October 31, 2023: "Shadowed by the Principal" & #NoOfficeDay Live Blog

Updated 3:08 PM

On Tuesday, October 31st, I am participating in a "Shadowed by the Principal" event. During the Lake Norman Charter Royal Golf Outing event earlier in the month, a silent auction item was available for families to bid on the opportunity to have their student shadowed by the Principal for an entire school day.

The winning bidder was the Hinesley Family...again; so the receiving student is Ben, a 12th Grader...again. Yes, this is the same student and family who successfully "won" the opportunity last year when Ben was a junior. Therefore, this is the first time I will be shadowing the same student over multiple years.

It made perfect sense to repeat the spooky day of a HS Student for Halloween.

Furthermore, I am utilizing this opportunity to double as a #noofficeday, which is a popular effort by school administrators to dedicate an entire school day out of their office.

This blog post is updated throughout the day to share my experiences:

Opening up this year’s edition of “Shadowed by the Principal” & #NoOfficeDay: My #Halloween2023 costume is an @LNCharter 12th Grader and I’ll be with Ben H. from 7:45 - 2:45 today!

Live-blog will be updated throughout the day in this 🧵 : https://t.co/39Ufz3J6Lq pic.twitter.com/nstvYeWOMA

— Craig S. Smith (@CSmithGoBlue) October 31, 2023

7:45 AM 1st Period - Wind Ensemble (Advanced Band) - Mr. Reavis

Last year, I ended my day in Band; this year, I get to open my day encompassed by music. After the appropriate warm-up, the class is rehearsing Sleigh Ride. Ben plays the French Horn. Fortunately for the entire group, I am not.

Side-Note: Having now become a MS band parent (s/o Mr. Scaringelli), my overall perspective is so different when I visit out band classes than when I had previously. Especially, given my own personal lack of musical talent.

8:36 AM 2nd Period - Civic Literacy - Mr. Broome

Mr. Broome opens up the class with candy for everyone!  Students are instructed to get out their laptops, but keep them closed. The first instructional activity is finishing the digital content "The Bicameral Congress: Crash Course Government and Politics."

At the conclusion, Mr. Broome leads the class through a comparison of British Parliament vs. the original US Congress, with active student participation in response to his leading questions. Mr. Broome displays images to allow for visual comparisons.

Direct instruction continues on the US Congress. Mr. Broome references multiple recent situations that have gone before Congress which are relevant to the lives of students currently.

Instructional content includes, but is not limited to qualifications for House of Representatives, Senate, and specific powers of each.

At the conclusion of instruction, the classroom activity transitions to "The Spooky US Constitution" embedded within Schoology, which is an interactive assignment with numerous links and digital content in which students have two attempts to submit. The class period concludes as students are progressing through the activity independently.

9:27 AM 3rd Period - Study Hall - Mrs. Williams

Study Hall is allowing me the opportunity to catch up on my "Principal work."

10:20 AM Knight Time - Mr. Brackett

After listening to the daily announcements from Mrs. Thomas and Summer A., including the LNC Honor Code, I am able to continue my independent productivity during Knight Time.

10:54 AM 4th Period - Teacher Cadet - Mrs. Massingale

I'm thrilled that Teacher Cadet is included in my shadow experience! (Side-note: This is the first year the course has been offered at LNC, which followed a "year of planning and recruiting" by Mrs. Massingale last year)

Unexpectedly, we have relocated to the Library/Media Center. For this activity, the Teacher Cadets are leading a "Throwback Library" with students from our Literature & Film course. The Teacher Cadets have prepared to read a story at the appropriate "grade level" of their students (elementary), with an after-reading activity for the students to complete.

Ben and I are partners; our story is A Weird Blue Light and the craft activity is folding a paper pirate boat. Mrs. Lord, our Instructional Technology Facilitator, is assessing the Teacher Cadets on: Reading of Story/Projection, Transition to Activity, Preparedness, and Clear Instructions.

I take the lead reading the story and Ben leads our students through the craft activity. Each station is timed and then groups rotate.

I did take advantage of the opportunity to visit and observe the other groups, as well. 

After the Lit & Film students were dismissed back to their classroom, the Teacher Cadets briefly reflected on how the activity could be improved.

11:41 AM Lunch

A chilly 50 degrees didn't prevent us from still having lunch in the courtyard. A number of guys at our table ate quickly to maximize their ping pong time. Not surprisingly, Mr. Schroth selected our tables to serve as the MPR clean up crew today.

