Clif Notes 11/12/19
Preparing Students To Be Career & Post Secondary Ready
DATES TO REMEMBER
This Week - National Apprenticeship Week
Monday - Veteran's Day/CLOSED
Tuesday - CTE PLCs; ALICE Training Part 2
Wednesday - Academic PLCs; Extra Help; Fall Blood Drive
Thursday - Academic PLCs; ASVAB Testing
Friday - 8am Start for Extra Help (Due to being closed on Monday);
School Spirit & ROAR Committee Meetings; Fall Sports Banquet
Upcoming:
11/18 - Mandatory Senior Class Meeting, 8:15am, Auditorium
11/27 - No School/Offices Open
11/28-29 Thanksgiving Holiday/CLOSED
Jeans for Troops
National Apprenticeship Week 2019 begins Monday, November 11-17. Apprenticeship Week is designed to celebrate apprenticeships and the positive impact they have on individuals, businesses and the wider economy.
Universal Design For Learning
According to the CAST Organization:
Information that is not attended to, that does not engage learners’ cognition, is in fact inaccessible. It is inaccessible both in the moment and in the future, because relevant information goes unnoticed and unprocessed. As a result, teachers devote considerable effort to recruiting learner attention and engagement. But learners differ significantly in what attracts their attention and engages their interest. Even the same learner will differ over time and circumstance; their “interests” change as they develop and gain new knowledge and skills, as their biological environments change, and as they develop into self-determined adolescents and adults. It is, therefore, important to have alternative ways to recruit learner interest, ways that reflect the important inter- and intra-individual differences amongst learners.
The following are examples shared in response to our survey question on strategies that core-academics instructors have found effective at recruiting and sustaining interest. In anticipation of our deeper dive into the components of the UDL framework and associated guidelines, I have categorized the shared strategies within the first three checkpoints of Multiple Means of Engagement. These responses are great evidence of our commitment to inclusivity and dedication to engaging each learner. Way to go Castle!
Checkpoint 7.1 - Optimize individual choice and autonomy
· Giving students multiple ways to "show what they know."
· Provide various ways to demonstrate subject knowledge. Use Bloom's to give students various ways to show higher ordered thinking.
· Develop self-assessment techniques by monitoring their progress through learning goals, fostering collaboration and community by class discussion and exploration in labs and wrap-ups, and helping with language and symbols with explicit reading strategies
· A bit of song and dance and humor to get students interested in the topic. Not always effective, but worth the effort
· choice, think pair share, alternate assessments (verbal vs written)
· Assignment options, grouping, scaffolding, explaining all strategies, relatable problems, sharing out, promoting confidence
Checkpoint 7.2 - Optimize relevance, value, and authenticity
· It is useful to align student interest to the lesson or find a meaningful way for the student to connect the learning to their own lives. For example, because many of my students came from immigrant families, they selected a country's immigrants to research and write a paper on. The challenge is being able to give meaningful feedback when there is so much variety--it was a challenge to be well-read on so many countries and required a ton of prep time. I think that with any kind of differentiation, there is a time cost to the educator because each differentiation requires additional prep and assessment time.
· Conferencing with students. Showing students, the same info in a variety of ways. Pre-teaching and re-teaching (even if this breaks the NGSS vibe). Using an anchoring phenomenon.
· Connecting to shops and using stations
· Review games for mastery (counting the highest scores).
· I try to base problems in real-world context so that students can see the value in the information they are learning.
· Giving students choice with "representation", such as solving by table, graph, or algebra.
· Making visual connections in quadratics -- tying in the graphs to discriminant to the components of the quadratic formula
· A strategy that was successful overcoming the engagement barrier would be the relevancy and relatability I try to incorporate in my classroom to spark interest/keep the interest of my students.
Checkpoint 7.3 - Minimize threats and distractions
· Direct Instruction (only when critical), positive reinforcement, communication with home
· Frequent check-ins and convos to build a rapport.
· Have students share frequently with easier problems to learn to communicate more frequently. Early in the year, students can be reluctant to share for different reasons.
Survey response to perceived barriers in designing lessons
Survey results to perceived challenges affecting student learning
Survey results on barriers most important to overcome in designing UDL lessons
Bistro Cafe'
$1.00 Tuesday
Soups
Chicken Tortellini
Creamy Vegetable Soup
$2
Entrée
Creamy Chicken Piccata with Homemade Pasta
$6.25
Grill
Grilled Teriyaki Chicken Sandwich
with field Greens Salad & Grilled Pineapple
Chicken Stir-Fry
with Steamed Rice
$5.50
Deli
Croque Monsieur
Virginia Ham with Gruyere and fresh Parmesan cheese and Dijon
*** Also, featuring Turkey, Ham, Chicken & Tuna Salad sandwiches made to order***
$5
Salad
Lime Grilled Chicken Salad Caesar Salad
With homemade Caesar Dressing & Parmesan Crisp
$5.25
Desserts
Warm Baked Apples Dumplings Ala Mode with Caramel Drizzle
$2
Chocolate Chip & Oatmeal Cookies
$1
Homemade Dinner Rolls & Cinnamon Sugar BreadNational Association of School Psychologists
The National Association of School Psychologists identifies week as National School Psychologists Week. Ellen Flanagan and Kenneth Solem do an outstanding job of meeting the needs of our students who face many social and emotional obstacles. In addition, they help our staff navigate the identification process for special education under IDEA. Thanks for all that you do.
