6th Grade Teacher, Karen Niegelsky, Wins Award

Karen Niegelsky, our 6th grade Humanities and Composition teacher has won the Walden Media's contest, Teachers are Givers. Her unit on community and dystopia as seen through The Giver won the award. You can check out her lesson and accolades at the link below:

http://www.walden.com/blog/teachers-are-givers-week-3-winner-karen-niegelsky/

Some Thoughts on Leadership at Canterbury

This year, we have spent significant time thinking about leadership at Canterbury. You may have seen Tricia Fisher's survey on the traits of leadership. Our immediate goal is to create an intentional curriculum of leadership development for our 7th and 8th grade which will be embedded in the weekly schedule.

Out of the work surrounding that goal came an idea of what leadership should look like at Canterbury. Our motto, To Learn, To Love, To Serve: To Live provides an excellent starting point. Michael McKinney recently wrote a blog post on his blog, Leading Blog, which summarizes nicely what we want out of our leadership curriculum. Please read below:

(I'm not really sure what the guy kissing the mini-giraffe has to do with his post, but...)

A Leader’s Most Dangerous Thought

“I deserve.”

Leadership is demanding. It takes a personal toll and if we are not careful, we can begin to make it about us. It’s not a difficult position to rationalize.

The problem with “I deserve” is that it changes our perspective. We see our contribution as more important than anyone else’s contribution. It creates a lack of proportion.

It leads to a wrong motivation for leadership: leadership as a means to better get what we want. We see this all the time—the hypocrisy of leadership—seeking positions of power while denying the real nature of leadership. Service. And it is why we have seen far too many leaders derail.

“I deserve” thinking threatens our ability to lead. It diminishes our influence because it takes us out of the community; out of the narrative. We no longer lead for the cause but only as a means to serve ourselves. Side effects include distrust, cynicism, the wrong kind competition and isolated thinking. Good leadership creates connections and avoids points of disconnect.

The opposite of “I deserve” isn’t denying ourselves. We must take care of our needs in the same way we take of the needs of others or we will not be able to properly serve others.

The antidote is remembering that leadership is not a position but a role. It’s a gift and it is temporary. It’s channeling all that we are for the benefit of others.

Leadership is something we live, for others.

Is The Internet a Human Right?

Brett Yasko

Yesterday I covered Father Finnin's Ethics in Leadership class and we discussed whether we thought access to the Internet rose to the level of a human right. This conversation was brought on by the op-ed in the New York Times by Vinton Cerf, Chief Internet Evangelist at Google, who says it is not. I thought it was a fascinating discussion with many nuanced perspectives which the students were able to identify and discuss in a civil and understanding manner.

Check it out for yourself: Internet Access is Not a Human Right

Game Changer

www.apple.com

Not only is Apple coming out with textbooks, but now they have an App for the mac which will let us create our own - for free.

iBooks Author for the Mac

Just Wiki It

Karen Niegelsky, our 6th grade Humanities and 8th grade Composition teacher, has developed an intriguing 21st Century unit based around the principles of Heidi Hayes-Jacobs' Innovators' Challenge. She describes it below:

Students are usually cautioned about using Wikipedia as a source for academic papers, but when doing “real world” research, many of us head to this popular website to find information to everyday questions. Rather than simply dismissing it as an unreliable resource for “real” research, Canterbury eighth graders will spend the second trimester exploring its virtues and producing their own contributions to an actual Wikipedia article.

Each eighth grader will choose a topic to research thoroughly and then produce a Wikipedia-style article that is fluent, reliable, and non-biased. In completing this project, students will gain experience in writing for a real audience and in dealing with criticism and suggestions that may come from readers other than fellow students or their teachers.  Finally, they will get the thrill of seeing their work online. (Their privacy is protected; Wikipedia authors are anonymous.)

Students should be able to use much of their work to meet the requirements of the Canterbury portfolio project including

·  Develop a fundamental understanding of emerging ethical issues and dilemmas regarding new media and technologies.

·  Respond to an experience of failure in a way that acknowledges that innovation involves small successes and frequent mistakes.

What is the Purpose of School? - Your Chance to Weigh In

I found this project via Karl Fisch's blog. A couple of grad students at Harvard have developed this project and are looking for global responses to the question, "What is the purpose of school?" While it may seem like a straightforward question, I'm sure (as Karl is) that the guys will get some great responses. Take a look at the site and please contribute!

