How Do Brewer High Students Do In College?

The University of Maine has provided us with a report of how former Brewer High students perform at the flagship campus of the state's university system.  The data used to generate the report was collected over the three year period from 2008 - 2011.  72% of our students felt they were either "well prepared" or "very well prepared" for their college studies.  The mean grade point average after the first college year was 2.56 and the number of students still enrolled one year after matriculation was 83%. The most popular programs with our former students were Natural Sciences, Forestry and Agriculture; Liberal Arts and Sciences; and Engineering.  We feel that this report shows that Brewer High students are well prepared post-secondary studies.  The entire report can be viewed here.

Create a Good Environment for Studying at Home

In this blog post for Edutopia, Art Markman PhD - a professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin - provides some great tips for parents on how to structure a good studying environment at home.  Brewer High's block schedule next year will allow time during the day for a Freshman Seminar in which teachers and students will explore different topics that will help students be successful in school.  Part of this time will be working with freshmen on developing good study habits and techniques.  From the blog post...

"The study environment needs to harness the power of habits. We want students to think about the concepts they are learning, but we don't want the environment to suggest other actions that will get in the way of studying. Here are three things that can make studying more effective."   

Read the rest of the blog post on Edutopia...

What Can We Learn From Singapore?

When Singapore gained its independence in 1965, most of its population of two million people were unskilled and illiterate.  The government invested heavily in education and the country now consistently ranks in the top five in the world on international assessments in math, science, and reading.  In this video from Edutopia that features Ngee Ann Secondary School, you can see how Singapore's schools have embraced technology and digital media to make learning more engaging for students. It is also interesting to see how classrooms are designed with round tables and that class sizes are relative large compared to the United States  Teacher professional development also plays a significant role in Singapore's educational success.  Many schools form professional learning communities so that teachers can share best practices with colleagues in their own school and around the world.

After watching the video, what do you think we can learn from educators and schools in Singapore to improve education in the United States?

In-Service Day: Block Scheduling

High school teachers had the opportunity on Friday, March 16 to explore different models for block scheduling, as well as create lessons and units to use next year in the new schedule. The in-service day, facilitated by Principal Bubar and Gerry Crocker (Great Schools Partnership), focused on the essential question, "How does Brewer High School redesign itself to better meet student needs?"

The day involved lots of time for learning and collaboration with each other. Science teacher Glendon Rand opened the session with the modeling of an activity involving feedback through Google Form and the creation of a Word Cloud. His questions to teachers centered on the questions of "What is something that you have mastered and/or are good at doing?" and "How did you learn this skill?" This raised interesting questions about how we help students to reach their potential and learning something well in our classrooms.  

Teachers then had a presentation of three models for block schedule planning, which was then followed by time to use that model to create a model or lesson.  Time in the afternoon focused on sharing these ideas by department and continuing the learning and conversations about block schedule planning.

Parent/Community Forum on March 20

Parents of current and prospective students at Brewer High School as well as community members are invited to join us in the Brewer High cafeteria on Tuesday, March 20 at 6:00 PM to learn about changes and initiatives planned for the 2012-13 school year.  Learn about the new block schedule, ninth grade teams, our 1-to-1 laptop initiative, new elective courses and more.  We hope to see you there!

New Electives Announced for 2012-13 School Year

We are pleased to announce that students will have the following new electives to choose from when signing up for courses for the 2012-13 school year:

• Fantasy/Science Fiction: Read and be engaged in literature of the genres of fantasy and science fiction. May also include writing your own stories based in these genres.
• French Connections: Learn about where French is spoken, history and culture, projects on the fine arts, current events and customs.
• Spanish Connections:  Learn about where Spanish is spoken, history and culture, projects on the fine arts, current events and customs.
• Forensic Science: The scientific and technological aspects of criminal investigations.
• Astronomy: The history of astronomy, celestial navigation, the solar system, stellar formation, and formation of the universe.
• Personal History/Genealogy: Students will research their family tree and present their findings.
• Photography: The history of photography, use of 35mm film and digital cameras, lighting, digital editing and special effects.

With our move to a block schedule next year, students will have an extra period every two days in which to schedule a class.  In addition to the above electives, some electives which were not able to be offered this year (such as Print Journalism and Creative Writing) will again be open to student enrollment.  It is also expected that class sizes will decrease as a result of this change.  All students will be required to take six credits next year (an increase from the current five) and the intent is to raise the number of credits required for graduation in the coming years.  All of the new courses are being offered pending approval of the Brewer School Committee.

Brewer School Committee Approves New Block Schedule

Brewer High School Moving To Block Scheduling System - by Nok-Noi Ricker of the Bangor Daily News

The Brewer School Committee decided Monday to move to block scheduling at the high school starting in the fall.  That means that when students start the 2012-13 school year, they will have only four classes a day compared with the seven they now take.

