Newsletter
Volume 15 | Issue 3 | February 2020
Upcoming Dates
February 17, 2020 - Hourly Staff Development
March 16, 2020 - Spring Orientation for New Salaried Staff
2019-2020 Required Training
All About Boundaries Drug-Free Workplace
Suicide Awareness & Prevention See this flyer for more details.
A Recipe for Teacher Leadership: Leading from Within-Mentoring Relationships
Ready in due time
Serves the MPS Community and Future Generations
Why did you become a teacher? What makes you want to #TeachUp? For me, I love developing others through learning, inquiring, and thinking. Early on, this emerged in collaborating with my PLC to develop layered curriculum units (@JeffreysKerns and @jtgrosse) and classroom-based assessments that informed instructional decisions. It led to sharing at building staff meetings, leading book studies, (@MPS_Beadle) and pursuing a variety of professional learning opportunities including MPS’ Leadership Academy. Since then, learning, inquiring, and thinking are daily ingredients to how I lead from within the MPS Community. I serve as a CADRE Associate, collaborate with coaching partners who have targeted instructional goals related to MIM, and facilitate hourly staff development to achieve our district mission and goals among other privileges within my role as a Leadership & Learning Facilitator. What are ways you might lead from your perfect position in MPS?
🍐eLearning with Pear Deck🍐
Pear Deck is a great add-on for Google Slides that allows you to add interactive questions and formative assessments into your slides. Pear Deck is also a way to simply share Google Slides presentations with your students so they can follow along at your pace.
Did you know Pear Deck could help you with some elearning lessons? Incorporate these Pear Deck examples into your next eLearning Day!
Student-paced mode - Take the lesson you had ready for class if students do not need a lot of extra instruction and turn on student-paced mode. You can send your students a link, and they can work through the lesson, participate with interactive slides, and respond to formative assessments.
Pre-made digital citizenship lessons - Pear Deck has pre-made lessons for you to use. The linked lessons relate to digital citizenship. You could look through them and see which ones fit with your curriculum needs. You may need to adjust based on your use.
Reflection exercise - If you have covered a lot of material in the last few days, you could have students reflect on that learning. Pull some slides from your last few presentations and have students write 1-2 sentences on each slide about what was interesting or difficult.
MPS Templates - Millard also has a template gallery available. To find the gallery:
Go to your waffle and open slides
Click on template gallery in the top right corner
Scroll to view available templates
Submit your own!
Ideas adapted from Risa Bennet @RisaPearDeck
Mindful Self-Care: Part I by Shannon Cooley-Lovett
A growing body of research shows people have the power to improve the way they address stress and reduce burnout via mindful self-care practices. Mindfulness is an awareness and acceptance in the present moment without judgement. It gives us the ability to shift our attention to a desirable focus. There are many mindful tools that you can incorporate into your daily routine to better handle stress, improve overall well-being, and strengthen relationships. Here are a few mindful techniques to try:
Mindful Breathing
Practice diaphragmatic (belly) breathing throughout the day, especially during moments that you feel overwhelmed, stressed, frustrated, etc. It can calm your nervous system and help you feel more relaxed. To start, take a few slow, deep breaths for about 1-3 minutes while focusing your attention on your breath. Try longer times as you feel comfortable.
Mindful Movement
Throughout the day, move as much as you can. Before school or over lunch, take a few minutes to stretch, do yoga poses, or walk. When moving, focus your attention on your breath or a part of your body (e.g., right foot, left arm, etc.) to de-stress.
Mindful Eating
For the first minute or two of a meal, use your five senses to truly enjoy and appreciate your food. Take small bites and eat slowly while taking deep breaths. If time permits, eat an entire meal like this. Again, take a moment to pause during mealtimes whenever you can to relax.
Off the Grid: Using Strengths to Maximize Your Team’s Collaboration
In our District, we work in teams everyday. Your PLC, grade-level, student support, and department are just a few of the teams you might be part of. Knowing and understanding your strengths and the strengths of those you work with can affect who you are as a team and what you will do as a team.
How you feel and what you know about yourself often influences how you feel about others.
Start with yourself: Who I am
Know and celebrate your strengths
Understand how to claim and leverage your strengths
Understand how to live in the balcony (not the basement)
Partnerships: Who you are
Know and celebrate your teammates strengths
Understand how your teammates strengths can be maximized
Team: Who we are
Use the Team Strengths Grid to begin knowing everyone’s strengths
Understand each person’s unique contribution to the team
Move “Off the Grid” using these Power Discussion Questions to build strength and performance dialogue
How do we build relationships within the team?
Where do we excel in the area of communication? Where do we stall?
What motivates our team?
How do we make decisions?
How do we productively disagree?
Who is best at encouraging collaboration?
How do we celebrate?
How do we want to be recognized as a team? As individuals?
People collaborate better and appreciate the uniqueness of others once they understand how unique and special they are themselves. Know your own strengths and learn about your teammates’ strengths to maximize your teamwork!
Millard teachers who are working toward additional certification or continuing education may choose to apply. Summer 2020 applications are now being accepted. The application is submitted electronically. Click here to review scholarship options. Please review the application carefully to determine eligibility and be sure to submit all the required documentation. Applicants are informed within 30 days of deadline of scholarship awards. Amount of scholarship awards vary.
While our scholarships may support both graduate and undergraduate courses as needed, only approved, graduate level courses will qualify for salary advancement in the Millard Public Schools. Please make sure you complete an “Application for Graduate Credit Approval” prior to the beginning of the course if you plan to seek salary advancement. The application form is available on the Human Resources Website by selecting Application for Graduate Course Approval.
