Our Journey with “Mentor Minutes” Presented by: Anne Marie Keskonis, Principal Emily Nelson, Assistant Principal Harmony Elementary in Gwinnett County, Georgia Building Student Engagement: One Conversation at a Time

Think about how these different types of student engagement look, sound, and feel when you walk in the hallways or visit classrooms in your school. *Affective Engagement *Behavioral Engagement *Cognitive Engagement Procedures for our Chalk Talk protocol: 1. Everyone needs a marker. 2. No one may talk at all and anyone may add to the chalk talk as they please. You can comment on other people’s ideas simply by drawing a connecting line to the comment. 3. People write as they feel moved. Transition to the different charts around the room and reflect on the thoughts shared. Peeling Back the Layers of Student Engagement

Defining Engagement Affective Behavioral Cognitive

Reflecting on the State of your Students’ Engagement Take a moment to discuss the question cards with your table. Reflect on where your school is with regards to student engagement.

Our Journey Let’s start with a little bit of background about Harmony…

Driving force behind our idea  teacher complaints about unmotivated students who lacked ownership for their learning We developed electronic data notebooks for 4 th and 5 th grades. ◦ Focused on grades ◦ Teacher driven Year One…

Electronic Data Notebooks Notebook Link

Electronic data notebooks were too cumbersome Feedback from staff at the end of the year led to: ◦ Leadership becoming more involved ◦ Goal setting becoming a stronger focus ◦ Left the digital notebook for a pocket folder ◦ Included all K-5 students SEI-E (Student Engagement Inventory –Elementary Version) – presented opportunity to give us data about our students’ engagement Year Two

A Glimpse at our Data Room… How could we track student engagement data?

Incorporating Engagement Data… “If you get engagement right…you win!” -Dr. Joseph Murphy Presentation from Gwinnett Summer Leadership Conference Our Guiding Question: How can we collect evidence of our students’ engagement for formative use?

Goal: Students reflect on goal setting and their own progress with a mentor at least 5 times throughout the year. Used attendance and discipline data as well as teacher feedback to determine non-classroom teacher mentors. Mentor Minute Folders

All K-5 students have these two components in their folders. Teachers optionally added supplementary components.

PrioritizingModeling Significant Factors that Impacted the Success of our Initiative Administration and support staff were assigned students to mentor. As a result our school became more invested. As Susan Scott with Fierce Conversations says, "The conversation is the relationship." We continually prioritized these conversations with students and established a timeline for teachers.

All staff are now involved Local School Plan for Improvement goal written specifically for engagement All staff reflect on mentee student engagement (SEI-E)data to develop action steps for conversations with students Year Three

Goal Focused Conversation training – provided through the Metis Leadership Group ◦ Goal setting is now driven by students ◦ Provides a protocol for mentor conversations Daily class meetings are in the master schedule ◦ Provided teachers with a framework for class meetings ◦ Created more ownership and voice for students in the classroom Year Three Continued…

5 part protocol Train the trainer model to teach our staff the protocol Contact: Mike Robinson for more information Goal Focused Conversations Goal Focused Conversation Protocol 1. Affirmation 2. Reason 3. 3 Questions What is your goal? Where are you now? (on a scale of 1-10) How will you get there? 4. Plan Next Steps 5. Set Appointment

SAM Data Mentor Minutes have positively impacted our SAM data in the descriptor of “ work with students”.

Mentor Minutes at Harmony Elementary, Gwinnett County, Georgia Mentor Minutes at Harmony Elementary, Gwinnett County, Georgia A Glimpse at the Impact of Mentor Minutes

Questions?? Contact Information: Anne Marie Keskonis, Principal at Harmony Elementary