For the past several years, the unit planning approach fostered at BFIS has been one that starts with the end goal in mind, "backwards designed" lessons of study. In this way, both the teacher and the students have a focused and common vision of where that unit is heading, assessments are purposeful, as are the learning activities designed to carry out the day-to-day lessons.

If you are a returning teacher, Understanding by Design (UbD), based on a three-stage plan for backwards design and which focuses on student understanding as the central tenet of our goal of instruction, is a familiar concept. However, for our new teachers, this way of thinking and planning is new to some. To help bridge the gap and bring our new teachers on board the UbD train, a two-part professional development session was conducted during the New Teacher Orientation days before the whole faculty returned to work. After reading the first chapter of the book titled Understanding by Design (Wiggins and McTighe, 2005), the new teachers formed groups and shared their understandings. Here is a summary of the main points of this first chapter in their words:

• Students AND teachers know what the end goal is / where the unit is going
• Learning focused vs. teaching focused
• Unit planning will lead to strong scaffolding
• [UbD/backwards design is a … ] Process that takes time, but saves time in the end
• Varied assessment that is focused on the end goal
• Helps to align activities to benchmarks
• Teachers should be assessing themselves
• Focus on ‘learning’ before ‘teaching’
• Results in students learning how to learn = lifelong learners
• Assessment – formal and informal, teacher and student for self

I could not let our back-to-school work days pass without sharing our school improvement goals with respect to curriculum development, as this has been one area receiving most of our attention for several years now. I feel confident saying that it has received focused and steady attention for several years now, and that’s starting to make a difference in our mapped curriculum.

Love him or hate him, Robert Marzano does have a way of talking about school improvement in simple, clear terms. He says that a guaranteed and viable curriculum is the single most important thing a school can do to ensure the success of its students. (p. 19, What Works in Schools, 2003).

So our work on providing students with a curriculum that fits with our mission, with our vision of how that mission is carried out, within our contextual setting - an international school with both American Program and Spanish Program about to adopt the IB Diploma Program - is of utmost importance.

What this work looks like in each section differs, as well as what this work looks like within each program (American, Spanish and IB), yet there are commonalities and so we will keep returning to and making connections to the creation of a guaranteed and viable curriculum N-12.

Understanding by Design, UbD, provides a framework for us to plan units in a way that emphasizes learner understanding by starting with the end in mind. I’d like to rephrase the 3 stages of UbD to bring that terminology out of it’s summer resting place:

Stage 1: Learning Objectives - standards, benchmarks, enduring understandings, essential questions - The What
Stage 2: Assessment Evidence - formal and informal, internal and external , performance and other- The Whether
Stage 3: Learning Plan - the activities, methods, approaches for delivering the content - The How

We spent much of last year focused on Assessment - methods, validity, reliability, performance. This year, we will continue our work on Stage 2 with a focus on Aligning Assessments to our Learning Objectives. Conceptually this will be explored in sectional meetings over time. Practically, this will be explored on Atlas so you can see how our curriculum mapping software assists us with this work.

Specifically, we are talking about looking at how our assessments are measures of the selected standards and benchmarks in any given unit, and to what extent those assessments measure what we think they measure.

This is in addition to the annual work of ensuring our Atlas mapped curriculum reflects the taught curriculum for the 2010-2011 school year.

We expect our returning teachers to feel quite comfortable with Essential Questions, Enduring Understandings, and for all of us to have accurate lists of content and skills covered in each unit, and to be working on improving the alignment between the standards and benchmarks with unit assessments. We will continue our work on Performance Tasks, as one method of assessment in our units.

All of this complements the work we will be doing to prepare for our soon-to-be offered IB courses in the High School (next year), meeting established requirements of the Spanish Ministry of Education, and the content-driven instructional improvement taking place in the ES.

Elementary School Supply Lists

Pre-Kindergarten

Kindergarten

• 1 package ziplock bags to store children’s work and projects
• 2 packages baby wipes
• a change of clothes  - please make sure you include socks, underwear, t-shirt and a pair of pants and/or skirt, all labeled and placed inside a bag with child’s name on it
• a smock for art projects. You can also send in an oversized, old shirt instead.
• a raincoat for use on rainy day when we need to walk to different places on campus
• a set of inexpensive headphones for use at the computer
• USB pen drive, 2 GB or larger (o store pictures we take in kindergarten throughout the year
• 1 bag of biodegradable trash bags for use in classroom organic trash bin. These can be bought at Caprabo or Eroski.

