As the principal of Weber High, I try to spend a lot of time in the classroom with our teachers and students. When I do, I love to highlight the teaching and learning that is happening. Below are some memorable moments for me this year in the classroom that reflect the incredible expertise of the Weber High faculty. Enjoy! Following my time in the classroom, I send out the notes below to our faculty so they can learn about the effective instructional practices their colleagues are executing on a daily basis.

Good afternoon everyone,

I had the pleasure of spending all of my first day of school with five members of our incredible faculty in their classrooms and watching them in action. I saw teaching that will no doubt lead to higher levels of learning and understanding for all students when compounded on a daily basis.

Here are some highlights:

I spent first period in Mrs. Carrier's AP Calculus BC class. I tried my hardest to follow along and still got lost, something about radiants and something or other. Thankfully, the students in her class are significantly smarter than me. The highlight for her class for me was when, on two separate occasions, she completed a period of direct instruction, released students to demonstrate their learning, and provided individual formative assessment to every single student in the class. She walked by 100% of the students' work, told them whether it was correct or incorrect, and provided individual, actionable, and quality formative assessment to those students who didn't get it the first time. We know individual, clear, timely, and actionable individual formative assessment might have the highest leverage on student learning of any strategy.

During second period, I was in Mr. Stanger's Accounting 1 class. If you teach by Stanger, you know how loud his teacher voice is. The classroom was buzzing and kids were smiling. He had almost 40 kids in there and it was about 80 degrees. The highlight for me in Stanger's class was when he explicitly told his students "if you're not getting it, I will change how I teach." Oftentimes as teachers, we are willing to change and adjust our instructional strategies depending on how students respond to our instruction. When we are explicit in our instruction and provide direct, clear, and unambiguous language, students are more likely to learn. Indirectly, we might show we are willing to adjust, but being explicit about it will produce better outcomes.

Third period was with Mr. Rawlins' Sports Marketing class. He put a very creative spin on a "Getting to Know You" activity that he had his students participate in. I jumped in and here is mine! Rawls, please don't mark me down for listing five real or fictional people from any era who I would love to have dinner with. One just wasn't enough. This activity was definitely the highlight of his class for me, as it was a great example of implementing a Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework in his classroom. Paper-based materials are awesome and definitely appropriate in so many situations. This was just an awesome way to use digital material. When students can use digital material, they are able to share different types of content, and those who might have lower reading or writing abilities can still access the lesson and meet the learning objective without lowering expectations, which, in this case, was to help Mr. Rawlins get to know them.

During fourth period I spent time in Mrs. Ward's Ag Bio class. Mrs. Ward was also having students participate in a creative "Get to Know You" activity by having them create "playlists" where they had to choose different verses of songs to describe their goals, families, and other essential information about them. The highlight for me was when Mrs. Ward implemented a very simple check for understanding strategy that allowed her to, in a matter of seconds, check to see if all of her 36+ students succeeded in a set of instructions Mrs. Ward had just provided. Whenever Mrs. Ward needed students to follow basic procedural instructions, she would ask them to either put their hands on their heads or touch their noses. While simple, it allowed Mrs. Ward to very quickly determine who was engaged and succeeding and who wasn't. We all know how closely student engagement is tied to improved student learning. Great work Mrs. Ward. 

The last teacher I spent time with today was Mrs. McKinney, in her AP Physics class. This AP class is one of the most rigorous CollegeBoard offers. The highlight of Mrs. McKinney's lesson for me was when she explained that homework in her class is practice and that the only things that go in her gradebook are what students know and can show. I think this was a very powerful statement and the students responded in a positive way. The empirical research around homework and its effectiveness in secondary schools is complex and convoluted. In many cases, students go home to do their homework without any oversight or supervision, which oftentimes leads to inaccurate practicing, which leads to incorrect prior knowledge forming, which leads to confusion and less success on assessments that matter in classes that require conceptual and skill-based mastery. It is important to remember that a variety of conditions must be met for homework to be meaningful. I think students appreciated hearing from Mrs. McKinney that homework was for practice, not for a mark in the gradebook.

We've got some top notch, expert practitioners in our building!

Thanks for a great first day,

Happy Friday,

Today I got to spend time in Mr. Osguthorpe's History 1700 CE class, Mrs. Nielson's Psychology 1010 CE class, Mr. Larsen's Sculpture class, and Mrs. Phinney's AP World History class. I observed and participated in some incredible things that deserve to be celebrated and shared with everyone.

Here's the overall highlight, hands down: as I walked into Kenidee’s Psychology 1010 class, I was holding the reading Cody gave me from his History 1700 class titled “A People’s History of the United States” by Howard Zinn and a student in Kenidee's class saw the reading and said to me, “were you just in Mr. O’s class?” I replied by saying, “yep.” She then said, “I saw that reading and my brain can’t get it out of my head. I had Mr. O last year.” Mr. Osguthorpe, you’ve succeeded!

