HIGHLIGHTS Chappaqua Central School District January 2018 A message from the Superintendent I hope 2018 got off to a terrific start for you and your family. I was so glad to see that students and staff have picked up right where they left off, fully engaged in the active, constructive, empowering and reflective process of teaching and learning. In this issue, I would like to share one of our recent book study experiences, which firmly connects to the Chappaqua Central School District’s commitment to project-based learning and to our Board of Education’s Teaching and Learning Strategic Question, “How can the District ensure that all students think deeply, support their thinking, apply problem-solving skills, and actively participate in their learning as they acquire content knowledge?” This past December, our administrators had the opportunity to participate in an author visit with Warren Berger. Warren Berger is a Westchester native who penned the book, A More Beautiful Question: The Power of Inquiry to Spark Breakthrough Ideas. As one of our three administrative book studies for this school year, A More Beautiful Question articulates the critical connection between questioning and innovation. A beautiful question is defined by Berger as one that is ambitious yet actionable, a question that begins to shift the way we perceive or think about something—and that might also serve as a catalyst to bring about change. “Beautiful questions are beautiful, in part, because they defy easy answers. They must be considered, explored, grappled with, and pursued over time.” Throughout his work, Berger writes about his research with leading innovators. He shares how they possess “a knack for looking at the world around them, at the existing reality that everyone else usually just accepts, and asking: What if we did this? Or tried that?” His examples of how innovators engage in the process and the outcomes that result are fascinating. One includes how a 3-year-old’s question to her father while on vacation, “Why do we have to wait to see the picture?” resulted in this parent’s creation of the Polaroid Instant Camera. Another is from Reed Hastings, the founder of Netflix, who asked himself after a poor rental experience, “What if video rental businesses ran like a health club, with a monthly membership fee but no late fees?” Berger also cautions us and his broader audience, sharing that many children start out asking hundreds of questions a day, but as they enter school this questioning “falls off.” He shares that as we make our way through the world, we find that emphasis begins to focus on short-term answers rather than exploring more far-reaching, potentially transformational ideas. He then offered five ways that we, as educators, can help students become better questioners: 1. Make It Safe: Many kids won’t raise their hand in front of the whole class to ask a question because they’re shy or nervous. But a student may be willing to ask questions in a smaller group or to write a question down. 2. Make it Cool: Berger suggests convincing kids that good questions lead to cool stuff and make the world a better place. 3. Make It Fun: Turning questioning into a game can be a great way to make the process more lighthearted. 4. Make It Rewarding: When students venture a deep question, they commonly hear, “That’s a great question, let’s move on.” But an educator’s genuine interest in the question will be much more powerful than any praise. 5. Make It Stick: Questioning has to be a regular part of the school day for it to become a student habit. I would also like to note that it was affirming for our team to hear Warren Berger stress the importance of having a system of inquiry to guide students through the process of innovative questioning. Chappaqua Central School District DESIGN PROCESS Developed by faculty, staff and administrators to both align and scaffold our process K-12. In Chappaqua, we take pride in developing young minds that will create, innovate and question the world around us. We will continue to learn from experts how to improve and enhance our District practices so that we are meeting and even, hopefully, exceeding the needs of our students each day in our District. Sincerely, Christine District kicks off Strategic Coherence Planning process The Chappaqua Central School District is collaborating with Jonathan Costa, Assistant Executive Director of EdAdvance, to shape the strategic coherence planning process that will result in a focused and aligned community vision of student success beyond school. Please click HERE to watch his November 15 presentation to the Board of Education. On December 13, Costa met with the Strategic Coherence Planning team--a representative group of parents, students, teachers, staff, administrators, and Board of Education members--to officially get things underway. The first step is to have the team build a consensus regarding the critical skills and attributes that we, as a school community, believe are most essential to future accomplishment and then refer to those skills and attributes to guide the District’s planning and decision making. Strategic Coherence Planning Process I II III IV V Commit to Data Scan Results Analysis Focus Setting Aligning Actions Principles of With Strategic Coherence Planning Internal & External Identifying patterns Identify priority Focus and priorities strategic actions - Focus Performance and - Actions - Connect alignment of Defining the gap Indicators of success - Outcomes - Mission/Beliefs foundational and between desired and - Timelines - Leverage Skills supporting systems current state - Responsibilities of student learning - Innovation Configuration Mapping Philosophy Practice Invitation to participate In order to involve as many constituents as possible in this process, you are invited to contribute your thoughts to a community conversation on this topic. Using a platform called Thoughtexchange, you will have the opportunity to share your thoughts, read those of other participants, and assign “stars” (from a low of 1 to a high of 5) to show how important each idea is to you. In addition, you will have a chance to discover the top-rated thoughts in the conversation, and to visit the site often and add more comments throughout the process. About this process: 1. It could take you as little as 5-10 minutes to participate. 2. You can complete questions at your own pace and come back to review your answers at any time. Please click HERE to get started. The exchange will be open until 5pm on Tuesday, January 16. (If you need technical assistance, please call Thoughtexchange at 1-800-361-9027 ext. 4 or email [email protected].) The District hopes you will contribute to this interactive experience to help ensure that it reflects the values and aspirations of the entire community while providing outstanding learning opportunities for all students. The target is to present a strategic coherence plan to the Board of Education in the late spring or early summer. Grafflin students wonder about things Last year, Margaret Salmore, a second-grade teacher at Grafflin, attended a TC Calendar Day workshop facilitated by Kristin Ziemke, author of the book Amplify! Digital Teaching and Learning in the K-6 Classroom. In her book, she suggests using websites such as www.wonderopolis.org and videos from the SciShow Kids Youtube channel to provide students with opportunities to pair text, images and media to enhance the reading experience. Margaret chose to introduce this idea of digital media during a recent non-fiction reading unit. “At first, I just posed A Wonder of the Day during our morning meeting time and it led to a great discussion,” Margaret explained. “We did a lot of shared reading where I explicitly taught students how to navigate the digital texts and images as well as glean important information from some educational videos.” Students were highly engaged and loved Wonderopolis, so much so that they even started coming in with their own wonderings to post on the wall. Then they started researching each other’s wonderings and started taking the lead in their own learning. Topics included Why does Swiss cheese have holes? Why do King Cobras have a hood? and Why are flamingos pink? Their work complemented the non-fiction unit, which asks the questions What do you notice? What do you wonder? and What did you learn? Students then began to write and draw detailed pictures of what they learned and displayed their work to share their learning with others. At one point a student asked, “Is this reading, writing or science?” to which Margaret responded, “It’s learning!” Bene factum, Michelle Ramahlo! Well done Michelle Ramahlo! A Latin teacher at Seven Bridges Middle School, Michelle was recently elected Secretary of the American Classical League (ACL), a national group whose purpose is to initiate, improve and extend the study of classical languages and civilizations in North America, supplement and reinforce the activities of other classical organizations, and advance and articulate the cause of a broad liberal-arts education. During her two-year term, Michelle is charged with maintaining an up-to-date membership list of The American Classical League, keeping and distributing the minutes of the annual open meeting at ACL Institute to the ACL office and Board of Governors and making the minutes available to the membership at large. She will also keep and distribute minutes of the Board of Governors meetings to the ACL office and Board members, and fulfill other such duties as may be specified in the bylaws. Michelle previously served as chair of Excellence Through Classics, a standing committee of the ACL, and chair of the ad hoc Committee on the Executive Director Position, and in 2015, was selected by the Classical Association of the Atlantic States as a “CAAS Leadership Initiative Grant Partner,” a 3-year program that fosters contact between Latin teachers and CAAS leadership in support of pre-collegiate level Latin programs.