Curriculum Times
September 2015: Volume 2, Issue 1
The Curriculum Department will host monthly “Just in Time” sessions for teachers of all grade levels. These professional learning sessions are opportunities for teachers to collaborate on unit and lesson plans, share strategies, and gather additional resources for their upcoming units of instructions. During each session, Academic Coordinators will share specific strategies and resources to engage students and promote mastery of standards. Teachers from various grade levels will be invited to share their effective lessons and tools. Each participating teacher will leave the session with new ideas for lesson plans. Teachers can sign up using My Learning Plan.
- Fine Arts Teachers will meet on September 15, 2015 at Wilson Teaching and Learning for the annual after school Fine Arts Convocation. All fine arts teachers are expected to attend (Elementary 3:30-4:30; Secondary 4:30-5:30). Important information about Bond Funding, Grants and Events will be discussed.
- National Portrait Gallery Project-“Eye Pop: The Celebrity Gaze”. Participating art teachers will receive packets of supplies to explore the contemporary notion of celebrity and how our current icons are no longer limited to Hollywood. Today, students may find exemplary role models in all fields. Oklahoma Icons will be the focus of this project that will culminate in a showing of student work. Information will be provided at the Fine Arts Convocation and via email.
- Secondary Fine Arts Teachers will receive Bond Funding this Fall. Information will be provided at the Fine Arts Convocation and via email.
- Upcoming Grants available to Tulsa Public Schools Fine Arts Teachers this Fall: Assistance League of Tulsa Classroom Grants for all Fine Arts Teachers, Cookie Kaiser Classroom Grants for Art Teachers, Center of the Universe Grant for Music Teachers. Information will be provided at the Fine Arts Convocation and via email
- Tulsa Public Schools Mariachi Program kicks off with the District Mariachi Instrument Showcase and rental meeting at Wilson on September 22 from 4:00-7:00
Course of Study
New course proposals for the 2016-17 High School Course of Study and Junior High/Middle School Course of Study will be due November 19. The course proposal form can be accessed here.
STEM
The STEM Exploratorium, a free science fair, career fair, and engineering fair all rolled into one, will be held on Thursday, September 24, from 10 to 1 at the Exchange Center on the Tulsa Fairgrounds. This event is for 6th to 8th grade students. There will be hands-on, curiosity-driven activities for students to be exposed to STEM fields.
The event is free, and lunch is provided. A teacher may bring up to 40 students. To be eligible, the class must create a roller coaster for a marble, which they will bring to the Exploratorium. The winning roller coaster will win a $300 prize for the classroom.
This event is sponsored by the Tulsa Regional STEM Alliance, the Tulsa State Fair, and FlightNight. For more information, contact Michelle Moore, michelle@tulsastem.org or 918-863-8707.
I hope your first few days have gone well. I know we still have some issues with codes for teacher and student access. We are working on those from this end. Hopefully all will be resolved next week.
The Department Chair Meeting schedule has been set for the 2nd Tuesday of every month. This year I would like for us to get out and visit the various sites and maybe let each site show off something wonderful they have going at their sites. Pam Diaz from BTW has volunteered to host the first meeting at Booker T. on Tuesday, September 8. Darla Coghill from Rogers has volunteered for the October meeting to be held at Rogers on the 13th. Look at your calendars and decide when and if you would like to host a DC meeting at your site. The remaining dates should be 11/10, 12/8, 1/12, 2/9, 3/8, 4/12, and 5/10. Meetings will be from 4:30-5:30. Be sure to sign up on My Learning Plan for the meetings, search for Science Department Chair. Currently only the September one is there for you to register. The rest are in the approval process.
