Dolvin Faculty Focus

Mark Twain said he could live for two months on a good compliment. So can your students!!!

Monday-Leadership meeting at 2:45 in room 106

Tuesday- Curriculum update meeting during your grade levels with Emily; SAM at AP meeting; Fall Picture- refer to schedule and information provided by SAM

Wednesday- SAM at NELC AP meeting; PTA board meeting; GET AND GO

Thursday-Signed papers go home; Laura at Principals meeting

Friday-Wear your favorite college shirt or jersey...invite your students to participate; 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade RELA meeting at 2:45; BOOK FAIR Open for purchases and ICE Cream Social 4:30-6:00

Don't forget to the following:

• The ESOL teachers will meet with teachers during their grade level times on September 19th in room 115 to do TPC plans for all ESOL students. Please make a note of this date!
• Dolvin will be hosting the Community meeting on September 20th. We will have lots of visitors from the county and community.
• RTI information
  

This is super important, so please take note--

******Teachers should e-mail and make an appointment with Meredith before doing the following in Easy-

-moving a student from tier 2 to tier 3

-before moving a student down a tier

-before deleting an old intervention

*because doing any of these without properly saving (I'll teach you how at our appointment) can lead to important, hard-earned data being deleted. Losing this kind of data in the system can lead to serious delays in students getting the help they need.

Melissa McLean passes her dolphin to Erica Greene: Ms. Greene has stepped into her role with such enthusiasm and tenacity! She has been reading materials to better understand her student's specific academic, behavioral, and health needs. Her position requires attention to detail throughout the day to keep her student safe and happy, and she has a LOT of patience. Ms. Greene must support her student in several types of settings, strictly follow a complex schedule, and keep her student engaged and learning. Her student is experiencing success in a new school, and that is in large part to the continuous efforts of Ms. Greene!

Ms. Walsingham's Dolphin goes to: The 2nd grade Team!! They are all so warm and welcoming! They helped me learn the Dolvin way in no time. I’m tremendously thankful for all of their help when my Father-in-law had his heart attack and surgery. There’s no way I could have made it through the day with a smile on my face without their support. They are the perfect picture of what it means to be a team player and exceptionally represent Dolvin!

Mr. Bombardierr's dolphin goes to: Mr. Lundstrem his assistant. Having started as an assistant myself as well as having several different ones over the years Michael stands out in a positive way.The reason I'm giving it to Mr. Lundstrem is that he is an excellent paraprofessional and definitely takes the professional part very seriously. Working with him has been really great since he anticipates what we need in the gym before we have to ask. He is always on task making sure students are playing and preventing issues before they arise. What is a real pleasure is that he is always smiling, jovial and ready to help anyone in the school. On a side note he does this at every school not just Dolvin and all the other PE teachers and even admin have pointed out how lucky I am to have such a great assistant. I agree which is why I believe he deserves the Dolvin Dolphin.

As we get ready to start our TKES evals....Important ideas below that make you great at what you do!!! :)

Personality Traits That Aren’t on the Teacher Evaluation Rubric

In this Chronicle of Higher Education article, Rob Jenkins (Perimeter College of Georgia State University) reflects on the specific characteristics of the best teachers he’s had from kindergarten through graduate school – not necessarily the teachers and professors he liked the most but those who had the greatest influence on him. What makes us fondly remember a teacher years later? Jenkins describes his most memorable teachers as:

• Good-natured – By that, he means approachable and easy to get along with. True, a grouchy, misanthropic, short-tempered curmudgeon can be effective – or at least prepare students for bosses who are like that. But the opposite qualities are more likely to make a teacher effective – as long as you pay attention in class and do the work.

• Professional without being aloof – “My best teachers always seemed to effortlessly walk that fine line between being an authority figure and being someone I felt I could talk to,” says Jenkins. “I didn’t even understand what they were doing – or how difficult it was – until I had to do it myself years later.”

• A good sense of humor – “Funny how an ounce of humor can sometimes help students grasp the material better than a pound of gravitas,” he says. The teachers who had the biggest impact didn’t take themselves or their subject too seriously and sometimes made jokes at their own expense.

• Enjoy what they do – They clearly like teaching and get a kick out of associating with students every day. The opposite extreme is teachers who whine about the workload, don’t seem to like students, and make them feel like a nuisance.

• Demanding without being unkind – Most students appreciate high expectations and don’t mind working hard as long as the demands aren’t mean-spirited.

• Comfortable in their own skin – “The best teachers are confident without being arrogant, authoritative without being condescending,” says Jenkins. They like themselves without being in love with the sound of their own voices.

• Tremendously creative – “My best teachers… were truly innovative,” says Jenkins, “coming up with creative ways – sometimes on the spur of the moment – to help us understand, internalize, and remember what they were trying to teach. What made them innovative was not tools or technology but their minds.”

• Make teaching look easy – “Great teachers are like great athletes, dancers, or musicians,” says Jenkins. “We may know, cognitively, that what they do isn’t easy, but they seem to do it so effortlessly that we’re lulled into thinking it’s no big deal – until we try it ourselves.”

Are these characteristics innate or can they be developed? A bit of both, concludes Jenkins, but “simply by recognizing those traits as desirable, by acknowledging that we don’t possess them to the degree we would like, and by committing ourselves to working on them, we can become more approachable, creative, and, yes, funnier than we would be otherwise. It’s the journey of self-improvement that makes the difference.”

“What Makes a Good Teacher?” by Rob Jenkins in The Chronicle of Higher Education, June 24, 2016 (Vol. LXII, #39, p. A26), http://chronicle.com/article/What-Makes-a-Good-Teacher-/236657; Jenkins can be reached at Rob.Jenkins@outlook.com.

Dave Bullard- September 14th

Hope Garijanian- September 15th

Donna Ribaric- September 16th