Life's a Birch on Connect Island
Birch HR Newsletter 7th Edition
Cognitive Skills and Project Time
"A Connect classroom has 3 major elements—PLT (personalized learning time), projects time and mentor time.
In a traditional classroom, grades are primarily focused on foundation skills. In a Connect classroom, Project time counts for 70% of the student’s grade. The projects are scored using a rubric which is based on 36 cognitive skills. Every Connect student/teacher uses the same rubric. The Math teacher will use the same rubric as the ELA teacher….crazy right?
What are cog (cognitive) skills?
Cognitive abilities are brain-based skills we need to carry out any task from the simplest to the most complex. They have more to do with the mechanisms of how we learn, remember, problem-solve, and pay attention, rather than with any actual knowledge. Cognitive Skills are practices necessary for college and career readiness. These are the critical thinking skills you need in order to learn and demonstrate learning effectively.
Cognitive skills are learned and evaluated through project based learning in each subject area. Students work together in groups through multi-week projects that lead them through learning and implementing those skills. During project based time students are grouped heterogeneously, and work together on projects that are designed to strengthen and assess their cognitive skills. The teacher’s role is to facilitate these projects and to also evaluate students on the growth of their cognitive skills. Projects are cross curricular in nature.
Project/Cognitive skills rubric:
The rubric was designed in collaboration with Stanford University. It addresses 36 cognitive skills. The rubric is overwhelming at first….OK…for a long time. But after more exposure to the rubric you begin to see the true value of the assessment tool."
Thank you Ms. Vickie Vallet-McWilliams for the amazing Words of the Week that I continue to reference in our newsletters!!
Students Analyzing Cognitive Skills for the Stay Gold Project
Entry Event Arguments for the Texas Revolution Project
Students are creating a business plan for the Pre-AP Math Project! This is so awesome!
Jose and Jahnai helping each other study for Spanish! Fantastic teamwork, fellas!
Students' Note Taking Skills are Improving!!!
Upcoming Reminders
7th Grade Writing MOCK STAAR
Tuesday, February 7th
- Students will be testing in the morning.
- Remember to eat a good breakfast and come well rested.
- You can study for your test by reviewing the following PFAs: Conventions, Sentence Types, Sentence Structure, and The Writing Process.
Writing Mock STAAR Incentives
If your class period has 65% of the students or higher meet the standard for satisfactory, then we will have a cookie party and a tech cafe the following week. GOOD LUCK!
7th Grade Pre-AP Math MOCK STAAR
Wednesday, February 8th
- Students will be testing in the morning
Report Cards:
Grades for report cards are due February 16th and are based on the following criteria:
- No incomplete projects
- PFA score > 70%
- Cog SKill/Concept Score >70%
You will need to have the following number of PFA's complete in each class to PASS:
ELAR-5
History-5
Math-4
Science-5
To be "on track" you must meet the following criteria:
ELAR-7
History-7
Math-5
Science-7
Report Cards will be distributed on Friday, February 24th
February 17th and 20th are staff development days and there is no school for students.
BHI Connect
Email: cbirch@pasadenaisd.org
Website: weebly.com/educatingoutsidethebox
Location: 11111 Beamer Road, Houston, TX, United States
Phone: 713-740-0420
Facebook: facebook.com/bhiconnect
Twitter: @bhiconnect