Friday, June 5, 2015

Welcome--let's get started!

Welcome to our new blog format of the book study of A Handbook for the Art & Science of Teaching, by Robert J. Marzano and John L. Brown.

If you are new to blogging, you will want to become familiar with some basic blogging tips and etiquette. 

We want to maintain a professional atmosphere.  This blog is searchable and viewable by anyone with access to the Internet, so please keep that in mind when commenting.  Please use professional language and refrain from curse words and inappropriate language.  In discussion, please maintain courteous, constructive comments only.  As with email, sometimes it is difficult to discern a person's true intent (ie: tone of voice, body language, etc.) so we will always assume positive intentions.  We want everyone to feel that this is a safe place to comment and ask questions.

As was mentioned in the first email, you will be paid a total of three hours of time and this is discussion time, not reading time.  Please keep track of your discussion time and a time sheet will need to be signed by you when we meet during our August in-service (see Kim or Tracy).

The discussions will be broken down into 10 sections; one for each of the Design Questions.  That would mean to get in three hours, you will spend about 18 minutes of discussion time in each of the Design Question areas.

To comment on a post, simply scroll down to the end of the post and click on the word, "comment."  You can type your comment directly into the box, or type it into a Word Document and copy & paste it into the comment box.  You will then choose an account name to publish the comment under or you can publish Anonymously.  Next, click or check the box that says, "I am not a robot" and finally, click the orange "publish comment" button.  Your comment may take a few minutes to upload or you may need to refresh your browser to see your comment.

After you have commented, you will want to return to old posts to see what others have added since your comment.

There is also a free mobile app for Blogger, if you are interested.  The icon is an orange rectangle with a white B in the center.

*Let's practice posting by commenting here so we can see who all is here.  Tell us something FUN you have done since school's been out!*

34 comments:

  1. I have been busy since school was out for the summer! I have enjoyed attending several concerts with my husband including the Steve Miller Band, Split Lip Rayfield, Cherokee Maidens & Riders in the Sky. We are planning a 4 day trip to Kansas City to celebrate our 13th anniversary later in June.

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    1. James has a week off starting on the 22nd and we've been tossing around going back to KC for a few days. We took the boys over Spring Break and there's a TON more to do. :)

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    2. Anything in particular you'd suggest? We are looking for something new to us to do! :) We will go to two Royals games and we have a favorite shopping mall, but that's about it. I'm not really into shopping and we've already been to Crown Center.

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    3. I was at Stever Miller! But I was busy serving adult beverages in the concession stand. It was a good concert!

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    4. We spent most of our time at the Legends mall when we were there and did mostly shopping and the T-Rex Cafe for Penton. There is a Russell Stovers that was fun to visit. Great Wolf Lodge is one we want to hit later when they boys are older. Our activities leaned to the kids wants. We did see a fun exhibit at Union Station.

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    5. Legends is our favorite mall---we make sure to go there every time we are in "the city."

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    6. My very favorite thing to do in KC is eat at the Cheesecake Factory! I would love to see a musical there sometime. There are some this summer and fall but not when I can go!

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    7. Oooh, yes, the Cheesecake Factory! I've been there with my mom, but not with Patrick. We tried to go last time we were there, but it was VERY busy. I think we need to try "off times," and not 7 or 8pm on a Saturday night. LOL

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  2. This is Jessica. Happy anniversary, Kim!

    Right after school was out we went to MO to visit relatives. It was quite relaxing (except for my allergies).

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    1. Darn allergies! My husband had quite a bout with them last week, too. He missed 3 days of work and ended up with pink eye.

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  3. Should we sign up on MLP for this?

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    1. I do not know if this is available on MLP. That is a question for Ms. Allison and Heather. :) I'll ask and see what I find out.

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    2. I will get with Heather and see what we can do!

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  4. I just sent and email to Heather. We will see what we can do. I will keep you posted.

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  5. Ok I think I finally got my email and password working!

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  6. I have been spending my summer running after my little hooligans. Zeke has surpassed walking and is trying to run along side his brother. This hasn't always worked out well, so the little guy has all sorts of bumps. We've been working on our gardens to get them back to looking beautiful. With all the rain, things have just grown so fast, it's been crazy. Recently we've venture to taking the boys fishing with James's family. The first day Penton actually out-fished the adults. :) It's been a relaxing summer so far.

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  7. Thank you Kim for helping me figure this out! Hi everyone! My news is that I'm moving forward with adoption! I've joined an agency and I'm raising money now and applying for grants. Lots of work but it will be so worth it!

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    1. I'm glad we got it figured out! Hopefully, it will be smooth sailing from now on! I'm excited to read your great news about adoption!

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  8. It doesn't look like my other comment showed up... HMMMM.... Well we have been busy! My father in law had back surgery so we have been doing a lot with his recovery. We did Ella's geocaching birthday party. IT was a BLAST! She then started daily gymnastics practices and has been to 4H camp, at Rock Springs Ranch. Robert and I have played in a few parks and visited both grandparents. Ella was glad to hear that I have homework too since I am making her "work" this summer too!

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    1. I laughed when I read that Ella was happy you have homework, too!

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  9. ok, I'm not a slacker I promise. :) I've tried this a couple of other times and my gmail account is giving me fits. So we'll see if it goes through this time..... We are still trying to figure out where we can get to for vacation this summer. We know where our dream vacation would be.....getting there is the trick. We'd love to go see Glacier National Park in northen Montana.

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    1. This worked, Lori. Sometimes I may take awhile, it won't show up immediately.

      I bet Glacier National Park is a beautiful place!

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  10. Matt and I decided to take the plunge and move in together. Combining two peoples stuff into one home has been a challenge. Man I can't believe how much stuff we have. I apologize for being so slow to get on here.

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    1. Just so we are all aware, is Ms. Maitri --- Morgan Ratts? :) Good luck combining! Hopefully you can save some $$$ on expenses that way.

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  11. I'm trying to post comments......I'll see if this goes through before I try again.

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    1. Valerie: I'm sorry for your frustrations. The posts won't show up immediately after you push "publish," as I have to push some buttons on my end for them to show up here. I hope this helps! You are doing it correctly.

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  12. Module 2: I know effective instruction begins with clear learning goals. I preview the whiteboard/schedule each day with students after the bell rings. We look at what we will accomplish in each subject area and the methods we will use to accomplish the goal. Students are required to write 2 sentences setting daily goals. I noticed they use the whiteboard to help them write their goals. These goals are written in their agendas. At the end of the day I select a few students and question if their daily goal was met/not met and why. I'm interested in how the Irving agenda and the AVID notebook will be used together. Looking at the section discussing scales and rubrics helped me realize that many of the district rubrics are not written in kid friendly terms. It is difficult for students to achieve a goal if they can't understand the scale being used.

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    1. I'm also going to try to copy/paste Valerie's comment to the Design Question 1 topic so everyone is sure to see it there, too.

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  13. Thanks for helping me Kim. An old dog learning a new trick!
    Valerie

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