We will also be having monthly meetings to allow science teachers from across the district to collaborate on either the current or upcoming units of instruction. We will unpack the standards and share strategies, resources and ideas about the best ways to teach those standards. Collaboration among participants can/will drive the sessions. These meetings for SECONDARY teachers will generally be the 4th Tuesday of every month from 4:30-5:30 or later if needed. The next one of these meetings is Tuesday, September 22nd. The K-2 meetings will be the third Tuesday of the month. Our first meeting will be September 15th from 3:30-5. The meetings from grades 3-5 will be held the third THURSDAY of each month. The first meeting for these grades will be September 17th from 3:30-5:00. All meetings will be held at Wilson. Please encourage your fellow science teachers to sign up on My Learning Plan, and attend so that we can work together to make this the best year for our students. Bring your laptops and let’s get planning!
If you are not a member of the Oklahoma Science Teachers Association (OSTA) or the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA), I encourage you to join either or both. These organizations have many great resources to help further develop your science knowledge and keep you clued in to the happenings in the state and nation on the science front. Also, visit and bookmark the OSDE Science webpage at http://ok.gov/sde/science. Further, if you are on Facebook, sign up for the #OKSci page where you can connect with over one thousand science educators across the state.
To help engage and create our next generation of park visitors, supporters and advocates, we are kicking off the Every Kid in a Park initiative. The immediate goal is to provide an opportunity for each and every 4th grade student across the country to experience their public lands and waters in person throughout the 2015-2016 school year. Beginning September 1st you will have access to your own Every Kid in a Park pass. This pass will give you free access to national parks, national forests, national wildlife refuges, and more! The Every Kid in a Park pass will be available starting September 1st, 2015 and will be good for the 2015-2016 school year until August 31, 2016. More information will be available beginning in September.
New Info about the 5th and 8th Grade Writing Test
- The fifth and eighth grade writing prompts for the 15-16 school year will be field tests.
- There will be no operational writing tests for this school year.
- Students will read two passages—which might be fiction or informational text—and respond to a single writing prompt.
- All three writing modes will be field tested.
- Each student will complete only one field test, so the test could be any of the three modes.
- Schools will receive summary reports of the results to be used to inform instruction.
- link to the rubric for the 15-16 Writing Field Test
6 Traits Writing Tip: Ideas Trait
Write a lot about a little.
- Read “The Important Book” by Margaret Wise Brown or read one or all of the sample pages below.
- After each page, ask “What else about _____?” Have students record more details for each object.
- Use the list of extra details to write a paragraph.
- Write a paragraph together on one day. Focus on including many details.
- Have students write a new paragraph of their own on the next day.
"The Important Book" is available at many district elementary schools. Have your librarian help you request a copy to use in your class.
Remember to attend Get to Know the Units training!
We will learn how to approach the standards listed in each unit plan.
A new one is available nearly every month. Dates are listed below.
Sign up in My Learning Plan.
Welcome back to everyone and we hope that the beginning of this school year has been your best yet. It was an eventful summer in the office of Curriculum & Instruction and we would like to thank all of you for making it a success.
In May, we posted additional curriculum documents on a google site. The site contains only the Curriculum Map, Pacing Calendar, a “model” unit plan for each unit, and a “model” lesson plan for each unit for each grade level or course. The address for the site is bit.ly/TPS1516Curriculum. We are also maintaining our other resource site that contains additional instructional resources such as lessons, instructional units, the unit check-ins, and links to helpful resource sites. That can be found at http://academics.tulsaschools.org. If you have sites or resources that you find helpful and would like to share them, send the information to hornega@tulsaschools.org.
In an ongoing support effort we will be offering unit planning time with an academic coordinator. To check for these dates go to My Learning Plan. Separate dates are scheduled for each grade level and course so that we can focus on each individual grade level and unit. Our focus this year will be on developing the concept throughout the unit. Sessions will begin at 4:30 at Wilson Teaching and Learning Academy.
Please remember that you may contact me any time that you assistance at 918-925-1129 or hornega@tulsaschools.org.
Greetings elementary math teachers! I hope that the kickoff to the '15-'16 school year has been the best one yet for you and your students!
