AHS Teachers Honored for Excellence

Teachers Are Like Bass Players

Many teachers love to see their students succeed, but what does it mean to be successful? A millionaire? Politician? Professional athlete? For James Webb, a mentor teacher at Ames High School, success is simply “progressing toward autonomy. As teachers, often times our greatest success stories are not the ones making headlines but the ones who have overcome tremendous personal challenges to become independent, free-thinking adults.” 

On Friday, October 9, Webb encouraged teachers at the Iowa Council of Teachers of English conference to share their own student success stories with others when he was presented with  the organization’s Distinguished Service Award. This award honors a teacher who has made significant contributions to students, the teaching profession, and ICTE.

Webb described most teachers’ role as supporting students much like a bass player supports the band. Webb explains, “In music, no one knows who the bass player is in the band. I’ve never minded, though, because a bass player’s role isn’t to be the center of attention; rather, it is to make everyone else in the band sound better. Teaching is the same way: it’s not about us. We measure our success not by the recognition we garner but by the lives we change. We exist to make our students ‘sound’ better.”  Not only does Webb help his students to “sound better” but he has also supported ICTE as a member of the executive board, conference committee co-chair, and frequent presenter at the annual conference. His willingness to share his experiences and expertise with other teachers around Iowa is a demonstration of his willingness to support other teachers around the state.

In Ames, James has supported the high school English department as the department chair, focusing on creating a strong curriculum and studying quality instructional practices.  In addition, he has provided building leadership for MTSS and QILT. His service to the English teaching profession also shines through in his willingness to mentor practicum students, student teachers, and teachers new to the building and the profession.

Although part of his message to teachers last Friday involved shying away from the spotlight to promote student achievement, James’ service to this district, ICTE, and the English profession deserves recognition. Congratulations, James - enjoy a moment in the spotlight!

A Passion for Supporting Students
As a young girl, DeAnna Tibben enjoyed playing school with her two younger sisters. It wasn’t always apparent, however, that she wanted to be a teacher when she grew up. Her mom was a teacher, but as Tibben recalls, “Of course no one wants to be what their mom is when they are younger.”

Despite those early feelings, DeAnna did indeed follow in her mother’s footsteps. For the past 22 years, DeAnna has been a science educator, including the last 16 at Ames High School. In that time, DeAnna has come to understand what it means to be a teacher. “A great teacher is someone who is willing to be a risk taker,” she explains. “Someone who is passionate and willing to give their extra time to their students.”

On Monday, September 21, her passion, risk-taking, and concern for her students was recognized at the ICTM-ISTS and Science conference in Des Moines. Tibben was awarded the 2015 Outstanding Service Award which honors teachers who have made extraordinary contributions to ISTS and/or to science education at the state or national level. Of this honor, DeAnna says she was “really surprised.” For her, the greatest reward of being a teacher isn’t honors like these. Rather, she values her students. When former students visit or send her a message about where they are now and how they have used the knowledge they gained in her classroom to pursue their dreams, she knows she’s had an impact.

Congratulations, DeAnna, it’s apparent to us you were meant to be a teacher, and the Ames School District is fortunate to have you on our teaching staff.

Technology Coaches in Ames CSD

How technology is used in the classroom has changed drastically in the past few years. Technology is not used because it is new or shiny.  We use technology in learning environments because it allows us to be more effective or to do things that were not possible before.  We can use technology to create more engaging learning experiences that allow students to have more ownership of their learning or to give them new opportunities geared towards their own needs and desires.  Technology allows us to bring in experts without paying for an airline ticket or to allow for collaboration between students who may not be in the same school.

We do not use technology for technology's sake but must pair it with effective pedagogy.  As shown in the TPACK (Mishra & Koehler, 2006) framework, it is the combination of effective pedagogical knowledge, content knowledge, and technical knowledge that can create a truly effective learning environment.  Technology by itself will not create an effective lesson; only when paired with good pedagogy will the technology improve the learning experience.

Reproduced by permission of the publisher, © 2012 by tpack.org

With all students at Ames High School and Ames Middle School now equipped with their own district-purchased device, everyday support for teachers working to incorporate technology in the classroom is available through Technology Coaches Patrick Donovan (@donovanscience) and Jeremie Knutson (@JeremieKnutson). Both Tech Coaches have extensive teaching experience in the classroom and have used technology in effective ways with students before coming into their current roles to work with teachers.

