Teach Like A Cavalier! Our PRESENT PURSUITS: November/and December

12/4/2017

We are combining November and December's online portion of this hybrid study for practical purposes. This assignment will be due Monday January 8, 2018.

From our in-class meeting in November we voted for the tag, "Cross Creek. College Begins Here" and it shouldn't suprise you that the vote was close, but decisive. Congratulations to all. Please consider adding the tag under your name on school correspondences closing line and I will get with the administration about adding it to school stationery, website, and etc.

Instructions:

1. Click on button below for either "Newbie" (Four years or less at the early college) or "Veteran" (Five years or more at the early college) as the assignments are different.

2. View the linked article and videos, make notes, and be prepared to submit your answers as directed.

3. Additionally, you will be asked to comment on two of your colleagues' answers, but stay within your group: Newbie or Veteran.

"NEWBIE"

"VETERAN"

5 Comments

Julia Little

12/11/2017 05:47:32 am

1. On a scale of 1-5, 5 being most important, rate the importance of SEL education in high school.

5. Social-emotional learning is paramount for teenagers, who are completing puberty and progressing in their cerebral cortical maturation. If adults in their lives do not model and teach social-emotional skills, then the students will be molded by the fads of the time instead of enduring, classical themes that successful societies embrace.

2. Comment on the above introduction in regards to your perspective of R-Time at Cross Creek. What one idea in the introduction struck you as important? Why?

My perspective of R-Time, since I have ninth graders, is that it is critical to develop the relationships during the first few weeks of school, when ninth graders are unhappy that CCECHS has started earlier than their home school, when ninth graders are unhappy when they discover the amount of work involved, and when ninth graders need to make a few lasting friends with whom to endure CCECHS.
The one idea with struck me as important is the CCECHS Mission Statement: The Mission of Cross Creek Early College High School is to provide a smaller academic environment that fosters growth and success to prepare students for their future by developing relationships, responsibility, and respect through relevant and rigorous coursework.
The reason the mission statement struck me as important is that part of the CCECHS Staff PD this year has been to understand why the Early College model developed, has been successful, and should continue. The mission statement differentiates the Early College from other CCS high schools the most in “smaller academic environment, respect, and rigorous coursework.”

3. After reading the article, “Integrating SEL Ed into High Schools” Copy and paste the section that is most significant to you (in relation to SEL education) and explain why.

“These supports included advisory periods that gave every student a home base; prioritization of strong and purposeful teacher-student relationships; design and structural choices that kept class sizes small; formal assessment systems that focused on support, not censure; and grade-level and subject-area meetings that created a professional-learning community among faculty members.”
“Among the many practices we observed were project-based learning, student choice, reading across the curriculum that connected to life's lessons, students as teachers, and service learning.”
The reason these sections are most significant to me are that CCECHS implements most of them very well, although I identify the areas of grade-level and subject-area meetings that could possibly improve. Perhaps having cadre be subject-area or grade-level based would be one way to address this.

4. “Authentic, true practice” was quoted in the video. Considering all that you have experienced at Cross Creek, read, and saw in regards to SEL, how can you increase SEL within your content/capacity and support the R-Time mission of
preparing students for college, career, and life?

a. Hold students and myself accountable to the “55 Rules,” learned fall semester of each year.
b. Continue to hold a rigorously high bar, which requires students to be partially accountable for their own learning, and which simultaneously prepares them for lecture-based Fayetteville State University classes.
c. Support all of the additional activities of CCECHS that help build relationships, such as Spirit Nights, Skate Nights, Community Service events, Dodge Ball Tournaments, different club fund-raising activities, food drives, PB & J drives, Glee Club drives, the Talent Show, locally-hosted Quiz Bowl competition, and Mr. & Ms. Cross Creek, for example.
d. Refer students about whom I am concerned to the appropriate resource, usually Ms. Hickle.
e. Sponsor at least one community service event per year through Science Club.
f. Start some type of R-Time journaling.
g. Hone my ability to design excellent project-based-learning collaborative unit projects that also cover content.
h. Use more structured debate, such as one per unit in Earth and Environmental Science.
i. Look at the anger management curriculum, which I saw in the bookcase in the conference room in the office, to see if some of our students and me would benefit from this.
j. Embrace being kind, gentle, supportive, positive, enthusiastic, and affirmative in everything I do as a teacher.
k. Bring civil society and a moral compass back into human beings.

Alison Thetford link

12/15/2017 01:55:16 pm

Thanks so much for your submittal, Dr. Little. It is important to return to the foundations of the early college for those new and veterans alike. It is easy to get caught up in the everyday stressors of being at a high performing school. I am so glad that you recognized the foundations of the PD. As you say, "understand why the Early College model developed, has been successful, and should continue." This school and the early college program's reason for being centers on the great teaching, but also a different perspective of getting students truly "college ready," not just eligible!

Gina Hickle

1/2/2018 03:51:26 pm

I really like that Dr. Little mentioned the importance of staff and faculty members making the effort to attend extracurricular activities whenever possible. Students love to see teachers and staff take an interest in their experiences outside the classroom and it reinforces to them that we are invested in them and care about all aspects of their development.

Milagros Rivera

1/7/2018 07:17:36 pm

Whao, Dr.Little
You really touched a lot of important points in your writing about the importance of teaching SEL in R-Time.I agree wholeheartedly with you, I believe that students learn best when we model the behavior that we want them to emulate. If we do not teach them what is the proper behavior they will imitate the behavior of people in the media which may not be the best role models.
Here at Cross Creek Early College, in comparison with regular schools we still teach smaller groups. This is a blessing because we can develop relationships with our students and many times we can give them advice that can make a difference in their lives.

Tamela Rappold

1/2/2018 01:55:00 pm

I enjoyed reading and reflecting upon your comments, Dr. Little. Like you I believe that teachers should have a relationship with students that is professional but similar to those among teaching mentors and mentees. My favorite comment of yours was, "Bring civil society and a moral compass back into human beings." Only through modeling such and being granted permission by students to speak into their lives can we hope to make any progress in that arena.

November/December 2017

Teach Like A Cavalier! Our PRESENT PURSUITS: November/and December

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