Track Year in Review...

Well...the district meet is now over, and i'm extremely pleased with the quarter program and our results from the year.

Results:
Open 400 -
Varsity - 10th grader, 6th place, 51.13 (FAT)
JV - 10th grader, 1st place, 52.45 (FAT)
10th grader, 3rd place, 53.82 (FAT) nipped at the line
10th grader, 5th place, 54.92 (FAT)
9th - 1st place, 53.92 (FAT)
2nd place, 54.75 (FAT) came from behind to nip the guy at the line after PRing in the 800 (2:10.2)
5th place, 56.40 (FAT)

4x4
Varsity - (11, 10, 12, 10) 3:25.1, 4th place (PRed by 3 seconds)
JV - (11, 10, 10, 10) 3:31.7, 1st place (PRed by 4 seconds)
9th - (9,9,9,9) 3:36.5, 1st place (PRed by 5 seconds!!!!)

Overall, I'm very pleased with the current results and the future prospects. My best JV runner missed the first month's foundation, so it'll be interesting to see what he's able to do next year as a full-time 400 runner. On a side note, I will spend the majority of my time investigating 800 m programs since I have some promising prospects.

Action Plan...

The following will be an evaluation of technology initiatives that were outlined in either the District Improvement Plan (DIP) or the Campus Improvement Plan (CIP).

One goal of our DIP was to implement a science, technology, and math (STEM) after-school program (p. 15). The District Instructional Technology Specialist along with the Campus Principals are required to evaluate this program. While I am not at the campus implementing this initiative, I would imagine that the principals would delegate the gist of this program to either their assistant principal in charge of math/science or the curriculum instructional coordinator (CIC). The success of this program will be determined through data gathered on each benchmark (p. 15) as well as walk-through data gathered by principals and the CIC. I believe that the success of this program should not hinge just on walk-through data and benchmark assessments. I think the the teachers responsible for implementation should be probed to see if there are better ways to assess the success.

To help with our infrastructure, both the DIP and CIP plans proposed installing In-Focus Projectors within core subject classrooms (“District Improvement Plan” p. 15 & “Campus Improvement Plan” p. 7). . The District Instructional Technology Specialist is ultimately responsible for this implementation, but they must work closely with the maintenance department since they will be the department that will install the projectors. At our campus, our 12^th grade assistant principal is responsible for ensuring this initiative is followed. Our 12^th grade assistant principal is responsible for all classroom work orders and maintenance. Since it would be extremely hard for this principal cannot to ensure each core subject area classroom has one, the teachers should shoulder some of this burden by reporting their classroom if it is missing a projector. By having these projectors, the teachers will have the capabilities to utilize other technology initiatives that the district has purchased (Clickers, TaskStream, Video Streaming, etc.). Walk-through data will help determine whether teachers are utilizing these projectors. Also, a periodic check to ensure each projector is working will be done by the 12^th grade assistant principal.

Another district and campus technology improvement was to increase the use of Clickers (“District Improvement Plan” p. 15 & “Campus Improvement Plan” p. 7). As a district, the Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum as well as the District Technology Integration Specialist are responsible for this initiative. At our campus, the CICs and Technology Integration Specialist are responsible for reporting to the Assistant Superintendent and District Technology Integration Specialist. Our campus will evaluate this by viewing lesson plans and analyzing walk-through data. Since Clickers are new to the campus, a professional development (mentioned in previous section) will be provided that will familiarize teachers with Clickers as well as writing assessments that involve the use of Clickers. Teachers will be asked to provide positive or negative experiences with Clickers through learning community meetings that occur every other day.

The biggest technology initiative that was included in our CIP was the Project-Based Learning (PBL) initiative (p. 3, 7). Since Project-Based Learning will be a campus-wide curriculum change, the principal is responsible for evaluating this initiative. To help with this change there were four professional developments that were provided before the school year (2) and during the school year (2). These professional developments were done by a group that specializes in PBL. This group has also provided continued support for the next three years. The campus has also designated an hour a week to meet with pre-arranged learning communities that will develop PBL assessments. Once a six weeks, all groups come together to share their results and findings. As teachers, we have been encouraged to use a PBL-type assessment once a semester and to share our findings with our learning communities. Since PBL relies heavily on 21^st Century skills, teachers will be encouraged to design projects that utilize open-source software. Professional development outlined in the previous section will be provided and the IT specialists as well as the Technology Integration Specialist will provided continued support. Once again walk-through data will be used to evaluate the effectiveness of this initiative.

References

Copperas Cove High School Campus Improvement Plan. (2009-2010). Retrieved from http://www.ccisd.com/98920621163230253/site/default.asp

Copperas Cove District Improvement Plan. (2009-2010). Retrieved from http://www.ccisd.com/98710121514422517/blank/browse.asp?a=383&BMDRN=2000&BCOB=0&c=58246

Varsity and JV Results...

