Falcon Flyer

A lot of great things are taking place at LMS, and I want to be sure that you are each aware of them.

Six students in Wanda Cody's English classes have become Published Poets. Katie Shuman, Gracie Jackson, Kelsie Bolding, Allie Mosteller, Sebastian Holder and Gabby White recently learned that their poems were selected to be published in the Rising Stars Collection by Appelley Publishing.

Carson Daley placed 2nd in woodworking at the State Beta Club Convention. This is the first time that an LMS student has placed in this category. The piece he submitted was absolutely beautiful. Thank you to Caitlin Daley, Cathy Garrett, and Carla Simpson for helping students prepare for the competitions and for chaperoning the trip.

Three of our students competed in the Middle School State Wrestling Championships this past Saturday. Trent Burdette won three and lost two, Zadarius Welborn-Zellars and Noah Brooks both won two and lost two. Great job to these three and to Coach Nathan Day.

The VEX Robotics Team, led by Sandy Powell, competed in a regional competition in Walhalla on Saturday and walked away as the Tournament Champions! This win came along with an invitation to compete in the state competition.

Substitute quote - Liberty Middle is the best kept secret in Pickens County. I have had the very best day here. I can't wait to come back, and plan to shout it from the rooftops to anyone that will listen.

Liberty Middle School is most certainly on the Rise!

Please plan to hold your grade level meetings this Friday during your second planning time. Lisa will plan to meet with you during each of these meetings.

It seems the final scholarship donations have trickled in and we now have a more solid total for the money received...$5,654.00!!!

Thank you to each and everyone of you who helped solicit donations so that we could take our entire school to see the movie Wonder.

Another $460 was combined with a $400 donation from the Liberty Lions club and was used to pay off the lunch account of every student that held a balance at Liberty Middle School!

Blessings Abound!

We will begin discussing Hillbilly Elegy as a faculty in February during our Tuesday PD sessions. Please plan to have it read by then.

In keeping with our discussion of engagement as one of two variables that can help a struggling student population, it occurred to me that consistent feedback is a win-win for both faculty and students. It addresses multiple areas of the new 4.0 teaching rubric, and it increases student participation and ultimately attendance at school. High performing students seek feedback as a rite of passage, but low-performing students often avoid it. Yet, when these students are given simple tools to increase feedback while meeting learning targets on their way to mastery, they too become as engaged as any other student. In Classroom Instruction That Works (2001), Marzano, Pickering and Pollock found that any student in any subject significantly improved their learning if they were taught deliberate high-yield strategies to retain knowledge. Feedback increased learning 23% (d = 0.61), which is high.

Jane Pollock, in Feedback: The Hinge that Joins Teaching and Learning (2012), posits that students can be trained to increase feedback for themselves, and taught habits that help them along the path of self-actualization. Students need help learning to self-evaluate and self-regulate their own progress towards learning goals, so any curriculum goal provided to students by the teacher must include time to interact with the learning goal and test their own prowess. And while it sounds intimidating, there are a few simple tools that can maximize student self-evaluation and peer feedback. Feedback is the hinge, as it is the transfer of information (Pollock 4). Note that it isn’t the teacher that is the hinge: it is the teacher’s feedback, and making small changes can lead to dramatic results.

Each class begins with a goal, but the goal itself is flat without the interaction from students with that goal: students should be self-evaluating, monitoring, and regulating their own learning through the lesson. For Pollock, “the goal is the target for performance; feedback is information about where you stand in relation to the goal and how to improve” (15). Pollock specifically uses the tool of feedback sheets as a method to tie effort with understanding. Effort is more than participation: it places an emphasis upon listening, viewing and speaking. In turn, students become more responsive to changing their effort when they connect it with their own understanding of material, which increases their self-evaluation and self-regulation.

Take a look at several samples provided for student effort and understanding. Note that the teacher, at the same time, is walking around the room and observing the students as they connect with the learning goal, and recording individual student mastery on a scale of 1-5. So not only do students shift in their own understanding of feedback, but the teacher becomes acutely aware of each student’s progress and where re-teaching and/or differentiation may be necessary. We’ll delve deeper into the role of teacher using the feedback sheets in our next discussion.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1-R_zPH1UKPOpcFRDd5bHOGdJy2COvpPs

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1MAyYisv9R37X38DnicEI9Lh5xRD6bP-S

January

22 - Basketball @ Starr Iva

23 - School Level PD during planning

24 - School-wide Benchmark TDA

Basketball - Home

25 - Pep Rally for Basketball and all winter sports recognition

Basketball - HOME - Honea Path

TDA Benchmark Makeup

26 - FCA - Gym - 7:30 a.m.

Grade Level Meetings - 2nd planning