1st Grade

• Ziplock bags
• Package of baby wipes
• Box of tissues
• 4 tennis balls (cut with a 3x3cm X to fit on chair legs)
• 6 photos and 1 family photo

2nd Grade

• 4 tennis balls (cut with a 3x3cm X to fit on chair legs)
• A box of hand wipes/baby wipes
• A Kleenex box.
• A Small refillable plastic/metal water bottle

3rd Grade

• Water bottle
• Pencil case
• Pencils (2 dozen)
• Pens – 4 red and 4 blue
• Colored pencils, crayons or markers
• Highlighters – 2-3 different colors
• Pencil sharpener
• Pack of post it notes
• Glue stick (3)
• Dry Erase markers (4)
• USB Pen Drive (4g)
• Box of tissues
• 4 tennis balls (cut with a 3x3cm X to fit on chair legs)
• Zip Lock bags (big and small)
• Package of hand wipes

4th Grade and 5th Grade

• Pencils for writing
• Color pencils/markers/crayons
• Erasers
• Pencil sharpener
• Red pen for proofreading and grading
• Highlighters
• Case for all of above items
• Pen Drive (4g)
• Headphones
• Four tennis balls  (cut with a 3x3cm X to fit on chair legs)

The bright blue sky from my office window is dramatically interrupted by the bright new addition on campus that casts a welcome shadow over our main court.  It is difficult to believe my own eyes but I smile each time that I look at the latest sign of our school's continual commitment to ongoing improvement.

We are only weeks away from having a campus full of children who are eager and excited to learn.  A quick glance through the yearbook reminds me of all the faces that I cannot wait to see.  Of course, seeing the smiles as well as the inquisitive looks of our students is what helps provide all of us with all the motivation that we need to be committed educators.

I am spending today putting the final touches on the schedule for the year ahead with the understanding that that structural underpinnings of the organization are necessary to build a successful foundation.  Tomorrow, we will continue to work with all of new faculty members, who have already begun to demonstrate the kind of passion for teaching that we seek in our faculty.  Before we know it, the kids will arrive and, much to our delight, the school will feel complete again.

During the recent Kindergarten and 1st Grade Teaching and Learning Dialogue, the main theme of the conversation revolved around the role of language within our school community.  While English is the primary language of instruction, one of the main goals for all of our students in our community is continue developing proficiency in multiple languages.  Given these circumstances, I had the opportunity to speak a bit about what it is we aim to achieve and what we emphasize as a faculty.  As well, parents had the chance to weigh into the discussion to share what they hoped their children would gain through learning experiences at BFIS.

Although there were quite a few details shared related to research on language acquisition in terms of how it happens and the associated timeline for the process, the primary focus had to do with the mindset that we want our teachers to have upon entering the classroom.  First and foremost, it is critical that teachers see students as unique individuals with specific needs in terms of language development.  Teachers have to analyze whether students are developing language competency, literacy or perhaps both.  As well, we must consider a child's linguistic and literacy development in his/her mother tongue.  Moreover, we have to look at the curriculum experience of childern and determine how to balance content or concept objectives alongside language development objectives for children acquiring an additional language.  Simply, there are a number of layers and specific pieces of information that impact the strategies that we will use for a given child and for that reason it is vital that teachers think and act on a case by case basis.

I also wanted to note that there seems to be a bit of confusion that has arisen as a result of this conversation amongst different members of the parent community.  During the Dialogue, one parent raised the question of whether or not the school would ever consider teaching subjects such as Art, PE or Music in Spanish as a way of allowing children further opportunities to acquire more of the Spanish language.  While we understand that learning Spanish is a priority for many families, the school has no plans to begin teaching additional subjects in Spanish.  Certainly, we agree that having children participate in very context-rich activities aids language acquisition.  However, given that the primary language of instruction at BFIS is English, we will continue to have all classes, with the exception of Castellano, Catalan and Spanish as a Foreign Language, taught in English.

We have found through experience that if parents do choose to enroll their children in sports or arts activities throughout the city, many instructors are willing to teach classes in Castellano if asked by participating families to do so.  Therefore, we strongly encourage families to pursue these opportunities with their childen if learning Spanish or Catalan is a significant priority.

As always, I would like to thank the parents who were able to make the time to attend the Dialogue.  With approximately 25 parents, I believe that it was one of the largest turnouts that we have had for this type of an event.  I hope that it was pertinent and interesting for those who attended and I very much look forward to hosting another Kindergarten and 1st Grade Dialogue in the spring.

At the most recent Teaching and Learning Dialogue, which was held for the parents of children in Nursery and Pre-K, a variety of interesting topics came to light.  While I had prepared two main talking points, parents had the opportunity to raise different questions that provided an opportunity to share further details about different aspects of BFIS.

