.

Reinforcing Effort and Providing Recognition

Can anyone share some experiences with Reinforcing Effort and Providing Recognition? New ideas are great, but we would love to hear about how you might teach the importance of effort, reinforce effort, or provide recognition of effort or achievement.

A colleague (no one that anyone here would probably know) once told me that he followed the advice he learned in the military (forgive me if I heard this incorrectly or remember it incorrectly)-- punish in private and praise in public.

A quick survey of the classroom walls around the building would reveal a lot of ideas about these topics. How many of us have these quotes on the walls?

"Your 'I will' is more important than your 'IQ'."
"It pays to pay attention."
"It's always too soon to quit."
"'Good enough' isn't."
"Due dates are closer than they appear."
"If you don't take the time to do it right the first time, then you must take the time to do it over."
"Success is measured by effort."
"Success comes in cans, not in cannots."
"A good angle to approach any problem is the try-angle."
"Have you used your brain today?"