A few weeks ago we had our all-district technology professional development and brought together all teachers, pre-K to 12th grade, to have a great learning experience centered around the use of technology in our classroom.  We had our own teachers sharing, as well as some outside consultants, in order to help teachers grow with their use of technology. Craig Badura, http://www.thedigitaldogpound.com/, was the keynote speaker who kicked off the day by focusing on digital citizenship. Over 90 sessions were available for teachers to choose from throughout the day in which there were many opportunities for teachers to practice what they were learning.

This day of learning helped get the momentum going for our teachers to try out new things in the classroom with the built in daily support of the Technology Coaches as they pair the technology with effective pedagogy to better improve student learning.  Patrick and Jeremie are there to support teachers through modeling instruction, co-teaching when technology is being used, or just to coach teachers through their planning and reflecting on lessons involving technology.  They would love to talk to you about how you are using technology in your class and help you explore new ideas to maximize tech’s impact on student learning.

Make sure to follow the District hashtag, #AmesCSD, to keep up with all of the amazing things happening in the Ames Community School District.

Mishra, P., & Koehler, M. (2006). Technological pedagogical content knowledge: A framework for teacher knowledge. The Teachers College Record, 108(6), 1017-1054.

Collaborative Relationships

Guest Blogger:   Hannah Moore is a first year social studies teacher at Ames Middle School.  Here she writes about support she received from her mentor, as part of the new teacher mentoring and induction program.  Her mentor, Sara Knutson is an art teacher.  Though they do not teach the same content, Hannah still benefits from structured, professional interactions with her mentor. Sara guides Hannah to reflect on her teaching practice and student work, identify goals, and commit to new learning. She does this by listening, paraphrasing, asking clarifying questions, and summarizing - all skills she learned in Cognitive Coaching training over the summer.

Ideal Mentoring Support

The first few days and weeks of my first year have been a blur. For any teacher, there’s a lot to learn and a lot to do, but for me, it’s also been challenging to teach two different grade levels and subjects. I’d plan lessons that were too easy, and then I’d plan lessons that were too hard. I also found out quickly that the grade levels were completely different, and that I needed to treat them as such. Shifting gears back and forth between them multiple times per day has been an adventure, and establishing classroom management procedures has been a learning process. However, I love working with the kids. I am really grateful to be part of this staff, and I know in time I’ll get there.

Something that has helped me tremendously has been having a mentor teacher. One of my seventh-grade assignments did not yield the results I had hoped. I came to my mentor for help, thinking it was one issue. However, after talking through it with her, I realized it was a completely separate one. The conversation was super helpful, as she posed questions and strategies I hadn’t thought of on my own. To me, that is what ideal mentoring looks like. We discussed the situation, explained the original goal versus what transpired, analyzed it and came up with tangible ideas to try.  So much in teaching is situational, and the only way to learn is to go through the experience. I appreciate having someone to help me navigate some of those experiences and learn from them. I also appreciate that our conversation was focused on the students and helping me better teach and help them. That’s why we’re here, after all, and that’s why I wanted to be a teacher.

Community Building in Action

If you have ever had the opportunity to talk to Meeker 3rd grade Mentor Teacher Ondrea Dellman about teaching, chances are you also talked about Responsive Classroom (RC). For those of you who haven’t gotten the chance to talk with her yet, Responsive Classroom is the classroom management approach used at the elementary level. It is the elementary counterpart to Developmental Designs, which is being used at Ames Middle School.

Ondrea’s passion for RC is clear in everything she does in her classroom. She spends a significant time at the beginning of the year training her classroom expectations, teaching students how to take appropriate breaks, building community through morning meetings, setting hopes and dreams, making classroom rules and learning about building a CARES community (cooperation, assertion, responsibility, empathy, self-control). I asked Ondrea how RC impacts her as a Mentor: “I could not teach without RC strategies. Behavior concerns have come up in all of my mentoring sessions. Now that I have been practicing RC and taken all three levels as well as a few of the 2 day trainings, I feel like I can offer meaningful support and suggestions to them address their concerns.”

One aspect of RC that is used far less often is organized recess, which Ondrea believes is critical to building community with her students even when they are outside of her classroom walls. As the year gets going, elementary teachers are well aware that for some kids recess is the least successful time of the day. Many times those students who need to run around the most tend to find the wrong ways to spend their recess time. Students don’t naturally generalize the rules and expectations from the classroom to the playground. That’s where organized recess comes in. At the beginning of the year, and then continuing intermittently throughout the rest of the school year, Ondrea goes to recess with her students and teaches them group games and appropriate expectations for the playground just like she does for her classroom. Ondrea describes the benefits of organized recess: “The students get to know all their classmates better instead of always gravitating to the same few peers. They don't always know what to do when they are at recess and for some students that leads to problems. They learn rules to games and other options of what to do at recess.  When I am with them I have opportunities to instruct them on using self-control on the playground.”

