For Woodland Teachers Professional Growth is a Priority

Woodland teachers are dedicated to their craft of teaching and learning. Each year our faculty and staff take part in a minimum of twenty-four hours of professional development training because we know there is nothing more critical for student success than the teacher being the best teacher possible. As I have stated in previous notes, “the one factor that surfaced as the single most influential component of an effective school is the individual teachers within that school” (Marzano, 2007).

Woodland’s professional development opportunities are often supported through the generous gifts to our Annual Fund. Research has shown that the “best” teachers are also the teachers who are “students” themselves, meaning that good teachers are themselves “lifelong learners.” The complete list of professional development activities represent thousands of hours of growth for our teachers over the past twelve months. The preparation our teachers have put into making student learning as effective as possible is nothing less than impressive. Teachers, THANK YOU for your dedication to continual learning and growth for the benefit of our students.

A sampling of books and professional articles that Woodland teachers have used to remain on the cutting edge of teaching and learning include: Teach Like a Champion by Doug Lemov; Teach Like Your Hair’s on Fire by Rafe Esquith; Best Friends, Worst Enemies, Understanding the Social Lives of Children by Michael Thompson; The Case for Physical Education by Sue Douglass Fliess; A Mind at a Time by Mel Levine; Mindset by Carol S. Dweck; International Journal for Professional Educators, Gifted Child Quarterly, Teaching for High Potentia;, The Organized Student by Donna Goldberg; Teaching Adolescents with Disabilities by Deshler, Ellis, and Lenz;  Mindset by Carol Dweck; Literacy Work Stations by Dibbie Diller; Mr. Devore’s Do-Over by David Puckett;  What Brain Research Means for the Art of Teaching; History Worse Than Wikipedia by Mona Charen; Four Square and the Politics of Sixth Grade Lunch by Arthur Goldman; The Complete Learning Center Book;  The Need for Balanced Approach to Prepare Students Pre-K and Up by Jo Kirchner; Schools Where Everyone Belongs by Stan Davis; Empowering Bystanders in Bullying Prevention by Stan Davis; Understanding the Framework for Change; Literacy Survival Tips; Teaching in the Digital Age by Brian Puerling; How to be an Unforgettable Teacher, The First Six Weeks of School by Paula Denton and Roxann Kriete; Assessment Portfolios for Elementary Students by Kathryn Henn Reinke; Inside the Black Box: Raising Standards Through Classroom Assessment; Creating a Focus on Learning-Learning by Doing; What a Difference a Word Makes; and Maximizing the Power of Formative Assessments.

Conferences, workshops, films, webinars, classes attended by our faculty and staff in the last year include: MAIS Learning Specialist meeting, 2011 Midsouth Technology Conference, InnovatED, EdWeb.net, Preparing to Write, Bully Prevention workshop, Handwriting Without Tears workshop, Singapore Math: Number Sense and Computation Strategies, Navigating Students to Resiliency, National Council on Economic Education’s – The Wide World of Trade, Reverse Teaching workshop, ADD/ADHD Forum, Superkids Training, Sessions at the Conference for Tennessee Kindergarten Teachers included Recognizing Red Flags for Common Learning Challenges, Dr. Jean Feldman’s ‘No More Worksheets’ and Transition Tips and Tricks, eMerging Readers: Literacy and Technology Merge, Strengthening Your Guided Reading: Building Literacy Through Small Group Instruction, Practical Consideration for Retaining Kindergarteners, Creating an ADHD Friendly Classroom, Bullying Basics and Bullying Prevention by Childcare Guidance, , Project Learning Tree, Growing Up Wild at the Big Backyard, Language Development Training, Psychoeducational Evaluation, The Inside Story from the Department of Child Services, Educational Records Bureau Workshop; Facing History’s “Bullying”, Stop Bullying Now, Real Solutions for ADHD Classroom Challenges, The Martin Institute, TAIS’s PK Roundtable, The Finland Phenomenon, Handwriting Without Tears - Top Ten Questions About Handwriting, Seminar in Early Childhood Education, Research Residency Seminar, Readings in Early Childhood Education, Child Psychology Applied to Education, Creativity in Teaching and Curriculum, Applying Accommodations for Children with Disabilities to Early Childhood Education, Planning and Facilitating Math and Science Learning in Early Childhood, Construct Science Content Knowledge Through Problem Based Learning, Literacy and Science: A Marriage That Works, Boosting the Brain with Humor, Teaching the Qualities of Good Writing Through Illustration, TAIS JK Roundtable, Memphis College of Art Fall Conference for Art Educators, Professional Learning Communities, Assessment for Learning, PD360 (professional development videos on demand), Bridges Team Building, and a variety of technology workshops such as Picasa I and II, Getting Organized in Outlook and My Documents, Powerpoint, Scholastic Online Ordering, Using the Smartboard, Class Newsletters, Creating a Table, Cool Websites, Podcasting, Web 2.0, Twitter, Advanced Google Searching, Destiny, Downloading You Tube Videos, Edmodo, Using Google to teach to Bloom’s Taxonomy, Prezzi, Social Bookmarking, Collaborative Writing on the Web, and Go Animate!.