Elective Choices: Second Trimester

electiveselection.com

As you might remember, we began a new Electives Program this year based on three tracks: The Arts, A 21st Century World, and Leadership. We have just completed our first trimester classes and it is time to enroll in our second trimester classes.

Today we will have our teachers explain what it is that they will be offering in their classes, and our 7th and 8th grade students will receive the Selection Sheet which is linked below to take home and make their choices. Take a moment and check out what it is we have to offer students.

Electives Description 2011: Second Trimester

Leadership: Traits and Skills

dvdtrainingvideo.com

As part of the Action in Leadership elective that Tricia Fisher teaches, I have been able to work with her students on the explicit instruction on leadership. We are nearing the end of our time together and the group has taken on a number of leadership tasks around campus. They have had to lead peers and younger students.

With this experience behind them, I challenge them to identify traits and skills that leaders need to be successful. Here is what they came up with:

Traits

• Calmness
• Engagement
• Understanding
• Honesty
• Integrity

Skills

• Identify strengths & weaknesses in the group
• Give precise encouragement
• Read people's characteristics
• Persuading through framing the task
• Delegate
• Identify the early adopters
• Communication - public speaking and honest communication

Reconfiguration Status Update

As part of our ongoing planning process for Grade Reconfiguration, I have linked my letter to parents and the Reconfiguration Status Report: November 2011 in this post. I plan on continuing to update throughout this school year and welcome your input and feedback throughout the process.

Reconfiguration Letter: November 2011

Reconfiguration Status Report: November 2011

Canterbury Portfolio Program

As I stated in my update to parents, we will be implementing a Portfolio Program in the 8th grade which will take the place of exams. Students will create a portfolio of work demonstrating their attainment of ten skills indicative of a 21st Century Canterbury graduate and, at the end of the school year, defend that portfolio in front of a panel.

We believe this program will place Canterbury at the forefront of 21st Century education. This holistic approach to assessment incorporates the skills needed to be successful in the 21st Century and is in line with our mission of educating the whole child. More directly, it provides a context for students to see that education is a continual, integrated, and relevant process.

What follows is an outline of the components of that program.

The Skills: Using Canterbury's Desired Results of Student Learning or DRSLs, NAIS research, and other readings as a context, faculty and staff created this list of ten skills a 21st Century Canterbury graduate should be able to demonstrate by the end of their 8th grade year.

1. Solve a real-world problem using concepts from math and/or science.
2. Demonstrate proficiency in a foreign language.
3. Clearly and concisely outline a position on a topic and be able to explain and compellingly persuade others of its implications through writing.
4. Demonstrate a commitment to care for self and others the world over.
5. Participate in and demonstrate your role as a member of a team.
6. Demonstrate knowledge of your faith as it has developed in your life.
7. Develop a fundamental understanding of emerging ethical issues and dilemmas regarding new media and technologies.
8. Explore an understanding of either justice, integrity, mercy, or compassion through the arts or literature.
9. Exercise leadership.
10. Respond to an experience of failure in a way that acknowledges innovation involves small successes and frequent mistakes.

The Portfolio: The portfolio itself will be an electronic document. All materials must be able to be stored on the server and/or a flash drive.

• The Portfolio will consist of chapters which correspond to a particular skill.
• A product demonstrating the skill will comprise the bulk of each chapter. Those products come from students' classes and could include, but are not limited to:
• a piece of writing
• video
• journal
• pictures
• song
• piece of artwork
• blog
• podcast
• interview
• audio recording
• PowerPoint
• multimedia presentation
• The beginning of each chapter will include at least a three paragraph introduction to the product which addresses the following:
• Provides for the panel a sense that the student understands what the skills are
• Describes how/why the student chose this product to demonstrate the skill in question
• Explains the process that went into the product - what went well, what did not go well, what will they continue to work on

The Presentation: A presentation of the Portfolio will occur before and during the exam period at the end of the student's 8th grade year. This is the culmination of the Portfolio Program and is an opportunity to present the collection of the student's work to a panel.

• Students will wear Chapel Dress on their presentation day.
• The Portfolio will be delivered to the panel prior to the scheduled presentation. Independently, the panelists will grade the Portfolio based on the Skills Rubric. The panel will then determine a grade for the presentation based on the Presentation Rubric in conference immediately following the student's presentation.
• The panel will consist of the Head of School, Assistant Head of School, Middle School Director, Lower School Director, Chaplain, and Director of Student Life and Unity in Diversity
• Each presentation will be 20 minutes and will include an introduction by the Portfolio mentor, the student presentation of the portfolio, and panel Q&A

Student-Focused Support: We have built in a number of support systems to help guide students towards the final portfolio and presentation.

