Loyola-Science-Department-Meetings - Meeting 18

Science Department Meeting
Friday, September 27, 2012 (7:15 – 8:00am)
H103 – BioHazard Meeting Room

Welcome

Majority of meeting will be on discussing 7th period.

Looking Ahead – Important Dates to Note
1. Sunday, Sept 29 - Happy Birthday Mike Lew!
2. Tuesday, Oct 1 – PD Plans Due - Due on Tuesday to Robb. If need more time, let Robb know, don't need to send a copy to Rick. Will go over it individually with Robb
3. Tuesday, Oct 8 – Activities Fair - If club or extracurricular, prepare for this.
4. Saturday-Sunday, Oct 12-13 – Freshmen Retreat
5. Monday, Oct 14 – Happy Birthday Gerry! (Faculty In-Service Day)
6. Wednesday, Oct 16 – School Testing Day
7. Thursday, Oct 17 – Science Department Meeting
8. Thur-Sat, Oct 24-26 – NSTA Portland / CSTA Palm Springs

(Submit Absence Request Forms)

Department Share
1. Share a great moment (or great failure) - Robb: Kimberly, Eddie and Lee, hiring process hit a home run with these teachers. Fawzia - AP Chem kids, holding tutoring sessions, AP kids come in to help the Honors kids doing a good job. Craig: raided Gery's closet, resonance columns. Kids coming back at lunch to play with it at lunch. Craig and Lee are team teaching - invaluable for Lee, to look at content and understand and then see it in practice with Craig. Can look at the way the lesson goes, and able to plan accordingly. Wonderful way to learn a new subject. Support also from Andrew and Gerry. Eddie - thinking shift in Physics class into the inquiry processing, not just looking for the correct answer. Andrew - Frank's son came into Andrew's room to talk about Craig's class, asking the student's their opinion (making the students think, validating our ideas). Mike - freshman physics, electromagnetic waves - encourages the kids to research the waves, frequency, what it is used for, etc. Perfect lead in for light and spectrum.
2. Change is good! Try new things! Failure is inevitable and healthy!!!

Debrief Back-to-School Night
1. Can we help parents understand the sequence of courses better?- Anything else that we can do - printing out to parents a list of the sequence of courses - inform the parents of the science course sequence and options. To do in August next year for the September Back to School Night. In the brochure for open house, need to take it and prepare a handout for parents.

i. Prepare a dept. printout of course sequence and structure…

Anything else?

Department Chair Formal Observations
1. October 28 – November 8, 2013 - Formal observations from Robb - sign up for a slot, will have a meeting on the day of the observation to go over the lesson, what should Robb be lookgin for, what do you hope to accomplish and post observation meeting as well.
2. Sign up in BioHaz (Per 1, Per 2 or… ?)
3. Pre-observation meetings will occur on the morning of the observed lesson

i. 7:45am in H100 (or at a different
ii. Topics to discuss at the Pre-Observation meeting…

