ZEN

Volume 6, Issue 5-----September 10, 2020

Level Up: Strong Start to Virtual Observations

We've shown up and leveled up. Now we maintain our bar of excellence through keys to virtual observations. Here's some initial keys to get you started strong!

Before entering the classroom, check two items: (1) pacing guide calendar in Outlook, (2) provided lesson materials (focus standard, digital content, lesson outline, etc.) provided in OneDrive. Take 2-3 minutes to root yourself in what you should see upon entering the classroom. This will give you better grounding for your observation and allow you to be more efficient in your feedback.
How is the digital content supporting teaching and learning? What value does it bring to the discussion taking place, the balance of teacher-student voice, and the rigor you expected to see in the lesson?
How are students engaging in the learning? How does the teacher monitor this engagement?
In the end, what learning took place? How will this learning support the long-term goals of the standard and grade-level content? What level of independence are students at in regards to mastery performance of the standard?

Level up!!

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Level Up: Monitoring Student Work in Class Notebook

Remember the good old days...you would walk in a four-walled classroom, pick up an EnVision workbook, flip through it and check that students were completing the Solve and Share AND the "back page"?

Remember way back when...we would enter an Engage classroom, page through the module, check that students wrote thoughtful and robust responses aligned to standards?

Well...good news! You can still do this in Class Notebook!! As Owners, you can review student work at any time, day or night, with just a few clicks. Simply open a Team, view the Class Notebook under General, choose a Student, select a subject, and pick an item.

Right now, as we are still working on building teacher skills at uploading and distributing content in Teams, this is a great way to make sure your teachers are utilizing the provided digital content to it's fullest extent. You may even consider giving a "due date" for the content to be uploaded to the teacher page in Teams.

Once teachers are well-versed in the digital content, you can begin checking student work. It's amazing as you can check it at any time or even watch it live as students complete it during class (this is how AgMo can occur). For instance, yesterday we looked through student work for completion of math pages 1.1. Today, you could check for 1.1 and 1.2.

We will work on this during my next school visit with you. If you can't wait for that, call me and I'll share my screen to show you how to get started.

Level up!!

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Thanks to the Carver Team for the awesome virtual learning skills checklist. (nominated by Jill Toney)
Thanks to Tyler for helping with the Virtual Tools Documents! (nominated by Jill Toney)
Thanks to Hodgen and Nance for jumping on the 6th Grade Envision Team with us! (nominated by Jill Toney)
I will like to give a 212 to Chad for coming to Walbridge to help me in my time of need. (nominated by Mildred Moore)
A 212 to Dr. Archer for letting our shared staff member remain at Walbridge. (nominated by Mildred Moore)
A big THANK YOU to David Bassett for answering and walking me through all of the many tech questions I have! (nominated by Julie Holland)
Jill Toney for allowing the person who deleted all of our digital content in the shared folders to survive (you know who you are) AND then putting it all back into place. (nominated by Jeanine Zitta)