Awards, honors, and memberships of our teachers include: Delta Kappa Gamma Society, Educate Memphis team member, WREG’s Teacher of the Week, Outstanding Early Childhood Education Doctoral Student Award, and Destination Imagination Board Member. 

Marzano, R. (2007). The Art and Science of Teaching. Alexandria, VA: Association for

Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Flipping the Classroom

Reverse teaching is a term parents and students at Woodland will hear and learn more about this year. It is referred to as different things — blended learning, flip teaching, backwards classroom, or reverse instruction. This type of teaching gives teachers an opportunity to be better teachers by being fully engaged with the students.

All of these educational terms mean the same thing--students will research, watch videos, participate in on-line discussions, and “do the grunt work” at home. In Woodland’s Middle School, we see the benefits of students becoming responsible for their own introduction to or review of material at home. This allows time at school to communicate more clearly about student’s progress by having student/teacher conferences or to be actively engaged in working math problems, writing papers, and creatively designing projects. Teachers are able to spend valuable classroom time working one-on-one with students rather than lecturing or presenting information.

Expectations will be set that students come to class prepared. The beginning of each class may be set aside to answer questions students have from viewing the assignment from the previous night. The students may be asked to bring an entrance slip with the answer to a question from the video they viewed at home. This will hold the students accountable for following the expectation set before the assignment is given.

While Woodland wants to make sure each child is prepared for high school by introducing educational practices such as reverse teaching, we do feel strongly about our traditional means of teaching and learning, so every class, every day will not be flipped, but opportunities for students to experience this type of education will be implemented. We hope you will see some real enthusiasm and interest in learning from your children.

Mershon Cummings
Middle School Director

Growing Young Hearts and Minds: My First Decade

A visitor asked me the other day how long I’d been at Woodland. Ten years, I told her, and then I thought, “really? Ten years?” When I came to Woodland in the fall of 2001, there was an entirely different cast of characters in the school office, and it took a long time for me to not feel like the new girl. I was blessed to be taught and supported in the traditions of Woodland by co-workers who were generous, engaged, and absolutely crazy about Woodland Presbyterian School.

So, ten years of Welcome Back Family Cookouts, of Grandparents’ Days, First Grade Thanksgiving Feasts and Science Fairs, adorable kiddos in their Christmas programs and “Santa is the Man” performed by 5^th and 6^th graders in shades, Favorite Guy Breakfasts, and Homecoming with its transformation of 8^th grade girls in braces into beautiful young ladies in heels, towering over their escorts who haven’t yet gotten their height. There are great new traditions that have come along too—the Golf Tournament and Family Science Night, the incredible Middle School Arts Showcase, and so many more. I can honestly say that it never gets old—I think I get as excited about seeing your second-grader in his school play as you do. And I always cry, no matter what they are singing.

It is hard to explain the sweet—sometimes bittersweet—comfort of watching your children start out with their loveys and blankeys, progress to tooth necklaces from the nurse’s office (there was NO nurse’s office, or nurse! for the first several years I was here), go on to being too-cool-for-school middle-schoolers, and then tearfully say goodbye to Woodland for the kind of scary and big world of high school. The amazing thing is that these kids get it—they may not show it, but they know they have been loved and known and appreciated for who they are at Woodland, and leaving the nest is not easy. The good news is: they are ready, whether they know it or not.

It seems clichéd to say they feel like mine, or anyway like ours, and to worry a little as we send them on their way. Like parenting, we know we did lots of things well while they were at Woodland, and maybe a couple of things not as well as we’d like, so we pray for strength and mercy and grace for them and for kind and understanding and patient teachers to come alongside them as they leave us. As we begin this new season of growth and exciting improvements to our campus, I look forward to the new traditions we’ll establish, but after ten years at Woodland, I know with all my heart that our essence will always be intact. Woodland Presbyterian School is, as our motto says, “growing young hearts and minds.” What a privilege it is to be a part of that vision.

