Friday, 4th hour, library

Sarah D, Sarah Z, Paul B, Jay S, Jack C.:

• on how we're using google forms right now to collect meaningful data about our students' learning
• on language/vocabulary and how when students don't have the words to identify the thinking they are doing and how that trips them up sometimes
• e.g., students can easily DO the thinking of literary analysis but once you ask them to put in the literary vocabulary, they think they don't know what they're doing
• if students read and write MORE in class, they'll get better at these things
• and this may mean teachers have to give up some sorts of control that we are really comfortable with
• every student reading the same book, writing the same paper, etc. --easier for teachers to feel 
• jellyfish model, tentacles that stretch back into all four years. All teachers agree to those tentacles, and then we operate freely around those depending on the needs of our students for that year
• portfolios portfolios portfolios in google docs! 
• radical literary education example
• one poem for the entire semester
• common spine to organize a course with different diversions off of it, student-driven
• how to help our colleagues to let go of control in places where it would best serve our students
• there's a common thing (text, concept, etc.) that everyone does and then give students chances to make choice with their work to connect back to that
• the thinking we're doing here is tearing down the lang arts boundaries (the ones we assume that are there that don't need to be?) 
• what are they in math? 

Friday, 15 February 2013, 4th hour, library

Jay S, Sarah Z, Angela H

Our model for making change:
Rather than arguing about the specifics about what we should/shouldn't be doing, we need to instead build a community that engages in conversation about meaningful change.

As soon as we commodify learning with grades, it changes everything. The goal is not about learning, then. Then it becomes about performance.

How do we make it not about the grade at FHS. This is the million dollar question. The entire culture, all the assumptions about what we do hinge on grades. How do we shift this? How do we shift it virally?

Friday, 2/8, 4th hour, library

Jay S, Paul B, Sarah Z, Leigh C-H, Sarah D

Thoughts on teacher evaluation and SB 191

We would like teacher evaluation that resulted in narrative comments, not check boxes.

On reading and reading test scores--if students do well on reading tests, are they actually becoming life long readers?

If we work to make them life long readers, they will do well on the reading tests, right?

How is any of this (testing) helping our students, especially our struggling kids? The tests don't help our students to learn more.

Where are these teachers who don't want their students to learn?

Friday, 2/1, 4th hour, library conference table

At the table: Darrel B, Jack C, Paul B, Sarah D, Sarah Z

What if there were requirements and teachers sign off on whether or not students meet them. Students have to convince teachers that they've met the requirements.

What should a FHS diploma mean? Ultimately? What can a graduate DO?

IC is not flexible enough to capture different ways of looking at grades.

Why advanced proficient and proficient? Why not just you're there or you're not?

Don't we ultimately want our students to ask a question, and then find an answer, and then prove it?