#EDnado: The Breakfast Club?

This past Saturday I attended #EDnado at Middletown High School South in Central New Jersey. Here is the description of the event from their website: "Ednado is about promoting innovation and inspiring educators to try new things in their classrooms.  At Ednado, educators from Monmouth County and beyond will be able to learn and share what WORKS in their schools." A unique characteristic of #EDnado was the inclusion of parents and students.

This was a wonderful event! I was not intending to go until a friend, @nataliefranzi, mentioned it to me and "volunteered" me to be a part of an administrators panel discussion on the topic of innovation.  I am so glad that I went because I am a huge proponent of #edcamp, so much so that I have been on the organizing team for #edcampNJ for the past 4 years. This was a chance to be a part of a Saturday professional development opportunity that was different than the traditional unconference model.

One thing is very clear to me... Educators who choose to use a Saturday to participate in professional development without pay or compensation are some of the finest educators out there. It is so

Universal Pictures (1985)

interesting to me to think that when I was in High School, it was quite a stigma to get assigned to Saturday School detention and something to be avoided at all cost.  However, now I eagerly seek out school on Saturday!  I feel like we've developed a new Breakfast Club.  Just like those characters (a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess, and a criminal) we are all different and bring our varied experiences and points of view to these days of learning. Additionally, we too, are misunderstood. Some in our schools and districts can't fathom "giving up" a Saturday to go to a conference; but we know better. We've found something that is too valuable to pass up. The connections that we make on these days can't be quantified. Whether it is connecting with people from Twitter, Google+, etc. who are in our PLNs or meeting colleagues for the first time, we share a common desire to continually improve our craft.

#EDnado is another fine example of one of these opportunities for connections. I connected with many familiar faces on Saturday and met some new ones. I learned about Classroom Blogging for beginners from Stephany Hesslein (@MissHesslein) and Marla Weinstein (@Miss_Weinstein). Their excitement and enthusiasm regarding blogging, and something I had never heard of called "quadblogging," was contagious!  Their presentation can be found here.  This was a wonderful way to start the day.  There were participants in the room who had classroom blogs and those who had never blogged before. It was clear at the end when the presenters took a pulse of the room that most were eager and ready to dip their toes in the blogging waters.

After this session, I was part of an administrator group that discussed innovation in education. This session was led by Middletown Superintendent, Dr. William George (@DrGeorge_MTPS). Once again, this was a room filled with positive people who wanted to learn from one another about how to move schools and districts forward. I encourage everyone to take a look at the crowd-source notes document from this session. There are great resources and people listed there.  If you are in a district that is resistant to innovation, I encourage you to contact any of the people in this session for advice. 

#EDnado offered two lunch sessions so that people could choose to eat when they wished and go to

sessions when they wished. In fact, the lunch even offered some choices for learning. Of course, there was the opportunity to connect and talk with other educators. There was also a "Student Tech Team" set up at a table in the cafeteria.  Each student had a sign by their laptop indicating a tech tool that they could teach.  All you had to do was sit down and the students were eager to demonstrate and explain! This was a fantastic way to get students involved in the event. There was also a makerspace set up in the cafeteria that offered opportunities for educators to engage with the concept, see a 3d printer at work, and discuss ways of setting up such a space in schools/classrooms back home.

After a learning lunch, I attended a session run by Dan Alston (@dalston411) and Natalie Franzi (@NatalieFranzi) on Google Extensions for Efficient Administrators. You must look at the notes document from this session. There are so many extensions for Google that I never knew existed.  I am excited to try them out. Don't be fooled by the title; you do not need to be an administrator to find helpful and time-saving tools on the list.

I culminated my day of learning in a session conducted by Melissa Luell (@bayview_luell) entitled "The Power of Podcasts." This is an area that I have often thought about, but never actually tried. After this session, it is very possible that you may find a podcast or two on The PrincipalArc in the future.  You can check out the notes here. 

I cannot stress enough how important these days of learning are for me. They remind me that my school, my district, my county, and even my state are artificial boundaries that don't really exist when it comes to personal learning. Connecting with educators is universal and if you have not done so, do it soon! Here is a link to the schedule for the day. If you see a session title that you like, click on it to see the notes from that session.

"So, you may see us in the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is a principal...and a third grade teacher...and a superintendent...and a math teacher...and a parent...and a student.  Does that answer your question?"

Thank you to the #EDnado Organizing Team!