• A Portfolio Class has been created in the 8th grade schedule. This class meets once every ten days and will be taught by Mr. Skeen in the computer lab. It is meant to provide a dedicated time and space to work on the Portfolio.
• Teachers will identify on their syllabus those projects/papers/products/etc. which fulfill one or more of the skills indicated above. They will include the list of products, the skills they fulfill, and the approximate due dates on the class syllabus which is handed out at the beginning of the year.
• Each student will have a Portfolio mentor who will meet with the student once a month, provide feedback to the family through interim and report card comments, write a forward to the student's Portfolio, and help prepare the student for the presentation of the Portfolio.

Grading: Students will receive a grade in Portfolio class directly related to the quality of their Portfolio and quality of their presentation. They will receive comments from their mentors for both interim reports and report cards.

• Any product used in the Portfolio will come from an assignment in the student's class. This assignment will be managed by the content-area teacher until a final grade has been assigned to it. This grades resides in their class and is final. However, students may revise those products further for their Portfolio.
• Students will receive a final grade for the year in their Portfolio class based on the following;
• The panel will grade the Portfolio based on the Skills Rubric independently. The grades of the panel members will be averaged for the Portfolio portion of the final grade.
• The panel will grade the presentation based on the Presentation Rubric. This will be done in conference immediately following the Q&A portion of the presentation.
• The score on the Portfolio portion and presentation portion will then be averaged together for the final Portfolio grade. This grade will appear on the final report card.
• Canterbury students will now have the opportunity to graduate with High Honors or Honors distinctions. The Portfolio grade is a key factor, along with the student's final average for their 6th, 7th and 8th grade years at Canterbury, in determining whether a student graduates with these distinctions:
• High Honors: An 'A' average and an 'A' on Portfolio
• Honors: An 'A' average and a 'B' on Portfolio

Rubrics: Two rubrics have been developed, which will guide students in creating and presenting their Portfolio and the panel in grading it.

• Skills Rubric: This rubric provides a grading scale for the panel as they look through the portfolio. It contains descriptions of Distinguished, Proficient, and Developing work.
• Presentation Rubric: This rubric provides a grading scale for the panel during the presentation of the Portfolio and the Q&A which follows. It contains descriptions of Distinguished, Proficient, and Developing work.

Timeline: The link below contains a timeline we will use with the 8th grade. The timeline is meant to provide benchmarks for students as they prepare their Portfolios and themselves for their final presentation. The Portfolio Mentor, teachers, and parents will work in partnership to keep the student on track.

• Portfolio Timeline

Schedule of Presentations: A schedule of presentations has been determined through a random student selection and is available upon request. Students will receive their presentation date and time in their first Portfolio class.

2011-2012 Preview: Leadership Electives

ehow.com

As I have posted earlier, we will have a new Elective program for 7th and 8th graders beginning this fall. In earlier posts I previewed the course tracks of The Arts and A 21st Century World. In this post I will preview the Leadership classes we will offer in the Elective program.

Ethics in Leadership: Students focus on the ways current and emerging leaders can assess the values that influence their actions and encourages them to think through the consequences of those actions. Combining classical ethical theories from western thought and modern case studies, students will be able to locate leadership styles in an ethical context, and begin to develop and practice reasoning processes of their own.

Profiles in Leadership: In this elective, students will explore various leadership models, leaders in action, and leadership writings. They will explore through case study and group work the many ways leadership can be executed. By the end of the course students will identify their own strengths and weaknesses vis-à-vis leadership and begin to put their particular brand of leadership into practice.

Leadership in Action: In this elective, students will actively explore leadership opportunities both within the school setting and in the community. By placing students in leadership roles, students will be able to develop their own sense of responsibility and leadership style. These opportunities will be carefully explored and selected by student and faculty. We will foster communication skills by leading younger students, teaching peers, and learning to facilitate and manage a group in the outdoor setting and in service opportunities.

