Becoming the Kind of Person Every Team Wants.

Hello team we are up and running! I am so excited to be part of this team! It is time for some new comments on our blog. As we move into our PLC process I have been studying like mad. Currently I am reading "Becoming the Kind of Person Every Team Wants." As a team member I want to be as valuable to you as possible. One thing that I read in this book really caught my attention. "To collaborative team members, completing one another is more important than competing with one another." I thought I would put this out on the blog to get some thoughts from you about it. How can we work at seeing teammates as collaborators and not competitors? How can we work at being supportive and not suspicious of each other? What are some ways that we can concentrate on team rather than ourselves and our own classrooms? How can we create victories through collaboration? How can we develop the habit of asking what is best for the team? How do we celebrate the successes of others without feeling slighted ourselves? How can we celebrate our strengths and help with weaknesses? These are some questions to get you thinking. Tell me what you think Branson Intermediate! Lets hear it loud and proud!

Erin Ipock had some very good questions concerning start/end times-- bus routes--intervention time-- teaching minutes. Here was my reply--I will also put teaching minutes in your mailboxes by tomorrow morning.
I LOVE this blogging!!!

We are having the students come to class at 7:50 because we have to have time to do roll before specials start. Instruction will begin at 8:00. I am not asking teachers to stay at school any longer that the other buildings--- our time in the building is the same as other buildings. Teachers will need to be at school at 7:30 and will be able to leave at 3:30. Duty teachers will get to school at 7:15 and will be able to leave at 3:15. (Last year teacher time was from 7:00 until 3:00-- same amount of time that we will have this year).

Yes we are going to have 30 minutes of intervention time between the bells for next year. What exactly this will look like will be decided by your PLC team.

The reason that we went with the new start/dismissal time schedule at the beginning of the year was due to busing and also so that the parents can make arrangements for year long child care. I don't think that morning traffic will not be a problem for us in this building--it may be inconvenient until we get to the new school.

Pyramid of Intervention

Hello all
I have been reading all the blog comments and I can't tell you how pleased I am to see us using it. I wanted to let you all know what has been going on. As most of you probably know Rhianna Presley will not be with us next year and we have been working on filling her position. In addition to that we have been working on getting the new building furniture, and landscaping together. The building looks great and looks like it will be finished on time. I have been working on developing a framework for our pyramid of intervention and SIT teams. I would like to help make our Pyramid/SIT process user friendly and effective for our students. I am very excited to share what I have so far when you all get back to school and to get your ideas on how we can make it better. I have seen many of you dedidicated individuals in here working already and I have enjoyed meeting with you and getting to know you a little bit. Thank you all for making me feel welcome, except Armstrong of course. (just kinding) I would like to have some thoughts on your perspective on the SIT process. Be honest I can take it.

self-contained classrooms

Today Kelly Jewel and I were at a science conference that focused on how to integrate reading skills into science and vice versa. We talked a lot about ways to help our kids practice reading more by planning more activities that force them to communicate and read during science class, or use science topics to teach skills during your reading time. It created this internal struggle with me that I know lots of us deal with from time to time, but have never really had a "professional conversation" about how we all feel about it. I'm sure things are different for 6th graders, but as a 5th grade teacher I always wonder if teaming is best for my class. See, I was really encouraged today to find a way to put my GLE's together in a way that makes it really easy to plan units that allow students to inquire about lots of cross-curricular ideas. But then I start worrying about my 2nd section of science. I only get to teach Andrea's kids 200 minutes a week, so if I continue a science lesson during reading (while practicing reading skills), am I short-changing Andrea's class? Or if Andrea wants her kids to continue a S.S. lesson during writing, is my class missing out? Don't get me wrong, I LOVE teaming! It's so nice to know that I can trust Andrea to teach my class the S.S. GLE's, and I don't have to plan that, but I also wonder if I couldn't do more cross-curricular "stuff" with them if I kept my homeroom all day. It's really hard to think about giving up teaming; more than likely our kids are developmentally in need of changing classes, but what if.... What do you think?

Why we do what we do~

Greetings to all! Hope you are enjoying your summer, and have taken some time for yourself and your family! As we draw closer to the beginning of our 07-08 school year, I hope you are preparing your mind for all of the thinking we are going to have to do concerning our professional learning community. I know that when I think of PLC, that's really what I think of: I'm going to have to really decide why I teach, and what I need to do to become a better teacher so that my students become learners! On a positive note, I'm actually very excited to do that. I always feel really crummy when I'm teaching without purpose. I hope that we can all use this blog as a tool for collaboration and a resource center for PLC ideas. This is a quick place to share your feelings and ideas, and get feedback from others. Would you like to share the things that you are worried about as we start our endeavor towards a professional learning community? I know that although I am really excited about the theory behind PLC, I am a little nervous about how it is going to be played out amongst us. Will everyone jump on board? Will some be anti-collaborators? Will our norms really help us to form a good group? What do you think?