The first item that I chose to share with the parents was my excitement over finally establishing a consistent framework of two classes per grade throughout the elementary school.  I spoke about the fact that this has been part of the strategic plan in the elementary for many years and that finally we have been able to turn this hope into reality.  One of the primary benefits of having this structure is that it enhances the level of collaboration amongst teachers because there is a natural counterpart for every classroom.  Consequently, it helps us ensure that teachers are never working in isolation and constantly have opportunities to share ideas as well as learn from others.

Additionally, I spoke briefly about the fact that we will have an educator by the name of Chrissy Bruce spending some time each week working with teachers in Nursery and Pre-K.  Her role will be to work with our team of teachers to help support the implementation of an early intervention advocacy program.  The objective of this program is to ensure that our children are working toward meeting appropriate developmental benchmarks in speech and language development as well as with fine and gross motor skills.  While we always aim to make the best use of our instructional time each day, it is equally important to communicate with parents if support outside the school is necessary.  We believe this is critical as early intervention is extremely beneficial for children with specific developmental challenges.

Overall, I was extremely appreciative of the parents who took the time to attend the Dialogue.  My hope is that it was both informative and interesting for those who were present and that we have an even greater number of parents for the second round in the spring.

A few days ago I had the great fortune of being Mr. Bear during a Class Meeting with Ms. Erika.  Mr. Bear is not just a hand puppet, he is a critical member of the 1st grade community.  His job is to join in during Class Meetings to talk about the challenges he is facing and the conflicts that he has to deal with each day.  Then, along with the help of the class, Mr. Bear is able to learn new strategies for independently resolving challenging situations.  Therefore, when asked if I would be willing to play the part of Mr. Bear for a Class meeting, I was more than delighted to take hold of this opportunity.

The challenge faced by Mr. Bear on this day was the fact that one of his classmates, Ms. Bunny (another puppet, orchestrated by Ms. Delgado on this day), made fun of the fact that his zipper was down.  When all of the other animals started laughing, Mr. Bear became really sad and had to find a way to share his feelings with Ms. Bunny and resolve the situation.  Thankfully, Mr. Lion (played by Ms. Erika) was able to help Mr. Bear navigate this conflict by expressing his feelings directly and respectfully and encouraging Ms. Bunny to empathetically listen to those concerns.

The objective of this role play activity was for the children to internalize a process to help them resolve conflicts.  The process being explicity taught was quite simple in the sense that it requires the first person to say how they feel and why.  The role of the other party is to listen actively, not interrupt and take responsibility for his/her actions before starting to present different justifcations.

As part of the learning that takes place each day, we place a high level of emphasis on the importance of social and emotional growth.  We encourage children to find peaceful and proactive ways to address problems with an increasing level of independence and understanding as time goes on.  In many ways, these types of lessons are the most important ones of the school year because they are aimed at building the social skills necessary to build successful relationships throughout life.

Dear Parents,

Keeping with the tradition of the past few years, we will be continuing to host our Teaching and Learning Dialogues.  These gatherings provide an opportunity for parents to meet with members of the administration and occasionally members of the faculty in a relatively open-ended dialogue, whereby the goal is a combination of informing parents about key aspects of our educational program and offering a chance for parents to pose questions as well.

In order to ensure that the Dialogues are highly relevant to the interests of parents, there are two specific measures that we have put into place.  First, the Dialogues are held for groups of parents whose children are within a particular range of their educational career.  For example, we have a specific gathering for parents of children in Nursery and Pre-Kindergarten because their interests might be different than parents whose children are in 4th and 5th grade.  As well, parents who plan on attending the Dialogues are invited to send an email to me in advance of the gathering with the issues they are most interested in discussing. From there, I will use this information to create an outline of the key points to be addressed.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to email me at any time and I look forward to seeing you at the Teaching and Learning Dialogues!

Sincerely,

James Duval

Elementary Principal

Teaching and Learning Dialogue Schedule

October 15 - Nursery and Pre-K

October 22 - Grade 11 and Grade 12

October 29 - Kindergarten and 1st

November 19 - Grade 9 and Grade 10

November 26 - Grade 2 and Grade 3

December 3 - Grade 6, Grade 7 and Grade 8

December 10 - Grade 4 and Grade 5

All Teaching and Learning Dialogues will take place in the Music Room beginning at 9:00 am.

Being on campus during the summer months, particularly when there Summer Program has come to an end, brings a host of feelings and emotions upon me.  The school is without its students, teachers and parents, which comprise the heart and soul of the community.  Consequently, there is an eerie quiet from time to time and especially so if you're there when the sun goes down.

At the same time, the anticipation of all that is to come in a matter of weeks is simultaneously exhilirating.  I keep wondering if the anxious energy will wear off as the years go by but, at this point, I cannot imagine feeling any other way.  The excitement comes from imagining the possibilities ahead and the slight nervousness from caring deeply about making sure that the foundation is properly laid for an outstanding year.  I can barely stand this waiting game.