Read the rest of the article on the Bangor Daily News website...
Changes coming to Brewer High School from WABI-TV...

What Is A PLG?

One major focus of our school improvement efforts at Brewer High this year has been quality ongoing professional development for faculty and staff.  Through our work with Great Schools Partnership, Professional Learning Groups (PLGs) have begun to meet on a monthly basis to discuss teacher practice, student work, and critical issues in education.  During the summer of 2011, seven school-based facilitators (Joanne Adair, Lorraine Dube, Susan Dumont, David Jeffrey, Michelle MacDonald, Kevin Napolillo, and Glendon Rand) attended a three day training session with our GSP coach Gerry Crocker.  The facilitators learned about the purpose of PLGs and received training in using protocols to run PLG sessions.  The administration then assigned 7-8 faculty members to each facilitator's PLG.

The goal of a PLG is to capture and build on the knowledge and skills of teachers in ways that will help them increase the aspirations and achievement of their students.  PLGs honor the skills and knowledge of each participating teacher, as well as the research and experiences of educators outside the PLG.  Regularly examining and reflecting on classroom practices, student data, and educational research in a supportive environment can improve teacher practice and student learning.  PLGs give structure to professional conversations and provide a safe forum in which colleagues can share pedagogical philosophies, content knowledge, and instructional strategies, while also working through challenging issues or dilemmas in collaboration rather than isolation. **

Since our PLGs began meeting in October 2011 they have considered grading practices, technology integration, differentiation in a classroom of diverse learners, techniques for reading digital text, and many other topics identified by teachers as being important for student learning.  Each PLG has the autonomy to chart their own course and the intent is to keep them constant over a period of several years to build the personal and professional relationships necessary for deep, critical work.  Our faculty has enthusiastically embraced this initiative and we are confident that Professional Learning Groups will lead to better outcomes for our students.

**From PLG Facilitator Training Manual by Great Schools Partnership, Inc.

"Designing Learning Activities" Webinar

Brewer High teachers have spent much of their professional development time this year focusing on instructional design.  At our March 1 faculty meeting and March 16 in-service day, teachers will be exploring different models for lesson planning and then using one of the models to develop a unit or lesson.  In her book "Where Great Teaching Begins - Planning for Student Thinking and Learning", Anne R. Reeves advocates for a simple mental shift from "planning for activities" to "planning for learning outcomes" and a critical concentration on learning objectives.  In the webinar below, recorded on February 15, 2012, Reeves demonstrates how to use a set of planning tools to adapt traditional activities to align them with standards.

Link to Designing Learning Activities handouts

SIT Considers Semester Exams and Plans Community Forum

The School Improvement Team's meeting on February 16th focused on two major issues: the status of semester exams for the 2012-13 school year and planning a Community Forum to communicate the initiatives that we are working on at Brewer High School.

Last year, a majority of the Brewer High faculty voted to retain semester exams, and the administration and SIT believe that these exams are important for assessing student knowledge and competencies in their classes and in preparing students for college work.  As we move to 80 minute periods in the 2012-13 school year, there will no longer be four days with a shortened school day set aside for mid-year and final exams.  The following guidelines were discussed and the administration will  develop a proposal to bring to the faculty:

• semester exams will continue to be worth 20% of the semester average.
• the exams should be a summative assessment representing a semester's work.
• examples of semester exams could include a traditional objective test, projects, performance based or authentic assessments, or a laboratory practical.
• there should be consistency among sections of a particular course
• there will be assigned days for each class to take their exam, with 2 exams scheduled per day.
• students will go to each of their regular classes during the testing week but teachers will not give homework. For example, a student might have exams in blocks 1 and 3 and their regular classes during blocks 2 and 4.
• teachers will be asked to submit their semester exam plans for administrative review several weeks before the exam week.

A community forum has been tentatively scheduled for the evening of March 20, 2012.  During this time we will share with parents, students, and community members the initiatives that we have been working on during the last two years and the exciting changes planned for next year.  These include:

• the proposed A/B block schedule with extended time to allow teachers to implement student-centered lessons.
• our intent to add more electives to our course selection.
• the ninth grade teaming approach and other changes planned to help ensure that freshmen have a successful start to high school.
• our 1-to-1 technology initiative to provide every freshman with a laptop computer.
• the $5.4 million bond for renovations to the high school that will be on the September 2012 ballot. 

We hope that you can make the March 20th forum.  As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome here as well.

Link to SIT Minutes from February 16, 2012

Becoming A 1-to1 Laptop School

If you visit many of the classrooms at Brewer High School you will see students and teachers using technology to enhance their lessons.  With several laptop carts and 4 computer labs at their disposal, plus LCD projectors or TV monitors in most rooms, teachers are using the vast resources of the internet to supplement print resources such as textbooks and handouts.

