August 18, 2013

I'm looking forward to this second week of school.  Myself and my assistant principal will be able to complete our admin meet and greets. These are ten minute classroom visits where we are able to introduce ourselves and talk about where students can go for help if they need it and encourage them to think outside of the box. Our talks are not the typical "RULES" of the school. I am passionate about the belief that we need to focus on the positive and believe in our students and their abilities to shine. If we only focus on the negative then that is all that we will see. We talk about No Excuses, and raising the academic bar very high for them.  We explain that it it will be challenging, but growth and change is hard at times. When your brain hurts and you are frustrated,  that is when you know that you are being challenged.When you are able to critically think your way through the problem you will have accomplished a lot and feel a great sense of success.

This week also marks the second day of Technology Professional Development with our partnership with SCOE and Geoff Belleau.   We began this partnership last year and offered our first PD in the series where we focused on PLN's  (Professional Learning Networks). This Thursday from 3:45-5:30 in the library  the focus will expand on PLN's and also begin the conversation on how to use mobile devices in the classroom for things like Celly and Twitter. Geoff has been very inspirational for me in my journey this past year and I am very excited for him to be working with Crystal teachers this year. 

On a side note, myself and the Crystal Innovation Team are extremely excited to be presenting with Geoff in October at the CUE conference. We will present on our experiences with Crystal Innovation Day 2012 and hopefully encourage other schools to do the same. 

This week will also be my first steps in "Student Voices." I am going to have students sign up if they would like to have me "shadow" them. I want to first shadow a few students and follow their entire days schedule as a student. I will go with them to each class and participate in each activity. This will help immerse me in the middle school train of thought. I spoke to a few students at lunch on Thursday who were very eager to have me join them. I look forward to seeing Crystal from a student's perspective. More to come.......