Nancy VanCleve

Administrative Assistant

Fear of Failure

Failure is often seen as a bad word by our students. Although failure is usually not a pleasant experience, it does present an opportunity to learn and grow. In a recent chapel service, I told the story of Thomas Edison’s journey to invent the light bulb. After thousands and thousands of failed attempts to create the first light bulb, Edison finally succeeded. All of us have our own stories of overcoming failure and eventually finding success. Still, it is a natural human tendency to avoid the possibility of failure by running from projects or tasks that challenge us.

This is a daily challenge for teachers and parents alike, to support our students by allowing them to experience struggles and difficulties and yes, sometimes even failure. Those times of difficulty are where real learning and growth takes place. I know from personal experience that I have grown the most when times were the toughest.

All too often we teach children to avoid failure at all cost instead of allowing them to experience failure while providing them the tools to grow from it. We worry about the impact of failure on our children’s self-concept, and while it is important to nurture and develop this in the child, it is much more important to support our children by giving them the resources and skills to handle the trials, disappointments, and difficulties that life will bring. There is no better time for helping students deal with disappointment in a constructive way than the years they spend at Woodland in pre-kindergarten through eighth grade. This is the training ground for high school and eventually adulthood, and with the support of our teachers and parents we will help raise a generation of students that can view the trials and disappointments of life as opportunities for growth. Adopting this growth mindset mentality in ourselves and fostering it in our students will prepare them for the social, academic, and life challenges that we all must face.

Adam Moore, Head of School

Guest or Host?

Part of our 7^th and 8^th grade curriculum involves a once a week leadership discussion centered around a chapter from the book Habitudes, Images That Form Leadership Habits and Attitudes. This week’s 8^th grade lesson helped students see that “leaders take the initiative in relationships.”  The lesson challenged our 8^th graders to not be a “guest” in life but to take initiative and be the “host” in the many relationships that they have. At the end of the discussion, each eighth grader was asked to journal one way they could be a host and not a guest in life. I always look forward to leading this discussion and enjoy hearing from Woodland’s “senior class.”

Adam Moore, Head of School

Traditional and Technological, Room for Both

In the recent edition of Education Update, the official newsletter of ASCD (Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development), the case was made to increase the amount of on-line and virtual learning for students. There is no doubt that the virtual world is changing how we teach and how students learn. The traditional and stereotypical picture of a teacher standing in front of the classroom talking for extended periods of time has long been replaced with a teacher as a facilitator, coach, guide, and technology guru.

While there is definitely an important place for teaching and learning using technology, we should never underestimate the importance of a teacher interacting and teaching on an hour to hour basis. Woodland has long valued the importance of the teacher to student relationship but has also looked for new and creative ways to incorporate technology into the teaching and learning process. Two examples of how technology has changed teaching and learning for Woodland students are the incorporation of Mathletics as a summer math review and the addition of Children’s Progress, an on-line formative assessment tool for our Senior Kindergarten through second grade students. At Woodland we seek to balance the traditional with the innovative. We believe that there is a place for both in successful twenty-first century schools.   

Adam Moore, Head of School

What We are Doing for Our Summer Vacation

After a recent trip to the Agricenter Farmers Market for peaches, my daughter Molly told me that she was going to make a ring out of a peach pit.  Apparently, with a little patience and perseverance, you can rub a peach pit against cement or asphalt and eventually it hollows out into a ring.  This got me to thinking of all of the simple and free (or almost free) activities that I used to do as a kid.  Unfortunately, in all of the years I have spent scheduling camps, activities, and trips, I don’t think I have given my children enough time to enjoy many of the simple summertime joys that fill my childhood memories.  I have resolved to give them the opportunities to experience some of these pleasures, so here is part of our summer to-do list:  

·         To listen to locusts sing in the evening

·         To play flash-light tag in the dark

·         To eat ice cream sundaes for dinner one night

·         To pick berries at a berry farm

·         To snap green beans until our thumbs ache

·         To make homemade peach ice cream

·         To look at the night sky and find as many constellations and planets as we can

·         To skip rocks across a pond

·         To eat sliced home-grown tomatoes, fresh corn, and homemade fried okra as often as we can

I hope that our list has given you inspiration to come up with your own ideas.   My children may roll their eyes when I tell them about our list, and they may not have the most exciting “What Did You Do Over Summer Vacation” essays when they return to school, but I hope that one day they will look back and appreciate our time together.  I know I will.

Cathy Aslin, 

School Nurse