MELT
Another year, another MELT! We hope you enjoyed the day and learned lots. A big THANK YOU to Lac qui Parle Valley High School for allowing the use of their building. The whole LQPV staff does an excellent job at hosting and making sure the building is ready for 600+ adults and 100+ sessions.Be sure to fill out the 2018 MELT Evaluation. The evaluations are critical to planning future events. All comments and ratings are compiled and reviewed by the Superintendents, Principals, and Teacher Advisory Council. Please take a moment to provide your honest feedback about the day.
A special thank you goes to Mary Brown. Mary has helped plan umpteen MELT's over her career and does a flawless job at it. Mary puts more time and effort into this day than anyone knows and realizes. She makes the day go! With that being said, this was Mary's last MELT! Mary will be retiring in April of this year. If you see her, please tell her "Thank You" for all the hard work she has put into making this day a success for so many years. Thank you Mary - From the MELT Committee :-)
4th Annual New Teacher Support Summit - Minnesota ASCD
Date: Thursday, February 15, 2018
Time: 8:00 AM - 3:00 PMLocation: TIES Conference Center
Who: Principals, Superintendents, Mentors, Instructional Coaches
What:
Join Dr. Tina Boogren, Marzano Research Associate and author of Support Beginning Teachers, for the 4th Annual New Teacher Support Summit.
Give new teachers the time and professional guidance they need to become expert teachers. Investigate key research and examine the four types of support - physical, emotional, instructional and institutional - that are crucial during a teacher's first year in the classroom. Explore the unique needs of new teachers of color. Discover essential strategies for K-12 mentors, coaches and school leaders to develop an effective mentoring program school wide.
Learning Outcomes:
- Gain an understanding of how to establish a solid foundation for mentoring relationships.
- Acquire specific strategies to provide essential physical, emotional, instructional, and institutional support for beginning teachers.
- Frame essential instructional support strategies within a common language of instruction, including how to engage in goal-setting, focused practice, focused feedback, observations, and discussions of teaching in order to immediately and continually improve instructional practice for the beginning teacher.
Innovator's Mindset - Strengths-Based Leadership
Chapter 8 in Innovator's Mindset by George Couros is on strength-based leadership. Although much of the chapter focuses on leadership at the administrative level, there are still many takeaways for teachers.He starts the chapter off with the example of how we currently deal with a student who struggles in school, in this example math. The typical response to a student that struggles in math is to give them more math work or recommend an extra math class. Which often times does not lead to improvements in math, but rather a hatred of math. Couros uses the "what if's" from the previous chapter. What if we did school from a strength-based model? What if we allowed kids to explore their passions and strengths instead of focus on weaknesses? Couros does not advocate ignoring the weaknesses, but rather claims it can actually encourage students to improve at their weaknesses.
What if we did the same thing with teachers? What if teachers were allowed to teach in the grade level and content areas they were most passionate and strong at? Many teachers would say they are teaching in the grade level and content area they are passionate about, but there is probably that one grade level or content area the teacher doesn't particularly like. Couros asks the question of his staff, "What is your dream job?" He uses the example of having a 4th grade teacher say they would really love to teach kindergarten, and he had a kindergarten teacher say they would love to teach older kids. He made the swap and both excelled and loved what they were doing. Imagine doing that in your school? Think of the opportunities we could create for kids?Couros ends the chapter with this quote, "By focusing on strengths first and building from there, as opposed to working from a deficit model that focuses only on where we need improvements, we create an environment where people feel they have a purpose in their classrooms and for the entire school."
Winter Olympics Teaching Resources
The 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea start on February 9th. The Olympics provide many teachable moments from history of the games, counting medals, geography of the host city, geography of countries, history as to why certain countries do better than others, art projects, etc... The list could go on and on! The Teachers Corner has provided a great list of resources to help teach the Winter Olympics in your classroom. Check it out today!Tech Tip of the Week - Insert Learning
January 24, 2018 Superintendent's Council
January 26, 2018 Principal's Council
January 29, 2018 Technology Coordinator Networking Meeting
February 2, 2018 Title III Teachers
February 7, 2018 MRVED Board (7 pm)
February 22, 2018 TAC