Some might be skeptical of organized recess, but even students from other classes join Ondrea when she is out there. “I had my kids out and we had the big beach ball to use for our game.  My kids ran out excitedly and several other kids asked if they could play too. The surprising thing was they were all boys and most of them I recognized as kids who have a tendency to find trouble. I even ended up having a fourth grader join us when he came out.”

As a Teacher Leader, Ondrea hopes to inspire new teachers to implement RC strategies in their own classrooms to build a strong positive community and support student learning. She also has an open invitation to all teachers at Meeker who want to learn more about organized recess. If you get the opportunity to spend some time with Ondrea’s class, you will undoubtedly see these strategies in practice whether in the classroom or on the playground.

Open Doors

Opening classroom doors and inviting others in takes courage, and it can make us feel vulnerable when we expose our teaching practices. Yet we know that seeing each other in action is a powerful way to learn and grow. With Model Teachers in place this year, we can expand our learning from one another. No longer are we restricted to learning from only those in our own PLC or building, but we can now learn from others across our District through these open doors.

Garry and Glennis Anderson, educators from New Zealand, along with Ann Pierce from Iowa State University, recently took advantage of the opportunity to visit Model Teacher, Charlyn Mason, at Mitchell Elementary. The Andersons were eager to see first-hand the teaching practices for kindergarten students during their time in the States. They wanted to see how they compared to teaching practices being used in their system in New Zealand.

Glennis Anderson is also a kindergarten teacher, but not all of her students start on the first day of school. She welcomes her students all throughout the year because students in New Zealand begin their school career the day after their 5th birthday. This means new kindergarteners are joining her all year long. Glennis was excited to be able to see how a kindergarten classroom in our District functions at the beginning of the school year knowing that training 20+ students into a school culture is very different than starting with 10 students and adding one or two at a time.  

The Responsive Classroom approach which incorporated some syllable practice, as well as the Gradual Release Model around the letter "i", was very inspiring to Glennis and Garry. After the observation, the Andersons took time to reflect with Karen Mongar, Kate Mitchell’s Instructional Coach. Together, these educators collaborated around the different instructional methods they observed and talked about the Teacher Leadership Program that Ames has in place. Garry Anderson is the Principal at The Terrace School in New Zealand and is hoping to get a Teacher Leadership Program in place within his school. At the end of these conversations it was very clear, that despite living on opposite sides of the globe, all teachers have the best interest of students at the heart of their work and benefit from observing and collaborating with one another.

Charlyn Mason and her husband Jeff, who teaches fifth grade at Sawyer Elementary, plan to go to New Zealand in June to visit The Terrace School.  They hope to continue the collaboration that started with this opportunity to walk through an open door.

TOSAs Working Together

Hello. My name is Erin Miller, and I have problem. I am a teacher who has lost her classroom. I have a cubicle. I have a very nice desk in a freezing office - at least the temperature makes me feel at home. I have access to a conference room across the hall that makes me feel claustrophobic when there are more than two other people in there with me. I no longer have a parade of high school speech students wandering in my room at various hours of the day needing help. I can’t find any students assigned to my name on Infinite Campus. I will admit that this has been the most difficult start to a school year for me since I started teaching.

However, after a full two months on the job, I’m realizing all that I’ve gained. I’ve found an amazing group of TOSAs (Teachers on Special Assignment) who are passionate about teaching and learning in Ames. They are passionate about their subject areas. They want to work together to support teachers as they work each day to help students achieve things they never thought possible.

Lisa Clayberg, TOSA for Professional Development and Teacher Leadership, is dedicated to supporting all teacher leaders across the district. She has worked tirelessly to ensure that everyone out there who is feeling a little lost in a new role feels supported. She gives us passion when we are feeling overwhelmed by all we want to accomplish. Most of all, she isn’t afraid to put up funny pictures in our office to keep the mood light.

Kari Smith, our veteran TOSA, is our quiet leader. She has great tips for transitioning from teaching students to learning alongside adults. Already, I want to go to every science PD opportunity she is offering this year - engineering with tin foil? Yes, please! If you have the chance to hear Kari share a Think Aloud, take it. Her ability to open up her thinking to allow students to better understand how an expert tackles a math problem or reads a science text is inspiring.

