What makes my school awesome to work at

So...what did your staff do on the first day of school professional development?   In the past, our staff met, had a keynote speaker, gave out some awards, had some meetings and left for the day looking forward to 2 more of the same.

This is what we did today:

8 am: 

1. We met as a whole school community (bus drivers, parapros, teachers, admin etc.)  in the auditorium. 
2. Our superintendent had a 10 minute presentation (hilarious) about what he learned in his first year on the job (he learned that if he is only half as good as the last one, he will be fine :) )
3. Each administrator (transportation through administration)  introduced new staff and noted the ones who have worked there for a certain number of years (10, 20, 30) 
4. We split into 16 "power teams" (I am on the pink power processors team and wear a pink shirt!) that are a mix of all staff.  My team has 2 admin, 8 teachers, food service, bus drivers, parapros, admin. assistants.  We met in a classroom to get our instructions for the day.  We also collected 50 cents from each member of the power team.
5. Each power team had to go to 3 business partners in the community and thank them for what they do for our school every year.  We rode school buses, went to the local companies and delivered a care package with a note signed by the staff thanking them for contributing to our school community.  We then had to find a way to use our money to "pay it forward" by using the money to help out in the community somehow.  We only had $10 but we were able to parlay that into a free oil change for a customer at the auto store, 3 free children's haircuts for a family and gave $5 a family at the grocery store to assist with the bill.  We had to take pictures everywhere we went and generally had to spread good cheer in the community. 
6. We returned to school, got back in the classroom and spent the next 30 minutes brainstorming how we would pay it forward all year as a team.  Our team will clean up baseball fields in the spring, attend a sporting event and collect canned goods, donate any gift cards we receive to needy families, and every once in a while, buy a student lunch.
7. After we finished with that, we had lunch together.
 8. We gathered back in the auditorium to celebrate what we had done that morning by looking at pictures from the morning and talking about what we were going to do. 

For the afternoon, we were free to work in our classrooms and prepare for the upcoming year. 

I am not sure I have ever felt more a part of the community than I did today.  I live in the town and am a teacher there.  I live 2 minutes from school and 5 minutes from every business we visited.  We saw many former students and parents of students along the way. 

What a great message to send from our administration about what is important to our school. 
Our community knows that we are all about service.  We are all about giving back to the community for what they do for us.  That is powerful and more important than any speaker.  When people see teachers, bus drivers, custodians etc.  all together giving back, that speaks volumes by itself. 
I live in the community and am less than 5 minutes drive time from every place we visited.  All of those people now see me differently.  I am not "just a teacher" but someone who genuinely cares and likes to be a part of the community. 

I think if EVERY school did this, the negative messages sent about public education would vanish.  If every school in Michigan sent their staff out into the community to thank them and ask what else they could do, people would WANT their kids to be a part of that kind of society. 

Failure?

This past year I (as I blogged below) took flipped class to the extreme and had a portion of my AP class as online only.  We met approximately 66% of the days and they had to work on the other days.  Result????

worst AP scores EVER! 

I had as many 5's as normal but far fewer passing than ever and the lowest AP scores as a group that I have had..   After self-flagellation and inward thinking, here is what I have come up with.

Reasons for these results:

1. Unable to DRIVE the students to work harder by not seeing them every day.
2. CLass time was more meaningful when we met but not meaningful enough.
3. Online quizzes do not encourage deep study or motivation to study
4. Group was the laziest I have ever had, many seniors who basically did enough to get by with a passing grade.
5. I did not give them enough work to do which led to a feeling that they had done enough.
6. Not grading homework or allowing work to be turned in late with no penalty DOES NOT WORK for students who are not self-motivated.
7. I did not have my students WRITE their thoughts enough, rather used mc quizzing as the main means of formative assessment.

Too often in education we are afraid to try new things because of the possiblity of what happened to my class this year. I realize that these scores may have been this way even if we met every day (or they may have been worse :) 

 I DO think blending online and face to face instruction is still a valuable option and I am going to continue to pursue it.  I will this year still allow my students to work at home some days but it will be far fewer days and it will be on days where all they would be doing in class is working anyway.  We will not do online quizzing except in a formative manner.  All graded quizzes will be done in class and WRITTEN! 

In conclusion, blending instruction in this way MAY be better for elective classes like my anatomy class where there is no summative, competitive exam at the end; however, I must try it again with a few changes before any assumptions can be made.  As a scientist, I know that one trial does not an experiment make so I will continue with another set of students with a few changes listed above.  As an educator, I know that nothing is perfect but I have to continue to try to find the best way to educate my students in the 21st century.