Pillar Three- Family

I want to focus on the pillars of our culture movement- #WensinkWay.

All of the pillars are based around the word "Elite."
What is our definition of Elite?

Elite- Being the best version of yourself                              

That definition of ELITE has linkage back to guys named Brian and Tim Kight and their leadership training.  The Kight's are used by Urban Meyer and the Buckeye Football Team.  You can read more about them here.


Pillar Three is Family

What is Family?  The definition that our students helped us create is "Being ELITE for others."  Let that set in. How do we treat others?  Especially, how do we treat others in times of conflict or when we are wronged?  How do we treat others when we get the chance to pick between being right or being kind?

I am writing this on Sunday morning after I watched our annual spring musical last evening.  Our kids did GREAT.  Everyone, from the on stage talent to the off-stage talent.  After the show, they honored Jim Oberhaus in that they introduced the scholarship the music boosters is creating for him.  Jim spoke for just a few seconds but what he said, is about family.  He said, "Patrick Henry is more than a school district, it is a family,  keep it that way."
Scenario:  I would encourage you to tell your PATS class this week a story that pertains to "family."  It may be about you or someone you know.  Maybe you can tie in a book you are reading.  Let them what you are reading.

Though I know PATS classes will be limited this month, but I am going to give you some resource sheets you might want to use in PATS classes or possibly in other classes.  Here is a document that you could give to students to let them tell their "above and beyond" story.  If you do this, tell them you would like to post them in your room.  No names are required.  Collect them and post them. 

We will do something similar to this with the other two pillars.  I would love to see these posted in many of our rooms.  This helps build culture, you have to talk about it and teachers are the front line of communication with our students.



Questions To Consider:
1.  Be the first in your room to print this, fill in your story, and display it.  Let students see it.
2.  Have you read a great book or article lately that included how we define "family"?  Or maybe you saw a neat ESPN special during the Final Four about a player that had elements of the pillar family .  Find the link, email to some students.  Tell them it reminded you of them or something along those lines and encourage them to continue to be the best version of themselves with their family.
3.  What other ways can a teacher help build culture in their classrooms, building, or district?

Pillar Two Above and Beyond

I want to focus on the pillars of our culture movement- #WensinkWay.

All of the pillars are based around the word "Elite."
What is our definition of Elite?

Elite- Being the best version of yourself                              

That definition of ELITE has linkage back to guys named Brian and Tim Kight and their leadership training.  The Kight's are used by Urban Meyer and the Buckeye Football Team.  You can read more about them here.


Pillar Two is Above and Beyond

What is above and beyond?  The definition that our students helped us create is "Being ELITE when no one is looking."  Let that set in. What do we do when no one is looking?  How do we perform or do our duties?  Would we be OK with people seeing some of our decisions when no one is looking?

The whole idea is that if we talk about "above and beyond" and encourage our students, we can impact their decision making when no one is around.   

Scenario:  I would encourage you to tell your PATS class this week a story that pertains to "above and beyond."  It may be about you or someone you know.  Maybe you can tie in a book you are reading.  Let them what you are reading.

Though I know PATS classes will be limited this month, but I am going to give you some resource sheets you might want to use in PATS classes or possibly in other classes.  Here is a document that you could give to students to let them tell their "above and beyond" story.  If you do this, tell them you would like to post them in your room.  No names are required.  Collect them and post them. 

We will do something similar to this with the other two pillars.  I would love to see these posted in many of our rooms.  This helps build culture, you have to talk about it and teachers are the front line of communication with our students.



Questions To Consider:
1.  Be the first in your room to print this, fill in your story, and display it.  Let students see it.
2.  Have you read a great book or article lately that included perserverance?  Or maybe you saw a neat ESPN special during the Final Four about a player that perservered.  Find the link, email to some students.  Tell them it reminded you of them or something along those lines and encourage them to continue to perservere.
3.  What other ways can a teacher help build culture in their classrooms, building, or district?

Pillar One- Perserverance

I want to focus on the pillars of our culture movement- #WensinkWay.

All of the pillars are based around the word "Elite."
What is our definition of Elite?

Elite- Being the best version of yourself                             

That definition of ELITE has linkage back to guys named Brian and Tim Kight and their leadership training.  The Kight's are used by Urban Meyer and the Buckeye Football Team.  You can read more about them here.


Pillar One is PERSERVERANCE

What is perserverance?  The definition that our students helped us create is "Being ELITE in difficult times."  Let that set in.  Have you had a difficult time recently?  Were you the best version of yourself?  Ultimately, we will all fall short of being the best version of ourselves in all situations.  That would not be the goal.  To build culture, the talk of perserverance and what it means to us has to be relevant.  Our students have to hear about it and use the language in this blog to describe it.

