STW Summit 2014

Schools to Watch Summit

Duquesne University

June 22-23, 2014

Fifty-five teachers and administrators from 17 of Pennsylvania's 31 recognized Schools to Watch Schools were joined by 12 Duquesne University administrative graduate students at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh for the 3rd Annual PA STW Summit.  This Summit was available free of charge to all participants thanks to a generous sponsorship by Duquesne.

The purpose of this Summit was

to bring our STW schools together to share best practice and to provide information and materials for schools to share with colleagues in their home schools.  This year aspiring educational administrative graduate students from Duquesne joined us at  the Summit for the first time.  They were able to interact with current teachers and administrators from PA STW schools.  The focus of this year's Summit was on 21st Century Skills, Service Learning and vocabulary and writing across the curriculum.  Throughout both days, each of our 17 schools represented, were able to present a best practice from their school of which they were most proud.

The Summit began with a presentation by Karen Brown, a retired principal from Boyce MS, with a description of how all of our STW schools can participate in Calc-u-Solve.  Our intent is to have our STW schools compete with each other and to ultimately compete in the Calc-u-Solve Super Bowl at Duquesne in February.  

Robert Furman, retired Duquesne Director of Educational Administration and Supervision, shared with attendees a research study he and Cathy Luke completed on "Face Time vs Face to Face Time."  He presented the early research of Dr. Donald Eichhorn and his position on the need for social interaction. He also emphasized the need for students to utilize 21st Century Skills to be successful life long learners.  His son, Rob Furman, lead the attendees in a small group activity where each group brainstormed and presented the use of how to integrate technology, cooperation, collaboration, communication, social responsibility  and critical thinking, and problem solving into a sample student documentary.  The groups did a gallery walk reviewing each other's proposals and ideas.

Laura Rog, Generation On, and Holly Turkovic, Pittsburgh Cares, presented the Generation On Service Learning program for attendees.  Everyone had the opportunity to work in their table groups brainstorming opportunities to use service learning within their schools. They were provided time to share their ideas with each other.  Once again the emphasis was placed on utilizing 21st Century Skills within their existing learning environment.  Laura led the group through the Generation On website, <www.generationon.org> and showed them how to navigate the website and access free valuable information.

Kath Benson, retired Chair of Middle and Secondary Education at Edinboro, presented different vocabulary strategies to all attendees.  She began by talking about the 30 million word gap and had everyone reflect on how that affected them.  She presented the concept using a Word Wall in every middle school classroom.  She discussed the importance of metacognition - the need for students to think about their thinking in all subjects. The attendees were divided into five groups and were able to rotate among five different vocabulary stations:  List Group Label Write, Strategy Foldables, Concept Attainment, Sticky Notes and Sematic Feature Analysis.  Each group was given the opportunity to share their thoughts about each of the strategies.

At lunch, Robert Furman was presented the Pennsylvania Association for Middle Level Education's, Schools to Watch Advocacy Award for his dedication and continued commitment to middle level education and the Schools to Watch process.

Whitney Wesley, Middle Level Department - Edinboro University, began the discussion about writing.  She shared with the group the Six Phases of Creatrivity; inspiration, clarification, evaluation, distillation, incubation, and perspiration.   Writing strategies shared with the group included Talking Drawings, Six Thinking Hats, Scamper Skills and Anti-Coloring Book.  Attendees had the opportunity to take the concept, "The 21st Century Learner," and comment on what it means defining it through each of the 6 Thinking Caps.  Within their table groups, attendees used the Anti-Coloring Book idea to draw a picture of something that represents their school. Each of them then had an opportunity to discuss their illustrations with the group.

Brian Kelley, 8th grade Creative Writing teacher from the Charles F. Patton MS and member of the PA Writing and Literature Project, concluded the day presenting Writing is Thinking.  He emphasized the need for teachers to be mentors for their students, to create projects or presentations along with them to create models.  He had attendees read student selections and discuss components of good writing; emphasizing student voice and structure.  Brian shared how he uses technology to allow students the opportunity to post their writing and solicit feedback.  He shared his blog sites, classroom twitter accounts, and student projects.  He finished his presentation by sharing two documentaries that his students completed as end of the year projects.

All of the handouts from the Summit will be posted on the Members Only side of the PAMLE website, <www.PAMLE.org>, for all attendees and members of PAMLE to access.  We would like to extend our sincere thank you to Duquesne university for allowing members of our STW schools to participate in this years Summit free of charge.

Schools to Watch is a program of the National Forum to Accelerate Middle a Grades Reform.  For more information about our Schools to Watch program in Pennsylvania, please go to the PAMLE website or contact Bruce Vosburgh.

Bruce Vosburgh

Director - Don Eichhorn Schools: Schools to Watch

bvosbur@comcast.net