NJASCD/MSU New Teacher Bootcamp Presentation

Below are my slides from the NJASCD North/Montclair State University New Teacher Bootcamp Keynote.  It was a wonderful morning and the prospective teachers at MSU were a great audience with some thought provoking questions.  I truly enjoyed my visit.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

I have always been a proponent of the philosophy, "change is good."  Having said that, I was much
more open to change in my own life and career when I was younger.  I pursued my Masters in Educational Leadership in my twenties and willingly sought out and took on the challenges of leadership positions.  It was exciting and new and fresh.

For the past 11+ years I have been the principal and lead learner of Bear Tavern Elementary School, a wonderful community that is dedicated to education.  Recently, I had the opportunity to make a change.  It was frightening to contemplate.  My superintendent and I discussed the need for assistance on some of the district's critical technology related projects.  With my passion for technology and its appropriate use for teaching and learning, I was intrigued.  But, how could I move on from my position as principal to work in a role that is so different and may or may not be there in the future?  That took some real reflection.

After considering the options, I came to the conclusion that I needed to take a risk. I thought back to those early years in my career when I was eager for a new challenge and willing to take those leaps.  I decided to go for it.  So now, my title is "Principal on Assignment."  I am working on projects including implementation of PARCC assessments district-wide, development of a plan for the district to transition to a new student information system, and supporting and actualizing the expansion of our 8th grade 1:1 Chromebook initiative to grades 9 and 7. Those are some of the major responsibilities among other things.

I was unsure if I would be comfortable working out of our central office and not being based in a school; however, this position has afforded me the opportunity to interact with teachers and students in all six of our schools from preschool through 12th grade. Every day is something new and different. Additionally, I am involved in educating students (and teachers) in an entirely different way.

So, I guess the point of my post is more of a personal revelation. I have been professing the virtues of change to the teachers and students with whom I have worked over the years, but while doing so, I slipped into a position that provided me with the opportunity to engage in what I can only describe as "comfortable change." I firmly believe that the work we have done at Bear Tavern during my time there was positive, good for children, and affirms the reasons that I went into education all those years ago.  But, now I have taken one of those leaps into something less defined and less secure.  It is exciting and invigorating!

What does the future hold?  Who knows?  I am ready for it. I feel like I am truly living the advice I have given others so often over the years.

What changes do you need to make?  It is worth some thought.

#NJED Chat - Grading and Grading Practices

This week's #njed chat was a lively discussion of grading. In this post I've included some of the thoughts of the participants as well as the resources that were shared during the chat. If you haven't participated in #njed chat, be sure to check it out at 8:30pm EST every Tuesday on Twitter. The seven questions asked were:

Q1: What do you believe is the purpose of grades? #njed

Q2: How do you grade students'  - individual Work? #njed

Q3: How do you grade students' work when it is done collaboratively? #njed

Q4: How do you grade late work? Why? #njed

Q5: Do you have experience with Standards Based Grading? If so, your thoughts? #njed

Q6: What is your favorite formative assessment tool and why? #njed

Q7: (How) Does effort/homework/behavior fit into your grading #njed

These led to some great discussions about why we grade students. It is interesting to see that many educators are grading students based upon district practices that pre-date their employment and don't necessarily jive with their educational beliefs or philosophy. Another salient point that was raised is the idea of Standards Based Grading as a best practice as opposed to traditional grading.  Following are some thought-provoking tweets from the chat:

These 12 tweets only give you a taste of the wonderful conversation that took place. I encourage you to check out the archive of the entire chat!

Here are some resources that were shared during the chat:

Ed. Leadership - Starting the Conversation About Grades - 
http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/nov11/vol69/num03/Starting-the-Conversation-About-Grading.aspx

Best Practices in Grading - 
http://www.shaker.k12.nh.us/files/ResearchBriefGradingPractices%20(1).pdf

Grading Practices: The 3rd Rail -
http://www.leadandlearn.com/sites/default/files/articles/1003-pl-grading-practices-the-third-rail.pdf

ASCD - 7 Reasons for Standards Based Grading - http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational_leadership/oct08/vol66/num02/Seven_Reasons_for_Standards-Based_Grading.aspx

TOOLKIT for Evaluating Alignment of Instructional and Assessment Materials to the Common Core State Standards
http://www.ccsso.org/Documents/2013/Toolkit%20for%20Evaluating%20Alignment%20of%20Instructional%20and%20Assessment%20Materials.pdf

PARCC Condensed Scoring Rubric for Prose Constructed Response Items (DRAFT)
http://www.parcconline.org/sites/parcc/files/Grade6-11-ELACondensedRubricFORANALYTICANDNARRATIVEWRITING.pdf

