Scheduling Work In May

We will begin looking at our master schedule for next fall in May. While in the past people have had the opportunity to be involved with scheduling, this year this process will be more formalized, and we will have small working groups on May 9 to begin asking and answering some questions.

Each grade level and teaching area will be represented in the conversation, and there will be one "at large" slot as well. As of right now, all the slots are filled, but you are welcome to attend any session if you don't need a sub.

Here are some of the questions we need to ask ourselves:
1. How do we best accommodate interventions?
2. What do kids get pulled out of class for? How do we deal with these different purposes? How can that make the least possible impact on the whole class?
3. How would we like to look at the scheduling of assemblies and special guests?
4. How can we deliver specials in the most efficient, effective way?
5. How do we feel about lunch and recess in multi-age groupings? Are there alternatives?
6. What scheduling priorities does your grade level/working group have?


If you are representing a group during these meetings, it might be good to chat briefly with the stakeholders in that group to make sure you know what their perspectives are.

Teach Like a Champion: Draw the Map

Yet another technique from Doug Lemov, this one called Draw the Map. When Lemov examines how classrooms structure their environment, he encourages teachers to ask themselves the following questions about student interactions:
1. When should students interact in school?
2. How should they interact in school?
3. What does the ways kids sit signal and incentivize about different interactions?
4. Which kinds of interactions support which kinds of lessons?
5. What other kinds of ways can students be socialized to interact appropriately without necessarily building the classroom around that one idea every day?

He asks teacher to consider what behavior expectations they have for their students, and if their seating arrangements promote those goals. For example, do you want kids to make eye contact with you, but are some kids seated so they look at other kids, but not you? Do you like a quiet work environment, but squeeze kids together facing each other?

He also recommends considering the empty space in the classroom; can you easily maneuver to stand next to any child at any time, without disrupting someone else?

As we start to wrap up this year and think about next year, it might be a good time to start thinking about how we use space to promote our goals for kids.

Scheduling Workshops

As most of you know, Ted asked me to schedule some 45 minute sessions to discuss big picture schedule issues for next year. He would like each grade level and each teaching area represented in this discussion. So far, we still need one person from grades 4 or 5 to participate, and a person from grade 3.

Some of the topics we plan to discuss are alternative specials schedule, interventions, pullouts, special event/guests, mixed age recess/lunch and scheduling priorities.  


Here are the current groups for this discussion on Friday, May 9
8-8:45: TV, SS, AN
9-9:45: DA, NC OPEN SLOT
10-11: SD, OPEN, OPEN


If you would like one of the open slots, let me know ASAP!

Final Round of Grade Level Workshops and Skills Clinics

Here is the final round of grade level workshops and skills clinics with dates and times.

Monday, April 9 8-11:00: Intervention Specialists
Monday, April 16, 11:30-2:30: Content Specialists
Thursday, April 19 8-11:00: Grades 4/5
Friday, April 27, 11:30-2:30: Grade 1
Tuesday, May 1, 11:30-2:30: Grade 3
Wednesday, May 9, 11:30-2:30: Grade K

Skills Clinic schedule is as follows:
Thursday, April 19, 1-2: Jane Hill (KF, NP, JS, JS)
Friday, April 27, 10-11: Progress Monitoring ONE SLOT LEFT! (KF, SS)
Tuesday, May 1, 8:45-9:45: Online Math Resources (KF)

Teach Like a Champion: Shortest Path and Double Planning

Two other techniques Doug Lemov highlights in his book are to take the Shortest Path and to Double Plan.
Let's look at Shortest Path first. Lemov warns that is easy for teachers to ignore the shortest path for the showiest path. When we do that, we add in extra time and effort for things that do not improve the outcome for students, but might look like more fun. Essentially, when taking the Shortest Path, a teacher is always aware that the goal is to get as many students to the goal as possible in the shortest time. Don't create a lesson around other perceived criteria.

A warning, though, that the shortest path is not alway the same for each activity or lesson. A champion will look for the Shortest Path in many different places and techniques.


In Double Planning, Lemov suggests we always plan not just for what we, the teachers, will be doing during a given lesson, but also for what the students will be doing as well. This is a great place to think about and encourage different active engagement techniques. In fact, Lemov sometimes suggests that teacher write lesson plans on a T chart, with one side being devoted to the teacher's actions, and the other devoted to the student's actions. This will help you see the lesson from the eyes of the student, and again, remind us that learning, not teaching, is the goal.