2011-2012 Preview: A 21st Century World Electives

As you may have seen in my most recent posts, I am previewing the new Electives Program in the middle school. We've created three academic tracks: The Arts, A 21st Century World, and Leadership. In each we offer a number of classes and today I'm previewing the classes in A 21st Century World track. This is meant to expose our students to the variety of themes they will encounter in their 21st Centruy world from sustainability practices (both environmental - Organic Gardening and financial - Personal Finance and Micro-Lending) to STEM skills to world languages.

howtogrowgardens.net

Organic Gardening: Students in this elective learn the fundamentals of gardening the organic way, including basic concepts about soil, ground cover, weed and pest control, harmful and beneficial organisms, and composting. Students prepare and plant and enjoy the harvest of a seasonal garden in fall and spring.



http://answersaboutfamilyfinance.com/

Personal Finance: Financial freedom takes students one step closer to independence. In this class students learn tips and tricks for managing and growing wealth. In one semester, students will buy a car, write checks, balance their budget, and play in the stock market. They will have the opportunity to interact with featured business leaders and will participate in an online simulation to reinforce course objectives.

http://www.dugnorth.com/

Robotics: The Robotics elective asks students to become designers, computer programmers, problem solvers and engineers. Students are taught the basics of robot construction and programming and by the end of the course must solve complex problems with their Lego Mindstorm Robots. This challenging and fun elective introduces skills that will be needed in the 21st century.

http://www.ncais.org/

NCAIS On-Line Courses: This elective is presented in partnership with NCAIS Virtual schools and offers students an opportunity to enrich their curriculum through an extensive choice of on-line courses. From Mandarin to Forensic Science to Digital Photography, this elective can provide a student the opportunity to supplement their education. There is a fee for the course. Please see attached informational packet.

http://www.kiva.org/

Micro-Lending: The new micro-finance elective is a kiva.com specific economics class that seeks to answer the following questions: What is micro lending? Who receives micro loans? Why do they need it? Where are micro loans happening? The first few weeks consist of learning about loans and investing practices such as researching the area where they will find their businesses. The class will then be broken into "Venture Capitalist Teams," each of which have a Kiva loan portfolio. Every two weeks teams report out to the "board" to defend and refine their portfolio, review and analyze their returns, and discuss strategy.

http://kro21.k12.sd.us/

Science Olympiad: Science Olympiad is a track meet style science competition in which students compete in a range of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) events. In class, students will refine science investigation skills while building towers, mousetrap cars, and bottle rockets, tracking the spread of infectious diseases, or investigating forensic evidence to solve mysteries. Students will learn to measure accurately using the metric system, express themselves in written and oral scientific language, and follow the steps of the scientific method.

2011-2012 Preview: the Arts Electives

As I mentioned in an earlier post, we will be implementing a three-track program for our electives next year. The first of those tracks is the Arts. Below you will find brief descriptions of the classes.

chceramics.wikispaces.com

Studio Art: Building on previous experiences in a variety of media, art elective students further develop their skills while exploring personal interests and directions and have opportunities to work with professional artists. The semester culminates in an art show in the Stafford Center art gallery in which each student presents his or her artwork.

chicagoreader.com

Creative Writing: The Creative Writing Elective allows students the opportunity to explore and to unleash their creative spirit.  Students learn about and produce a variety of styles of creative writing, including fiction, non-fiction, and poetry.  The class focuses on writing as an expression of the self with conventions and characteristics different from academic writing.  All students read their work aloud during either the Winter or Spring Arts Festival.

http://www.sd103.com/

Drama:  The Drama Elective is designed to stimulate the student’s natural “dramatic” imagination and provide experience and confidence in personal communication.  Through free-form, creative role-playing, scene construction, awareness of voice and body, and disciplined dramatic performance, students are given the opportunity to respond emotionally, reflectively, and imaginatively to their world and themselves.

http://www.howstuffworks.com/

Digital Photography: Through the NCAIS Virtual on-line suite of classes, Canterbury students have the opportunity to learn the basics of the digital camera, shaping a picture, identifying key elements in a scene, and manipulating the picture. Students are self-paced and work with a teacher that uses an online "classroom" to meet and discuss assignments, deliver quizzes and tests, and provide feedback.

yearbook.grafton.ghs.schoolfusion.us

Yearbook: Middle School students will choose the theme, lay out the pages, edit the text and pictures, and work with photoshop and other professional programs to create the final copy of the yearbook. Students learn many of the components of graphic design through a real world experience with a tangible and worthwhile project.

