Tuesday the 19th was of course the 150th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address. In my opinion it is the most eloquent and timeless speech in US History. Its relatively short, and yet says so much. I continue to be fascinated with and inspired by those words. We will be analyzing and exmaing this speech in my classes in the next few weeks.
This week there some other educational things I was involved in of significance. On Monday I hosted my first Webinar along with 2 other teachers. Our Webinar was around using the strategy of Compare and Contrast at different levels and in different subjects. We had practiced the week before, but it is incredibly stressful to attempt to explain teaching through an online webinar. At one point I was "booted out" and had to log back in, Luckily I made it back just before it was my turn. The strategy I developed through the Cross Discipline Literacy Network sponsored by the State of Maine was around comparing Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton and available for download. Despite the stress, the Webinar went well and we received lots of positive feedback about the strategy. The other two teachers were great and are very easy to work with, I really appreciate their efforts! We will be presenting another strategy at the end of January in another Webinar.
(This is from my part of the Webinar, its a student sample)
(This from one of the other teachers, its a screenshot I took halfway through the webinar)
(This is also from the Webinar)
On Friday I attended a training with several other teachers from my School District held at the University of Maine in Farmington. There were a dozen or so school districts there as well. We were there as "Teacher Mentors" with the goal of beginning to understand how Marzano's Standards for Teaching and Learning were going to be incorporated into our new Teacher Evaluation System. I think that Marzano's work makes sense and has merit. It will represent a significant change for the teachers in my district and the thought of this is quite daunting. There are 9 Design Questions which are quite detailed and represent three different lesson segments. However, the presentation at this training left much to be desired. It was so disappointing that I will refrain from mentioning the presenter's name here. She was well intended and well prepared, I just think she doesn't understand well how to do presentations for teachers or even presentations in general. Its always a bad idea to "guarantee" an ending time and then not honor it! Unfrotunately that was the least of my concerns. There was too much time spent on simple ideas, and not enough time to think deeply about complex ideas. What troubles me most is that this was the first of 3 trainings over the next year. I sincerely hope we have a different presenter next time or I may set a rcord for coffee consumption (it will be tough to break the record I set on Friday).
Next week is my favorite work week of the year... a two day week! So my next blog will be in two weeks. HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!!!!
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