May 13, 2019

Dear Colleagues,

In case you haven't noticed, it's Tea Season here on the Island. Academic departments have been busy selecting honorees, Communications has sent countless invitations, Physical Plant and Flik have carried scores of folding chairs and pastries in and out of Brush numerous times. In just over a week, Tea Season will blend into the Academic Awards Ceremony. Class Night and Commencement prizes will mark the finale of this portion of the school year.

Four years ago, Modern and Classical Languages joined the "tea party," establishing our own annual tea to honor the achievements of the hardest-working, most enthusiastic, and most successful language students, and I am proud of what we have created. The Language Tea is an opportunity to celebrate the diverse cultures, languages, and perspectives studied and represented at Loomis Chaffee. At this year's Language Tea, students performed readings and shared stories of their accomplishments and insights gained through language study. Delivering the faculty remarks, Sterling Kouri spoke about the powerful manifestations of community and the counter-discourses to hate speech created in the wake of the Founders "dictionary incident." Throughout our Tea, we reflected, we laughed, and we celebrated our students' accomplishments. We sat in the lovely Katherine Brush library, which was adorned with flags from all over the world. We drank coffee and we ate chocolate-covered strawberries. It was a lovely event.

It is important to note that awards at Loomis Chaffee recognize more than just academic achievement and that these honors are not always bestowed upon the student with the highest grade in a particular class. Teachers take into account improvement, enthusiasm, classroom demeanor, and more. Unlike some schools, we honor our most gifted and dedicated artists and performers, in addition to our high-flying students; we also pay tribute to our most impactful athletes and community servants.

And yet, I wonder if these awards are in line with our school's espousal of Carol Dweck's idea of growth mindset and our beliefs about the importance of intrinsic motivation. I wonder if the optics of the recipients of our awards filing down to the stage in Olcott communicate messages related to course accessibility. I wonder if these ceremonies create a sense of belonging or one of othering.

Moving on to the promotional portion of these Musings, we hope that many of you will join us for our May 16 Kravis session on the Student Evaluation of Teaching (SET). If you plan on attending, please administer the SET in at least one class in the next couple of days. Those heading into Eval C next year should contact Adnan who will set you up with the official SurveyMonkey version of SET. All others are welcome to tailor this Google form to their needs - please be sure to save a copy of the form before you begin tailoring. Reach out to any of us if you need help with this process.

To close out the year, The Kravis Center will host the following events:

May 16: Let's chat about the results of your SET

May 23: (a) Flipped Classroom V2: In this session, you will create your own video with the help of LC's flipped classroom experts. (Kravis Center)

(b) David Rion will lead a session in college recommendation writing (room adjacent to the Kravis Center, formerly known as the Pearse QRC)

Have a great week,

Rachel, on behalf of The Kravis Center

On Academic Awards

See this summary of the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and the effects that each can have on our students.

Let's Bring More Students to the Awards Table: "[I]f we really want to promote things like collaborative teamwork, risk taking, ongoing learning, creativity, and critical problem solving, and if we really want our student and parent communities to begin to take these seriously, we need to make sure these goals are provided with honored places at our awards tables."

George Courous on the impact of awards: Quoting Alfie Kohn, Couros writes, "Rewards–like punishments–are unnecessary when [an engaging curriculum, a [...] caring community, and a significant degree of choice] [...] are present, and are ultimately destructive in any case."

Here's a (longish) academic study detailing the effects of academic achievement awards.

Professional Growth Opportunities

If you are looking for more ideas, please remember that the Loomis Chaffee PD doc has many exciting opportunities to offer. If interested, talk with your Assistant Department Head or anyone in the Kravis Center.

An invitation: Athena is looking for excellent, passionate, and diverse high school humanities teachers for a limited number of Summer Fellowships. Ideal candidates are English, History, Humanities, or Religion/Philosophy teachers hungry to find and join communities of educators with shared interests, teachers eager to share their best and favorite assignments, classroom activities and discussion questions, teachers excited to offer feedback to help others.

Only 1-2 more spaces available! Take a deep dive into the neuroscience of learning with the authors of Neuroteach, Glenn Whitman and Ian Kelleher. Read more about the Science of Teaching and Leadership Academy at The Center for Transformative Teaching and Learning (CTTL) from July 21 - 25. Sara Deveaux attended last summer and would be happy to chat with anyone interested. Rachel Nisselson and Lena Sadowitz are signed up for July, 2019. 1-2 more spaces available.

Interested in learning more about project and problem-based learning? Read about an online opportunity from Amy Baeder. Read more about the Buck institute which is considered the gold standard in PBL training.

July 29-31 (College Park, MD): An entire conference dedicated to formative assessments. Formative Assessment Conference with Dylan Wiliam, Tom Guskey, Susan Brookhart and Jay McTighe (Understanding by Design). What an array of experts! Become the LC expert!

CAIS Conferences: The Connecticut Association of Independent Schools is offering a number of conferences in April and over the summer

Kravis Center portal page

Please fill out this form for suggestions for Thursday morning PD opps.

Professional Development Opportunities