Curriculum Matters
MTSD / Volume 3 / Issue 1 / September 2016
MTSD Office of Instructional Services
Deborah Sarmir—Assistant Superintendent
Fiona Borland—Director Instructional Technology
Corie Gaylord—Director Academic Counseling Services
Damian Pappa—Director Assessment/Data/Accountability
Ron Zalika —Director Curriculum
Lucianne Smith—Executive Assistant
MTSD Content Area Supervisors
Jessica Glover—OHES/VES Mathematics & Science
Naoma Green—MHS Physical Education & Health
Christopher Herte—LMS/UMS Mathematics & Science
Melissa Hodgson—MHS Social Studies
Amy Monaco—OHES/VES Language Arts & Social Studies
Alma Reyes—World Languages & ESL
Jennifer Riddell—MHS Mathematics
Lisa Romano—LMS/UMS Language Arts & Social Studies
Karen Stalowski—MHS Language Arts
Jason Sullivan—MHS Science
Adam Warshafsky—Visual & Performing Arts
Website: http://www.mtsd.k12.nj.us/domain/25
Phone: (609) 466-7600
From the Office of Instructional Services
The MTSD Curriculum Matters newsletter communicates our curricular happenings and instructional activities across grade levels and content areas to educators, parents and students. It also provides a closer look at the some of the unique learning experiences and outcomes that our students undertake. Please browse through these updates provided by our talented team of educational professionals.
Curriculum Writing
MTSD has a never-ending commitment to creating and maintaining a guaranteed and viable curriculum that will ensure our students' academic success. This past summer, 98 of our 316 courses underwent various levels of revision in preparation for the 2016-17 school year.
We invite you to access all of our curriculum guides through THIS LINK. Doing so will give you the opportunity to view our collaboratively written curricula, which is based on the adopted learning standards for the state of New Jersey.
MHS Physical Education & Health
In Driver's Education, students recently participated in lessons on car maintenance, learning everything from how to change their own oil to the ins and outs of a car's suspension. Routine maintenance and how it is directly correlated with vehicle safety was a focus of the lessons. Students will always remember "Take care of your car, and it will take care of you." Students next participated in drunk driving awareness activities, including a mock DUI checkpoint where they experimented with Fatal Vision Goggles.
OHES/VES Language Arts
September is an exciting time for our K-4 readers and writers, as we jump into a new school year and the routines of Reading and Writing Workshop. At each grade level, students experience daily reading and writing mini-lessons, which provide students with explicit instruction in a reading or writing skill and strategy. Following the mini-lesson, students have a block of time to read or write independently every day, while teachers engage in small group lessons, individual conferences and coaching. It’s truly amazing to see the ways in which teachers are able to individualize instruction to meet the needs of all of our young learners, and it’s equally amazing to see the independence students develop as readers and writers, including our Kindergartners!
At each grade level, the school year is broken into specific units of study in both reading and writing, which span fiction and nonfiction reading, narrative, opinion and information writing, and additional genres and topics. As the year gets underway, it’s important to set aside a special time and place for homework each night and to encourage your child to read for enjoyment every day. We are looking forward to a great start to the year for K-4 Language Arts!
LMS/UMS Mathematics & Science
In September, the UMS Algebra I Part 2 classes studied the properties of real numbers. Sara Fortunato, a student in Ms. Meier’s class, described her experience. “We broke off into groups and made slide presentations on the math properties. My property was the associative property of addition. We researched and explained our topic to create a presentation that taught the other groups in our class about the property. We also got to add our own little touches, like fun examples that involved everyone. This activity helped me as a student because each presentation explained in depth how each property worked, and when to apply them to my math.”
Switching to Science, students in LMS Science 5 explored the question, “Does air have matter?” A variety of experiments and phenomena were investigated. Students then had to write a claim and support their claim with the evidence they gathered and organized. Mrs. Smith, Mrs. Benz and Mr. Bartholomew reported that the students developed great questions and ways to investigate them. Meanwhile, students in Science 6 gathered temperature data about the soil, grass, concrete, flag pole and other items of their choice. They created claims as to why certain objects were warmer than others and used their evidence and reasoning to support their claims.
MHS English
This September MHS juniors and seniors are experiencing newly revised curriculum in their English classes. Rather than the traditional year-long courses of the past, students in the 11th and 12th grades are now offered thematically organized semester courses to fulfill their English course credits. This semester juniors had a choice of taking either ENG11-101, And Justice for All?, which explores the concept of justice in the global arena, or ENG11-102, Heroes, Villains, and Monsters, OH MY!, which asks students to analyze the shades of good and evil as they exist in society. Seniors chose between ENG12-101, Family: It's All Relative, a course that explores the complicated nature of inter-personal relationships, and ENG12-102, Watch Your Back!, which delves into the human struggle with power, greed, and ambition. Whichever course students have chosen, all are filled with engaging, thought-provoking literature representing both the classics as well as modern writing.