400 m results:
JV #1 - 54.47 (PR) 3rd
JV #2 - 54.68 (PR) 4th
JV #3 - 52.92 (PR)******1st

V#1 - 51.6 3rd
V#2 - 52.2 (PR) 4th
V#3 - 53.9

JV 4x4 - 54.8, 55.9, 54.8, 53.4 - 3:39.01 (Season Best) 1st Place
V 4x4 - 53.9, 51.9, 51.6, 51.6 - 3:29.2

All times...FAT

Overall...I was extremely disappointed with the weather conditions. We had great weather all week and saturday, mother nature decides to have 20 mph winds from the south. this resulted in the wind being in the face of the guys AGAIN!!!! While all should be decreasing their time, our results aren't that bad given the wind. All my JV guys PRed with my 3rd guy improving his best time by 2.3 seconds!!! this is prolly because it is his 3rd week running it and is becoming familiar with the race and has started working with me (more conditioning compared to his 100/200 workouts)...he has the most untapped potential of ALL my runners. My varsity #2 improved which is expected since it's his 3rd week out from basketball. In the JV 4x4, we had to race the clock and if it weren't for the anchor we wouldn't have won it. The anchor isn't a 400 guy, but won the JV 200 and ran the opening leg for the JV 4x2 that won. I just wanted to get a look at him since I knew he ran a 54.6 last year. Hopefully, i can keep him...that would put my JV 4x4 around 3:36 with a chance to go below 3:35. On the varsity 4x4, i'm still looking for that 4th leg. I got 3 solid 51's...i just need one more to step up (could be the JV#3 from above if he keeps improving). A bad handoff from 2-3 cost us a chance at a medal...

Freshmen meet results...

400 m -
1st - 53.9
3rd - 55.8
4th - 58.2

4x400 m
57.6
55.7
55.3
54.4
3:43 low total

Had to replace my 2nd best time from last week, but i lucked out and got to use our stud 300 m hurdler who just came back from injury.

overall...we ran 1.5 sec faster than last week, but we had 2 TERRIBLE handoffs and my 3rd leg ran the whole race in the 2nd lane. Sub 3:40 is definitely possible...

By day in a nutshell...

So while everybody else is counting down the days to spring break...I can't look past today.

Here's my agenda for today:
1) My 45 min evaluation by the principal is today (in my most talkative class...)
2) Meet with an administrator and SBDM to get information for this week's assignment
3) Have to design a 45 min Waves lesson that ALL science teachers will have to do for our TAKS attack session in april.
4) Physics Storeroom inventory (there's a lot of crap in there too)
5) Varsity Track practice this afternoon
6) Freshmen track meet tonight at Killeen

Oh well...after today, it's easy sailing to this much needed spring break...

Another 40 day journey through Lent...

So i've been thinking a while about what to give up for these next 40 days...i've given up fried foods (on 2 different occasions), sweet tea (suffered withdrawals), video games (while i was in college), sodas (in college), among others.

this Lent I wanted to do something different, something that is truly a bad habit of mine...so for this Lent, I believe I'm going to give up impulse bad food decisions (ordering pizza/fast food when i don't have any prepared food, grabbing some donuts when i wake up late, unnecessary sweets, etc.) as well as hitting the SNOOZE button (on an average morning, i will go through 3 alarms and 4 snoozes). the 4 snoozes will save me 20 minutes every morning, which hopefully i can put to good use (grad school work, reading a book of choice, learning a foreign language, workout, etc.).

Let's do this....

on a side note, this is around day 7-9 of contributing to a blog, approximately 1/3 of the way to making it a habit (that will be my 3rd habit i've developed this year...)

350 m emphasizing the last 200...

So today was the first day that I tried targeting the last 200 we should run in our 400 through a 350. My thought was to make the athletes run as long as they would in a quarter, but only stress the last 200. This would allow me to get more reps and give the kids a better idea of what I was looking for.

So for my varsity guys...i told them to run the first 150 in 24 seconds, and that their finish time would be right on what they run their fastest quarter in. it worked like a CHARM!!!! my top two guys came right in at 50 and 51 (their best times this year have been 50.9 and 51.9). they also hit the 150 mark in 24 too.
My jv guys were told to hit the 150 at 25 and finish around 52-55.
My freshmen hit the 150 mark at 27 and finished in the 54-59 range.

We did 4 of these (see workouts below) with 6 mins rest in between each. Towards the last couple, they were having trouble hitting the times, but I was fine with that since they were going slower on the first 150 and hitting the 200 in the time they should be.

Overall...i think it's a great workout for our mid-season timeline, but whether it works or not remains to be seen