ALICE Training Part 2 ~ Thomas
On Tuesday, November 12th we will have Part 2 of our ALICE Drill for this school year. The drill will start at the beginning of third period. Concerning crisis preparedness frequent and varied practice, training, and discussion activities increase staff and student readiness by providing them the means to quickly access and apply their knowledge. It is important to remember that the behavior of an adult in an emergency directly affects the physical and psychological safety of students in crisis. When adults are well-trained and stay calm, the students will follow and gain confidence and ability.
Members from the Student Services Department will be available, in the Guidance Office, for support during and after the ALICE/Lockdown training exercise should students or faculty members exhibit any adverse social-emotional reactions to the training and need assistance.
Locked Doors Save Lives.
Gimkit PREMIUM, NOW Available!!!
Instructional Services has purchased Gimkit Premium!!!
Based on the district-wide usage for the remainder of this school year, they will make a decision to continue or drop the premium license for next year. Please take advantage of using Gimkit so we can keep the following premium options:
Unlimited Kits
Unlimited Edits
Audio questions
Image uploads
In order to gain access, please follow the directions attached below…
As always, if you need more assistance or have questions please contact me.
~Tara
Delcastle Instructional Focus
Interesting Read - Taking Action on Adolescent Literacy by Judith L. Irvin, Julie Meltzer and Melinda S. Dukes
Having Students Interact with Text and with Each Other About Text
In classrooms that support motivation, students frequently work in small groups and pairs to analyze texts and to edit one another's writing assignments. Teachers structure learning experiences to help students develop deeper comprehension through discussion, to debate using text-based reasoning, and to understand various points of view. A collaborative learning experience within the context of a classroom environment that welcomes and supports diverse perspectives is the norm across the content areas. The multiple literacies that students bring to the classroom are viewed as a capacity and a resource. Teachers might encourage students to compare and contrast how a scene could be described using first language, home dialects or vernacular English, or IM script. Different ways of approaching and solving problems in math and science and writing are discussed and appreciated. When students share how situations similar to those being studied in social studies or read about in English would play out within their own cultural contexts, teachers value their contributions as additional insight into the topic at hand, not a distraction.
Kamal and his team members were able to discuss their project with one another from its inception through its presentation. They were able to discuss texts and to use their native languages when necessary to understand or explain to one another or to find out how to express something in English. Class activities encouraged discussion and debate and exploration of multiple, often conflicting, texts and points of view.
Focusing on Authentic Literacy Tasks
Authenticity is often the hidden key to motivating reluctant readers and writers to engage in academic literacy tasks. Yet in many middle and high school classrooms, authentic literacy tasks, if they occur at all, tend to be infrequent events. Moreover, many teachers consider simulated performance tasks to be authentic—a perspective students often do not share. Adolescents want their work to matter, and they want to conduct inquiry for reasons other than it being an assignment or an exercise. Authentic literacy tasks play into adolescents' needs to do things that are real and often prompt new effort for rehearsal, comprehension, discussion of content, planning, revision and editing tasks, summarizing, and other literacy skills because these activities are being carried out for purposes other than “just passing it in to the teacher.” This phenomenon was evident in the vignette; the fact that water quality was a real issue that mattered to Kamal and his teammates led to much more rigorous effort than standard textbook reading assignments had elicited.
Other authentic literacy tasks include adolescents reading with younger students or creating books on tape or authoring books for them, designing Web sites, writing newspaper articles, and conducting and reporting upon inquiries that reflect real societal concerns (such as neighborhood crime, pollution, teen issues, or school or city policies that affect them or their families). These strategies often motivate and engage students to persist with challenging or extended reading or writing tasks (Alvermann, 2001).
Encouraging Critical Literacy
Helping students to analyze bias, perspective, audience, and the underlying assumptions and purpose of a piece of writing is an authentic approach for studying texts because it empowers students to understand that texts are not infallible. As vehicles for communicating the point of view of the author, texts are infused with subjectivity and based on assumptions. Understanding the larger political, historical, and economic contexts within which texts are produced allows students to comprehend why certain perspectives are valued above others, what assumptions underlie the author's words, whose ideas gain currency, and why this might be the case. Students can apply these understandings to their reading of an article about a scientific discovery, primary sources, history textbooks, novels, newspaper stories, and many other types of text. For many students, this approach to studying text is motivating and meaningful and leads to greater engagement with text. For Kamal and his teammates, understanding the texts so they knew if the water system was at risk was an important reason to persevere through challenging material.
***More to read next week***