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Collaborations

Shannon Webb
Curriculum Director
Professional Learning Communities

    The Sigourney Community School District has implemented district wide collaboration for our K-12 staff.  This is an opportunity for teachers to work within professional learning communities.  The goal of this project is to bring teachers together to support the development of a community of learners that are focused on professional practices.  This team approach helps to build a solid foundation and provides the teachers with the structure and tools to grow their professional learning communities. 
    This collaboration effort is a self-governing body and has helped the staff in developing the many skills and competencies that support their work as a learning community.  During this time staff members are studying school wide data to identify learning needs of students, learning to use critical thinking, problem solving, teamwork, and communication skills to enhance their classroom instruction. 
    Teachers meet on Wednesday and Friday mornings from 7:45-8:15.  Each collaboration group consists of either grade level teachers or they meet within their subject area.  These teacher-led teams help to distribute leadership across the entire district.  This avenue is an important tool for improving the instructional programs in the school and helps to improve teacher knowledge and teaching skills.   These teams are directly lead by teachers and not administrators.  The administrative teams role is to support the collaboration effort and help in the development of instructional leadership.  There is a process to assist the staff in understanding, reflecting, and self-evaluating the work of their teams. 
    The hope is that these school based learning communities will help to improve student outcomes.  Teachers face new and daunting challenges everyday, and developing these leadership skills is needed to lead effectively under rapidly changing conditions.  The Sigourney Community School District is very fortunate to have a group of teacher leaders that have the ability to make a difference in education.

SIAC

A Day Without Shoes

ITBS/ITEDs

The Purpose of ITBS/ITEDs

Kid Friendly Web Sites

Here are 10 great websites that will let your children get creative.  These artistic sites are fun, safe and free.  Explore them with your children to get your creative juices flowing.  Enjoy!

  Draw and Design - This site lets kids draw animals online, give them names and design backgrounds for imaginary worlds.  Winner of 2009 Parents’ Choice Gold Award.  Ages 5 to 12; www.shidonni.com.
  Devise games - This site is a multplayer game on PBS’ Design Squad site.  Kids can also design and build their own games and challenge their friends.  Ages 8 to 13; www.pbskids.org/designsquad/games/fidget.
  Craft cartoons - Kids write,read and tell stories by creating comic strips online, then printing or e-mailing them to friends or relatives.  All ages; www.makebeliefscomix.com.
  Program a video - Create movies, music and video games at Scratch, developed by MIT Media Lab members.  Age 8 and up; www.scratch.mit.edu.
  Make music - On Crank It Up!, kids can compose and record multilayered rhythms using pots, pans, wooden spoons and even the computer keyboard to create a masterpiece.  All ages; www.pbskids.org/arthur/games/crankitup.
  WolfQuest - An immersive, 3-D wildlife simulation game, WolfQuest challenges players to learn about wolf ecology by living the life of a wild wolf in Yellowstone National part.  All ages; www.wolfquest.org.
  Math Playground - Action packed site for elementary and middle school students.  Practice your math skills, play a logic game and have some fun!  Ages 6 to 13; www.http://mathplayground.com.
  Pest World - Come explore the world of pests and then use your new knowledge to outwit the pests in your world.  All ages; www.pestworldforkids.org/index.html.
  Storybooks - A wonderful place for children to read or be read to.  All books include colorful illustrations that are sure to keep your child’s interest.  All ages; www.magickeys.com/books/.
  Search engines - These are a few kid-friendly search sites that will no doubt help with research.  All ages; www.factmonster.com & www.kidsclick.org.

Thanks

Chris and I took a trip to Decorah this week-end to pick up clay molds for our district.  These molds were donated to the Sigourney Community Schools by Katherine Vance.  She is an employee of the Department of Education.  Katherine and I became acquantances through telephone conversations, in which she helped me with our Perkins grant.  She is from a small town in northern Iowa called Ossain.  Her husband had a ceramic business for many years along with teaching art.  He passed away at the young age of 43 from cancer. Katherine has held onto the clay molds for the last 20 years.  When speaking with Katherine, she has expressed how impressed she is with the Sigourney Community Schools and feels we are a very innovative district and wanted to donate her husband's equipment to be used in either our arts department or within our e-seal division.  Mr. Abrahamson and I decided it could be a great opportunity for our students, so I graciously volunteered my husband and I to go and pick them up.  I was glad we went because it gave me the chance to finally meet Katherine.  She is a very classy lady that misses her husband dearly and is very excited to see his molds going to an outstanding district.  I would like to thank Katherine and her family for thinking of our district and I would also like to thank my husband for his help. 

Thanks & Good-Luck

On Friday we had our ITBS kickoff assembly!  It was a huge success!  The elementary students are fired up and ready to go!  On Monday the jr./sr. high school will have their kick off assembly in the gym at 8:00 a.m.  We celebrate the week by having fun and games organized by our student leadership team in the gym from 8:00-8:30.  This seems to get he students excited and ready for the week.  I would like to thank our teachers for doing a great job of getting our students prepared for these assessments.  I wish the students the best of luck this week!  Remember take your time and try your hardest!  Go Savages!!

Fire Up for the ITBS/ITEDs!

During the week of January 25th-26th students will be taking the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (ITBS) and the Iowa Tests of Educational Development (ITED). The main purpose of ITBS/ITEDs are to provide the school with information that can be used to improve instruction and allow teachers to check each student’s year-to-year growth and to identify some of each student’s strong areas of achievement and needed areas of improvement. The information the tests provide can be used by the school to improve instruction and can be used by students, parents, and teachers to make informed educational decisions.  The Iowa Tests cover many of the fundamental skills your child is learning in school in the areas of reading, mathematics, and science. 

The ITBS/ITEDs are standardized achievement tests that are taken by students all over the nation.  Because thousands of students across the nation have taken the tests under the same conditions, the results for any student can be meaningfully compared to the results achieved by others at the same grade level.  Of course, ITBS/ITED scores cannot and should not replace teachers’ and parents’ observations and judgments.  However, such scores do convey a unique type of information about a student’s educational achievement.  Thus, they can be a valuable supplement to other information that parents and teachers take into account in trying to identify and address a student’s educational needs.

While students should be encouraged to do their best on the tests, too much emphasis on the importance of testing may make students feel unnecessarily anxious about the outcomes.  Testing should basically be given the same emphasis as all other school experiences.  I hope that your son or daughter found the tests to be a useful educational experience and that the results will be interesting and helpful to you.

Snow Day

Another Snow day!!!!  I will admit that I love snow days.  Yes, my kids can drive me crazy, but to be able to spend the day with them is priceless.  Some of you may wonder what I do during my time at home.  Because I live on a dead end road, I do not have the pleasure of coming to town to work at school.  I try to get as much work done at home as possible. I am working on my administrative degree through Grand Canyon University, which is an all on-line program. I have used these two days to get as much done on my new class, which is entitled Legal Issues in Education.  I am looking forward to this journey and I hope to gain a ton of knowledge about school law.

While at home, I have also decided to tackle a few painting jobs.  I love the new color in my living room, and today I think I will paint my laundry room.  Zoe loves to help!  The boys have spent a lot of time outside blading snow with the ranger and skid loader.  I hope you all have enjoyed your two days off as much as I have, and I look forward to seeing you all on Monday!!!