MTSD Technology
Each fall approximately 400 third graders enter Village Elementary School. In addition to the many wonderful things that go on every year at VES, Mr. Dolan works with every third grade student to understand and create a secure password to their Google Apps for Education account.
With a preliminary glance, one might just assume that Google is just providing our students with a free, online suite of office products. Just like the original word processing programs were a transformational experience for users, Google Docs takes word processing to the next level.
Over the next several years of your students academic careers, students will learn to utilize these cloud-based, digital tools to enhance editing and revising, collaborate with peers and teachers, and leverage built in research tools. By the time students move unto LMS, students will learn to customize both their Google accounts and Chrome browser with extensions and add-ons that help them accomplish their academic goals.
Fast forward ahead to the Montgomery High School, this fall initiated our Bring Your Own Device initiative. The Google Apps for Education platform allows students to utilize devices of their own choosing to be academically successful. Working “in the cloud” allows students to be device independent, accessing resources and completing assignments on school computers, smart phones, shared family devices, and personal computers.
As your students utilize the Google Apps platform, please feel free to access many support links and tools from the Instructional Technology district page.
MHS Mathematics
The MHS Math Department had an excellent start to the new school year. Students were immediately involved in diverse learning activities around Pairwise and Approval Voting, graphing calculators discovering continuity and function behavior, on-line formative assessments through Edulastic, videos of stacking cups parallel to their teachers’ height (linear functions) and with their own devices making great use of Google Classroom and other Google Apps. Big questions are being posed like “For any positive epsilon, no matter how small, there exists some number for which the reciprocal of any larger number is less than epsilon – what does that mean?” and “What dimensions would maximize the packages’ volume yet stay within the US Postal Services’ guidelines on girth?” Great dinner conversation starters!
The Math department has started its SAT after school prep sessions in room B2234 on Tuesdays and Thursdays with Ms. Almonte and Mrs. Sinha. Additionally, extra curricularly, the math league is well on their way with having had their first meeting and first competition where they took first place. All are welcome.
The district has invested in on-line tutorial videos through Brightstorm.com for all math students. All students should know how to access but if assistance is needed, teachers can assist. Lastly, as always, parent resources is used to post all assignments and assessments.
Go Math!!
OHES/VES Mathematics & Science
And we’re off! The Next Generation Science Standards have found their way into our K-4 Curriculum. This year, selected teachers in each grade level are piloting the NGSS, with full implementation occurring in September 2017. We have already begun planning, developing, and refining these pilot units with input from the students. In class, students will be Scientists and Engineers in-training - observing, predicting, testing and collecting data, refining designs, and conducting researching. Our goals here are to teach more than just the content. Rather, our teachers are working to channel each child's natural curiosity, develop scientific and engineering skills, and to nurture a true love of science. We look forward to sharing our investigations and discoveries with you throughout the year!
LMS/UMS Language Arts
September means back to the books and Fifth Grade has returned to their literature studies with a true passion with the launching of their Interpretation Book Clubs. Students are working hard to see life through the eyes of the characters in their books. Our students are journaling about their reading in their Reader’s Notebooks. In addition to jotting their thinking about reading in their notebooks, they are creating their own reading plans to foster independence during reading. Before setting to the task of reading, students are identifying how they plan on reading the book. On their own, students are choosing a focus for their reading, articulating a strategy to support their plan and explaining how the strategy chosen will enhance their understanding of their reading. These fifth graders aren’t just reading - they are reading for purpose!
As reading excitement grows here at LMS, so does student choice of what to read. Thanks to our fabulous PTO, all fifth and sixth grade students visited an extraordinary Book Fair at which they selected books of their choice. Compelling and current title after title was available for their choosing. Throughout the week of the Fair, excitement for reading permeated our classrooms and hallways as students enthusiastically threw themselves into their new stories. We thank our PTO for fueling our students’ desire to read. We are truly grateful for all of the hard work and planning that goes into the presentation of such a wonderful Book Fair.
MHS Science
The summer seemed to rush by given the constant activity of the MHS Science Faculty on matters of curriculum and professional development. Key curriculum writers spent several weeks at STEMTeachersNYC leading workshops and attending a two-week advanced chemistry workshop. A team of four teachers added another two weeks at Rutgers University as part of a National Science Foundation Math/Science Partnership Grant. The teachers distinguished themselves with expertise in NGSS (Next Generation Science Standards) and the advanced level of instructional practices that align to research-based best practices and the new science standards.
The work of the staff was matched by the productivity of many MHS Students who participated in fabulous research and STEM related activities. Take some time to visit the MHS Student STEM Board website to read the Summer Blogs of several MHS Student Scientists. Our students are amazing and continue to distinguish themselves in STEM fields.
