HomeMy WebLinkAbout2015-11-16-DIAMOND-minNotes for Diamond School Council Meeting 11/16/2015
Attendance: A. Carothers, L. Boardman -Liu, J. Rodrigues, R. Scampini, C. Findlay
(notetaker), J. Zhou, D. Strollo, D. Sawhney
Assign Notetaker: Catherine Findlay
Member Signature: Completed
The following discussion points represent individual member views, rather than a School
Council consensus view.
Homework Policy
• Anne distributed the notes on Homework Discussion from the last faculty meeting.
(Teachers met in small groups of about 6 people and each group took their own
notes.) Notes were then compiled.
• A common thread is that you want most people to be reasonably satisfied (65 %)
think the policy /amount is okay. How do you estimate at the macro and micro
level? This is complicated and hard to do.
• Comments about stability of home life and availability of parent help
• The way the document is put together does not help to see how many teachers felt a
certain way. Could we use this to go back and create a survey for our own teachers?
• How do we take into consideration how efficiently the kids are doing the
homework? Is there a way to teach them time management?
• 6th grade teachers have noticed that 6th graders often do know about their
commitments after school and how to plan their time. They'd like to reach out to
parents to partner around time management
• Educating parents about time management is very important. Perhaps setting up
expectations at the beginning of the year would be helpful to parents.
• How do we create a culture where we take some time off from homework? One day
per week, for example, when lots of other activities are happening?
• Many teachers try to be flexible by giving homework that's due several days later.
• What about teachers' feelings that they are being asked to teach more in less time?
How can teachers cover the curriculum without homework? Is our curriculum
designed such that teachers have flexibility to take a night off homework or give less
(example CMP math curriculum)?
• Acton - Boxborough had a speaker come in last year to talk to the community about
balancing after school time. But how is college pressure playing into the need to do
more activities? Until the Lexington community accepts that not everyone is going
to Harvard and that's okay, the current situation is unlikely to change.
• Do the curriculum standards expect too much in the time allotted?
• In the Lexington Chinese community, there is recently more emphasis on being well
rounded and redefining success
• The peer culture drives competition and concern about grades much more so than
teachers at Diamond
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• Schools tend to have a community spirit, and this may be organic or top -down-
driven. Perhaps school leadership and parents have a role in creating a new culture.
Faculty are hesitant about losing class time.
• Is there a successful middle school model for this type of culture change?
• ICE is one way to create more ownership and cooperation for kids. Many kids don't
know how to orchestrate themselves to play games, and this is a skill they're
growing.
• How do we continue to build school culture and caring?
• Gracious professionalism is a school of thought we may want to explore
Designing a "Dipstick" on Homework
• Anne will be meeting with Maureen Kavanaugh to design data collection to
determine how much time kids are spending on homework. Is this the right way to
go?
• What are we trying to find out?
• How much time are we spending on one subject? All the homework? Where and
when are kids doing homework? What are kids', parents', and teachers' perceptions
of homework? Do existing homework practices need to change? If homework is not
going away, can we do something to help people manage doing homework?
• The preliminary data could help us determine next steps and where our focus
should be (volume vs. quality)
• Should parents back off of activities in the fall when students are adjusting to the
new grade?
• Parents really are influenced by the information /suggestions given at 6th -grade
orientation
• The key for the design could be doing it in multi - phases
iPad Project
• 8th graders have mostly been working well with the iPads in general, with some
shenanigans
• 8th graders are chatting over Google docs
• the collaborative nature of work with the iPads is awesome
• the district has asked for money in the budget to give 7th graders iPads as well
• kids' perspectives and teachers' perspectives are both important when evaluating
whether the iPads are working well for us
Child Study Process
• Anne shared a handout —draft of the child study process
• Does the bottom -up organization of the flow chart make sense?
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