A Great Week in My Work World

This has been a good week at work!

Monday: Campus Professional Development
My co-worker and I led the majority of the day's Professional Development.  We did a book study on Sean Cain's book, Fundamental 5, last year.  We started implementing his ideas, but after getting to hear him two more times this summer, we have a better understanding, and are going back to revisit his ideas.  The first hour and a half was around Framing the Lesson.

The next hour was spent with my assistant principal going over what active engagement is and what actively engaged looks like and my principal going over our walkthrough tool and statistics/analysis.

The last hour or so before lunch was led by my co-worker and me, again, focusing on our state's Social Studies test and how all content areas could help them raise achievement.

After lunch, the two of us, with the help of our principal, went over state assessment data from last spring using a new tool we learned last week. After we finished this, my co-worker and I split the groups into departments.  We had previously planned agendas for 2 departments to work on their own with assignments due to us at the end of the day.  We took each of the two other departments and split them between us to work with them directly.  We asked all the elective teachers to join a group, to which we assigned them, to discuss how they could support one another.

Everything we did used strategies that we modeled for them to take back to their classrooms.

Tuesday: Depth of Knowledge Professional Development
My co-worker and I, along with a math teacher, went to a district level training on levels of questioning.  The presenter not only taught us about rigor, but how to create questions that involve deeper thinking.  It isn't about how hard the question is.  It is about how much thinking the child must do. I also enjoyed being in a room with teachers and administrators at all levels.

Wednesday: A Special Treat
I worked on my campus meeting the needs of my teachers, and I found a sweet "thank you" note and a little gift of bath salts from my principal for my hard work on Monday's Professional Development.  How nice!
One of my assistant principals gave me a note as well.
I ended the day with a good meeting and learning about some new technology we have in Science.

Thursday: A Special Email and a Great Meeting
My other assistant principal wrote the nicest, most supportive email to my co-worker and I. It was really nice! 
I also had one of the best meetings with one of my Science groups that we have ever had.  Great discussion and decision making!

Friday: Classroom Observations
I was in and out of classrooms all day.  I really enjoyed watching/listening to teachers and watching the students learn.  I heard some great discussions between students. I completed the campus walkthrough form for the majority of the teachers, but not all of them. I sent the majority of the teachers a follow-up email with positives and things to think about.
I also got to leave right on time.  Yea!