Ok, so I am not good at updating this yet. I'm going to keep at it, but I'm thinking that if I don't demand so much of myself in terms of writing and just kind of keep it simple, I'll be able to update more often.  Also, I've been really loving the photo-heavy blogs/comics/articles (like Hyperbole and a Half), so I want to try something more like that. 

So, here goes. 

Yesterday, my Film Production students went on a field trip to Noddin Elementary School. I'd met some of the teachers over the summer when I was directing a miniMERIT through the KCI and we'd discussed the possibility of connecting my high school kids with their 2nd graders. Toward the beginning of the school year, one of the teachers, Julie, contacted me to start setting up a visit day. She coordinated a full-day experience with multiple teachers and grade levels (awesomely-well, I might add), so all I had to do was prep my kids with some iPad skills and get them over there.

The kids split up into several groups in the morning, each working with a select group of 2nd-graders. One class was filming commercials for books they had read recently. 

One class was making movie trailers. 

Two classes were making stop-motion animations and narrating them. 

My students helped, demonstrated, and gave advice...

...but many students were quite happy to do the work on their own.

The students were well-prepared with storyboards and plans.

And they were so cute, all dressed up!

Of course, my students were cute too, especially in contrast to the environment.

And in contrast of height!

After a pizza lunch, the groups split up again to go to different classes. Some students went to Kindergarten to help students with Glogster and Puppet Pals.

Some went to 3rd grade, which was... an active class. They were making movies with WeVideo and Chromebooks.

And some went to 5th grade, where students were making very detailed stop motion movies about the pilgrims. 

Of course, the excitement of the day sometimes led to students getting distracted. 

...and not just the little ones.

But overall, the day was a huge success!

So... I'm not sure why I thought that this year would be less crazy, chaotic, and stressful than the last one. I mean, I knew that I'd be coordinating a super-intensive SLC and guiding about 100 kids and 3 teachers through new frontiers of teaching and learning, most of which are new for me too. I knew that I'd be putting out a lot of small fires in terms of professional development as my staff transitioned to a block schedule and a new advisory/tutorial period. I knew that I'd be working all summer (from the day after school ended to the day before it started again) with the KCI and that I wouldn't have time to really prep in detail for my courses. I knew that I'd be taking on another section of classes and losing a release period due to budget restrictions. I knew all of these things, and somehow I thought this year would be easier. 

Anyway, the start of the school year has been intense. Here are some things I've done:

QuIP- Getting the Quicksilver Innovation Program off the ground has been intense. The teachers are fantastic and the students are just great, but we're all in unfamiliar territory. We've been taking it slow, and, although I've been chafing at the bit, I think that allowing it to progress naturally is better than forcing it. We developed our first cross-curricular project based on The Cask of Amontillado and we held our first major field trip to Downtown San Jose. Both are detailed in the QuIP Blog.

Storyboard Swap- In Film Production, we wrapped up our unit on Shots and Angles with a storyboard project. Students designed storyboards that were then given to other groups of students to film. Much hilarity ensued, and we also had some great conversations about communicating complex ideas effectively. It was also their first time learning to use the cameras. By keeping the content simple and silly, we were able to work on many difficult skills at once. We're currently working on the Palindrome Project which (hopefully) I will detail in its own post. 

There's more. I know there is. But for now, it's time to feel as caught up as I'm going to get and just try to keep moving with this blog. 

Ok, I've been meaning to start a professional blog for over a year and, well, I haven't. 

I do cool things. I mean it! I really do! I even take pictures sometimes. I just never seem to find the time to actually write about them. 

It's time to change that. I need to just jump in. So... here I go. 

First post, done. :)

​My school site's professional development time has been organized into collaboration committees next year. (Here are the details of that, if you're interested.) I will be heading the committee that researches and designs a smaller learning community within our larger, 2,400 student, comprehensive high school. This is something that I have wanted to do for a very long time. I started my teaching career in a very small school and, while I love my current school site, there are some central aspects to a community that I believe can only be accomplished in a place where everyone knows everyone else. In the 2012-2013 school year, I got to visit New Tech High School in Napa and was very inspired by the way that the entire school integrates project-based learning across subject areas and throughout all aspects of the school. I was also blown away by the sense of trust, safety, and student-centered community that defines the environment of the school. These are things that I wanted to bring back to my school site.

We decided to pursue the idea of a smaller learning community for several reasons. First, it will allow us to test-drive some of the more radical ideas (flexible bell scheduling, cross-curricular projects, community involvement in education, etc.) on a smaller and more manageable scale before trying to implement them in the larger school setting. Second, it will (ideally) provide us with a model school for peer observation and research so that teachers can see project-based learning in action. Third, it will allow us to target some of our most disadvantaged subgroups and work more intensively with them than a larger environment would allow. 

This coming year (2014-2015) is the design year, so there are not a lot of details in the plan just yet. Currently, we intend to start in 9th grade with 4 sections of students. At least three of these sections will be from the Summer Bridge, a program that helps identified at-risk students transition into high school. There will be four core staff members: English, Math, Science and Art who will work together to design large-scale cross-curricular projects that all students work on. In order to facilitate these cross-curricular connections, the school year will be broken into units and each unit will have a theme and a core project that encapsulates the learning from all subject areas. 

It's a big ambitious plan and there is still so much to be worked out, but I am very excited to be working on the creation of something with so much positive potential for student achievement and school change.