Curriculum and Instruction News
April 2016
The goal of the C&I department is to ensure high levels of learning for all members of the Fox C-6 community by coordinating our efforts in professional development, curriculum writing, and community engagement. We strive to ensure that all district initiatives work together so that everyone’s efforts in classrooms, in buildings, and on district committees are valued. The C&I bulletin is one way to see how our efforts connect and overlap.
Fox Focus Update
event of Fox Focus, our comprehensive school improvement planning process. Your input in this process will help create the plan that will guide and focus our work for the next five years. Please consider attending and contributing your voice to the vision for the district.
JeffCo Tech Fest
Need Gradebook Help?
Curriculum
Power-Standards, PLCs, and Curriculum
Since December teachers across the district have been collaborating to draft power-standards for each subject area. District identified power-standards are a fundamental starting point for teachers collaborating in PLCs and for curriculum writers. Included here is a link google drive folder for you to view draft power-standards for each subject area. Please view the power-standards documents that are relevant to you and use the comment feature to add your feedback.
Also included is a brief screencast and presentation slides that explain more about how power-standards connect PLC work and curriculum writing. You can choose to watch the screencast or open the presentation and read the presenter notes.
Power-Standards Drafts for all Subject Areas
Curriculum Vision Screencast (7:19)
Curriculum Advisory Committee
Before curriculum documents, the district technology plan, or the district assessment plan are submitted to the school board for approval, we need to seek input from members of our community and our staff. We are reaching out to parents, students, community, and staff to volunteer to serve on the Curriculum Advisory Committee. After each meeting the committee’s comments and feedback will be submitted to the school board.
Our first meeting will be in the Fox High School Library Media Center, on Monday April 18th from 5:30p to 7:30p. If you are interested in attending our first meeting, please fill out your contact information on this Google form:
Fox C-6 District Curriculum Advisory Committee: Interest Application
Literacy
Summer of Learning: Literacy Events
Professional Development
Registration is Open for all Summer of Learning PD Events
Registration is now open for all 2016 Summer of Learning PD events. The district has scheduled a variety of high-quality PD events for teachers to attend this summer. Some of these events include:
- Kagan Thinking Skills - In this dynamic, hands-on workshop participants will experience simple instructional strategies to engage and develop 15 most fundamental thinking skills. Prepare your students for the information explosion with simple structures for categorizing, brainstorming, deducing, inducing, summarizing, shifting perspective, calculating, symbolizing, problem solving, and more! Improve academic engagement, retention, and achievement - but most importantly, prepare every student with thinking skills they will use for a lifetime. Turn your classroom into a think tank!
- Fox PLC Institute - 2.5 days for principals, building leadership teams, and instructional leaders to learn about best practices in leading PLCs. How do we motivate and engage, structure and support to ensure that all PLC teams are high functioning and successful? What do we monitor? What do we celebrate?
- Problem-Based Learning & Critical Thinking in Mathematics (K-5 and 6-12) -
Do you wish your students were excited and motivated about math and solving problems? Do you want your students to demonstrate perseverance in problem solving? Would you like your students to grow their mathematical thinking? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you should attend this two-day workshop designed for math educators. Presenter Robert Kaplinsky will cover multiple real-world problem-based lessons including pedagogically modeling how you should implement the same lessons in your classroom. He will connect these to the MLS with emphasis on the Standards for Mathematical Practice. You will learn how to help students think more mathematically and be more motivated to persevere through difficult math problems.
Units of Study Writing Institute (K-2 and 3-5) - The Teacher’s College of Columbia will be hosting a four-day writing workshop designed to galvanize the work our district has started with Units of Study - Writing. This institute will include large group sections coupled with small, interactive sessions. Spots will be available for 25 participants at the K-2 level and 25 participants at the 3-5 level.
Fox C-6 Chrome Academy - Chrome Academy is designed to help teachers integrate best and next practices of using Google tools in their classrooms. Skills learned in Chrome Academy will be able to be immediately integrated into the classroom. Cohorts for secondary Google beginners and secondary Google intermediates are still open for registration.
Instructional Technology
Prepare students for the MAP test with Online Tools Training
We have created a website with descriptions of the question types and testing tools available to students when they take the MAP test (based on released items). I strongly recommend that teachers familiarize themselves with the testing tools and give students multiple opportunities to complete the practice tests and manipulate the testing tools prior to taking the MAP test. You can access the MAP test training site at http://bit.ly/fox-map-prac.
College and Career Readiness
College and Career eResources
All Juniors in the state of Missouri will be taking the statewide ACT on April 19th, 2016 (makeup date May 3rd, 2016). Please visit the Fox C6 College and Career Readiness Coordinators website for some helpful hints and study material http://www.fox.k12.mo.us/departments/curriculum/college_and_career_readiness/act__sat_and_ap_ and follow Miss Scopino on Twitter @FoxC6CCR for regular tweets on ACT updates, scholarships, college visits and much more!
Maria Scopino
scopino@foxc6.orgFederal Programs
There many endeavors and changes currently underway in our federal programs. Click here for updates on the Every Student Succeeds Act, Title 1 Reading and Math teacher updates, ELL ACCESS testing, and more!
Contact C&I
- Declan FitzPatrick, Executive Director of Curriculum and Instruction: fitzpatrickd@foxc6.org
- Luke Heitert, Director of Data and Information: heitertl@foxc6.org
- Amy Zielinski, Director of Professional Development: zielinskia@foxc6.org
- Angie Baker, Federal Programs Coordinator: bakera@foxc6.org
- JP Prezzavento, Coordinator of Instructional Technology: prezzavento@foxc6.org
- Tina Risse, Coordinator of Literacy: risset@foxc6.org
- Maria Scopino, Coordinator of CCR: scopino@foxc6.org