Staff News and Announcements

Building Collaboration for January:

Building Collaboration meetings: 1/6, 1/8 (Cooper Rock Talk Video), 1/22, 1/24, 1/27, 1/29

Team of 8 Challenge meeting: 1/10

RockStar meeting: 1/31

Department Create Videos for Course Information: 1/13, 1/17

Culture Team meeting (all staff): 1/15

Building Focus Team meetings: 1/24

This Week in Connect Time :

• January 8th is our Next Connect Time. It is a 1 Hr. Connect Session and it is not taken up by any other required activities for students.
• Flexisched has already been set up for you to be able to create your session for this

MHS Big Rock Teams for 2019-2020 (including Building Focus, District Focus, Building Fusion and District Fusion teams)

MHS OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) for the 2019-2020 school year

• "New Year, Improved You" - Are you wanting to use the New Year as an opportunity to improve your instructional practices and grow as a professional? Would you like someone to walk alongside you to encourage and support your growth? Everyone needs and deserves an instructional coach that can provide them non-evaluative, low-pressure one-on-one consultation, collaboration, and support around lesson design, implementation of instructional practices, and assessment. Consider taking advantage of the "New Year Improved You" professional learning and growth opportunity with me. ~ Robyn Jordan

Click here to complete the "New Year, Improved You" interest form.

• Community Classrooms are back for round two of the 2019-2020 school year! Not only will be visiting community classrooms in our own building, but we will also be visiting community classrooms in other buildings in our district. If you would like to participate in this professional learning opportunity, please indicate your interest by completing this form. More details, including dates and times, will be coming once the level of interest is determined. Click here to complete the interest form. Deadline to sign-up is January 10, 2020 at 2:30 pm.
• Post-Lesson Reflection: What Do Students Think They Learned? - Check out this blog that offers strategies on student reflection. The post-lesson reflection is an opportunity for students to pause and assess what they think they have learned in a lesson or series of lessons.
• How to Use the Concept Attainment Strategy - Learn more about this instructional strategy that leads in deeper understanding.
• January Teacher Collaboration Time - Are you looking for colleagues to collaborate with during Tuesday/Thursday Collaboration time? Wanting to share ideas, brainstorm, develop lessons, have meaningful discussions and connect with colleagues? Feel free to add to the wall if you have something that you would like to open up to others for collaboration. Just click on the plus sign under the date in which you are wanting to collaborate, and add the brief description and location.

Culture Team:

“Discipline is the life-long process of you getting better at your life.” ---Tim Kight (^^^ Click to watch the video.)

As the new year begins, we encourage you to make a commitment to improving the culture everywhere you go - in your classroom, in the hallways, in your home, and elsewhere - by committing to improve yourself through self-discipline.

As a reminder: The next Connect Time dedicated to student R-Factor training is January 22.

Inclusive Excellence Team:

Personalized Learning Team:

Aaron and Joe hope you had a really restful two weeks. We also took the two weeks off to rest and reset for the new semester. During our time off, our friend Allison Zmuda published some lighter articles that you may find interesting.

Will Richardson Makes the Case for Connecting School to Real Life - Will Richardson has been putting out big ideas for a number of years. This article links to one of his TED Talks that talks about having students creating real work with real value in the outside world.

Time of Day Matters (A LOT) to Mood and Performance - This one looks at how students' performance can really change over the time of day. I, for one, totally get this. I'm a morning person and perform much better in the early bells compared to the late bells. Others are the opposite!

How Amazing Would Pop-Up Courses Be During the Year? - This is an interesting thought based on the pop-up shops that one sees during different parts of the year.

The Learning Experience Team welcomes you back and hopes you have an amazing 2nd semester! Stay tuned for some professional learning opportunities in the coming weeks.