From Ordinary to Extraordinary...

From Ordinary to Extraordinary... A Hero's Journey

That is our theme in the Coppell Independent School District this year.  Personally, I think it accurately describes the work ahead of us; transforming an ordinary/stale/broken educational system into something meaningful/engaging/relevant.  That's no easy task, and as the slogan implies, it will take a group of educational "heroes" to achieve such a gargantuan feat!

After attending the 2013-2014 CISD Principals' Academy over the summer, the administrative team @ Austin Elementary (Laurie O'Neill, Principal and Cooper Hilton, Assistant Principal) was charged with continuing to lead this transformation.  Though our professional learning for this year has only recently begun, we'd like to share a little bit with you from our learning on August 23rd and highlight some of the tools that are helping enhance our transformation.

Parent Course #2 (Schoolwide Enrichment Model)

Professional Learning at Austin is not just limited to our educators.  Through the transformation currently underway, we also realize an obligation to share these professional learning experiences with our  parents.  With this in mind, we are hosting four Parent Courses this school year.  Our first course (see earlier blog post) focused on CISD's Operation Transformation and what that looks like at Austin.

This past week, we were honored to host the second of our four sessions, this one featuring Austin's implementation of the Renzulli Schoolwide Enrichment Model.  If you were unable to attend or would like to review the presentation, please access it here-  Parent Course #2 (SEM).

If you have further questions regarding the Schoolwide Enrichment Model, please contact Liz Malone at lmalone@coppellisd.com.  Also, we invite you to join us one Friday morning to see SEM in action!  Please RSVP at E-Time Tour/Visit.

A Big Success...

If you've been following us for very long, you know that we are in the process of fully implementing Dr. Joe Renzulli's Schoolwide Enrichment Model (SEM).  It is an integral part of our Operation Transformation as we challenge ourselves to create a more meaningful and engaging 21st century learning environment.  

One of our biggest hurdles this year in the implementation of SEM was conducting our first round of enrichment clusters and the subsequent enrichment cluster showcase.  It was a big undertaking for both our educators AND learners as we took much of the structure and ideas behind E-Time and dug deeper, but we couldn't be more proud of how it went! 

Below are a couple of resources for you to check out if you're curious about our SEM journey and want to know more about how our first cluster showcase turned out.

-Explore our Schoolwide Enrichment Model blog Lifelong Learning Made SEMple!.  It includes a video with footage/photos from the 4th/5th grade Showcase.

-Check out the following video- The Video Production Company  This 4th/5th grade cluster saw a real world problem (declining participation in our school bank Mustang Mutual) and used their talents and passions to address it.  Check it out!


As always, we welcome your feedback and input!  

Educators as Learners... @ The Learning Forward National Conference!

One of the things we frequently discuss as a staff is our dual role of Educator AND Learner.  This was evident recently as three Austin educators attended the 2012 Learning Forward National Conference in Boston, Massachusetts.  Kara Cadue, Liz Malone, and Cooper Hilton spent five jam-packed days learning from leading educators, researchers, and professors from around the country.  We suspect they also managed to squeeze in some time catching the city "sites." :)

We have asked them to each share a reflection from one of the sessions that they attended.  In addition, they will share their learning with the Austin staff at an upcoming professional learning day in February.

Parents Are Learners Too

Today is an exciting day at Austin!  We are starting off with the 1st of our series of 4 Parent Courses devoted to informing and involving our parents in the work we're doing with Operation Transformation.  Part of that work is a realization of the responsibility we have to build reciprocal relationships with our parents and community.  This is a great first step towards achieving that.

We've used a great (FREE) tool to help us organize the event and plan for our attendees.  SignUpGenius.com was an easy way for us to publicize the class and keep track of those attending.  It's a great tool for organizing volunteers, parent conferences, etc.

Check out the link below for the presentation that we'll use. 

Parent Class #1 Presentation

One item that the presentation references is the Campus Pedagogy.  The Campus Pedagogy is a component of the Transformation Plan that was developed at the summer Principal Academy.  In short, it outlines what we believe our school community should look like.  Take a look at the graphic version below, and give us your feedback!  It is meant to guide us over the next few years as we "transform" our learning environment.  Of course, it will change and evolve as WE change and evolve.