This was my open letter to the Comm. Arts 6-12 team today following our first group meeting.
Since we ran out of time to have a discussion on this topic today, I thought that I would formulate my ideas a bit further using the new ning. I hope that this forum proves to be a fruitful way to discuss our road forward as a learning group.
It is clear from our conversations today that there are many instructional pieces on the table in varied shapes and sizes for each of you which makes it difficult to coalesce our learning around a singular topic or area, but I thought that I would generate some initial ideas to see if they spark an interest.
If the Communication Arts CAT team had a successful year, what would that look like? I really like the potential that this question poses to bring a group of individuals who are seeking high levels of learning for their individual kids to a place where they can embrace the potential and power of the team working together on a goal.
The book Teach Like a Champion names a number of best practices, but the power of the book comes from measuring the use of the techniques in the classroom. Should we choose to measure our use of these techniques?
A lot of time was put into the G.U.M.s curriculum. Does it make sense to measure its implementation success?
Do our grades indicate learning? If so, can we measure the growth of the department based on the grades that students receive? Can we average percentages eight times a year and reflect on what this means?
Again, someone will define your success this year. I don't want it to be someone other than you, but it makes sense for us to get out in front of the train.
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