PART I - Brief Project Description (200 words)
Throughout my tenure as an administrator it has become increasingly clear that sub days need to have more value added for student learning. It isn’t a reflection of the teachers, because absences happen for multiple reasons, many of which being that the district is working on professional development during the school day. From the perspective of the building principal my DreamIT project will be to develop continual learning for students even in the absences of their content area teacher. Substitutes are aplenty at the MS these days. However, they technically just come in to babysit the "troops" for that day. Not only is it a waste of money, but it impacts the instruction the students are "supposed" to receive. During those sub days, we often see videos playing, students goofing around and not much higher-order thinking going on.
I am going to take those "sub-filled" hours and turn them into something more powerful learning-wise. We will offer a cyber-hour for students that have scheduled substitutes in their core classes. They would report to this classroom for attendance and then send them off on an “online" learning journey. This idea would incorporate collaboration, investigation and creation of a product within that hour. So the plan is to create a partnership with the classroom teachers and develop plans related to their content or maybe to a technology initiative that would provide an enriched learning experience. I will begin by taking baby-steps and working with the language arts teachers who currently have release days to do reading assessments. These reading assessment days are prearranged so this helps with the planning process. By having a cyber-hour this will allow me to become the instructional leader with technology at its focal point. With this project my vision will be to expand this concept with additional staff implementation as we enter year two.
Throughout my tenure as an administrator it has become increasingly clear that sub days need to have more value added for student learning. It isn’t a reflection of the teachers, because absences happen for multiple reasons, many of which being that the district is working on professional development during the school day. From the perspective of the building principal my DreamIT project will be to develop continual learning for students even in the absences of their content area teacher. Substitutes are aplenty at the MS these days. However, they technically just come in to babysit the "troops" for that day. Not only is it a waste of money, but it impacts the instruction the students are "supposed" to receive. During those sub days, we often see videos playing, students goofing around and not much higher-order thinking going on.
I am going to take those "sub-filled" hours and turn them into something more powerful learning-wise. We will offer a cyber-hour for students that have scheduled substitutes in their core classes. They would report to this classroom for attendance and then send them off on an “online" learning journey. This idea would incorporate collaboration, investigation and creation of a product within that hour. So the plan is to create a partnership with the classroom teachers and develop plans related to their content or maybe to a technology initiative that would provide an enriched learning experience. I will begin by taking baby-steps and working with the language arts teachers who currently have release days to do reading assessments. These reading assessment days are prearranged so this helps with the planning process. By having a cyber-hour this will allow me to become the instructional leader with technology at its focal point. With this project my vision will be to expand this concept with additional staff implementation as we enter year two.