Grades That Show What Students Know (Marzano) https://www.ocps.net/lc/southwest/mso/parents/Documents/Grades%20That%20Show%20What%20Students%20Know.pdf

Standards Based Grading - @RickWormeli YouTube video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-QF9Q4gxVM

Joe Bower posts on Grading/Abolishing Grading 
http://www.joebower.org/p/abolishing-grading.html

Why Schools are Ditching Traditional Grading 
http://us.cnn.com/2014/04/07/living/report-card-changes-standards-based-grading-schools/index.html?sr=sharebar_twitter

Doug Reeves on Toxic Grading Practices (YouTube) 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jduiAnm-O3w

Doug Reeves - The Case Against Zero http://www.leadandlearn.com/sites/default/files/articles/caseagainstzero.pdf


If you feel moved to do so, please provide your thoughts on grading and grading practices in the comments. Also, please join us each Tuesday at 8:30pm EST on Twitter using the hashtag "#njed" as we discuss topics that are important to New Jersey educators and educators from around the world. We enjoy and welcome participants from near and far. Join us!

#DLDay: The Verdict is...

I know, Digital Learning Day was February 5th, but on the 6th I got to be involved in a fantastic example of technology tools being used effectively to break down the walls of the classroom and allow students to learn and connect with students and teachers beyond their school.  I was fortunate to be asked to judge a Virtual Debate! South Orange Middle School sixth graders debated with Lower Alloways Creek sixth graders about the merits of homework.

Before I talk about the technology, let me first say that these boys and girls were wonderful. They were prepared with strong arguments, they formed coherent rebuttals, and they presented convincingly. I was impressed with the amount of support that was cited on the subject from people like Alfie Kohn, Robert Marzano, Harris Cooper and other researchers in the field. The students understood that presentation is an important part of debate and they worked to put forth a compelling and convincing argument for their given side. The only part that was unfortunate was that I had to fill out my rubric and decide on a winning team. They both did such a remarkable job. If you don't believe me and you have about an hour, you can check out the debate here sfy.co/aZxd .


I was invited to be a judge by Melissa Butler, one of the teachers involved in the project. Here is the first instance of technology playing a role. Melissa (@AngelinaShy) is a member of my PLN. We connected through twitter and are both part of the planning team for #edcampNJ. Using twitter as an avenue for professional learning, growth, and connection has afforded me various wonderful opportunities (like this debate) and introduced me to some of the most amazing and passionate educators. Melissa co-teaches with Elissa Malespina (@SOMSlibrary) (another #edcampNJ organizer), who is also the media specialist at South Orange Middle School. They were connected with Ruth Williams' and Kristen Ayling's students in Lower Alloways Creek, NJ through another twitter connection, Jay Eitner (@iSuperEit) (you guessed it, #edcampNJ organizer), who is the Superintendent of the district and a strong proponent of technology as a tool for learning.

The students used various methods to research their arguments. It was clear during the debate that the boys and girls were using laptops and desktops to quickly get information to use in their rebuttals. I can only assume that with their teachers facilitating the process throughout, the students utilized resources in the schools' classrooms and media centers, including books and web based tools.

The debate, itself was held using Google Hangout. This is a personal favorite tool of mine. We use it often to hold meetings in the evenings to plan. However, the debate illustrates an amazing use of the tool to allow students to interact with people from other locations. Of course, there were their adversaries in the debate who were several hours away in another part of the state. In addition, the judges consisted of:

Tim Charleston @MrCsays - District Technology Coordinator of Green Brook Twp Public Schools - NJ

Tom Murray @thomascmurray - Director of Technology and Cyber Education for the Quakertown Community School District - Bucks County, PA

Annie Taranto @tarantoannie - Literacy Consultant for the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project, Columbia University, NY

Frances Ann Squire @FASquire - Jr. High Technology and LA teacher - Prince Edward Island, Canada
******Her entire class viewed and served as judges!

Bruce Arcurio (me) @PrincipalArc - Principal of Bear Tavern Elementary School, Hopewell Twp., NJ

As you can see by my highlighting above, the Google Hangout allowed these two schools to debate with judging from 3 states and a Canadian province! This was a wonderful example of

how technology serves as a means and not an end.  The tech was NOT the ultimate goal. The goal was to allow the students to research and conduct a debate using persuasive techniques. Technology served them in their research and presentation. It allowed for a connection between schools.  In addition, it provided an authentic audience with judges bringing their expertise to the process. It is unlikely that these students would have been able to debate for a similar judging panel live. However, in my case, I was able to close my office door for an hour and participate fully without the time and schedule juggling of going to one of the schools.

