Resources on creativity, critical thinking, and rubric design

A Tweep (Twitter speak for someone you know through Twitter, but have never met face to face: Twitter + peep = Tweep), a retired librarian now living in Florida, Jerry Blumengarten, just Tweeted a link to his Critical Thinking page. This prompted me to ask him about a creativity page, and resources for rubrics. They are all posted on our nchsneasc13 resources page. Twitter = the best PD resource on planet earth ;-)

Steering Committee co-chairs meeting with Principals

In fairness to the recorder, these notes were taken on an iPad during first and second lunch, while standing at the cafeteria ramp :-)

Big Question: How is steering committee going to spend Nov. 8? In Steering Committee, or with standards committees?

Who is writing the first draft of the rubrics? Standards committees? If standards, the steering committee should participate. If not, then steering committee should meet together.

We clearly need a rubric for critical thinking. What indicators should be included? While observing an engineering class, Ari asked if we had an engineering rubric - one that included problem solving. The answer was yes. We should take a look at that.

We agreed to collect all the school rubrics via email. We will need both digital and hard copies (if only a hard copy exists, we will create a digital version). There was some discussion about this - whether to collect them all or just those perceived as relevant to expectations. We decided to collect them all, in case Steering Committee members saw correlation where folks who live with them every day did not.

We will align the rubrics with learning expectations, then assign each one to a department. The department will pilot using the rubric, and report back with recommendations for revision.

The Steering Committee will meet on November 1st, at which point we will sort through the collected rubrics and assign each one an expectation, and then which committee will work on which expectation.

One thing we should address on November 8th is language. Our rubrics should reflect a common language - one that students can understand. The committees will go through their assigned rubric packets and aggregate a list of commonly used terms (word cloud opportunity?). They will also determine which parts of the rubric will cross departments, and which department will pilot which expectation rubric.

When departments meet, at least one person in that meeting will have participated in the committee meeting responsible for that department's expectation allocation, and will be able to explain the rationale for the departments' assigned pilot. Then they will use the collected rubrics and NEAS&C examples to develop new ones.

We had a conversation about indicators and rubric adoption - one I was not able to transcribe - distracted and hungry? Suffice it to say that Mike spoke eloquently on the topic, and that when necessary, I am confident he will be able to reconstruct what he said beautifully :-)

After the pilot, we will look at rubric formats and scales, but we think we should live with them  for a bit before doing that.

Faculty meeting in the library

Faculty meeting in the library (NEAS&C business will not be deterred by space constraints!). After Mike provided a succinct review of the process that led us to craft the Core Beliefs, Values and Expectations, and a "screening" of the nchsneasc13 website, the faculty approved the document without discussion :-)

Shhhhh! Food in the Library!

Habla usted Espanol? 

Ouvrez vos yeux, Mme Swan!

Ms. Brown, Ms. Goldhawk, and Ms. Floryshack Windman

10/3 steering committee co-chairs meeting to organize language to CVB&LE

9/30 steering committee work on CVB&LE word clouds

8/25 faculty work on Core Values, Beliefs, and Learning Expectations
9/15 faculty work on Core Values Beliefs, and Learning Expectations
9/25 student work on Core Values, Beliefs, and Learning Expectation

Steering Committee co-chairs meeting with Principal

Mike and I met with Bryan today to plan for Thursday's faculty meeting.

It is going to be a succinct presentation. We will highlight the foundations of our Core  Beliefs and Values Statement - communication, critical thinking, collaboration, creativity, respect, and empathy. Present the Core Beliefs, Values, and Expectations page of our NCHSNEASC13 website, and vote to proceed with self-study using it as a guide. We will also clarify that this is a living document, it is not written in stone, and that we can update it and revise it throughout the process.

We also discussed rubric templates, pulling together a team to attend a steering committee workshop in December, and self-study survey results.

For more on our process, please read preceding posts.

Selection Committee co-chairs meeting

Mike and I met to decide how to present the first draft of the Core Values, Beliefs and Expectations. We settled on uploading it to the web, and allowing for comments rather than sending a Google Doc. 

Steering Committee meeting

Productive Steering Committee meeting. We used laptops to revise our Core Values, Belief and Expectations in Google Docs, and showed the committee our nchsneasc13 portal.

Steering Committee co-chairs meeting

Mike and I met this morning to discuss our technical options for the hover text in the Core Values, Beliefs and Expectations working document. We don't want to encumber the message with wordy explanations, but we want to emphasize its alignment with our Vision of the Ideal NCHS Graduate (our work from the August 25 professional development day and the homeroom activity with students). Darien effectively uses the hover to elaborate on the details of mission and expectations. We like this model and hope to emulate it in ours. We composed the text for those hovers as comments in the existing Google Doc until we upload the final version to the NCHS NEAS&C '13 website.

