Where Do You Do Your Best Work?

Where do you do your best work?  I pondered this question as I sat down to write this blog post.  For me, and I am sure for many of you as well, it depends on what type of "work" I need to do.  When I wrote my book, I was most productive and inspired when I was writing at various hole-in-the-wall neighborhood coffee shops.  I wanted the quiet solitude of the study rooms at my local library when I needed to study for a grad school exam.  A brightly lit group fitness studio with loud music is most energizing to me when I am working on my physical fitness.  I realize, however, that others may have totally different preferences when it comes to creating the ideal learning and working environment.

Trung Le talks to D107 staff
about learning spaces on 8/22/17.

As educators, we must acknowledge the need for flexibility in our learning spaces as well, which is why Building Learning Environments is one of our three goal areas on our District 107 Strategic Blueprint.  Building flexible learning spaces means providing environments that can easily transform and shift based on the needs of the learners and the type of work that needs to be done.  At our district's opening institute day, one of the speakers we were lucky to learn with was Trung Le of Wonder Design Studio.  One of the key takeaways from his presentation was "making sure there are choices, and new choices, in learning spaces."  I also wrote about this in a post last year when I compared the thought process for designing learning spaces in our schools to designing our daughter's nursery.  Our learning spaces need to allow for flexibility as our learners grow and their needs change.  Learners should have space to collaborate, to work independently, to listen, and to speak.  They should have space to work with their hands, to work with technology, to move, and to be still.

Mrs. Georganas's Classroom

We have a few teachers exploring this in their own classrooms already this year, providing a variety of seating options and tablespaces.  As a school, we are also investigating other options for maximizing the potential of our learning spaces.  One idea is to re-purpose our computer lab into a more flexible learning space for innovation.  Since students have one-to-one devices, they no longer need to come to the computer lab to access such tools.  Possible ideas for this space include having a portable green screen, space to work with our two programmable Raspberry Pis and our Sphero, and movable furniture options to allow for collaboration.  Similarly, we are planning to transform one of our small classroom spaces to meet the needs of some of our students who may need a distraction-free environment for productively working or, conversely, may need a space to develop their senses through physical activity, lighting, and/or sound.

We are looking forward to investigating the possibilities that lie within our learning spaces in more detail this year and welcome ideas from our community of learners as we strive to create optimal learning spaces for all!

Building Human Capital

While the quote above refers to a company, I think it can be applied to a school district as well.  Last year, I wrote an introductory blog post about our philosophy on building human capital, one of our three goal areas for our strategic blueprint.  We believe the people are what make Pleasantdale such a wonderful place to learn, and developing the capacity of our staff will ensure it stays this way!

This year, much of our professional development will focus on the areas of differentiated instruction and subject-specific content, both of which will ultimately enhance the learning experience for our students.  This past Tuesday, we were able to provide our staff with a day dedicated to these priorities.  Our STEM, art, music, and PE teachers spent the day collaborating with their counterparts in other area school districts to discuss their curriculum and teaching strategies.  Meanwhile, the rest of our middle school staff spent time with Dr. Jessica Hockett, author of Differentiation in Middle and High School: Strategies to Engage All Learners.  Dr. Hockett modeled a variety of differentiation strategies for our teacher related to readiness, interest, and learner profile.  Our teachers had the time to share what they are already doing in their classrooms to differentiate to meet our students' needs, as well as time to plan for new ways to integrate many of Dr. Hockett's strategies into their classes.  In fact, I got an email from one of our teachers the following day stating, "I found yesterday to be a great use of my time...I appreciated her choices of activities and took a few ideas and implemented them today!"  

To me, this is validation that our staff is always willing to learn and improve.  We are fortunate we already have so many positive things happening in our classrooms, and we are committed to ensuring it remains this way!  

PMS Staff with Dr. Hockett

Ensuring Learning for All

Our fifth and final belief statement that guides our strategic blueprint really embodies the intent behind the George Evans quote above:

Belief 5: Students have dynamic teachers who utilize various teaching styles and have fun learning together.  Staff serves as an advocate for ALL children.  

Our Pleasantdale teachers strive to provide our students with regular opportunities to engage in a variety of learning activities while doing what is best for each individual learner. As a staff, we are taking the time to dig deeper into differentiation. At our staff meeting this afternoon, Pleasantdale Middle School teachers met as content areas to discuss what differentiation is and is not, a conversation started by reading this post. The teachers also had collaborative conversations about what they are already doing in their classrooms to differentiate the task, process, and product for their learners. They then had time to start digging into some of the data reports generated from our recent NWEA MAP (Measures of Academic Progress) testing and talk about how this data can be used for differentiation. Flexible groupings based on the intention of tasks, differentiated question sets, and targeted mini-lessons based on student need were just some of the ideas generated.

On our October 11 institute day, Pleasantdale Middle School teachers will dig into differentiation yet again with Dr. Jessica Hockett, author of Differentiation in MIddle and High School: Strategies to Engage All Learners. Our staff is looking forward to another day of learning together as we strive to provide every single learner with the optimal conditions for growth and success!