Life's a Birch on Connect Island
Birch HR Newsletter 5th Edition
BECOMING SELF-DIRECTED LEARNERS
Only 27% of PISD students graduate from college within 6 years. Our students need to “learn how to direct their own learning” if they are going to be successful in college and prepared for the world.
If we want to prepare our students for the realities of life after high school, then we must teach them to be self-directed. Students who know how to solve problems, manage their time, plan ahead, implement useful strategies, and maintain a persistent attitude are more likely to be successful after high school. Listed below are the five behaviors that we work on improving every day in the Connect classroom, so that our students are well equipped with the tools to help them achieve whatever goal they put their minds to.
5 Behaviors of Self Directed Learners
To become a self-directed learners, you as students should demonstrate these 5 elements, or behaviors:
Challenge-Seeking- Self-directed learners are always looking for challenges because they know they will grow when they push themselves to try something new.
Persistence-Self-directed learners are persistent even when a task feels difficult, boring and/or challenging.
Strategy-Shifting-Self-directed learners realize when it is time to shift strategies, even if it means starting to tackle the problem from scratch.
Appropriate Help-Seeking-Self-directed learners feel comfortable asking for help from peers and teachers, and seek to understand the reasoning behind an answer.
- Response to Set-Backs-Self-directed learners learn from failure. They may fail as often, and usually more often, than others. They don’t get discouraged by these failures, but realize that these failures are opportunities to learn, shift strategies if necessary and grow.
Students reflect on their first semester in Connect
UPCOMING REMINDERS
Up-Coming Project Due Dates
Friday, January 13th-Algebraic Reasoning (Math)
Wednesday, January 18th-Stay Gold (ELAR/Texas History)
We are half-way through the 7th grade year, and our students are making great strides in becoming self directed learners. In the next few weeks, students will be making decisions about their classes and electives for the next school year. As such, we would like to schedule our required Spring check-in meetings with parent/guardian, student, and mentor.
Please use the link below to register for your time slot:
https://calendly.com/cbirch/spring-mentor-meeting
E-mail: cbirch@pasadenaisd.org
Meetings will be held at Beverly Hills Intermediate School the week of January 30, 2017. Each meeting is limited to a 30 minute time slot in order to accommodate everyone’s availability. If you are unable to attend one of the provided time slots, please contact your student’s mentor teacher by phone or e-mail.
We appreciate the continued support that you provide the students to ensure they have a successful year. Please let us know if you have any questions.
Grades for progress reports will be due Friday, January 20th, and they will be based on the following criteria:
On track:
Mastery of 70% of power focus area that are due at the date of report
No projects are overdue
- Cog Skills/Concept Unit score 70 or higher
Following a meeting with Mrs. Schultz on Tuesday, January 10th and Wednesday, January 11th, students will have the opportunity to make their course selections for the upcoming year, and they will return these cards to their Texas History teachers. Please be sure to make these course selections a priority and to take in consideration which electives you would like to participate in next year.
What is MAP Testing?
MAP, or the Measure of Academic Progress, is a computerized adaptive test which helps teachers, parents, and administrators improve learning for all students and make informed decisions to promote a child's academic growth.
When is my student tested?
During the first weeks of school, students participated in two MAP testing sessions to assess Reading and Mathematics. When taking the MAP test, the difficulty of each question is based on how well a student answers all the previous questions. As the student answers correctly, questions become more difficult. If the student answers incorrectly, the questions become easier. Students will repeat the tests two more times during the year to continually assess student progress and adapt learning as needed.
Our second round of MAP Testing will take place Tuesday, January 10th and Wednesday, January 11th.
Students Completing the First Round of MAP Testing in August
BHI Connect
Email: cbirch@pisdmail.org
Website: http://educatingoutsidethebox.weebly.com/
Location: 11111 Beamer Road, Houston, TX, United States
Phone: 713-740-0420
Facebook: facebook.com/bhiconnect
Twitter: @bhiconnect