Scenario:  A student struggles through putting an answer together after many promtpings by you, the teacher.  The student has genuinely made the effort and not just tried to bypass your question.  Really you can input any activity (quiz team, band, choir, sports, church, etc..)  What a great opprotuntity to quickly mention, "That is a great example of perserverance, being the best version of yourself when things are difficult."  "I appreciate that."  Done, move on.  You helped build culture.

Though I know PATS classes will be limited this month, but I am going to give you some resource sheets you might want to use in PATS classes or possibly in other classes.  Here is a document that you could give to students to let them tell their "perserverance" story.  If you do this, tell them you would like to post them in your room.  No names are required.  Collect them and post them. 

We will do something similar to this with the other two pillars.  I would love to see these posted in many of our rooms.  This helps build culture, you have to talk about it and teachers are the front line of communication with our students.
 


Questions To Consider:
1.  Be the first in your room to print this, fill in your story, and display it.  Let students see it.
2.  Have you read a great book or article lately that included perserverance?  Or maybe you saw a neat ESPN special during the Final Four about a player that perservered.  Find the link, email to some students.  Tell them it reminded you of them or something along those lines and encourage them to continue to perservere.
3.  What other ways can a teacher help build culture in their classrooms, building, or district?

#WensinkWay

Thanks to Ben George for the following documents.

Explanation of the WensinkWay
WensinkWay handout


Thanks to Scott Bley for these documents.
Scott's intro to the fight song
Scott's fight song explanation


The above documents will become a large part of our culture.  Take the time to read them.  Post them if you would like.  In the near future, we will be getting you some items connected to the #WensinkWay that you can post in your room.

Personalizing Learning Through Student Feedback

Thanks to Dustin Ruffell for providing the article linked below.

No matter what framework you employ in your classroom, student feedback is really important.  This article details the use of feedback from the students to the teachers connected to correcting assignments or tests. 

Here is a part of the article:
"I took my time reading their test corrections. I really tried to understand why the students missed the problem and also what part of the problem they got right.

I found this scrutiny to be time well spent. It helped me see that a lot of students understood exponential functions but were having trouble solving equations! I probably wouldn’t have caught this if I hadn’t gone through their tests again."

Questions to consider:

1.  Have you ever gotten excited enough to put an exclamation point at the end of a sentence about reading test corrections? 

2.  The author notes that "he would not have caught this if I hadn't gone through their tests again."  Have you ever identified a misunderstood concept on an assessment after reviewing student scores?  How did you address it? 

3.  What a great question, check out the student responses!  What can we learn from this?

Personalized Learning- Student Voice

Student voice is a major part of personalizing learning for our students.  Many of you provide students with great feedback regarding products they create for you.  I try to provide you with feedback through the evaluation process.  Allowing students to provide us feedback through activities designed to give us information that will allow us to shape instruction or other processes we use to better serve our students.  Here is a survey students take to provide information to their teachers about their learning and progress

YouthTruth is a non-profit that collects information from young people across an array of topics.  Here is a page describing some wide-ranging findings with regard to preparedness after high school.  Check out the resources at the bottom of the linked page. 

Questions To Consider:

1.  How do you provide students feedback?  How do you allow students to give you feedback?

2.  Think about the questions that would really make you think about your practices in your classroom, what would you ask students for their thoughts on?

3.  What questions could you ask students to help you personalize their learning?

Sharing A Resource: Staying Connected To A Personal Interest

As I was working on some coursework this week, I was directed to the Thomas B. Fordham Institute's website.  If you are not familiar with the Fordham Institute, the institute is designed to promote educational quality to all students in America based on research and advocacy.  Often times, this group will get involved in politics and especially with school of choice in Ohio.  I don't advocate their website as a resource for political reasons. 

Their website is catered to the state in which the search was conducted.  Here is a link to a publication they produce that provides articles relating to soon to be enacted, soon to be voted on, or new education based legislation in Ohio.

Here are some policy briefs for legislation that is pertinent to Ohio.

Here is the starting page for the institute's site for Ohio.

This is a bit different from most of my blogs.  I found the site interesting and full of information.  I would encourage you to bookmark it and search it for updates as you hear about them.


Questions To Consider:

1.  What resources, like this, would be beneficial to you?  Have you found any new resources that pertain to your teaching area or interest lately?
2.  Have you sought out new resources lately?  Have you read a good book lately?
3.  Pick one item that you want to find a new resource that connects to it...find it...

