Another Awesome Week @ManorNewTech (Week 20)

During Week 20, I observed all but two teachers in my cohort of 14 teachers; I made an extra effort to try to see everyone because I’d been tied up with benchmark prep or proctoring in the past two weeks.  At the end of the week, Mr. Merced and I facilitated PLC sessions on data analysis of Echo grade-books and mid-year benchmark data.

 

In Mr. Adeboyejo’s class they are doing a project on the Truth about Microorganisms.  On the day I observed, the students were learning introductory information on fungi by working through visuals and problems on a self-paced Neared presentation.  They also completed several problems and created a Venn diagram comparing plants and fungi in their notebooks.  Later in the week, the students conducted labs to compare fungi with protists.  I really like how Mr. Adeboyejo’s students are redecorating one of his boards to hold burning questions and need-to-knows.  This will give students a place to request tailored workshops.
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In  Ms. Davis’ Engineering and Physics class, they are studying the motion of race cars and the design of race tracks.  I observed a pretty spirited discussion on which of Newton’s laws applied to an object moving at constant velocity.  It was cool to see students wrestle through the similarities between Newton’s 1st and 3rd Laws.  I can appreciate the nuances between these two laws because it took me a couple years of Physics classes to fully understand how the two laws are related and how they are very different.  Later in the week, the students videotaped model cars in motion and they used apps to analysis their videos.  They graphed their motion data in Excel.  Next week, we will go through the processes of analyzing and interpreting these dirty data sets.
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In My. Ray’s environmental science class, they are conducting research to create PSA’s on pollution.  On the day I observed, the students were taking notes on graphic organizers on the sources, descriptions, and impacts of various pollutants.  I like how Mr. Ray showed them how to set up the graphic organizer, but then let them decide during the workshop how to populate it on their own in order to prepare his senior students for taking notes in lecture-style college classes.  Over the course of two weeks, each team is tracking pollutant data points in a city outside Texas.  They will later analyze trends in these data sets.  It will be cool if they can use that analysis to infer what are the predominant pollutant sources in these cities and verify that with more research.  Like Mr. Adeboyejo, Mr. Ray set up a special board for workshop requests.  It’s nice to see how these two former co-teachers are acting simpatico.
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In Mrs. Garner’s Art class, I watched a project launch on a mixed collage/painting project inspired by the artist, Wangechi Mutu.  The class watched a video on the artist and then discussed what they noticed in the video in pairs.  Then each pair got a folder that included magazing clippings and a collage challenge.  Some of the challenges included create a creature from another world and create a piece that has something and nothing.  It was neat to see the students work together to create pieces that made use of images to create completely new images.
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In Mrs. Garner’s class and outside Mrs. Fain-Jackson’s and Mr. Chambers’s class, I noticed how well they display recently created student work.  The middle image shows final pieces from Mrs. Garner’s class in which students created album art for musical artists.  On the left and right are works of art from Mrs. Fain-Jackson’s and Mr. Chamber’s ELA2/World History class; the students created pieces that represented Europe before and after the Reformation.
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During this week’s Wednesday Robotics meeting, the programming team made more progress on the drive code and the mechanical team took apart and re-assembled our chassis and drive train just in case we need to use our test kit-bot for competition.  The middle shot shows how well students can work without direct involvement of the mentors.  We are lucky to have enough veteran team members this year to support many rookie members and to keep work moving both with and without the direct assistance of mentors.  It’s nice to see the students diving into the work while the adults give them space to do their thing.  Mentors still help students when they got stuck and to help them set and reach expectations they can not attain without professional assistance.  But we’re also very fortunate that we have mentors who are willing to step back to let students really accomplish a lot on their own.
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From now and until February 15, the Robotics team is selling Manor New Tech and Robotics branded gear to raise money for the team.  Here’s our catalog.  If you’re interested in ordering merchandise, you can contact any Robotics student or send a Twitter message to @DrTrinilicious for more information.

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In Mr. Rodriguez’ Art class, the students are designing artwork and logos for several clubs at our school.  I observed Mr. Rodriguez coach students on how to convert their pencil sketches into electronic images in Adobe Illustrator.  The images on the right are medieval standards for the Robotics team because this year’s FIRST Stronghold game has a medieval castle theme.

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Ms. Tillson and Ms. Thompson launched a Litstock project in their junior Humanities class.  In this project, the students will form a band and create a song or rap about the Cold War.  During the launch day, they formed and named their bands.  Then they listened to classical rock songs inspired by war and answered reflection questions on them.
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On Thursday and Friday, the PLC teams met and we went over how to analyze Echo grade books and how to analyze their benchmark data.  They used a Google spreadsheet designed to calculate the weights of Echo assignments to learn if they are already assigning enough grades in each learning outcome to assign fair weights to all activities and to learn practices for improving the balance of their grade books.  Teachers who analyzed their benchmark data started by prioritizing and sequencing their data questions. Then they learned how to select and interpret the right Euphoria reports to answer their data questions.  Several core teams were able to use the reports to get a lot of specific information on how to adjust their future projects and intervention workshops to better support their students.
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