Das Bloggenstein

Well, I added Twitter to my site and if the district didn’t block access from inside the classroom I might update it more frequently. As it is it’s a pain but I’ll see how it works. I’m mainly testing it to see how one would use Twitter as a teacher.

In other news, we are still WASL-ing with one more Reading and Writing test each to go. Part of me wishes that all my students could take their tests with me and there is some research out there that shows that if a student is going to take a test in an unfamiliar environment they have to practice in an unfamiliar environment first in order for it to be effective. However, another part of me realizes that my presence alone is not going to make that much difference and it’s easy to fall into the trap of believing that you are.

Some students are also creating entries for the SLMS Writing competition and those are due May 1^st by 3:00pm. I am giving them some time in class to do these or their own writing project. If they do their own project they have the choice of topic and style, meaning what they write about and how they write it. These are also due on the 1^st and will be scored with the 6 Traits rubric. If a student chooses to do the contest instead of the project their grade will not suffer but I will not be grading their contest entry since that would invalidate the point of having a contest.

DIBELS testing is coming in May and you may have already received some emails from me asking for help with supervision although that is already taken care of by now as I got lots of great responses offering help.

Grades are due next Thursday for the progress report that will be sent home soon after that.

Hooray! As I type this message out the students are taking the SLMS 6^th Grade Writing WASL. These persuasive writing assessments will be scored by all the core teachers next month and next week the students will have an expository prompt to write as well.

This also happens to be the last week that Jaime Skarshaug will be in the classroom as the full time teacher. Next week she goes to Auburn to do her student teaching in a special education classroom and then will go on to graduation. She has been a tremendous asset and will no doubt have no trouble getting a job for next year!

I will be contacting those of you who I have a working email address for to ask if you would like to help with supervision when we do our 3^rd and final round of DIBELS testing the week of May 11-15^th. If you would like to help please email me or reply to this post and I will fill you in with the specifics.

Tonight is conferences night! Today from 5-7 pm in the gym you can find all your students’ teachers and talk about the good and/or the bad. I will be there along with Jaime Skarshaug, my student teacher. We hope to see you there!

Today, on this Friday the 13^th of March, the first round of AR Bookmarks are due. What that means to the students is that they are signed twice, once when they were assigned and once this week, the books they have read are filled in and the points received for taking tests are recorded. If they were not turned in they will show up as missing until they are. You can expect a call home on Monday if they were not completed over the weekend.

In other news the students are taking some time to get acclimated to the WASL as they will be taking it right after they return from Spring Break. This also gives me some very good information on what we need to review. One challenging aspect of the 6^th grade test is that this is the first year the students are tested for critical thinking skills.

On Monday my student teacher, Jaime Skarshaug, will be teaching full time Monday-Friday until April 17^th. She will be sending home a letter about herself next week and I’ll let her post something up here too so look for that then.

Yikes! It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything here, my apologies. I need to build in to my schedule time to write more posts.

Here are some things we’ve been doing, or will be doing, in no particular order:

• New grading scheme: I am in the process of converting from a 100% grading scheme to 4.0 (GPA). The main advantage is that this eliminates the inequality of the F in the 100% scenario: meaning that in with percents and “A” is 10% (100%-90%), a “B” is 10% (89%-80%) but an “F” is 59%-0. In a 4.0 scheme an A=4, B=3, C=2, D=1 and F=0. This also helps makes the average of scores more equal and realistic.
• An eye on the WASL: The WASL is one week after Spring Break, or about 6 weeks away. At this time of the year we are reviewing reading and writing strategies as well as continuing with the Junior Great Books. We will also throw some older released WASL items in to the mix so the students are used to the format.
  • My personal view on the WASL: It’s a good measure of what needs to be taught at any grade level but it is one measure and it doesn’t set the bar very high. I set my expectations and requirements higher than the test in my classes but still keep in mind what the test is testing.
• Accelerated Reader (AR): ALL students have a bookmark which includes their goal they set themselves for AR. It was to be signed 2 weeks ago and they are working on meeting their goal by March 13^th. The next week we will evaluate whether they met their goal or not and adjust accordingly.
• Persuasive Writing: We are finishing up our unit on writing persuasively. The 6^th grade students will be completing our very own SLMS WASL writing prompt and they will be expected to follow the writing process and write to a persuasive prompt.
• Highly Capable Core: Students are working in two different Junior Great Books series: The Ecology Reader and Series 6: Semester 2. They read and answered questions on the first section of the Ecology Reader titled, “What is our relationship with nature?” They will then write a position paper about their agreement or disagreement with a quote from one of the selections they read. They are also reading The Veldt by Ray Bradbury from the other series. After they finish their current project in writing where they are creating a persuasive brochure they will finish the persuasive unit and continue on to the second section of the ecology reader.

Mr. Stockman will be out on paternity leave at least through the 6^th of February, about the next week and a half. Ms. Kim Lee, fellow Fife alum, will be substituting for me along with Ms. Jaime Skarshaug, my student teacher. Any questions during this time should be directed to them.

Our new little boy was born Tuesday, January 27^th at 6:20 AM. He weighed 9 lbs. on the dot and is 21.5 inches long. He is a cute little boy but nevertheless we anticipate many sleepless nights as he gets used to his new home.

Here are the totals by class. AR is not the best system but it does show me who is reading and comprehending and who is not.

Core 1:

• Goal: 25
• Average: 39
• Zero points: 0

Core 2:

• Goal: 12.5
• Average: 13.1
• Zero points: 8

Core 3:

• Goal: 12.5
• Average: 10.6
• Zero Points: 11

Overall Average: 20.9 points

I’ll talk more about this later but I’m seeing the so-called “Matthew Effect” (The rich get richer, the poor get poorer). The students who read, read more and those who don’t read are reading much less. I’m also seeing this surface in the DIBELS scores but more about that later.

It has been a while since my last post, my apologies. The transition to Winter Break was hectic due to the snow and ice and then coming back in January I was out for the last half of that first week at the OSPI Conference.

Here we are at the close of week two of the new year and we are finishing up with the DIBELS fluency testing and the mid-year writing assessment. Next Tuesday, the 20^th, I will again be out of the classroom helping to score all of the essays with the rest of the 6^th and 7^th grade Core teachers. Next week we also have two half days, on Thursday and Friday. Those days are set aside for finals at the secondary level and since we are counting the writing assessment students are doing now as the writing final they can expect a reading final on those days.

Finally, as my wife nears her due date we are looking at the little one possibly coming any day now and when that comes I will be taking 2 weeks of leave to stay at home with my family.

Reminder that I will be out for the remainder of the week at the OSPI January conference where I will be listening to other teachers and principals around the state talk about what they’re doing to help students learn and teachers teach.

In other news, check out this game that’s coming out for the computer called Crayon Physics Deluxe: http://www.crayonphysics.com/ Video should load by itself. It costs $20 but maybe I’ll get it for my birthday.

Mr. Stockman is out today. Everything should be back to the normal schedule on Monday. Mr. and Mrs. Stockman are going in to the doctor for an ultrasound to look at the new baby. More information later. Be nice to the substitute! I’ll find out anyway!