Good Luck

Guest Blogger-Relationships

Student-Teacher Relationships

Many of you know that I have excellent relationships with students. What most of you DON’T know is how I cultivate those relationships.

I am blessed to have chosen to be an agricultural educator and FFA advisor. Most of my relationship building happens in the classroom, where I ask honest and sincere questions. I ask questions about the AR book he is reading, or about her basketball game the other night, or about the plans student council has for homecoming week. I ask questions about her family and friends. I simply ask questions! Questions lead to conversation which leads to respect and good relationships.

I am fortunate to create opportunities for my students – events and activities that occur outside of the school. Field trips are a wonderful occasion to work on student relationships. On bus rides, I am rarely sitting in “my” seat at the front of the bus. I move around, talking to all of the different groups of students, playing a game of cards if the trip is long enough, and even participate in sing-a-longs.

My student relationships are built year-round. I use social media to keep the ag program in front of students throughout the year. I’ve been using Instagram recently because the app will push to Twitter and Facebook automatically. I use the Remind texting app with FFA officers for practice and meeting reminders. My latest addition is a new television that displays monthly activity calendars, announcements, celebrations, objectives, and an ag comic. Students engage with the TV daily.

I continue relationships with students after they graduate from PHHS. Several students each year pursue their American FFA Degrees which requires students to work with me on record books and applications during their college breaks. The students that pursue agricultural education in college are the neediest! They ask all sorts of questions. I have former students that work locally in the industry of agriculture who contact me with job openings, scholarships, and events that might interest my students.

What can you do to begin cultivating relationships? Talk to the students. Ask them questions. Respect them and their opinions (as wacky as they are sometimes). Laugh with them. Catch pancakes with them. Be flexible with them while still maintaining expectations.

P.S. Thank you for your continued support of the ag program and FFA here at PH! Pancake Day is coming up on March 26 and I hope you will come down and catch your breakfast!

Personalized Learning Through Infographics

This week I want to share a few infographics I have picked up over the last few weeks during my professional learning time.  I hope to connect them to personalize learning for you.

























Light Blue- Student Actions
Dark Blue- Teachers Actions
1.  What in the dark blue is personalized for the students?  How could you make it even more personalized?
2.  Look at the "Target Not Attained" or "Target Attained" box.  How do you make student-centered choices at the decision point?


1.  Look at the bold terms.  How could you use some of those strategies for personalized learning?  How could they be sued as quick informal assessments?
2.  Pick one of the strategies and try it this week.


1.  How does a teacher find a balance between the red and blue? 
2.  Pick one of the lines that you may be on the blue side, develop a way to start moving on that line from the blue to red.

Personalize Learning-Personalize Communication

In some recent professional learning time, I started to do a deep dive into some of Alice Keeler's (@alicekeeler) recent tweets.  She has been tweeting about personalized learning last 4 or 5 days.

A few of the items she tweeted about are below.

Here is the neat thing about these two tweets.  These two resources are used in our building often.  The Science Simulations from PHET are used by all of the Science teachers.  Storyboard That is used regularly in the English Department.  Pretty cool.

As I was digging a bit more into her recent tweets I found something pretty cool.  She has developed a template for a personalized newsletter.  The personalization comes in the form of it being a newsletter made for an individual student.  Her templates and script make something like an individualized newsletter possible.  I thought this might be interesting to some of you.

I also thought this was interesting.  This is an example of how PE teachers, and other elective courses, could incorporate some personalized learning with Google.

Questions To Consider:
1.  What did you take away from February 5th personalized learning day?  Have you tried it yet?
2.  I was happy to see some shared resources already being utilized in the building.  Has that every happened to you?  Have you been listening to a presentation or saw something online and thought "I am a bit ahead of this curve?"
3.  Could you see yourself trying to utilize the personalized newsletter?  How could you give it a try on a smaller scale first?

Professional Learning: Mindset for a Professional Learning Day

Tommorrow is a professional learning day for us at PH.  Much work has gone into the planning of the day by multiple people.  I would highly encourage you to stay engaged throughout the day.  Challenge yourself to take two new innovative ideas away.  They could be small-tiny ideas; like "instead of standing by the windows, I am going to stand by the colorful backdrop of a bulletin board to draw more eyes to me when I am leading the discussion."  Better use of space.

The day is focused on personalized learning.  How can we best meet the needs of every student in their own unique way?  To encourage you a bit, watch this quick video of some students explaining how teachers had impacts on them.

For Consideration:
1.  How can you be engaged in all your sessions on Monday?
2.  What distractions do you need to fight to stay engaged?  Cell phone (leave it behind), Email (it will be there later) grading papers (not the time for it) etc...
3.  For reflection after Monday.  Write this down on a post-it note or a scrap paper:  What two new ideas did I take away from Monday?