MPR Clean-Up SQUAD:

C/o J. Taylor

12:20 PM 5th Period - AP Precalculus - Mr. Awbrey

After a successful MPR clean up, we finally arrived to Mr. Awbrey's Precalculus. Students are arranged in pods and completing Equivalent Representations of Polynomial and Rational Expressions practice independently, but permitted to collaborate in their pods. Mr. Awbrey is actively circulating and checking with students as they progress in the student-centered environment. The solutions are posted and we can check our work.

When working with students in our pod, Mr. Awbrey makes multiple connections directly to the AP Precalculus Exam.

Interesting note: This is actually the first time any work is hand-written today; everything thus far has been either digital within Schoology or hands-on with no writing. 

When students have completed the problems on the document, they transition to continued practice on Delta Math (an online math platform).

1:06 PM 6th Period - AP Statistics - Coach Zamiara

My back-to-back math experience has us also arranged in collaborative pods. 

Coach Zamiara provides a warm-up activity where we must describe how to carry out a simulation to estimate the probability that we would have to randomly select 20 or more U.S. adult males to find one who is color blind, given that 6% of men in the U.S. have some form of red-green color blindness (with provided simulation data).

After an appropriate amount of time, Coach Zamiara recollects the whole group and begins working through the problem with requested student input.

At the conclusion, students obtain their "Check Your Understanding" document and compare their work to what is displayed on the Smartboard. Coach Zamiara reviews the content rapidly. The content involves, but is not limited to, the General Addition Rule and Venn Diagrams. Then, the pods are given about 10 minutes to collaborate on the remaining portions of the Check Your Understanding. Coach Zamiara actively circulates.

Students are instructed "pencils down" and provided red pens to check their work. Coach Zamiara begins reviewing the material and calls on students for their input, which takes us to the end of class.

Coach Zamiara also makes multiple connections directly to the AP Statistics Exam.

1:58 PM - 7th Period - English 12 - Mrs. Massingale and Coach Steele

We are also arranged in collaborative pods in the co-taught English 12 class of Mrs. Massingale and Coach Steele. We immediately begin the Warm-Up: Why are some of these words on a beware of these seven words list? [Beware of These Seven Words: need, must, can't, easy, just, only, fast]; Multiple students share their responses.

Next, the class shifts to a Reading Check on Never Let Me Go. The Reading Check is within Schoology and is timed. At the conclusion, Coach Steele reviews the questions from the Reading Check with a wide-range of student participation.

The instructional activity transitions to a partner collaboration of specific components from the text, identifying the age of the main character from the list of events provided. 

Coach Steele facilitates a thorough, in-depth dialogue with the whole-group about the plot and specifics of the events throughout the story. Then, the class begins identifying the ages of the various events and Mrs. Massingale places them on the front board timeline.

After placing all the events on the timeline, Mrs. Massingale and Coach Steele facilitate the dialogue and further analysis of the text. 

The primary co-teaching strategy utilized is Team Teaching, where both Mrs. Massingale and Coach Steele alternate leading instruction and demonstrating concepts. When used effectively, students view both teachers as "the same."

The discussion takes us up right to the end of class.

A few additional notes:

Instructional time was definitely maximized throughout the day. 

This is not a criticism - but I was seated...A LOT. In fact, outside of class changes and my asking for permission to use the restroom/refill my water bottle, I was pretty much sitting the entire day. The challenging part is that I don't see a need to change a single lesson plan, structure, or instructional design of any of the classes from the day. It's just so noticeable from a kinesthetic standpoint, given the normal movement of my daily routine personally.

Shadowing a student is always an enjoyable experience, but I think it's even more special when it takes place with a senior and thus, majority of the schedule are "senior classes." There was also a nice range of courses with a combination of AP, college prep, and electives.

I truly appreciate the faculty being on-board with this and welcoming me in for the true student experience. 

I believe I met the expectations to "be my best" with another successful Shadowed by the Principal and #NoOfficeDay. 

Thank you to the Hinesley Family for their continued trust and support. As Mr. Reavis joked earlier in the day, Ben won't have the opportunity to "three-peat" this event next year. Hopefully another family and student does!

#LNCPride

Thank you for viewing,

CS

The opinions shared in this blog belong to Craig Smith and do not represent the school or district in which he works.