I was thrilled that technology allowed me to be a part of this experience and hope to participate next year. As far as I am concerned, the verdict is... Everybody wins in this situation!


What did you do to celebrate Digital Learning Day (#DLDay)?

Related articles

• Happy Digital Learning Day!
• 7 Tuesday Top Topics #DLDay #CommonCore
• Digital Learning Day 2014: K-12 Kids, Tech and You
• Happy Digital Learning Day #DLDay

Reflections - Post #1

Last year on Super Bowl Sunday I decided that the following day was going to be a new start for me. I was
mainly referring to my health, weight and other related things. However, in making that decision last February, I have found that the past year has provided me with an amazing "refreshed" outlook on life, work, and family.

I wrote a post on December 2nd that gives some detail about my decision to make some changes in my health entitled, HATS,Goals, and Me. This post is a reflection upon the ten months or so leading up to running a 5k on Thanksgiving morning, the satisfaction of reaching that goal, and how it fit in with our school theme this year. The process of the last year has truly made me assess my goals and priorities throughout all aspects of my life.

By Everaldo Coelho and YellowIcon  via Wikimedia Commons

I had to sit down and take a look at all of the things that are on my plate and decide what things are vital to me and what things need to fall by the wayside or need to be postponed.  As I reflected upon this and made a list (I love lists, especially digital lists!); here is what I came up with:

Vital (these are not in order after the first two)
Family
Health
Friends
Work/Educator
Personal Learning and Growth
My PLN
Inner Peace/Faith
New Experiences
Time
Change


Postponed/Wayside (these are not in order at all)
Doctoral Work
Some Home Improvements
Toxic People
Sweating the Small Stuff
Stuff, in general - clutter



Please note that these are fairly broad categories and each has more specific subtopics on my personal list. This post is an introduction to a series of posts I am going to write about the items on the lists above. As I have always said, this blog is a place for me to learn with others by reflecting upon my life and work. So, this may get personal, but I hope that working through these topics here will provide greater clarity for me in the year ahead and maybe ignite a spark for someone else to look at things differently or make a change. As I work through these posts over the coming weeks/months I reserve the right to add to or modify the list as any evolving, reflective thinker might.

On some level this post and those that follow are inspired by @DrSpikeCook. This year he committed to writing a post a day for 365 days. I am not ready for that challenge (maybe next year); however, I wanted to commit to at least a series of posts that would provide direction and focus this year. This is my start. I am sure I will have posts about other things in between, but look for the title, "Reflections" and the post number for the ones in this series.

Please join me and comment along the way. I would greatly appreciate it.

Unannounced Observations

A strange phenomenon is occurring in my school at the moment surrounding unannounced observations. This year, the NJDOE has instituted a new teacher evaluation system for all teachers. One component requires at least one unannounced observation of the three required for tenured staff. This is a departure from past practice in our district. We have generally scheduled our visits. There was never a real sense of urgency to do unannounced observations because administrators work to be in classrooms for walkthroughs anyway, so "unannounced" informal observations were happening fairly regularly.

Our first round of observations completed before the New Year were all announced, but our second round of tenured observations have all been unannounced. This has created a different vibe in the building than I have been used to for the last 11 years. I remember back when I started teaching 20 years ago in a different district where all observations were unannounced; the principal would walk out of his office with his leather portfolio and news would spread like wildfire through the building that he was on the move. It was crazy because usually when he came to your room, you were already teaching and never got the message in time anyway, so you just did your thing and got observed.

Now, I am the principal and over the past several weeks every time I leave my office, I notice people looking to see if I have my iPad in my hands. It has actually become somewhat of a joke where I either hold up my hands to show that I am not "carrying" or I politely remind the teacher looking at my hands that, "my eyes are up here:-)"

Here is the crazy part, I am seeing some great lessons!! I am beginning to think that when teachers have advanced notice of observations they tend to over-think it. I have a wonderful staff who are dedicated to student learning and success every day. Conducting unannounced formal observations has only served to reinforce my belief that our staff "gets it" and that our children are being served well through their efforts. Can all of us improve in some areas? Yes, and that goes for me, the teachers, and anyone reading this post; however, I think that the shift to including an unannounced component to our observation system has been a positive one. I realize this may not be a revelation for those who have always conducted unannounced observations, but it was a wonderful reminder for me!

What do you think? Are your observations announced or unannounced? Which do you prefer? Why?