Ms. Dukes Vision: 2011-2012 Catalysts of Change (general) Making your mark on the world is hard.

If it were easy, everybody would do it. But it's not. It takes patience, it takes commitment, and it comes with plenty of failure along the way. The real test is not whether you avoid this failure, because you won't. It's whether you let it harden or shame you into inaction, or whether you learn from it; whether you choose to persevere.-President Obama Class Values: Democracy, Respect, Teamwork, Empowerment, Academic Success, Perseverance Students will leave my classroom empowered to be community and environmental advocates. They will have the knowledge, skills, and mindsets to advocate for themselves, their communities, and the global environment--both in the short-term and in the long-run. They will be empowered to make change in their own lives and affect environmental change fort those around them. I want my students to learn the knowledge, skills, and mindsets necessary to become community and environmental advocates. In teaching my students the skills that will be necessary for them to advocate for their communities and the environment, I will be empowering them to advocate for themselves. This is important to me because I measure my success as an educator not just by what my students are able to do in my class this year, but more so by how successful they are in high school and beyond. I cant allow myself to be seduced by the notion of making incredible gains this year by investing my student in my class and in me personally because that type of investment is temporal and unsustainable. Instead, I will know I have been successful in empowering my students to independently set and meet high academic goals if I can ensure that they can get into and succeed at academically rigorous high schools like Bannekar. For many of my students, this will mean that they are going to have to learn how to advocate for themselves and their personal academic needs. I want each and every one of my students to be able to approach their teachers on the first day of high school and say this is how I learn, and this is what I need from you. To advocate for themselves in this way, my students must be confident and effective communicators who are thoughtful and gritty. In learning to advocate for others, my students will adopt these characteristics and habits of mind. Additionally, in instilling a passion for environmental stewardship in my students, I will intrinsically motivate my students to learn the content I am teaching. One of the most important questions that my students ask meand that I myself recall asking my Science teachers in middle schoolis why should I care about X topic? All too often we answer that question with extrinsic incentives like recognition, grades, and (unfortunately most frequently) trite materialistic rewards like candy and other prizes. I believe that providing my students with these kinds of incentives is both ineffective in showing them that our content matters in the real world and unsustainable in getting them to care. In framing my long term goals, units, and daily objectives around the idea of environmental advocacy, I can invest students on the daily level in concepts and ideas that truly matter on a global level. But what does this look like? What do I want for my students? TOWN HALL MEETING

What? Students hold a town hall about environmental issues in their communities in DC o Students pick an issue that affects their lives and conduct research around that issue. Research skills help them learn skills to be successful at rigorous HSs in DC. Research skills are a part of the Scientific Method and problem-solving processes. To be advocates, they need to be informed. o Students discuss the issue, its causes and possible solutions. Ultimately, they take a stand. Persuasive speaking and writing will be critical to them as advocates and competitive HS students. Can have an authentic impact on their communities (this can go beyond a learning experience!!!) Also part of the Scientific Method. o Students consult experts in the field and advertise their event. Communication=CLUTCH! Again, this is REAL Will build confidence and aid them as advocates o Students synthesize and present their findings and facilitate town hall meeting Communication Team work Courage Overcoming failure They will learn skills they will need as environmental advocates and competitive HS students If they can do this now, they can do ANYTHING!

Its May. I see Keona Cyrus and Natalie Webb at the podium on the stage of Mary McLeod Bethune Day Academys multipurpose room. Behind them are a policymaker, the foremost expert on the Anacostia River, a professor from Georgetown, and a local community leader. In the audience are Keona and Natalies families, along with the families of other MMB students and people who live in their communities; they all made the trek from Saratoga, Trinidad, Benning Road, and elsewhere for this historical event. The rest of my students are in the front two rows of the audience. All are in their Sunday best. Sixth graders Rainna Canaday and Samaria Currie have already made their PowerPoint presentation on the historical causes of pollution in the Anacostia and their classmates Tai Rosebure and Marcus Taylor have facilitated a discussion between other sixth graders and community members about point and non-point sources of pollution. Seventh graders Michael Davis and Nykeim Johnson outlined the impact of pollution on wildlife in the area and were met with cheers by the large crowd that fellow seventh grader Malik Spears clever commercials helped to gather. Keanoa and Natalie now have the incredibly challenging task of serving as the liaison between their fellow eighth graders and community members, and our prestigious panel of experts. I spent the whole day calming Keona and Natalies nerves especially Natalie. Ms. Webbs tough love was the perfect complement to my ego-boosting mantras and it seems like it worked. Natalie and Keona begin their questions a bit shaky, but after immediate reassurance from the policymaker, they gain confidence. Keona trips over a couple words when asking her second question to the tenured Georgetown professor, but instead of getting frustrated or shutting down, she

remembers the suggestions her classmates gave her after a particular rocky lab presentation, closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, opens her eyes, looks out into the audience at her encouraging classmates and moves on. An hour later, the meeting is over. The talking heads are chatting as the community members are visiting student tables and signing petitions. The conversations being held in MMBs auditorium are some of the most authentic, humanistic conversations that any of these people have ever engaged in because these people have been inspired by the most thoughtful, informed, and persuasive group of students they have ever met. I am damned proud of my kids. While this may seem like a crazy, lofty, and idealistic picture of what this day in May will look like, I know my students are bright, committed, capable, and opinionated individuals. When harnessed for good, the potential of their power is beyond measure. Furthermore, if I am serious about putting my students on a different life path, this our first step in getting us there. While there is no way I can get my students to this point by myself, I am blessed to have tons of resources and support at my disposal. I must hold myself accountable for getting: planning resources, check-ins, ideas, sounding boards, and, ABOVE ALL, as many people as possible to hold me accountable for actually executing this insane idea. How on earth do I begin to get there? PARENTS, PARENTS, PARENTS, PARENTS, and PARENTS!!!! Investing early and often All units connect to vision Long term plan around town hall Working w kids and parents to identify each students strengths playing on those strengths Urgency Necessary knowledge, skills, and mindsets (see table)

What do I want?