Cody did some incredible things in his classroom. When one student raised his hand to answer a question, the student offered a creative analogy to demonstrate his understanding of the history article the class was analyzing. Cody positively reinforced the student's choice to share the analogy, making a point to tell the student that it was a great analogy. When we positively reinforce students, the behavior we want to see is more likely to happen again. We also saw some old-fashioned cold calling in class! Cold calling, when used appropriately, can significantly increase engagement, for obvious reasons. Teenagers don't like to fail in front of their peers. At one point, he asked students about whether or not a particular author romanticized some of the content he wrote. He then paused to explore the definition of romanticism with the class. Embedding vocabulary instruction into your direct instruction improves the ability for students with lower lexile measures to continue to access the rigor of your lesson.  Lastly, as students raised their hands or were cold called to answer Cody's questions throughout the discussion, I saw him marking something on a clipboard. I asked him after class what he was doing, and he said that he would check off names after students participated in the discussion. I then asked him how many students he got during that period. He said, "all of them." Well done Cody!

There was enough in Kenidee's class to go on for many hundreds of words, but I will try to be brief. Kenidee was teaching parts of the neuron and, specifically, how neurotransmitters move through cells. She used a chromebook charger to explain and define the term "myelin sheath" which refers to a neuron structure (I think) by explaining that the insulation around the charging cord is similar to the myelin sheath in a cell. This was a great instance of using manipulatives to teach a concept. Manipulatives are great tools to improve learning for all students, but specifically students whose first language isn't English, students with special needs, or other students who just struggle with understanding advanced concepts. Kenidee also used a really helpful mnemonic to help students understand how neurotransmitters move through cells. She used the physical process of catching and throwing a baseball with psychology specific terminology to help students learn how neurotransmitters move through cells. Mnemonics are incredible instructional strategies to help students shift information from the short term memory of their brains into their working memory, so they can apply the information to new situations, and perform well on the test that is happening in the next six class periods! On a classroom management level, every single time a student asked to use the bathroom, Kenidee clearly and publicly directed the student to leave their phone on her desk and take the pass to the bathroom. The procedure was the same, every time, for every student. Three or four times, the students completely followed the procedure that had been set by the teacher. The fact that it was so seamless indicates that the procedure was effectively taught. Establishing strong classroom procedures early leads to less classroom disruption later. One of the highlights was for sure when Kenidee had one of her "mom talks" with her class. If you don't know what those are, ask Kenidee. During her "mom talk," she told the students explicitly that she cared about them and wanted what is best for them.  What is incredible is that the "mom talk" was situated in the academic content of her lesson! Also, ask her about her baseball card activity that she uses to get to know her students and to get her students to learn more about each other. Well done Kenidee.

Sculpture is really, really hard I learned today. Kevan facilitated an incredible working session with his sculpture students around their execution of 10 different sculpture forms that each had their own criteria, but also had to include three additional criteria that must be present in every form. I tried my absolute best to work through the objective and only successfully produced one of the forms (but kids around me were knocking these things out like crazy). Kevan spent the entire period moving from student to student providing individualized, actionable, and measurable formative assessment for every student's work. I mentioned the leverage in this strategy in my last round. When a student would successfully produce the required form and meet the criteria, he would note that they had succeeded on their paper by writing the letter of the corresponding form they successfully produced on the student's individual paper. This was an easy way for students to track their level of success as they manipulated the content to reach Kevan's objective. When students clearly understand the distance between their current level of learning relative to what success is for a given objective, anxiety and stress decrease, and students are more likely to sustain motivation to reach the objective. On a final note, it was pretty awesome to see Kevan extend the learning of one student in particular who quickly moved through the tasks. He then provided additional rigor for that student and extended the criteria for success to a level appropriate for that student's individual ability, above and beyond what proficiency was for every student in the class. Great work Kevan!

The day ended in Mrs. Phinney's AP World History class. She has her students extremely well trained to "turn and tell a friend..." in response to a wide variety of prompts about various pieces of her direct instruction. This strategy, when regularly used in class, improves engagement, promotes on-task social interaction between students, and provides the teacher with a very quick data dump on students' level of understanding in relation to the given prompt. She employed this strategy on more than a dozen occasions throughout the period, and each of her students were completely bought in. Mrs. Phinney applied a creative strategy for taking her students through the claims laid out by authors of two scholarly articles. Rather than simply taking students through the sources chunk by chunk solely via direct instruction, she sent the students to work in groups to identify various claims noted by the two authors. After a timed period of group work, she then directed each group to send one member to the whiteboard to note all of the various claims listed by the authors. She then used student work to further drive and enhance her next segment of direct instruction. Engineering and executing strategies that make your instruction student-centered in nature will always produce higher levels of learning. Nice job Camille.