Many TPS sites this year opted to take advantage of the Oklahoma State Department's offering of free licenses for Think Through Math. There is a professional development opportunity for teachers unfamiliar with the program at Wilson TLA on September 4 from 1:45 - 3:30. Jessica Austin-Rowland is our district's contact from TTM. If you have any questions regarding TTM, feel free to contact her or me and we'll answer any questions you may have. If your site was not able to apply for TTM license and are interested in getting in on the opportunity, please contact Jessica as they may have some more licenses come available in the near future!
You may or may not have been aware of the Tulsa area math contests that Sumdog offered last year. If you haven't heard of them, fear not! They are offering three more this academic year. The contests last 6 days (beginning at 8am on a Friday and end at 8pm the following Thursday) which includes a weekend as students can log in from home and play to earn points. This is a free opportunity and sumdog adapts its questions to each student's ability within the PASS Forward standards. The first contest runs from October 2 through October 8. If you're interested in having your students compete, the entry process can be found here.
I've had the pleasure of speaking to many of you and your sites about the benefits of using the EUREKA MATH curriculum resources in your classrooms. As you may or may not know, the writers treat these resources as "living documents" so they update and enhance each summer to make it better and better based on feedback from teachers. One of the most recent additions they have added is the Pacing and Preparation Guides for every grade level which help teachers feel comfortable during implementation and beyond. One of the best pieces of this resource falls at the end of the document titled "Suggestions for Consolidation or Omissions". This segment lets teachers know which lessons could be merged with another lesson or omitted altogether if you're needing to fit more content in over a shorter amount of time. These documents have been added to the resources in the elementary math section of the TPS Curriculum & Instruction Website.
As always, please contact me at any time with questions, comments, or concerns you have at:
Twitter: TPSElemMath
Phone: 918-925-1109
Email: peppele@tulsaschools.org
Drop In: Wilson TLA Room 305
Reading Strategy: Running Records
A running record is a tool that helps teachers to identify patterns in student reading behaviors. These patterns allow a teacher to see the strategies a student uses to make meaning of individual words and texts as a whole. Running records, when paired with comprehension inquiry, can be used to identify an instructional reading level for individual students. While running records are a diagnostic tool, they can and should be used to inform instruction and to help extend a reader’s use of strategies for working on text. There are many brands of running records in schools, Fountas and Pinnell and Reading A-Z both offer running record assessments that teachers may be familiar with, but each school that received a Scholastic Guided Reading Book Room received a fantastic running record tool titled, Next Step in Guided Reading Assessment. Check out My Learning Plan for upcoming training on utilizing these running records or reach out to an Instructional Coach for more information.
Literacy Station Tip: Classroom Library
The classroom library is a place where students are expected to browse books and read or “pretend read.” This station should be a place where students read and talk about books with classmates. Some examples of activities at the classroom library include, reading familiar books, sharing favorite parts of books with a partner, reading independent-level books. Emergent readers may be looking at pictures in a book and telling the story. Teachers should model with students how to choose a book, how to read or “pretend read” a book, how to talk about a book, how to put a book away, how to write in a reading log, and how to write a book response or book review. The classroom library should be well organized and be a welcoming space for students. Ask yourself if your classroom library is inviting to readers? What could you do to make your library more appealing? Ask students for suggestions.
Scholastic Book Room Check Out Method Suggestions
FAST FACTS About the Constitution
- The U.S. Constitution is the oldest and shortest written constitution of any national government in the world.
- More than 11,000 amendments have been introduced in Congress, but only 33 have gone to the states to be ratified, and 27 have actually become amendments to the Constitution.
- The Constitutional Convention began on May 25, 1787, and lasted until the day the finished document was signed on September 17, 1787.
U.S. Constitution Day Poster Contest
Encourage your students to take part in the Ninth Annual U.S. Constitution Day Poster Contest To compete, the contest invites K-12 entrants to celebrate Constitution Day (Sept. 17) by designing a poster showing how they benefited from the freedoms embodied in the U.S. Constitution.
