How does your school provide teacher collaboration or PLC time? We have what we call half-days. We run our normal schedule except that classes are 24 minutes instead of 45. The students go home after lunch. We do them every other month on a Friday and end up with 2 1/2 hours of collaboration time. Not the best... but I have had worse. Chime in if you have something that you think really works well...
Anyway, yesterday Barnum had a half day.
The first thing on the agenda was a presentation by the chair of our technology committee. He was presenting the pros and cons of a desktop vs a lap-top. Also the pros and cons of PC vs MAC. I realize that eventually comes to to either A. personal preference or B. money But... assuming we get a choice anyone what to chime in any words of wisdom? What should I get and why?
The next hour was spent coordinating the use of something called "Share 911" Its a new cell-phone app for lock-downs procedures. If you have not heard of it check out the link and consider bringing the information back to your school district. It works pretty slick! http://www.sharewith911.com/ No more calling room to room or doing attendance while hiding under your desk with the lights off!!
The last hour was spent reviewing our current grading policy. We discussed why we have an inflated grade scale and how our formative and summative weighting is going. 4 years ago we decided we wanted to help our students graduate being more college ready. So we begin to put more emphasis on summative work (tests, projects, show-its) vs formative, (practice, daily work.)
7th graders have 40-60 (formative-summative)
8th 35-65
9th 30-70
10th 25-75
11-12th 85-15
Does your school do anything like this? I'm not sure it is working out as intended. We might be teaching our students that homework (and daily in class effort) isn't worth it...?? All questions and no answers today!
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