1st week, Second Cycle

I'm currently working with one of the Innovation Advocates, Paige.

Paige is an ELA grade 8 teacher.
She's had a lot on her plate this year.
She is also the new Wilson Reader/Remedial Reading Teacher. 

She thought she'd like to try blogging with her students.  They read The Pearl, by John Steinbeck, every year, so she thought this would be a good place to start.  She selected 6 "bloggers" to start things off.  I taught the girls how to access the blog, gave them the code, and started them off with making predictions.  The students, of course, hit the ground running and began blogging like rock starts. 

Adults underestimate the abilities students have, especially when it comes to using technology.  Paige was surprised at how well the students did with making the predictions.  They added "tags" at the bottom of their page, and they commented on one another's posts.  Surprisingly, they used perfect online etiquette, using complete sentences, positive language, and good writing skills.  We worked on chapter one entries today.  They picked up on the process of creating a new post very quickly.  Tomorrow, we will add more students to the team and get more interactions with the postings.

Paige and I talked about going to an Edcamp in Greenville, SC.  I'm excited that she might be willing to travel that far for a professional development opportunity.  She has two young children at home, so I wasn't sure if she'd be up for travel.  Hopefully, we both get to go and learn together!

My other coaching experiences this week are fun!  The computer teacher is working on the Google coding activity
https://csfirst.withgoogle.com/en/hoc2017#?utm_source=google&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=HOC17Email 

And his students seem to really love it!

I also did my first "sweep" observation.  I actually did that in Paige's room, because one of her classes has 13 IEP students and 4 regular ed students.  Many of the students in that class require a lot of redirection.  I wanted her to see a visual of who was off task and when.  The exercise was done very casually, but the data spoke volumes about who was off task, how many times, and during what portion of the class.  Very interesting data....predictable, but nonetheless, still interesting.

I had a tremendous breakthrough with a "new" teacher in the building.  Kristin is a secondary math teacher who was recently moved to the middle school.  She now teaches 7th grade students.  She is not happy about the transfer.  It was an involuntary move.  

She is very nervous with this group of students and misses her high school classes.  I offered to help her with a few things in the beginning of the year, but she said she was just too overwhelmed and using technology was not a convenient way for her to get accustomed to the new students .  I backed off and have gradually been sending her email tips, including her in the Google Classroom page, and checking on her from time to time.  Today, she came to my "office," which is just my old classroom transformed into a work space, and asked me to help her scan documents to make PDF's.  I helped her.  Then, she asked me to show her how to post the PDF's to the classroom.  She asked me how to create an assignment, how to post it, how to create topics, how to establish a due date, how to make a copy for each student, and how to use a PDF to Doc extension.  All in a period of 10 minutes!  SCORE!!!!!  She asked me to sign her up for cycle 3.......DONE!