2011-2012 Preview: The Elective Track

www.courses.moodleshare.com

For the 2011-2012 school year, we've redesigned our electives program in order to offer more classes with more focus. Briefly, our 7th and 8th grade students will still have the opportunity to choose from a variety of classes, only this year they will be organized into three tracks: The Arts, 21st Century Learning, and Leadership. Students are required to take one class within each track, but after that can choose to pursue classes in any of the tracks. Over the next few posts, I will preview some of the classes we will be offering within the elective program. We are excited about the opportunities these classes provide to our students.

Stay Tuned!

8th Grade Art: Working with a Professional Artist

This year, we expanded the Fine Arts offerings for our 8th grade and included Studio Art in addition to Band and Chorus. Three intrepid 8th grade boys took us up on the choice and have been working with Molly Stouten on a variety of projects.

Last week, they were invited to work with Chapel Hill artist Patrick Dougherty on his sculpture at Guilford College. Mr. Dougherty is an acclaimed artist who has built similar installations around the world. Through Molly's relationship with Guilford (she was an adjunct professor from 1999-2001), our art students have been able to take advantage of the opportunities the college provides. Over the years, Molly has developed a relationship with Terry Hammond, Guilford's Gallery Director, and they talk each year about how to get our students involved.

Our current 8th grade students visited Guilford in the fall to work with the artist Bryant Holsenbeck (who has also been featured in Stafford Art Gallery in 2009). This past week, the students were put to work trimming, placing, and implementing some of the final steps in Mr. Dougherty's work. The sculpture will be named after is finished on or around February 20. The construction of the installation is being filmed by UNC-TV for a 10-12 minute segment on the artist, which will appear on their program, Our State, next October.

A link to the work Mr. Dougherty is completing at Guilford College is below:

http://www.guilford.edu/DoughertyInstall.html

Cameroon Connection Grows



aidafrica.net



As you may have read in an earlier post, our 6th grade has been working with a school in Cameroon to track elephants in that country in order to come up with some solutions to their plight. See Curriculum Corner: 6th Grade and Elephants. (Editor's Update: our 6th grade teachers have been in communication with a playwright from Cameroon who has written about elephant poaching and are exploring ways to use the school's collection of djembe drums to film one scene from his play.) As a result of this collaboration, we found another opportunity to consult with the school in Cameroon.




harmhero.nl

 

This year in the 7th and 8th grades, we have a dedicated time each week to service learning, outdoor education, and leadership. In the 7th grade we used this time in the beginning of the year to prepare for our MDG experience (7th graders research and then take on roles of citizens in Third World countries by actually spending two days in the woods building communities). Now, our 7th grade is transitioning to a partnership with the same in school in Cameroon to discover the differences of water consumption between Greensboro, Cameroon, and our third partner school in Salem, Massachusetts. Linda Allen has sent home tally sheets with her math classes, which will be brought back and calculated and Karen Niegelsky has set up a blog at kidblog.org so students from all three school can compare their information and learn how water consumption can shine a light on just how different our lives can be.

As we move further into the 21st Century and realize the type of skills our students are going to need in order to meet that world head on, it will be projects and partnerships like these with the students in Cameroon that foster the type of leaders we seek to develop at Canterbury School.

Curriculum Corner: 6th Grade and Elephants

Our 6th graders are beginning a project which will cross over their science, composition, and social studies classes. They are partnering with the American School in Douala, Cameroon and Phoenix School in Salem, Massachusetts to study the plight of elephants in Cameroon.


Cynthia Nielsen, Karen Niegelsky, and Carolyn Lamkins have brought Dr. Mark Macalister and Dr. Mike Loomis, North Carolina Zoological veterinarians and field biologists from our own backyard at the North Carolina Zoo in Asheboro, on as experts to work with our students.

Students from all three schools will study the environmental, sustainability, and specie issues surrounding the elephants’ habitat and compare notes on how they might try and solve the problems these elephants encounter as a result of human encroachment.

Canterbury’s 6th grade will be following Dr. Loomis via Google Earth and GPS as he follows the elephants on their migration and tags them for data collection. Students will then be able to work with the data Dr. Loomis collects, collaborate with students in Cameroon and Massachusetts via Skype, and visit with Dr. Loomis and Dr. Macalister in Asheboro to review their solutions.

This is an excellent example of the innovative approach to 21st Century learning, which incorporates creativity, collaboration, critical thinking, analysis, and synthesis.