Happy New Year
The MRVED staff wishes you all a very happy new year! We hope your year is filled with happiness and success!
Health Best Practice Meeting Rescheduled
The Health best practice meeting that was cancelled due to bad weather on December 5th will be rescheduled for February 4th. This is the same day as the Physical Education best practice meeting as we will combine both groups this year. If you have any questions, please let us know. You will receive an agenda for the meeting approximately a week before.
MRVED Meetings:
January 20, 2014 MELT
January 15, 2014 Community Ed Meeting
January 22, 2014 Superintendents' Council
February 4, 2014 Phy Ed and Health Best Practices Combined
February 5, 2014 MRVED Board (7 p.m.)
February 6, 2014 Social Studies
February 7, 2014 Title III Teachers
The MELT is only 10 days away. We look forward to seeing most of you on January 20th, at LQPV. Coffee and muffins will be ready by 8:00, so come early to get your registration materials, enjoy a light snack, find your room, and get comfortable for a great day of learning. Look for an email next week with some instructions and great tips on making your day an enjoyable one. The first sessions will start promptly at 8:40. See you there!
During the Fall we spent 12 weeks looking at the 12 Touchstones of Good Teaching by Bryan Goodwin and Elizabeth Ross Hubbell. For the rest of the Winter we will have a series called Brandon's Brainwork.
The goal of this series is to get you to reflect and think about your teaching practice. Each week will end with a variety of questions for you to consider and think about. Feel free to interact in the comments section.
Week 1
Mindset, Mindset, Mindset
If I only could give one book recommendation for educators, Mindset would be the book I would choose! Why Mindset? Because, in my opinion, the difference between a good and great teacher is their mindset. What is a mindset? Watch the short video below to explain the difference between a growth and fixed mindset.
Brandon's Brainwork Questions
1. Which mindset do you have?
2. If you answered a growth mindset, do you really have a growth mindset?
3. Watch the video again, which areas can you get better at? How will you get better at these areas?
4. How does having a growth mindset make you a better educator?
5. How do you instill the growth mindset into your students?
Ending Quote
"It's for you to decide whether change is right for you now. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. But either way, keep the growth mindset in our thoughts. Then, when you bump up against obstacles, you can turn to it. It will always be there for you, showing you a path into the future." (Dweck, p. 246, Mindset)
OmNomNomify It
Want to "wow" your kids or friends? Use OmNomNomify It to make them laugh and scratch their heads. OmNomNomify will turn any image on a website into a picture or video of Cookie Monster! It's very easy to use. Click on the link above and follow the directions about putting the shortcut to your favorites bar on your browser and you are good to go.
Kahoot Kahoot is another player on the clicker in the classroom field. What sets Kahoot apart from Socrative or Infuse Learning is the game-based approach. Once you create a quiz or survey, students can answer the questions in a game-like manner. Each question is worth 1000 points and the faster you answer the question, the more points you get. Points are then accumulated throughout the quiz and a leader board is developed. It's a pretty neat way to get some great feedback from your students in a fun and interactive way.
