Blueprint for
Success: building
the school
community you
need!
Kimberly Carroll, Principal
Lake Olympia Middle School – Ft. Bend ISD
Therese Samperi, PSP Network
How do you build the
community you need?
MOTIVATE
CONNECT
ENGAGE
“Coming together is a
beginning; keeping together
is progress; working together
is success.”
Anonymous
Motivating students, staff, and
community
• Survey the staff
• Survey students
• Survey community
Decide on a
School-wide Theme
Believe
HOPE-Having Outstanding Performance Everyday
Lighting the Fire Within
212°
I am Marshall
Expand on the Theme
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Find a “School Song” that fits theme
Get band to learn theme song
Dance team creates dance to theme song
Cheerleaders create cheer for theme song
Create a video using staff to share theme
Blast the School with Theme
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Create banners, signs with theme on it
Put them on letterhead
Purchase t-shirts with theme on it
Put theme on phone dialer
Put theme on marquis
Share Theme with
Staff/Students/Community
• Make sure that the staff is VERY aware of
the theme
• Request clubs/organizations to incorporate
theme into their plans for the year
• Request the parents/community
incorporate theme into their plans for the
year
Kick off the School Year with a
Theme Pep Rally
• Have the band, cheerleaders, and dance
team perform to the theme song
• Do a “themed skit” showing how the theme
will impact the students
• Do a themed video to get staff and
students to buy into to theme
Connecting with your Students
Do You Know
Enough About Me
to Teach Me?
Do You Know Enough About me to
Teach Me?
“Imagine walking into the Doctor’s office and
having the Doctor prescribe medication for you
without asking any questions or forcing you to
fill out one of those lengthy medical history
questionnaires. You can’t, can you? But daily,
hundreds of thousands of our children are being
subjected to this treatment. Teachers who know
little of their lives are teaching them in ways they
don’t understand, which makes it almost
impossible for them to grasp concepts and for
the teachers to transfer knowledge.”
Peters
Teaching is a 3 Step Process
Stephen Peters…
believes that teaching is a
three step process…
How to Connect?
Stephen Peters:
Three step process to teaching:
Capture
Inspire
Teach
Three Step Process-Step 1
Capture
A teacher must capture that student before
they can teach them. The capturing process
is all about developing, establishing, and
sustaining positive relationships that can
carry over from year to year.
Three Step Process-Step 2
Inspire
The student must be inspired. Someone
must be standing in front of them in a
credible way with something to share that
they are interested in receiving.
Three Step Process-Step 3
Teach
The third and final step is to
teach!!
Successful Schools
• Have a common vision or mission
• Have quality leaders that understand
people and know how to get the best out
of them
• Students come first in these schools
• Have quality professional development
• Continuous improvement is a common
thread
Successful Schools continued…
• Have positive relationships as well as
encouragement and support
• Have synergy to accomplish team goals
by coming together as one entity with one
mission
• Have parental involvement/support
• Have an energy that supports, Failure is
not an option. There is a focus on
success
Strategies for working with Urban
Youth
• Base all interactions on reciprocal respect
• Use positive affirmations as much as
possible
• Seek first to understand then to be
understood
• Realize that you may be the only steady,
consistent force in your student’s lives
• Be consistent
Strategies for working with Urban
Youth continued…
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Be fair
Be flexible
Be compassionate
Be tolerant
Be human
Be supportive
Be open-minded
Have high, but reasonable, expectations for all
students
• Assess and challenge
• Be positive
Strategies for working with Urban
Youth continued…
• Incorporate student ideas and suggestions into
your classroom routines or daily practices
• Make students feel special that they are being
taught by YOU!
• Be consistent with rewards and incentives-use
them to create and build hope in your classroom
• Create an honor roll on the first day of school and
give every student an “A”
• Love your children and they will love you back!
Stephen G. Peters
Check out the work of Stephen G. Peters:
Do you Know Enough About Me to Teach
Me? – A Student’s Perspective
http://stephenpetersgroup.com
Student Engagement defined
Student engagement occurs
when "students make a
psychological investment in
learning.”
States??????
Managing Students Emotional
States
You have far more
influence over your
students than you have
ever, ever imagined.
States
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States are like the Weather in your Brain
States run your lives
States regulate motivation
States precede behaviors
States are always shifting
States are always in motion
States are self organized
We can only pay attention to one
state at a time!
It is not easy to stay in a state for very long
and it is not easy to be in two states at the
same time.
Example: You can feel hungry but then be
immediately distracted by curiosity.
How students regulate their states
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Talking
Social contact
Hydration
Medications
Movement/fidgeting
Music
Sports
Drug abuse
Romance
Sleeping
Lighting variations
Food choices
Manage the states well and the
learning will take care of itself.
Everyone stand up.
Reach for the ceiling.
Stretch.
Sit back down.
State Management Empowers
Students
Too much talking makes
them bluemore of them less of you.
A great teacher may be
reaching, at any given time,
fifty to seventy percent of
their students, but a
different fifty to seventy
percent each time!
Humans are fundamentally
social animals!
To captivate and educate,
put learners in states that
invigorate.
The more effectively you
influence learners states,
the fewer discipline
problems you will
experience and more your
audience will learn.
Changing Brain States
• Agree or Disagree? – the idea is to set up
some kind of closing point or finishing
statement about what was just done or
learned.
• Brain Breaks – just give the students a few
minutes of free time as a mental break.
• Seat Switching – simply have students switch
seats as a way to switch to a new topic,
freshen up an old one or pump “new blood” to
the brainstorming session.
Other Ways to Change States
• Group and re-group – post a list of vocabulary
words. In pairs or teams, they group the terms in
as many ways as they can think of. They title
each group giving them a creative name.
• Fishing for Gems – at the end of a unit, give
everyone two index cards. Students write
something they found valuable from the unit on
each card. The students then mingle with each
other explaining why they chose what they did and
swapping cards with one another.
Eric Jensen
Check out the research of Eric Jensen:
Tools for Engagement – Managing
Emotional States for Learner Success
Teaching with the Brain in Mind
http://www.jensenlearning.com
Bottom LINE
MOTIVATE
CONNECT
ENGAGE