Inquiry Cycles: Replacing the Dept Chair Observation Model
For the past two years Department chairs have been participating in teacher leadership training with the Center for Educational Leadership and the Seattle Archdiocese along with other teacher leaders from Cathloic High schools in the area. Topics covered in these trainings are adult learning, observation vs. interpretation, Inquiry cycle models, consultative strategies, and learning walks.
Through this training, the department chairs are developing skills using the coaching model, to support teachers in developing, and achieving focused goals that are directly related to our instructional framework the CEL 5D. Some of you may have been asked to participate in an Inquiry cycle by your department chair.
The makeup of the cycle includes a 5-15 min pre observation meeting where a targeted goal is determined, a short 10-15 min observation period and a post 3-5 min meeting. The observation portion could repeat up to as many times as needed for the observed teacher to feel they have reached their goal, (average of 2-3 visits). This is a new model, replacing the full period observation of the past.
If you have already participated in the new model of observation (coaching), we thank you for being open to the learning of our department chairs. If you have an interest in learning more about it or if you would like to learn the process of instructional coaching please contact me and I would love to share more information.
Future Professional Development
The AVID site team met this past week to define where we are and what is next. Our site team, those who attended the AVID training in the summer of 2019 in Seattle, have been working tirelessly to incorporate strategic note-taking into their classrooms. Their insights at this meeting included
- It would be helpful if we scaffolded the notetaking over the 4 years for our students.
- It would be helpful if we systematized notetaking to get a better outcome with our students in reinforcing notetaking skills in many subject areas.
- We need to develop a way to measure growth of our students.
As we head into the next steps of strategic note-taking, we will be offering a two part series on developing and diving deeper into the 5 phases of notetaking. We will offer a series for the math and sciences and a series for the humanities. Please note: you can go to any of these sessions and clock hours will be provided. Mark your calendar. I will send a sign up for these sessions next week.
Taking Note-taking To New Levels
Math and Science: 1/28 and 2/25 3:00-4:00 PM ASL Room
English/Social Studies/ Theology/ World Lang/ Music and Art: 2/10 and 3/9 3:00-4:00 PM ASL Room
Campus Ministry
Campus Ministry Committee update:
This past week Campus ministry committee met to continue our work on the restructure of campus ministry. Our work this month was centered on looking at the budget implications and comparing models, discussing location and need to centralize campus ministry, the structure of Formation and campus ministry alignment to the Ignatian Formation class and Adult Formation.
We will be continuing as a committee through the rest of this school year and probably into next school year as needed. We plan to make a more formal presentation to the community sometime in February. If you have any questions or ideas please talk to anyone on our committee.
The committee members are: Debbie Sauvage, Fr. Baez, Cari Harrison, Josh Barnes, Mark Modarelli, Jennifer O’Loughlin, Anna Hunthausen, Becky Bernards and Jody DeGroot