Dan Andrews, another C & I veteran, has been an invaluable resource to all of the TOSAs as we begin our work this year. As the Data and Assessment Coordinator, he can provide a variety of information about our district, programs, and student assessment results. He answers all of our questions with the patience of a saint, demonstrates how to use all of the tools available to us, and challenges our thinking when we are discussing the data. As a classroom teacher, I rarely had the opportunity to work with him, but as a TOSA, he is one of my most valuable new resources.

In addition to the veteran C & I staff, I have discovered that the other new TOSAs have provided me with a great sense of support as I make this transition. Vonda Junck is also leaving a classroom behind to embark on her new adventure as the TOSA for mentoring, CTE and World Languages. She was put to the test before the school year even started, working hard all summer to create an energetic, positive, and useful new teacher orientation workshop. The teachers left well prepared to start the school year, but more importantly, they left with a mentor who will support them throughout the year. Vonda will be providing newsletters, monthly meetings, and one-on-one support for both the mentors and the mentees as they learn and grow together. Additionally, Vonda will be supporting Career and Technical Education teachers and World Languages teachers as they continue to study best practices in their respective fields.

I couldn’t be more grateful to have gone through the last two months with Mary Morton, the PK-6 language arts & social studies, PK - 12 Art & PE, and TTL TOSA. She has been an inspiration with her willingness to tackle the new FAST and ELI updates, coordinate a revision of the testing protocol for Benchmarking and FAST, and deliver PD to support the entire elementary staff as they begin to gather data. As we move forward into more PD opportunities, I am excited to have more opportunities to deliver innovative PD that has Mary’s focus on quality instruction and hard work.

I’m looking forward to getting to know all of the counseling and music staff across the district as well as the secondary language arts and social studies departments. The counselors are dedicated individuals who are embracing their new challenge around implementing new standards without their own classrooms. The music staff has a big year of curriculum review; I am excited to hear the conversations as we talk about best practice and have vertical alignment discussions. In social studies, the content team will begin an exploration into the C3 Framework, as they prepare for new state standards to come out sometime in 2016. Finally, the secondary language arts teachers are studying best practices around instructional methods. Throughout these experiences this year, I’m hoping to feel as though instead of losing one classroom, I’ve gained insight into many. If I can connect teachers to others using all types of Ames teacher leaders, I will have had a successful year.

While I still have days where I want to spend the day conferencing with student writers, I am grateful for these new experiences. I am excited to work with the other TOSAs as we help support teachers & coaches as they implement the district vision. At our weekly meetings, we learn together, share our ideas, and leave with one voice: the Ames CSD vision.

Experiencing "Firsts"

The beginning of the school year is always a busy time for teachers, but for those teachers new to the profession, the beginning of the year is filled with many "firsts".  This rings especially true for several teachers at Northwood this year who are in their first or second year to the profession. Kendra Wuestenberg is a teacher at Northwood who has been designated as a Mentor Teacher this year. As are all Mentor Teachers, she is a built-in resource to the new teachers in regards to many of their “firsts”.

Right off the bat, Kendra had the opportunity to spend some quality time with those new Northwood teachers going over the details of home visits, as this is one of those “firsts” for them. Each of the home visits last about 30-45 minutes. During the visit, the teacher shares information with the family about what to expect during the preschool year and provides answers to any questions the family may have.

Recently Kendra Wuestenberg, a Mentor Teacher at Northwood, spent time on a home visit with the family of Stephanie Troncosco, a Model Teacher at Mitchell Elementary.

As a part of their conversation during the home visit, the teachers guide the family through setting up a "Hope and Dream" goal for their child’s school year. While these conversations are happening, an Educational Assistant works with the child on a few basic academic skills to give the teacher insight into the skills the child will bring to preschool.

Northwood Model Teacher, Alicia Ortner, completing a book activity on a home visit.

These home visits are not just for paperwork though. When the child is able to see the teacher in their own home, it is the start of a quality relationship. Most students at this age are hesitant to trust others outside of their family. By having the teacher visit the child in their home, where they feel the safest, it creates a positive start to their school experience. The child will remember this visit for a long time. There are many times throughout the school year the students will remember and bring up the time their teacher came to their house.

This process rings true for the new teachers as well. Mentor teachers will make "home visits" to the new teacher's classroom throughout the year providing guidance as they work through the "firsts" of their careers.