Look for changes this year in the science units, reflecting the implementation of NGSS. Staff will be including several new performance assessments and have realigned course curricula to address the Disciplinary Core Ideas, Cross-Cutting Concepts, and the Science and Engineering Practices that comprise the 3D Learning Model for NGSS.
Opportunities to be involved:
- The MHS Student STEM Board is accepting recommendations for guest speakers to participate in the MHS Science Lecture Series. The students solicit individuals to share their experiences in education, research, and industry.
- Please contact Contact Jason Sullivan for more information (jsullivan@mtsd.us) regarding opportunities to get involved.
MTSD Visual & Performing Arts
The Visual and Performing Arts Department has had a very exciting to the school year. The visual arts program at MHS has a couple new additions to our curricular offerings that are benefiting our students immensely. Our very popular ceramics program continues to expand. This year, we are happy to offer students a 3rd level of ceramics called “Advanced Ceramics.” This course completes a sequence of ceramics classes in our district that we have been developing over the past 5 years. Students now have the option to take ceramics at UMS and at MHS, ceramics I, ceramics II, and new this year, Advanced Ceramics. The classes focus on both hand building 3-dimensional sculpture as well as creating works on the pottery wheel.
Additionally, our digital based art classes received a major upgrade this year with the addition of new Macintosh computing technology. Our digital photography and digital design classes are now taught using IMacs and MacBook Pros. This very important addition to our technology resources now ensures that our visual arts students are receiving an authentic experience that prepares them for the industry standard in the visual arts.
The music program in Montgomery is off to a wonderful start as well and concert season will be upon us before we know it! The first concert of the year is on November 17th and will feature the high school chamber choir, chamber orchestra, wind ensemble, and marching band. All of the buildings will be having their concerts in the next few months. We encourage you all to come and experience these wonderful performances where our students and teachers will get to share their learning with you and bring our curricula to life. Please visit the MTSD webpage and click on the “2016-2017 Visual and Performing Arts Events” headline to see a list of all concert dates.
MTSD World Language & ESL
The MHS World Languages Department conducted STAMP assessment in its living language courses levels 2, 3, and 4 from Sept 15 - 18. Students were successfully assessed in the domains of reading, writing, speaking and listening in Spanish, French and German languages.
Standards-based Measurement of Proficiency (STAMP) is an objective, real-world, web-based and computer adaptive assessment used to determine student proficiency in multiple domains and languages at any point along the learning path. Scores correlate with the American Council of Teachers of Foreign Language (ACTFL) standards, state standards and established proficiency benchmarks. The assessment is valid and reliable based on field testing and expert panels and is widely used in the state of New Jersey and throughout the U.S.
The department is currently using STAMP as a pre-course proficiency assessment which requires no student preparation, but rather, engages them with computer-adaptive technology that helps them to understand their own proficiency levels. The results offer teachers data about individual student language skills- weaknesses and strengths--to help teachers better tailor differentiated instruction.
MHS Social Studies
This year marks the 15th Anniversary of the September 11th attacks. It also marks the first year that the high school welcomed an entire class of students who were not yet born when the attacks occurred. The teachers of the MHS Social Studies Department are committed to keeping the memory of that day alive, particularly for their students who were too young to remember the tragedy of that day.
All MHS students in Social Studies courses learned about September 11th during the opening weeks of school. It was left entirely up to their teachers how they chose to address the day in their classrooms. Some teachers created formal lessons about the attacks and the aftermath, while some chose to share their personal experiences from that day. The common goal was to make the students understand how one event in a short span of time can have lasting and varied effects on each individual in a nation. The 9/11 attacks and aftermath, including the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, are a part of the US History II and US in a Modern World curricula.
We are proud and thankful to have Mr. Gene Porcelli as a member of the MHS Social Studies Department. Mr. Porcelli was a high school student on September 11, 2001, who decided that day to enlist in the US Marine Corps. He served two tours in Iraq.
MTSD Mission and Vision Statements
Our mission as a forward-thinking community is to ensure that all students grow into confident, compassionate, successful, and self-directed learners a multi-cultural and socio-economically diverse society by providing engaging and challenging real world educational experiences in a student-centered environment.
Vision Statement
We envision a district on the forefront of public education. We focus on the needs of every child, dedicating ourselves to their present and future success. Success means that all students possess a passion for learning, develop a deep understanding of rigorous content, demonstrate cultural competence, and exhibit ethical conduct, while cultivating social skills and healthy habits that will empower them to achieve their goals and aspirations. Achieving this vision requires that the district become a learning community that continually reflects and challenges itself to effect transformational teaching and learning. We prepare our students to take responsibility for their own educational accomplishments in our global society while nurturing them in a community where each student is known and valued. We believe by embracing frontier spirit, we can create a unique organization that is recognized as a forerunner in public education.