November 1, 2016 - SIT Notes
IB: I Know and Questions
-How do I communicate the great learning we are doing through our report card
-Is there a visual way to communicate information through the report card
-Inquiry through art, how do teachers find resources to support curriculum
-IB changed our practice, how do we connect our units to our community
-Inquiry model, report card – how does my child get there – the process rather than the product, how does my child develop globally minded
-How will our work impact achievement
-Raises expectations for kids and finding that kids can do it, when will I have my 5 minute elevator speech ready
-More opportunities for language development, what is the balance of direct instruction inside project based/inquiry learning, how can we be documenting/representing what we are doing here to support other schools
-Experienced IB as a high school student – prepared me for college and thinking skills
Proposal for the group:
-Focus on development of family engagement activities
-Support development of literacy practices (teachers)
This was discussed and supported as foci for school imporvement
Family Engagement – Things We Already Do
-EMU Parent Writing Project Night (MH)
-ESL Classes at Mitchell with Washtenaw Literacy (JB)
-MFLI Book Give-Away connected to CLN (JB)
-How could we connect culture to reading – Reading night through a culture dinner/cultural and parents can interact through that event. The cultural event could be the draw (KL)
-End of unit culminating event (MS) Promote these on the calendar
-Kindergarten Beyond Bedtime Stories, students and families (LT)
-Partnership proposal for community center room – thinking of the notion of globalness, Spanish classes 4 sessions for K-2 parents in October, 3-5 parents in November
-Deliberate opportunities to help families get to know each other
-Invited Spanish speaking families to serve as the experts/resource
-Food is important, it’s a draw
-Cooking classes or parents provide/teach a class, people like to show their stuff (LT)
Is this the way to go? Why? And what’s the process?
-Ideas would be vetted and we’d choose which to focus on. Which ones will help us to leverage achievement?
-Two parts: Connections to school improvement and parents access to the community center to teach a class/etc. (LT)
-A form we could use so parents can propose a class? (SG)
-Use the community we’ve already established through the Spanish/English classes, informal approach to talk about/use the community center (KL)
-Crucial piece is deciding who will be the core organizer of the community center and developing the room, develop a curriculum for family engagement (CR)
-Small group that would like to meet and talk about this room and the process for how we use this space/do this work (KK)
-Tree house analogy, parent liaison (CR)
Next steps:
Develop family liaison job description
Develop process for moving forward with "activity" for family engagement
December SIT Meeting Focus
- Updates on family liaison, job description and process for how we do the work
- PYP Assessment Policy - read it and give feedback
- PYP Assessment Policy - read it and give feedback