Entries must be postmarked by October 1, 2015. The first 100 entrants receive a free pocket constitution book from constitutionfacts.com, with the contest winners receiving additional prizes! To learn more, download the Poster Design Contest entry form.5th Grade Bill of Rights Rap Challenge
We are asking 5th Grade classrooms to participate in our challenge to recite the Bill of Rights Rap at 10:00am on Constitution Day. www.okbar.org/public/LRE/LREConstitutionDay.aspx
Register your school at www.BillofRightsRap.org
Are you feeling a little lost in the new move to use Twitter as a communication tool in the district? Here’s a great guide to Getting Started with Twitter that will help you feel like a pro. Here is a list of people/places that you may want to connect with on many social media platforms.
Embedding literacy across the curriculum is simple with Cirruclet, a free site that allows teachers to upload a nonfiction text, then embed questions, quizzes, or notes for students.
PearDeck allows teachers to create a PowerPoint-like presentation and share with students who can respond to questions by drawing or typing. Students using tablets, PCs, or Chromebooks can interact directly with the presentation, increasing engagement.
Are you feeling a little lost in the new move to use Twitter as a communication tool in the district? Here’s a great guide to Twitter for Beginners that will help you feel like a pro.
Newsela is an innovative way to build reading comprehension with nonfiction text that’s relevant. Articles are updated daily with real-world news from major publications. Newsela makes it easy for an entire class to read the same content, but at a level that’s just right for each student. It also gives teachers access to articles at varying Lexile levels. So hypothetically, teachers can take the same piece and present it to students at a 620 Lexile as well as an 1170. They’ve recently launched an extension of their site that is explicitly designed for elementary students. Text sets are another way to utilize Newsela. The Common Core calls for students to analyze multiple texts on the same topic and/or theme. You can create your own sets by searching the articles. Newsela has even started to create their own text sets that accompany specific novels.
TweenTribune is a news site brought to you by the Smithsonian that provides daily news articles for students. Articles are selected by professional journalists working in collaboration with teachers and students. As a Smithsonian resource, it has a plethora of science and history focused articles. This is a perfect website to find content-specific resources for our history and science teachers. Like Newsela, TweenTribune offers the same article at different lexile levels, which gives teachers the ability to differentiate with the click of a mouse. It provides resources in Spanish, too. This is a great resource for ESL/ELL teachers.
Google has created a news repository called Google News Archive. It’s a searchable archive of newspapers from around the world, dating all the way back to the 1700s. You can easily search topics or specific time periods to provide students primary sources. Think about the power of this. Students can search a paper from the North about the Civil Rights Movement, and then students can read the Southern perspective by the contemporary news reporters. Students have access to first-hand accounts to analyze and create their own perceptions of events during a particular time. Take it a step farther by examining two different countries during one of the World Wars, or the English perspective on America’s Revolutionary War.
DOGOnews is a leading source for current events, news, and non-fiction texts across a variety of categories and grade levels. Students can discover articles of interest and post comments based on their reactions to the content, all within the confines of a kid-friendly ecosystem. Teachers can even create lesson plans and send assignments to students electronically.
STARTING THE YEAR OFF RIGHT: PROMOTING A GROWTH MINDSET POSITIVE WAYS WE CAN COMMUNICATE EXPECTATIONS
“In order to create a “risk-free” classroom environment where all students are willing to take on challenges and push themselves, it is important to make the focus on learning clear, make it safe to risk mistakes, and communicate a high confidence in all students’ ability to rise to the learning challenges. Use the following statements when introducing a new topic, concept, skill, or assignment in class to promote intellectual risk-taking”. Take the pressure off performance and make it more about the process of learning:
For Communicating a Learning Goal
- New material is an opportunity to stretch!
- Today’s learning objective will give everyone an opportunity to stretch.
- Today, your brain will get stronger.