If you've gotten to the bottom of this email, go find one of these four incredible teachers and tell them great work today, and then go home and start your weekend. Don't cheat and tell other people that they can go home early because I said they could in this email. That's weird. Let them get to the bottom of this note on their own.

Thank you!

Good afternoon everyone,

I sat in Ms. Bodily's classroom today during 6th period to observe a plant and soil science lab, and my observations there really have compelled me to share some absolutely expert teaching practice I saw from a lesson design, clarity, and instructional strategy perspective. Check out my notes below and tell Katelyn she's awesome next time you see her. This is a long email, but worth the read.

Our CTE "strands and standards" as these teachers often refer to them as, really enhance the logic, intuition, and clarity with which our CTE teachers engage in the PLC process. How do I know what Ms. Bodily was teaching her students was essential? Well, CTE strands and standards provide great insight to teachers into what is most important by telling them how heavily each strand is weighted on their skills test. In this case, see below:

There are six strands for Plant and Soil Science 1 and we know how important each strand is because we know how many questions will appear on the summative exam from each strand:

• Strand 1: (2 questions)

• Strand 2: (1 question)

• Strand 3: (11 questions)

• Strand 4: (15 questions)

• Strand 5: Students will describe plant and anatomy physiology and concepts. (29 questions)

• Strand 6: (4 questions)

Strand 5 includes a standard which states the following: describe the components of a root, the types of roots, and the functions of roots.

Katelyn's objectives for the lab were written at the top of the worksheet for students to see and read: exploring the structure and function of plant roots, identifying types of roots and characteristics, and tasting different edible roots. Strand 5 includes almost double the number of questions on the summative assessment than the next strand, and more than 15 times the number of questions than some of the less significant strands.

How does Katelyn know whether students learned the skills or not? She turned her classroom into a practice environment. She provided direct instruction at the beginning of the period, then made the students do the heavy lifting by putting them to work engaging and manipulating the contents of the lesson individually and in groups through the lab activity. While they were engaged in the lab, she visited every group multiple times as well as the vast majority of individual students. She confirmed by reviewing their written work and by engaging with them in discussion around whether or not they were progressing through the period of instruction appropriately. If I were to ask Katelyn immediately following the conclusion of class which students achieved the objective and which ones didn't, I think she would be able to go student by student and provide specific information about the extent to which the objective was achieved on an individual level.

How did she respond when students weren't getting it? On a dozen occasions or more, Katelyn had verbal exchanges with individual students who had produced inaccurate or incorrect learning. In those moments, Katelyn provided actionable, timely, and individualized feedback to those students which allowed them to try again before the conclusion of the period. In many cases, Katelyn revisited those students after their second try to see if they produced the correct evidence of their learning following the feedback they received.

What about extending learning for students who are proficient? Toward the end of the lab activity, Katelyn included an optional "extension question" for students to choose a root and research how it is grown. Students were then asked to produce a short written paragraph with their work. This activity was manageable and achievable within the given period of instruction for students who could benefit from extension of their learning. While it may not have been needed, the instructional design allowed Katelyn to readily extend for students who demonstrated the need for it.

Well done Katelyn.

Enjoy the rest of your day everyone,

Happy Friday everyone,

Today I learned a lot of English with a little side of animal science! I started in Natasha’s English 10 Honors class, then I headed to Niccole’s Animal Science 1 class, then on to Kaitlyn’s English 10 class, and ended the day in Holly’s AP English Language and Composition class.

I noticed a simple exchange between Natasha and one of her students during a class discussion that followed a warm up task on the topic of the internet, which eventually turned into a discussion on AI. After the student contributed to the discussion, Natasha looked at that student with eye contact and said “I love what you just said!” As soon as I saw that, I had no further questions about why such a large proportion of Natasha’s students are eager to contribute to her class discussions. I’ve noted it before with another of my visits, and I hate to sound like a broken record, but positive reinforcement is a scientifically proven behavior principle. The student took a risk and contributed, and Natasha very genuinely and authentically reinforced that behavior. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t come to work if I didn’t get paid. The same principle applies in your classroom. You can train most students (at Weber High it is well above 90% according to our behavior data) to behave the way you want them to when you train them, and, equally important, demonstrate your care for them. The training educates them. Your demonstrated care for them motivates them.

During the 2023-2024 school year, 18 of Natasha’s students came to her English classes below proficient on the state test. After spending a year with Natasha and their other teachers, six of these students became proficient in English language arts. Four that didn’t reach proficiency had a student growth percentile (SGP) between 35 and 65, which is considered sufficient growth for a school year. More impressively, four of the other students who didn’t reach proficiency had a SGP over 66 which is considered high growth. Natasha, along with you all through cross curricular instruction that touches language arts skills, significantly closed the gap for 14 out of 18 of these students who came to her below proficient. She is a tactician in the classroom.

