MRVED Update - February 20, 2019

MRVED Business

Upcoming Meetings

February 21 - Teachers' Advisory Council
February 22 - Principals' Advisory Council
February 27 - Superintendents' Advisory Council

MRVED Did You Know

Did you know there are 9 school districts that are members of the Minnesota River Valley Education District?  The 9 school districts are Ortonville, Lac qui Parle Valley, Dawson-Boyd, Montevideo, Benson, Yellow Medicine East, Lakeview, Minneota, and Renville County West.  The MRVED serves over 600 teachers and and 5,800 students.

Science Standards - 2nd Draft & Comment Period

The second draft of the 2019 Minnesota K-12 Science Education Standards is now available. The public is invited to provide feedback on the standards during its Public Review and Comment Period, February 14-28, 2019.  The standards can be found on the MDE Science page (link below the article) and the online feedback form link can be found below as well.  Let your voice be heard.  The standards committee reads all feedback and makes adjustments to the standards accordingly.

MDE Science Page

Online Feedback Form

Tech Tip of the Week - All Sides

In the political climate of today, showing kids both sides of stories is important.  All Sides allows you to examine news headlines from all sides.  It will even tell you if the article is left or right leaning, or centered.  All Sides can be used as a great teaching tool to show bias in the media, and teaching kids to think critically while they read.  If you are not going to use it with your kids, take a look yourself and see how headlines and stories are spun based upon political bias.

Ditch That Textbook - Ditch That Mindset (Part 3)

This week we will look at chapters 19-22.  Again, this book is such a quick read and full of awesome ideas!  Below is simply my thoughts from these chapters, so please get Ditch That Textbook and read the chapters.  I can, by no means, do the book justice in my short couple paragraphs of a synopsis.

Matt Miller starts chapter 19 by talking about Daniel Pink's research on motivation.  You can see Pink's TED talk on Motivation on the TED website.  I have watched this TED talk numerous times and find something to take away from it every time.  Students need to feel as if they have a choice while learning.  This could be choice in the activities or even how they learn the new material.  Students must also see a purpose in why they need to learn something or do an activity.  If the purpose is simply to get the activity completed, that may not be enough motivation for many of your students.  Show them the purpose, talk about the purpose.  If you can't give them a good reason as to why you are doing something, then maybe you shouldn't be doing it.

Chapter 20 moves into embracing new technology.  Miller gives us a great quote in this chapter, he says, "Technology must be an inalienable right to students" (Miller, 112).  I love this quote and it really made me think.  Miller gives the example of a new technology that comes out in the medical field that can save lives or make surgery recovery quicker...we would INSIST our doctors learn the new technology.  I don't think we would give them a choice if they want to implement the latest device into their practice.  Yet, we do this as teachers.  Our students are INSISTING we use the latest technology to make their learning more relevant.

This idea of insisting we (teachers) learn new technology flows right into the premise of chapter 21.  YOU are your own best PD.  Miller talks about not waiting until the next staff PD day to learn or see how the new technology works.  Dig in and try to figure it out yourself.  YOU have the greatest minds at your fingertips with Twitter, the best tutorial videos imaginable on YouTube.  Not to mention, you probably have a classroom of 20+ "experts" in front of you every day!  YOU have full control over your own PD. YOU.  YOU.  YOU!

I get a little fired up over this topic.  Miller reaffirms many of the same thoughts I have about education, PD, and technology.  We are living in a day and age where we have access to SO much information, almost too much information.  There should be no reason in the world why we can't learn something new to be the best we can.  After all, our kids deserve your very best EVERY DAY!

MRVED Update - February 6, 2019

MRVED Business

Upcoming Meetings
February 13 - MRVED Board Meeting
February 21 - Teachers' Advisory Council
February 22 - Principals' Advisory Council
February 27 - Superintendents' Advisory Council

MRVED Did You Know: Why is the MELT Conference in January?

I was recently asked, "Why do you hold the MELT in January?"  The answer is simple, yet complicated.

There are 3 MRVED common days that fall within the school year.  One in the fall, winter, and spring.  The spring date is rather late to learn something new and implement it into your classroom, thus not a great time for an educational conference.  Plus, the SWWC Service Coop hosts their annual technology conference in the Spring and we would be competing for presenters.

The fall date, on paper, seems to be the best option.  Weather is better, it's early in the year, it coincides with MEA, etc...  However, taking a moment to think a little deeper about this date...it's so close to MEA (the day before), that many of the presenters from the cities are already presenting at MEA, on Thursday and Friday.  Also, the process of getting people to present takes about 3-4 months.  Presenters are sought after in September for the January conference.  If the conference was in October, it would mean June/July would be the time to solicit presenters...not really the best time to be contacting teachers :-)  With those two reasons alone, holding a conference in October, would present MANY obstacles to getting people to present.

In a nutshell, January seems to be the ideal time to hold the MELT.

8 Ways Teachers and Schools Can Communicate with Parents in 2019

I came across this great blog post by Kathleen Morris on 8 Ways Teachers and Schools Can Communicate with Parents in 2019.  Not only does the post provide ideas, but it gives actual examples as well.  So, if you are looking for different ways to communicate with your parents, this is the article for you.

Tech Tip - CollabraCam

CollabraCam is an iPad app that allows the user to see up to six other iOS cameras at one time.  It would be a great thing to incorporate into a class field trip or project.  You can then take the footage and edit it together for an awesome video montage.  The app costs $4.99 and is only available on Apple.  There are many uses for this from Kindergarten through 12th grade.

Ditch That Textbook - Ditch That Mindset (Part 2 - Chapter 14-18)

I've said it every week.  Ditch That Textbook is great playbook for your classroom.  Matt Miller provides so many GREAT ideas, not only for your students, but for you as a professional educator as well.  These next five chapters are about a variety of things, so once again, I will provide a short snippet of my learning from the book.

Chapter 14 talks about giving students control.  I love the analogy Miller provides about our students are just like tenants that rent a house.  Tenants simply live in the space and usually do nothing to improve that space, because there is no ownership.  Our students are the same way in the classroom.  They are tenants in our classrooms.  How do we get them to see ownership in the classroom and do something with their learning?  We have to make it real for them.  We have to get them invested into their learning.

Miller then goes on to talk about how we use our time.  He references Andy Stanley's sermon on "Choosing to Cheat".  If you have about 30 minutes, and don't mind a few religious pieces included, I highly recommend going to YouTube and finding the sermon.  In it he talks about how we choose to spend our 24 hours and often times find ourselves cheating the ones we love and care about out of time.  A teacher's' life is hard and busy.  Between teaching, correcting, lesson planning, coaching, supervising, meetings, etc... our hours can fill VERY quickly.  Pastor Stanley states in his sermon that "sometimes we need to give up on the good things we are doing to make way for great things".  Think about that quote for a minute.  It really hit home for me personally.

Miller also talks about being a connected educator and sharing the things that you do.  So often, especially in our small rural schools, we can become our own silos.  There are so many people that are willing to help and share, if you know where to look.  Find a platform for connectedness that works for you.  For many this might be Twitter or Facebook, but there are blogs, YouTube channels, Instagram, etc... for you to take advantage of as well.  If you don't think you have time for it, try it for 2 weeks and see if it works for you.  If you find value in it, you will make time for it.  Once you get comfortable becoming connected, learn how to share.  There is someone out there that can benefit from what you are doing or what you have to say.