Miscellaneous Reflections HS

On Overall Professional Development:

The design of the PD was effective I believe. Any time we have a choice in what we learn about, we are going to own it more and be more involved in our learning. I think this works in the classroom as well. When you can give the students a choice in how they show their learning, they are more motivated and invested in it.

The pd plans falter however when they are so spread out that we lose the connectedness of the learning. Too much time is spent reviewing and not learning new information.

- Mrs. Smith

Using the Power-School assessment area to show students their Iowa Assessment was a useful, visual tool. The students were able to "see" their scores on a graph and compare it quickly to the norm. This is helpful because students don't like using the traditional score sheet.

I enjoy having the time during PD to relate my lessons to our focus area for the PD school year. It allows me time to connect my elective courses to relevant educational material. I can show how my classes assist the student in learning the Core Curriculum.

- Mrs. Kilgard

Most of my kids did a pretty good job and they were very conscientious about whether they 

improved or not. 

- Mrs. Frimml

I was able to learn a lot from the staff in my group. Being a counselor we don't grade so what I have been doing is asking questions at the end of my lesson to see what and if they learned anything. If they did I will move on to another social skill or remain on the same skill as needed. 

I believe this will help students learn the content of a social skill rather than sitting back waiting for the next lesson. 

- Mr. Marshall

As I was looking at the scores and comparing them to last year, it appears that our work in the professional development is getting positive results. Our scores for the kids are improving and more students are moving into the higher categories of proficiency.

We need to work on computation scores. My question is how does this relate to our No Child Left Behind, and being on a school that needs assistance list.

- Mr. Schwarting