What does this look like?

How do we get there? Beginning of the year On-going

Vision for Student Academic Successes: ALL students to be prepared for AP science classes. ALL of my students to be able to 100% of my students get at least 80% mastery on an extremely rigorous final assessment. 100% of my students get at least -Mini-lesson on college/AP classes. -Effective lesson planning?

-Follow TFA (JR/Me/Marie/Emily)

-Labs count as assessments

independently conduct and perform an experiment.

proficient-level mastery in ALL strands on PALs performance assessment task rubric at the end of the year. 100% of my students get at least a B or better on a teacher-created rubric for their Science Fair projects. 100% of my students get at least proficient-level mastery in ALL strands of TFA DC Writing in Science rubric. On-level students grow @ least 1 year; below level students grow @ least 1.5 years (per Metropolitan 8).

LTP for PALs task. -Introduce Science Fair project w checkpoints at the beginning of the year. -Introduce writing rubric at the beginning of the year and administer writing diagnostic.

have students track mastery and display on mastery board. -Adjust plans/administer minilessons where there are deficiencies. -Spiral scientific method objectives throughout the course of the year.

ALL of my students to produce a highquality Science Fair Project.V

ALL of my students to produce APstyle scientific writing by the end of the year.

-Have at least one writing assignment per unit. Make sure to give students adequate feedback on each assignments and have them revise the assingments. Monitor students progress toward their growth goals.

Students show significant growth over the year. Vision for Student Mindsets: Students leave my classroom confident that they are good at Science. Students value Science and understand the importance of learning Science to their lives. ALL students to understand both their academic strengths and weaknesses and to feel empowered to seek academic support from me and after they leave my class.

-Have goal-setting meetings with students at the beginning of the year

End of year reflection.

-Introduce malleable intelligence at the beginning of the year. -Mini-lesson w Obama video: State of the Union 11. -Intro. the Scientific Method as a problem-solving methodology. -Tools of the Mind Beliefs Lesson -Quizzes on academic strengths/what kind of leaner are you -Each student creates a learning profile

Track student mastery throughout the course of the year; refer to malleable intelligence. -Science career talks?

End of year reflection.

Students are able to articluate their own academic strengths and can advocate for themselves in order to get support they need

-References to types of learners in lessons; differentation.

-Mini-lesson on malleable intelligence? Students to feel ownership over their learning and personal academic goals. -Students create a list of steps to meet their big goals -Goal-setting conferences with individual students at the beginning of the year; students come up with individual academic, personal, and long-term goals. Students write a reflection about a service-learning project. Introduce students to service-learning projects (with calendar) at the beginning of the year - Students track their own mastery for every quiz and test and complete test reflections. -Post names of 80% and 90% crew on achievement board for EVERY assessment. Service learning projects

Students feel a sense of pride in their communities, but have the mindsets and skills to interact with diverse populations of people. Vision for Class Culture: Students to value academic success, teamwork andabove all elseeach other in my classroom. (Students see me as their guide, and not their instructor, respect each other) Students to listen to, learn from, and work with each other to answer questions and solve problems. (They work together to develop problemsolving and critical thinking skills.) Vision for Parental Engagement:

-Students come up with their own vision of classroom culture, which we post in the classroom. -Students create class goals, which we post in the classroom. -Foster some sort of competition? -Mini-lesson on problem solving; post steps up in classroom.

-Post class mastery on achievement board for EVERY assessment. -Students address each others points before making their own. (Provide students with a list of openers) -Instructional strategies that put ownership on students (like Socratic Seminars, projects, etc.) -Have former students come tutor current students?

Parents as true partners.

Monitor traffic on website Have real conversations with parents that arent just one-sided.

-Welcome calls to 100% of parents before first month of school. -Survey to parents at beginning of year with questions that will allow them to be true partners in the educational experience. -Parent interest survey at the beginning of the year.

-Create a bimonthly newsletter -Implement parent feedback; follow-up with parents after feedback has been implemented. -Weekly phone home jar. -resources in bimonthly newsletter -Invite parents to classroom -Parent evening sessions

Parents are empowered with knowledge to help put students on path to college.

End of year survey/quiz for parents

Other notes on parents: 1. Dont talk pretentiously about my vision for your students off the bat--be humble and practice humility as I phrase interest survey and communicate about Town Hall. 2. Get people on my team before the game starts. Ms. Currie, Ms. Webb, Natalie Ds mom, Ms. Davis, etc. 3. Implement parent feedback immediately and report tangible results. 4. Empower parents to take on this role of advocacy too. 5. Parents can help students tap into community networks for Town Hall.