During Week 19, Manor New Tech conducted Middle of the Year Benchmark tests for all the STAAR-tested subjects: ELA 1, ELA 2, Algebra 1, US History, and Biology. Mr Merced and I were the testing coordinators and we were also test proctors. Because of that I only got sneak peeks into a handful of classrooms throughout this week. I enjoyed every second of visiting classrooms; the tedium of proctoring standardized tests helped me to really appreciate the vibrancy of our classrooms.
Instead of showing boring pictures of students sitting in numbered desks arranged in a grid, I’ve chosen to show my cart of relief and my record step count. The former is my final cart of dictionaries and thesauruses that I returned to one of the gracious humanities teams that loaned them out for the ELA 1 & 2 tests. The latter shows the steps I undertook while proctoring the 5 hour ELA 2 test. All 5 tests went smoothly thanks to the cooperation of many students and teachers. I’ve started generating reports for next week’s PLC meetings on Data-mining. We are going to study the data generated by the benchmarks to better understand what our students’ know and need-to-know and to develop targeted remediation plans to prep for STAAR this year.
On the same day of my record walking, I went to an evening Robotics meeting. The students were working on drive code, building prototypes of our mechanisms and drive train, and building prototypes of FIRST Stronghold defensive obstacles. They appeared to be both relaxed and productive.
After one of the benchmark tests, I visited Mr. Rodriguez’s class. They were developing animations using free software, Animation Desk. One student was very proud of her flickering fireplace (left). Another student showed me a ball bouncing around the screen (middle). Finally, one student showed me an interesting sequence of moving shapes that eventually morphed into the logo for his comic strip, Zero Strike (right). I don’t know how to upload videos to this site, so you’ll have to use your imagination when you view these snapshots of moving pictures.
I also got to take a short peek into Mrs. Garner’s Art class. They were working on a project investigating careers in art. They were creating art pieces that represented what they had learned about their chosen career. One artist created this piece to represent careers in fashion. She even added texture to her piece (see right).
On Friday, I observed Ms. Davis’ class working on research for the Cirque de Americas project. They are gathering data to compare everyday, NASCAR, and Formula 1 cars, road shapes, and road textures. Ms. Davis and I had a pretty interesting brainstorming session on how to use Socratic circles to disseminate their research findings. I recommended creating topics for each of the discussion circles and showing the titles to the students. Then the students could choose which circle they wanted to join. Their entry ticket to the discussion circle of their choice would be 5 facts they found in their research that relate to the discussion topic.
I also had a cool brainstorming conversation with Mr. Ray on how to create rubrics for a project with 3 possible pathways – creating treatment plans, diagnosing diseases, and selling pharmaceuticals. I suggested that he have students research professional documentation that goes with their chosen pathways and have students use these to develop rubric criteria. He was willing to experiment with this because he has senior students. He was excited by some of the criteria that the students recommended. I don’t have pics of the students at work on this because I was proctoring a benchmark at the time.
While returning dictionaries, I overheard a snippet of the freshman Humanities presentations. They were presenting PSAs on topics that are invisible to most of society. This group presented on homelessness. I thought it was neat that there were senior students in the audience.
On Friday, I got to observe part of a project launch in the Mr. Foster’s and Mr. Beckett’s 9th-grade Physics and Engineering class. They are also running the Cirque de America project that is running in the Ms. Davis’ and Mrs. Schimel’s 11-grade Physics and Engineering class. I observed them having a discussion about their project knows and need-to-knows. After this discussion, the students did research to select a specific car they would like to research during the duration of this project.
While returning test materials, I took a time out to listen to a top 5 song. This Top 5 Songs bulletin board is in the 300 wing. It is a labor of love made and maintained by several students that shows the top 5 songs in several different countries; it even includes QR codes to some of these hits. It’s a pretty sweet display.