Steering Committee co-chairs meeting

Core Values revisions

Mike and I went over our First Draft of Core Values, Beliefs and Learning Expectations

Thanks to Mike for the following examples recent NEAS&C-assessed schools' Core Values Statements

• Canton  Public Schools
• Darien Public Schools
• Madison Public Schools
• Region 19 (CT)
• Guilford Public Schools
• Monroe Public Schools
• Newtown Public Schools
• Wethersfield Public Schools

Steering Committee co-chairs meeting

Mike and Michelle met (impromptu hallway meeting) to review a draft of the draft for the Core Values, Beliefs and Expectations. Mike cross-referenced the preliminary draft against the Faculty Vision of Ideal NCHS Graduate to make sure we'd covered the academic social and ethical criteria the faculty identified on August 25th.

9/30 steering committee work on word clouds

8/25 faculty work on Core Values, Beliefs, and Learning Expectations
9/15 faculty work on Core Values Beliefs, and Learning Expectations
9/25 student work on Core Values, Beliefs, and Learning Expectation

Steering Committee co-chairs meeting

Share word clouds to extract terms from teacher and student work for Core Beliefs, Values and Expectations








teacher cloud:

Student cloud











8/25 faculty work on Core Values, Beliefs, and Learning Expectations
9/15 faculty work on Core Values Beliefs, and Learning Expectations
9/25 student work on Core Values, Beliefs, and Learning Expectation

Student activity in Homeroom - Vision of the Ideal NCHS Graduate

Dear Faculty and Staff,

As we delineate and define our core values, beliefs and learning expectations, the input of the students is essential. For this Friday’s homeroom, the students will go through an activity similar to what we did during the PD days before school. The two staff members in each homeroom will need to facilitate the activity, for which Tom Honohan has created a Google Form, entitled “The Five-Question Exercise.” Here’s how things should go:

1.       When students arrive at 9:39, have them arrange their seats in configuration conducive to discussion.

2.       The TV Production class’ weekly presentation will begin promptly, ending with the anchors explaining the activity to come.

3.       The Google Form is accessed through the link, NCHS Five-Question Exercise, and one staff member can moderate the discussion while the other types in the students’ responses. A hard-copy of the same form is attached.

 4.       Try to get through as many of the questions as time allows, but it is far more important to allow substantive discussion among the students than to get through all the questions.

5.       At the end of the homeroom, click the SUBMIT button at the bottom of the form and make sure the desks are returned to their pre-homeroom state.

This is the same set of questions we discussed in our groups on the second PD day, just re-worded for students; since all of us have gone through this, I am confident that we can all easily facilitate this version for our students.

Thanks and, as always,  let me know if you have any questions.

Ari

Student responses to the NCHS Five Question Exercise

8/25 faculty work on Core Values, Beliefs, and Learning Expectations
9/15 faculty work on Core Values Beliefs, and Learning Expectations

Steering Committee co-chairs meeting

Plan co-chairs meeting schedule & plan to aggregate faculty and student responses

Faculty meeting

Ari presented outcomes of August 25th faculty work on ideal NCHS graduate and reviewed homeroom activity for September 25, 2011.

Summary of teacher responses to Ideal Vision of NCHS Graduate activity

8/25 faculty work on Core Values, Beliefs, and Learning Expectations

Faculty activity in on PD Day - Vision of the Ideal NCHS Graduate

A Vision of the Ideal NCHS Graduate

A Vision of the Ideal NCHS Graduate

The first – and most significant – step in the NEASC self-study process is the identification, delineation and refinement of our core values, beliefs and learning expectations.  Moving beyond the traditional “mission statement,” a school’s core values and beliefs about learning provide the foundation for all decision-making going forward. This is to be a dynamic and inclusive process, beginning with the faculty and subsequently involving students and all other stakeholders, the product of which should be a collective objective to which the entire New Canaan High School community can commit.

Directions:   In your groups, brainstorm around the following questions.  Be as specific as possible, especially as to the thoughts behind your choices. DO NOT address concerns about implementation (funding, staffing, et al) as this is an exercise about ideals.  Later, we will re-convene as a faculty and each group will report out. Commonalities will quickly surface and differences will provide an opportunity for spirited, respectful and thoughtful debate.

What words and phrases best describe the ideal NCHS graduate?

What should be the goal of a NCHS education? Why?

• What skills should each be able to demonstrate?
• What competencies and literacies should each acquire?
• What habits of mind should each possess?

In what specific ways can the school provide for every student to acquire and achieve this?  

• Around what, should our program of study be built?
• What types of experiences should every student have while in high school
• What supports should we have in place to ensure success for all students?
• In what specific ways should we prepare all students to be informed and responsible members of society and the global community?

Additional Resources