Madison Middle School

By barsotti_p 　https://blogs.4j.lane.edu/madisonstaff/2022/12/10/december-9-2022/

Dear Madison Staff,

Here are this week’s updates:

MADISON INFORMATION              

• Staffing Update: The 5.5 hour EA position has closed and we hope to be doing interviews next week.
  
• Friday Assembly: AVID 8 is planning a Spirit Assembly.  Students will meet in their first period class and wait to be called down to the assembly.  After the assembly, the students will go back to first period so there is no reason to bring their stuff to the gym. Please keep you students until you are called down.  Here is a link to the schedule.
• Academic Common Areas: With the TOSAs in the building, I have been able to walk around a lot more lately.  I have been seeing a lot of group work (which I love), but some of it is in the commons unsupervised.  Please do not let groups or individual students work in the commons without adult supervision.  For some reason, students do not alway make the best choices unsupervised.
• Dessert Potluck: Beth is helping to organize a dessert potluck for us during our PD time on Friday.  There will be a sign up sheet in the Staff Room.              
• Upbeat Survey: On Monday, we all received an email directly from a third-party vendor, Upbeat, inviting us to share our experience as a member of the Eugene School District 4J. For more information on this process please review the district newsletter shared last week. Participating in this survey is an important opportunity to share your individual insight. The survey should take no more than 30 min to complete and we have set side Friday after the dessert potluck as a time to complete this important feedback. The data gathered will provide leaders with an important understanding of areas of strength as well as those that may need additional attention. Thank you for your attention to this task and please let me know If you need assistance in identifying a time to complete the survey.       

PROFESSIONAL LEARNING AND OTHER INFORMATION

• Highlighting “Good” Mistakes in Student Work – Many moons ago, some of us learned about “My Favorite No” in a PD session. “My Favorite No” is a way for teachers to anonymously highlight a student’s work where they made a good mistake – one they and others can learn from. This article from Edutopia talks about the impact of having students look at classmates’ work (anonymously unless the student asks to share) and learn from their mistakes. This works especially well in math, but can be generalized to other subjects as well.
      
• Holiday Free Art Ideas: As we discussed at our meeting on Thursday, we should refrain from centering Christmas in our classroom. Many consider December to be the “holiday season” because of Christmas. However, major holidays for many other religions happen outside of December. Thanks to Lupe for sharing this resource of artmaking ideas that focus on winter, nature, and other more inclusive December activities. I’d love to do Winter Fest next year as described in the article. 
     
• Winter Break Bingo: To add a little fun and help maintain high expectations, consider a round of bingo with behavior goals during the lead up to Winter Break. Use the link here or make your own, but this is a fun way to reinforce expectations at a time when behaviors tend to ramp up.
  

Looking Ahead:

I hope you have a wonderful week!

Peter and Gina