Until every student has a device that can readily access digital resources both at school and at home however, it is difficult to fully realize the potential of a digital curriculum.  The State of Maine has been a leader in the use of technology in the classroom with the Maine Learning Technology Initiative (MLTI) which provides a laptop to every Maine student in grades seven and eight.  According to Jeff Mao, Learning Technology Policy Director for MLTI, "...if you don't have a 1-to-1, and you are talking about leveraging technology in the classroom, it's really difficult to make significant changes..."    In many ways a 1-to-1 program is more of a curriculum initiative than it is a technology initiative as it allows teachers to both reinvent the curriculum and to make that curriculum more engaging for students.

Our plan for the 2012-13 school year is that every ninth grade student will receive a laptop computer that they can use in their classes and take home.  Director of Technology Mark Jenkins is currently contacting vendors to get specifications and prices for an 11.6" laptop.  The laptop would be pre-loaded with open-source applications and also be powerful enough to utilize cloud applications such as Google Apps for Education.  All freshmen will take a technology course every-other day where they will receive instruction and practice with tools that they will be using in their classes.  Students will also learn about digital citizenship and start to build a digital portfolio.  Students will keep the same laptop for all four years of high school and then keep them when they graduate.  After four years of providing freshmen with laptops every student in the school will have one.  Teachers are also planning for this change and are building classroom websites to digitize their curriculum.

We are excited about this initiative and believe it is a key component of the changes we are making to improve our school.  What do you think?    

Ninth-Grade Teaming Update

The ninth-grade team has already begun planning for next year and some exciting changes are in store.  Perhaps most notably is the plan to assign a laptop to every ninth-grader; those laptops will be used in their core classes and the expectation is that they will not only follow the students through their remaining three years of high school, but the laptops will also belong to the students following graduation.  Freshman will all take a technology class to give them the skills necessary to make full use of their laptops and this class will support students as they complete assignments in their core classes that require innovative applications using their laptops.   

A freshman seminar will also be built into their schedule on alternating days that will have a diverse curriculum including study skills, development of a long-term project that will be presented to parents on a designated night in the spring, a guest speaker series, and it will even allow staff to administer standardized tests without interrupting classes. 

A 40-minute academic support period will also be in place where students will have full access to all four of their core teachers every day.  This is a great opportunity for students who need a little extra attention or follow-up with their teachers perhaps due to recent absences or after covering more difficult subject matter.  Students may be able to receive extra help during this time without always staying after school.  More structured learning labs during that period will also be in place for students who require more extensive help from their math and/or English teachers.  

Overall, the goal is to work with all ninth-grade students regardless of where they are academically when they arrive, to maximize their chances of success as ninth-graders and prepare them for the challenges of high school and life beyond it.   

Teachers Brainstorm Block Schedule Strategies

Last Thursday the Brewer High faculty looked at an article called: "Strategies for Teaching in a Block-of-Time Schedule". Faculty discussed the text using a Save the Last Word Protocol in groups of 4 and generated some common themes and ideas for thinking about evolving instructional practice. Above is a word cloud of the ideas from all of the groups.  

Results of Elective Course Survey

The results are in for the elective course survey that students in grades 9-11 took during the last three days.  We are planning for adding more semester and full-year elective courses in the coming years as we move to a new schedule that opens up an additional block of time for students to take more courses.  What courses do you think Brewer High should add to it's curriculum?

Link To Survey Results

TOP TWO CHOICES IN EACH CATEGORY

English

Creative Writing - 100

Fantasy and Science Fiction - 85

Family and Consumer Science

Woodworking and Design - 86

Home Economics - 83

Math

Consumer Math - 69

Engineering the Future - 62

Modern and Classical Languages

Latin for SAT - 71

Spanish Culture / French Conversation Through Film - 29 (Tie)

Science

Forensics - 85

Astronomy - 38

Social Studies

Personal History - 112

American Government and Politics Seminar - 48

Visual and Performing Arts

B&W Photography - 92

Beginner Piano - 55

Wellness

Intramural Sports - 95

Team Leaders - 57

Would you be interested in taking an online course?

Yes - 180

No - 161

Update from School Improvement Team

The Brewer High School Improvement Team met recently and made progress on several items (minutes can be viewed here).  The recently announced ninth grade team has been meeting to plan for next year.  Pending board approval, all ninth grade students will have their own laptop computer to use at school and home and they will be required to take a technology course.  Students will also be assigned to an academic support study hall and the team is planning seminars over important skills that will help the freshmen get off to a strong start.

As we continue to refine our new schedule with extended-time blocks, professional development for teachers is being planned.  At our February and March faculty meetings, as well as our March in-service, we will be working on strategies and lesson-planning models for teaching in longer blocks of time.