- I am hoping that you all do not know this already; I wouldn’t want to waste your time!
- I really want us to stretch beyond our comfort zone on this!
- After you do this, I’m going to ask everyone to share one mistake so we can learn from it.
- I’d like everyone to share one thing that is really confusing with their partner.
- The point of the lesson is learning; I want to know what parts are unclear so we can all meet our learning target.
- Today’s target for learning is ___. By tomorrow our goal is ___.
- I do not expect you to know this already. I am here to help you learn challenging material.
- Today, I want you to challenge yourself. Stretch to learn this challenging material.
- This is very dense reading/challenging material. I am not going to hold you accountable for understanding all of it right away, but I want you to give it a first try.
- This is just the first draft—you’ll have lots of chance to improve it.
- I want you to push yourselves to tackle this concept.
- You won’t be graded on this—it’s a risk-free zone!
- We’re in the learning zone today. Mistakes are our friends!
For Communicating High Expectations
- I know that you (all) have the ability to do this, so I have set the bar high.
- This will be a challenging concept to learn, but all of us can reach the goal.
- Be sure to communicate with me about your progress so I can provide support to you.
- I am going to push you all because I know if I do you will all do amazing work!
- Our classroom is a place for everyone to learn challenging material. I am here to help you meet that goal.
- This is challenging, but rewarding!
- This may be difficult right now, but you will remember it for the rest of your life.
- When you master this learning, you can be proud because this isn’t easy.
- Here is my challenge for you. I know you can meet it. I want you to challenge yourself.
- As you learn this, mistakes are expected. Your mistakes help me support you.
- Let’s make mistakes together!
- I have seen you stretch and succeed in the past. Let’s do it again.
Taken from Mindset Works® Educator Kit - Tools for Teachers with permission from Carol Dweck.
GT Due Dates for ALL Sites
Sept 25th: State Gifted Child Count
ELEMENTARY ONLY
Sept 8th: Begin seeing student caseloads
Sept 15: Elementary teaching schedule
Field Study/Trips scheduled in September include 1st Grade Pre-Visit at your school and visits to Gilcrease, 4th grade visits to Choregus Productions at the Tulsa PAC, and the 5th grade to Tulsa Ballet at Studio K. For more information and specific dates for your school site go to bit.ly/TPSAnyGivenChild.
You asked for more feasible Creation Station hours as you are opening your classrooms.
- Creation Station is open until 6:00 during the first two weeks of school and staffed by members of the Curriculum and Professional Development departments.
- We're offering collaborative planning opportunities for every content area and focused grade level bands so that Academic Coordinators and teachers across the district can take a deep look at the standards and strategies for teaching them.
Academic Coordinator of the Month
Email: jimenma2@tulsaschools.org
Website: bit.ly/TPSScienceCurriculum
Location: Wilson, Room 305
Phone: (918) 925-1134
Twitter: @LeeAnnePower
About Us
Cindy Barber, Academic Coordinator for Instructional Materials
Ayn Grubb, Academic Coordinator for Secondary ELA
Gary Horner, Academic Coordinator for Secondary Math
Natalie Hutto, Academic Coordinator for Elementary ELA
LeeAnne Jimenez, Academic Coordinator for Science
Lea Ann Macomber, Music Coordinator
Andy McKenzie, Director of Early Childhood Services
LeeAnne Pepper, Academic Coordinator for Elementary Math
Mary Jane Snedeker, Academic Coordinator for Social Studies
Dr. Ann Tomlins, Director of Fine Arts
Dr. Linnea Van Eman, Coordinator of Gifted & Talented
Cathy Walton, Administrative Secretary
Danielle Neves, Executive Director of Curriculum & Instruction
Email: curriculum@tulsaschools.org
Website: academics.tulsaschools.org
Location: 2710 East 11th Street, Tulsa, OK 74104, United States
Phone: (918) 925-1130
Twitter: @TPSCurriculum