by Dennis Harter
dennish@isb.ac.th
On March 29th, Middle School Administration hosted our second Principal’s Forum of the year. Unfortunately, the audio was not recorded, so I am sharing summary notes from that meeting below. Next week we will include some of the other topics not covered on the day. This is a long post, so please scroll to the topic headings that are of interest to you. Next time, we’ll ensure we have the audio posted.
Updates on topics from the first forum
We began the session by providing updates of where we are in identified areas from the first Principal’s Forum.
World Languages
- Significant time and attention has been dedicated to the World Languages program.
- End of year assessments and thorough curriculum work has led to greater consistency of expectations and alignment with learning expectations from year to year, including in the high school.
- Pedagogy and instructional strategies have been shared between teachers to build consistent quality of learning experiences in the classroom
- Research has progressed on developing a mother tongue program (more on this below)
Mathematics
- The new math program (College Preparatory Mathematics) is aligned to the Common Core and has proven successful with developing math skills and practices
- We continue to work towards better pacing and more clearly defined curriculum timing, so that learning can be deep and retained
- As a natural result of switching programs, teachers have identified and addressed “gaps” in learning and understanding
- MAP results will be coming in May which will serve as one measure to determine progress made by the students. Initial impressions are very positive.
New Timetable for 2016-17
As we improve learning in the Middle School, a significant change to our school day schedule will take place next year. The school day will now run from 7:20 AM to 2:25 PM (an extension of 20 minutes) on Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays. On Tuesdays, we will end at 2:05 PM as we do this year.
Initially, this will allow us to add the Advisory program, a fundamental component of best practice middle schools (see below).
Tuesdays will end earlier, to allow for full-length professional development and collaboration amongst faculty. On Tuesdays, students will already have extended community building in the afternoons, and will not meet advisory groups in the morning. Each of the other four days will start with an advisory meeting, before the students head to class. There will be no change to academic learning time from this year.
In 2016-17, we will look at more significant schedule concerns to ensure that we have the best possible learning program for middle school students.
Advisory Program
With the lengthening of the day, students will meet with their Advisory group at the start of Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays. These 20-minute meetings will include community building, social and emotional learning, digital citizenship, social skills, and fun. A curriculum is being developed and tested this year so that it is ready and effecting in August.
Fundamentally, we know that students learn best when they feel safe, cared for, and valued. The Advisory groups will be at the center of a child’s learning community, which will extend to a “House” of Advisory groups, a grade level with two houses, and a middle school with 3 grades. This sense of small community within a larger community will help students be recognized, valued, and cared for.
Splitting Humanities
With the goal of rich, dedicated learning in Reading/Writing and Social Studies, along with the input of teachers and students, we will be splitting Humanities into separate classes for English-Language Arts and Social Studies. Students will now have a different teacher for English and Social Studies.
This split allows for focused planning for teachers and hence more deliberate, thoughtful lessons for students. Cross-curricular opportunities will still take place, as Social Studies teachers have the same planning blocks as English teachers. Finally, with only 2 teachers per grade of a particular subject (rather than four), we can ensure greater commonality of learning and teaching between teachers.
Mother Tongue
ISB has committed to meeting the needs of students wishing to continue learning in their native language during the school day. For 2016-17, mother tongue classes (other than Thai) will take place during the Flex block, allowing students from all grades to have access. This will amount to 2 blocks of 40 minutes per week. For financial reasons, a mother tongue class will run only if there are at least 6 students.
Communicating Learning
Parents posed some important questions connected to how the school communicates what their child is learning, how well they are learning it, and how they can get better.
How do they review without textbooks or resources?
- Resources are developed by teachers to best match the desired learning outcomes. This is often not specifically from one textbook.
- Students should have all resources in Haiku (except Science which has it’s own site).
What are they learning? What are the courses about?
- Significant work has gone into improving our Program of Studies to ensure it provides this information.
- Unit Topics and essential questions are articulated for all classes.
How can I tell if my child is on track?
- We continue to work with teachers on providing results and feedback in a timely manner.
- We set deadline dates this semester when all completed work needed to be graded and PowerSchool up to date.
There are still concerns that assignments are posted, but there is no grade or feedback.
- We have implemented expectations for teachers to standardize how PowerSchool displays information.
- We removed putting “scores” on assignments which were not indicative of where a child was in their learning (without knowing what the learning was about or what was expected, how would you understand what 8/10 meant?).
- Instead, specific learning standards are listed along with whether the student is developing, approaching, meeting or excelling against that particular learning goal.
- The assignment is displayed in gray and the standards are listed in white, immediately following the assignment.
- The category informs on whether the assignment is formative or summative or whether it is a measure of Habits and Attitudes for Learning (HAL).
Standards Based Grading
The fundamental principle behind standards based grading (SBG) is providing clear and specific information on what learning is expected and then grading the student on whether or not she/he has met that developmental-level standard.
“Measuring students’ proficiency on well defined course objectives.” (Tomlinson & McTighe, 2006)
Why do schools use Standards Based Grading?
- SBG provides authentic and specific feedback on what a student knows and can do.
- SBG is in line with learning being developmental – mastery isn’t expected the first time you try something.
- Averaging grades to get a percentage is not representative of student achievement. If a child used to be poor at something and then they got good at it, then saying they were mediocre at it (an average of the two) is not accurate. The child is good at it – period.
- What does an 85% really tell you about their learning?
Next week, we will share responses to other questions not covered at the Principal’s Forum.