Niccole and her students were dissecting animal reproductive systems today! One of the strands in Niccole’s Animal Science 1 class reads: “Students will apply principles of animal breeding and reproduction to gain desired offspring.” A standard under this strand states the following: “Analyze the components of the animal reproductive system.”

This was a very tricky period of instruction for Niccole on a variety of levels and she did an absolutely stellar job. Scalpels, reproductive organs, a lab environment, giggly boys in the back of the room, students prone to passing out, students who just gave blood for the HOSA blood drive who were, also then, prone to passing out, and students arriving to class late name most but not all of the variables Niccole masterfully managed this morning.

Niccole’s quality of instruction really shined in this lesson as it relates to reaching higher levels of Bloom’s taxonomy. The verb in the standard is analyze. Analysis is a higher order thinking skill. The following features of Niccole’s direct instruction and modeling today supported the development of this skill for her students:

• She consistently compared and contrasted the male and female reproductive systems during the dissection.

• She differentiated functions of anatomical parts within and between the male and female reproductive systems.

• She posed hypothetical questions to students about what happens to reproductive systems during certain veterinary procedures like castration. She was testing her students.

Comparison, contrast, differentiation, and testing are all forms of analysis that she modeled and demonstrated for her students. I’ve seen a lot of dissection lessons and quite often, and for understandable reasons, the teacher can resort to simple identification of certain anatomical structures for the sake of memorization. Niccole maintained the rigor of her instruction despite juggling all of these peripheral variables. Well done.

Kaitlyn started her class by having a student led discussion. At the end of the discussion Kaitlyn secured a different student leader for a discussion that would take place during a subsequent class. Incorporating and widely distributing leadership roles in your class assists in building relationships between you and your students, leads to higher levels of general engagement, and is also a great way to increase individual accountability. Before jumping into the discussion, Kaitlyn reviewed the rubric she developed for assessing individual student performance in the discussion. Students knew and were explicitly told what they needed to do to be successful in the discussion before it happened. Frontloading success criteria and scoring rubrics for students in advance of the heavy lifting increases motivation, reduces stress, and leads to more effort from students. The class is reading The Life of Pi. It’s a great novel, but what I took away in large part from this portion of Kaitlyn’s lesson was that students needed to learn how to participate in listening and speaking skills outlined in the class discussion rubric. The novel is the vehicle for skill development. You need both, but ultimately the skills Kaitlyn was teaching today will yield the most meaningful transfer for students in their lives beyond high school.

I want to also highlight one other feature of Kaitlyn’s class today, which was a period of good ole’ individual reading aloud by students. This might be one of the most common features of an English classroom. Most of our English teachers build in time for reading in their classes, either silently or as a class by individual students. In the context of getting to know your students’ skills, individual reading aloud is a great way to assess students on an individual level. If every student reads a paragraph, and the class gets through 20 paragraphs, you can get a pretty good idea of the reading skills of 20 different students in a single period of instruction. Reading aloud is a great way to make learning, practice, and skills visible. Excellent work Kaitlyn!

I finished my day in AP English Language and Composition. I was able to participate in the vocabulary game Mrs. Leake started class with which was on Blooket. I got 16th place… Vocabulary instruction is critical for course success in this one, and the words can be tough. This was a highly effective example of gamifying instruction. Gamifying instruction can be extremely high leverage when it embeds practice opportunities with essential course skills. Every student participated, and the verbal exchanges and friendly competition created a healthy and positive classroom climate for this period of instruction.

The next activity incorporated the use of AI as an option for students. Mrs. Leake transitioned straight into an exercise where students were directed to create radio ads that incorporated their vocabulary words. They had the option to prompt AI to create the radio ad using certain popular voices (think Donald Trump using the word “miscreant” in a sentence). Students enjoyed this and AI also generated complete sentences correctly using the vocabulary words which assisted the students in using the context from the AI advertisement to further increase understanding of the vocabulary words. This might be an unpopular opinion to some, but I wholeheartedly applaud and commend Holly for taking risks to find meaningful and productive ways to incorporate AI into her instructional context.

As a wrap up, I should note that at Weber High in the spring of 2024, students scored an average of 3.94 on the AP English Language and Composition exam. Students across our state averaged a 3.05. Across the world, students averaged a 2.79 on this test. Superb work Holly! On AP exams, a passing score is three and the highest score is five.

Give these phenomenal teachers a high five next time you see them. If you’ve gotten to the bottom of this message, wrap up your work and go home. 

Enjoy the three day weekend,