Students will complete a course elective survey during the week of February 6-10 to see what kinds of elective courses they might be interested in taking.  The new schedule will open up an extra period for students to take classes and we hope to add semester and year-long electives in the coming years.  As our 1-to-1 deployment of technology builds through the school we will be less reliant on textbooks and will be better able to deliver digital content and instruction to students.

Finally, the SIT set some priorities for the year ahead.  As we move forward we encourage teachers, students, and parents to share with us their thoughts about our initiatives and the direction we are heading in.    

Teachers for Ninth Grade Team Announced

We are pleased to announce the Brewer High faculty members who will be teaching on the ninth grade team for the 2012-2013 school year.  These teachers have already begun meeting to plan for next year's freshman experience.  Each teacher will be assigned to one of two teams with one person from each content area on a team.  Time will be built into their day to meet for instructional planning and to address individual student needs.  We are confident that our initiatives aimed at the freshman year will have a positive impact on student success and that this will carry over into the rest of their high school experience.  

2012-13 Ninth Grade Team

Andrea Martin and Christie Everett (English)

Sue Dumont and Rich Kimball (Social Studies)

Johanna Lake and Reg Ruhlin (Math)

Tia Achey and Michael Morton (Science)

Stacy Labree and Kevin Napolillo (Special Education)

Commissioner Unveils State Education Blueprint

Maine education commissioner Stephen Bowen released a new strategic plan on January 17, 2012 that will guide teaching and learning in the state in the coming years.  "Education Evolving: Maine's Plan for Putting Learners First" sets out objectives and action steps for building local, regional, and state-wide education systems that will prepare students for college, careers, and civic life.

The plan is organized around five core priority areas:

• Effective, Learner-Centered Instruction
• Great Teachers and Leaders
• Multiple Pathways for Learner Achievement
• Comprehensive School and Community Supports
• Coordinated and Effective State Support  

The school improvement process at Brewer High meshes quite well with the new plan, especially in the first two core priority areas.  Teachers and administrators have been working to align our curriculum with the Common Core State Standards  in English language arts and mathematics as well as the Next Generation Science Standards.  These rigorous nationally and internationally benchmarked standards will ensure that our students have the knowledge and skills necessary for life after high school.  Teachers are also implementing lesson planning models that focus on learner-centered instructional practices.  Our work with the Great Schools Partnership and implementation of Professional Learning Groups is providing effective professional development for our faculty and staff.  Research shows that the effectiveness of teachers and school leaders is one of the most important factors in student learning.  We are excited about the school improvement initiatives that we are undertaking at Brewer High School and are pleased with the vision in the new plan.  What are your thoughts about the commissioner's new plan?

For more information on the plan:

Maine Department of Education Website

Download a copy of "Education Evolving: Maine's Plan for Putting Learners First"

Brewer aims to improve high school experience for students

By Nok-Noi Ricker of the Bangor Daily News


A new Brewer High School improvement plan in in the works to help incoming freshmen make stronger connections with the school, to increase flexibility for all students and to get them thinking outside the box, Principal Becky Bubar said Tuesday.

Read the rest of the article on the Bangor Daily News website...

Meet our school improvement coach

Gerry Crocker is a senior associate at the Great Schools Partnership and has been working with Brewer High School since September 2010.  Gerry is the facilitator for our School Improvement Team and Professional Learning Groups and has also trained our staff in the iWalkthrough process.


Bio from Great Schools Partnership website: Gerry Crocker was a senior associate at the Southern Maine Partnership from 2003–2007 and is now a senior associate with the Great Schools Partnership. Gerry coaches several high schools in Maine, works on the development and implementation of the iWalkthrough system, and provides professional development to teachers and administrators, including professional learning community facilitator training. Her professional interests include promoting rigorous and relevant 21st-century learning through experiential and place-based learning, using appropriate technological tools to enhance learning, and developing democratic decision-making models that increase student voice and promote equitable school practices.


Prior to joining the Southern Maine Partnership, Gerry was director of the Information Center at Poland Regional High School and Whittier Middle School. She was also a teacher at Noble High School and Gorham High School in Maine; the director of the Bud Carlson Alternative School in Rochester, New Hampshire; the director of the Live, Learn, and Teach Program; an adjunct faculty member and coordinator for the Education Department at the University of New Hampshire; and a regional content leader for the Maine Learning Technology Initiative. Gerry earned a B.S. in hydrology and M.Ed. in secondary education from the University of New Hampshire, and an M.S. in library and information science from Simmons College in Boston, Massachusetts. She lives in Norway, Maine.

Do schools kill creativity?

In this provocative TED Talk, Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining and profoundly moving case for creating an education system that nurtures creativity.  It is our hope that by moving to longer blocks of time, teachers will be able to design more student-centered lessons and that students will have more time to complete creative projects to demonstrate understanding.  In your opinion, what should the purpose of education be?