For a little fun, here is a video having fun with what happens on teacher PD days.

Personalized Learning-Edutopia

The last few blogs have been about personalized learning.  Those entries were helping lead us to our February 5th professional learning.  That day has been organized around the personalized learning approach.  Ohio has endorsed the Future Ready framework to support personalized learning.

Here is an article from edutopia.  Edutopia is a great collection of resources.  This article outlines some characteristics of future learning.  Please take a few minutes to read the article.

Questions To Consider:

1.  How do you teach students to manage their own learning?

2.   How do you teach students to learn what you don’t know?

3.  How do you give students an opportunity to contribute purposeful work to others?

Personalized Learning-Problem Based Learning

To continue the discussion on Personalized Learning, we should examine a way to personalize instruction, in some cases.  Problem-based instruction is a great way to personalize and differentiate instruction.  Problem-based instruction is just as it sounds.  Present a problem, give parameters, and let your students solve the problem while they build knowledge through effort (growth mindset tie in...).
Here is some general Information about problem-based learning.  I wouldn't imagine such a teaching technique would be used everyday but it could be used in certain situations that fit the process quite well.

For Example:

Examine and define the problem.

Explore what they already know about underlying issues related to it.

Determine what they need to learn and where they can acquire the information and tools necessary to solve the problem.

Evaluate possible ways to solve the problem.

Solve the problem.

Report on their findings.

Here is a quick few paragraphs from an ASCD publication (site reference below) about the origins of problem-based learning.

Chapter 1. What Is Problem-Based Learning?

To organize education so that natural active tendencies shall be fully enlisted in doing something, while seeing to it that the doing requires observation, the acquisition of information, and the use of a constructive imagination, is what needs to be done to improve social conditions.

. Dewey 1916, 1944, p. 137

All education involves either problem solving or preparation for problem-solving. From mathematical calculations (“What does this equal?”) to literary analysis (“What does this mean?”) to scientific experiments (“Why and how does this happen?”) to historical investigation (“What took place, and why did it occur that way?”), teachers show students how to answer questions and solve problems. When teachers and schools skip the problem-formulating stage—handing facts and procedures to students without giving them a chance to develop their own questions and investigate by themselves—students may memorize material but will not fully understand or be able to use it. Problem-based learning (PBL) provides a structure for discovery that helps students internalize learning and leads to greater comprehension.

Retrieved from:  http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/197166/chapters/What_Is_Problem-Based_Learning%C2%A2.aspx

Questions To Consider:
1.  How do you incorporate problem-based learning into your pedagogy currently?  How is it going?  What would you want to adjust?  Research it, Google it...see what you can find.
2.  The six-step process from the video could be a unit long piece of work.  How could you use that?  What topics would that fit into your curriculum? 
3.  How is problem-based learning different from asking a student to research something and present on it?

Future Ready Schools--Personalized Learning

Our district has committed resources to explore the Future Ready Framework.  Future Ready is a framework for instruction that involves integrating technology and developing strategies for personalized learning that may or may not include technology.

On February 5th, the district is designing a day of professional learning around the concept of personalized learning.  Personalized learning is the key component to the Future Ready Framework.  Personalized learning is not a new concept, but one to be reimagined by educators in our 21st-century learning environment.  Read more about the framework here.

Questions To Consider:

1.  What does personalized learning look like in your classroom?  Do all your students learn the same?
2.  Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook fame) speaks about personalized learning.  Here is a short video clip of him speaking about personalized learning.  "Being able to learn in a way that is the most beneficial to them is important."  How does that look for your room?  What does that mean to you?
3.  Personalized learning and differentiation are similar but have differences.  Mentally note, or create a list, of ways you differentiate in your classroom.  How does that help personalize instruction?

Vertical/Team Meetings-Critical Questions

Later this week you will be meeting again with your vertical/team groups.  Because of that, I thought it would be a good time to get you thinking about some critical questions.  You have met with your group at least one time.  I heard some of those conversations and they sounded to result in some positives.

When you met before, we asked you to examine "The Big Rocks."  In this conversation, I would encourage you to be some critical in your questions.  These conversations can be started with critical questions.  Here is a quick reference guide for critical questions.  This guide will give you an idea of how to phrase critical questions.  Hopefully, this will give you a starting point for some critical questions that are specific to your group. 

Questions To Consider:

1.  What did you discuss last time you were with your vertical/team group?
2.  How can you continue those conversations?  What will you discuss next?
3.  What will be your objectives for your conversation?