Lesson Plan (use an IPP Lesson Plan Template)
Professional Development Plan

7-Period Discussion
1. Facilitated by Andrey - Andrey is presenting at all the departments regarding the 7th period schedule. Thank you to all that have been involved (Brian and Robb). Where we are with this process, and what has been decided and what is still open for discussion. Already set in stone: 1. are moving to the 7th period schedule next year. 2. 8 semesters of theology., physics 9 mandatory for all freshman - human geography is no longer an option. 3. geometry and honors geometry will be mandatory for all freshman.
2. Still open for discussion - school calendar, bell schedule, period length, frequency, junior and senior electives? The teachers need to be making these decisions.
3. Why are we doing this? theology increase from 6 to 8 semesters. LHS is an outlier, only requiring students to take only 6 classes. really stands out in the Jesuit schools, everyone else has gone to 7 or 8 periods. We are following an old model with fewer courses. UC system (gold standard) LHS admission rates are plummeting in UC schools. 2008 77, 71, 62%. GPA's, SAT, etc are flat-lined. What is the difference?? Startling huge gap is the UC A-G courses. Approved courses core - the average admitted student to the UC - had over 50 semesters of A-G courses. The avg Loyola student has 41 semesters. The rest of the world has moved forward and LHS has stayed. Argument for more courses. Not just theology, issue of serving our students. Some departments can we avoid going to 7 periods? Lose all flexibility, if stay with 6, elective go away, cannot mix classes, etc. Andrey - know that he values teaching more than anything else. Anything that we do that takes away class time, troubling to Andrey - minimum baseline right now. Starting 2 years ago - started looking at the schedule to find out how people felt about this. Have to go to 7 periods - constraints (handout on 6 constraints). Constraints - very clear do NOT move to 5 period Fridays. Will NOT lengthen Fridays! Faculty is willing to start a week earlier in August. 250 bell schedules from other schools - came up with 4 models that was presented to the faculty. Took all these and looked at them carefully. Reality is that each one had a fatal flaw - something in the plan made it impossible for LHS. Plans very good, but would not work for us. Where are we today? 2 plans on the table:
  1. Idea of increasing each period by 5 minutes (5 60 minutes per day). Start at 8am -2:30pm. Not a huge impact on commute time, practices, etc. Don't need professional development to add 5 minutes. When you do the math - looking at the schedules advising, homerooms, etc. How does it compare? If we were to do this, in first semester, 10 fewer class meeting for each period, and lost 240 minutes of face to face time. 17 fewer class meetings for second semester. Serious flaw to this plan!
    1. Remove homerooms, only gets us back 1 more period per semester. Remove in services, only gets us back 1 period, 1 week earlier, gives us 3 periods back. Possible but not best solution
  2. Alternative - run 6 - 50 minute periods per day (8-2:30pm). Gain 1 class meeting per semester. Net plus 1 for meetings. Move all homerooms to Friday (4 period days) 2 periods, HR, recess, 2 periods. Every day of the week classes are 50 minutes regardless of calendar. Eliminate in-services, sue to PLC. Starting a week earlier, extra 4 periods. Concerns with kids have 6 periods each day, don't want to over stress them. Most of other schools kids take 7 periods a day with average length 45 minutes.
  3. Given these two options - how do people feel? Rather fewer class meetings, or shorter class meetings?
    1. Paul - constraint in terms of length of day - strong reaction to increasing the day - athletic teams impacted, commutes, etc.
    2. Craig - Juniors/seniors 7th period mandated? Frank does not want Juniors/Seniors taking a class (homeroom, study class, etc.) Modified block, the period for juniors/seniors could always be at the end of the day. Robb: is it even necessary that juniors and seniors have a 7th period? Go home or start practice early. Office hours, etc.
    3. Mike - loss of number of periods is huge! 5 minute loss not a huge deal - given the two shorter by 5 minutes - 6 periods at 50 minutes. 7th period for seniors, college visits, use the 7th period as college visits. the use of this 7th period could best be used as college visits. College stuff. Locking 7th period at the end of the day. Looked at it very carefully - issues: Andrey - cannot identify 1 period as a non teaching period. Every period 1-7 has to have academic work done in it. Don't have the facilities to manage all the athletics during 1 period of the day. Do not want to see kids early or an extra period per day. Facilities, class and personnel issues - Brophy tried this with 7th athletic period at the end - no teacher said they would want to teach last period every time. Frank has said this is NOT an option to lock a period at the end of the day!
  4. Robb - from the 7th period committee, these 2 schedules were the least attractive to the committee. Modified block was the majority opinion! Must be a model out there that would fit LHS. 50% of faculty said they would like a modified block, or similar schedule to what we have now. Robb does not think that the 7th period committee was listened to.
  5. Andrey - calendar - huge imbalance between fall and spring on the calendar. What if we moved all final exams before Christmas! Helps the imbalance, and makes Christmas break a true break. Having an inter-semester break goes away. Can find a way to put in extra vacation days somewhere. Paul - hope that time to get grades done would be factored in. Don't want people spending break grading. Grades would still be due at end of January.
  6. Andrey - deciding where the Senior service project would be - in light of the 6 periods - look at where the senior project should be. Cannot start a semester and have seniors gone. What if it is moved to the end of Junior year after AP exams. Theology dept would have a full year of experiences instead of just 1 semester. Big benefit to this. Theology dept not as supportive of this. Next year is the logical time to make this shift. Craig - likes these ideas - Frank has done a great job to be creative, collaborative, innovators - nothing about this seems innovative or creative, or collaborative. Mike - UC acceptance rate are their UC acceptances higher? Don't know. LHS is a plummet. Mike - is this the best schedule for kids to learn? Whatever we do next year is a trial period - open to tweaking. Frank is focused on PLC - student learning being the focus. Focus on how students learn best - Robb - early start, early out (7:15-1:30). nothing before school, kids home without traffic. Starting a week early - main concern from lack of class time comes from AP teachers. If start a week early - end a week early. Not for extending the school year. With the popularity of modified block - why did this not happen? Cannot make it work - Andrey - teachers don't want to teach the last hour, do not have the facilities. Modified block can be run without a lock - for English, math, and foreign language. We as a department 100% modified block without the frozen schedule. First step to evaluate how kids learn and create a good efficient model. Mike - PLC - can build in time for departments to meet - right now it is by class (science, math, and 2 other depts - cross departmental). Meeting within departments.

Meeting 18 - Sept '13