My Thoughts on Education

 I have wanted a parent committee for our pathway for the last 6 years.  We have had a few attempts throughout the process and for the first time, it is actually working. I realize now what didn't work before and thought I would share with you the power of using parents and their connections at the high school level. Along with being a part-time TOSA, I am also the Department Chair for a choice driven, cross-curricular, project-based pathway at our high school. Six years ago, when we started this pathway, we had parents who were very supportive and would offer to help.  The problem was that all of us in the pathway were still developing our projects and we couldn't look far enough ahead to actually utilize a committee.  They were interested in helping us fundraise or supporting the classroom, but the problem was, we didn't know what to ask for. So, like any good life-long learner, I decided to visit numerous schools to get ideas and gather my own "data" to ...

 I think it is pretty funny that I am a TOSA and one of my first blogs is not about anything Tech related.  For me, some of the processes of technology are dependent on the people using it. If I haven't set up my systems to help students talk to one another and work well in teams, integrating technology is worthless.  As I begin to think about it, I have to admit that there are a few "techy" steps, but they are minimal and I hope to provide you a process to help you get to know your students and how to help them work best together. So, let's get to it.  Here are my steps. 1.  Day 1: I let them pick their first group!  This way, I know who their friends are.  Shhhh, don't tell. 2.  Students take a  Personality Assessment  (Ketterman Survey) Day 1 or 2 of my Class.  They then share their personality color with me: Gold (Leaders/Structure), Blue (Feelers/Heart), Green (Big Thinkers/Questioners), or Orange (Personality/Movement Driven)....

I am not a blogger or a journaler.  I am an emailer.  In trying to figure out how to begin this process of blogging my best TOSA takeaways, I realized I need to think of them like my emails. Below is my first blog and it is an email that I just sent out to my staff.  I'm here to give you my teacher/TOSA perspective on Thin Slides. I decided that before I send out any tip, I wanted to try it in all of my classes and get feedback from students.  I went to CUE and learned about Thin Slides and the protocols that went with them. At the time, I was skeptical. I wasn't sure how this Thin Slides approach would really alter much of what I was doing with my students.  After trying it in all of my classes, I realized that there really is a power to this protocoled approach and students appreciated it.   Simply put, you give students a very short amount of time to gather information and put visual cues/symbols/a word on a slide.  I gave my students 4 mi...