Testing

This week began the Smart Balanced Assessment for the juniors. This is the first time we have ever offered this assessment. The whole thing is done online using their iPads. There has been some concern about how well the technology will work and whether the format of the test will be frustrating for the students. Time will tell for both of these, but we held our first tests on Thursday and so far I'm not aware of any major issues. They will finish up on Monday. I wonder if their plan for how to administer these tests really makes sense? I think rather than scheduling two different days with the possibility of the whole day available is wise? Maybe only have 2 hours a day and then the rest of the day regular classes. I say this because on Thursday a bunch of kids finished at 12:30. TWO HOURS EARLY. All they could do was hang around in the gym. I think this is a bad plan. Eventually many got dismissed and got rides home. Seems strange to do it this way to me. Maybe it will be done differently next year?

This week was actually a short week for my classes. Thursday was a special day in that Juniors were testing, Sophomores were out of the building on a job shadow, and Freshmen were on a field trip. the seniors had some special presentations in the morning and were dismissed at noon. Friday was a workshop day for teachers, so we only had classes on Monday to Wednesday this week. It was, however, quite a busy week!

In U.S. History classes students were analyzing the foreign policy issues at the end of World War One and looked at potential causes of the Second World War. This is one of my favorite topics. There is something about the horror and tragedy of World War One that has always captured my interest.

In my Honors Sacrifice for Freedom seminar class, the students are making great progress. We have several personal stories to post to the website we are creating. In addition, students are planning to erect a memorial here on campus for Lewis Goddard. This man died during World War Two. I'll have more to say about this as the weather warms and we plan our memorial and dedication.

Psychology students have spent a good deal of time on the different approaches to psychology and the research process. Meanwhile, in Ethics, students presented projects around Moral Courage this week.

Even though we had no regular classes on Thursday, it was a very long day because we did have parent/teacher conferences Thursday night. I understand the importance of parent communication and I attend the conferences for my child. However, I am glad Friday was a workshop day because that late night wipes me out. I still wonder if there might be a better way to deal with communication, but I won't go on a rant about that now.

Friday was a workshop day for teachers. This is a great opportunity for us to have time to dig deeply into professional development. On this day we spent time analyzing habits of work and how best to implement our school wide rubric for this. We also had time to continue to modify our curriculum to align with common core and the proficiency based diploma required for Maine graduates in the class of 2020 (it was 2018, but we just found out that it has been delayed to 2020). The day was jam packed with plenty to do and we still have much to do, but it was nice to make progress. I even had the chance to work on some of the stuff I got out of the DBQ project workshop I attended!

Spring starts next week, so I hope we get a little warmer weather soon!