Clif Notes 2/11/19
50 Years Of Building The State & Now Global Workforce!
DATES TO REMEMBER
This Week -
Monday - 8am Start for Extra Help
Tuesday - CTE PLCs
Wednesday - Academic PLCs
Thursday - Academic PLCs; Valentine's Day
Friday - School Spirit & ROAR Committee Meetings;
Faculty Liaison Meeting; Wear your CTE shirts
Upcoming:
2/18 - Presidents' Day/CLOSED
2/22 - Interim Report Date
2/27 - Interim Grades Due by 3pm
3/5 - Faculty Meeting
3/6 - Interims to Students
3/8 - PD Day/No School for Students
As we celebrate CTE Month, we are asking staff to wear your CTE shirts on Fridays for the rest of the month. Also, we have several CTE competitions taking place all over the state this month. Below are the competitions taking place at Delcastle this week. Some of the competition products can be seen after the competition. Please stop by and see what the students are doing and wish them well. Let's Go Cougars!!!
Tuesday
Cosmetology Nail Care
Wednesday
Aviation Maintenance
Thursday
Audio/Radio Production
Television Video Production
Welding Sculpture
Cabinet Making
Screen Printing
Friday
Welding Fabrication
Screen Printing
Delcastle Wrestling Team
Math League Meet
On Monday, February 11th, Delcastle will host the final Regional Math League Meet thanks to efforts of Ms. Bigelow and Ms. Boyett! Approximately 75 students and 10 coaches from Sandford, AI, Wilmington Christian, and St. Elizabeth’s will compete against our Delcastle students! This is going to be a great event. Let's go Cougars!!!
Flower Gram
Snow Hours
Ms. McCoy will be here Tuesday the 12th at 3:30 pm to run a Smartboard training session for 1 snow hour. She will be covering how to use some of the features of Smart Notebook and how to connect to the board wirelessly. She will also try to get into how to create some of the interactive lessons if there is time. Please complete a Snow Hour request form and email Sarah if you plan to attend. ~ Dunn
School Safety
We would like to thank our school safety team and recorders for assisting with the February 4th PD. We are asking all of those who would like to register for the RAVE Panic Button click on the link here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfSxdejXdHnNS-mZg3ch7hnc0-u6eeywo71spG1jobJo2w_nw/viewform?usp=sf_link It should be completed by Friday, February 15. Thank you!
SAVE THE DATE
The Delcastle 50th Gala (Formal attire $50)
March 29th, 2019 (7 PM - 11 PM)
Tickets are on sale now. The link to purchase tickets is available on Schoology and the Delcastle website. Tickets are first come first served. Tickets are limited! Please plan accordingly. https://delcastlehighschool.ludus.com/
Ignite the Night 5K
April 5th, 2019
The 50th Celebration Car Show
May 4th, 2019
Congrats Captain "Ryk"
Fenwick Beach Patrol Captain Announced
FENWICK ISLAND – Fenwick Island has a new beach patrol captain.
In a Fenwick Island Town Council meeting late last month, John “Ryk” Rykaczewski was introduced as the new captain of the Fenwick Island Beach Patrol. “He has been awarded the new lifeguard captain position …,” Town Manager Terry Tieman said. “I’m sure we’ll be seeing a lot of him on the beach this summer.” Rykaczewski comes to the Fenwick Island Beach Patrol with 30 years of lifeguard experience. He told the town council he first started at the unincorporated beaches of Fenwick in 1989. Rykaczewski said he also served on the main beach at Fenwick Island State Park.
Rykaczewski is a graphic arts teacher at Delcastle Technical High School in New Castle County, where he has worked for 20 years. “I’m really excited and happy to be a part of Fenwick town,” he said. “We’re moving forward and looking forward to a really great, safe summer.” Rykaczewski will replace Tim Ferry, who retired in December after 13 years of service.
From Delcastle to the Baltimore Orioles
By Submitted News
Thursday
Posted Feb 7, 2019 at 7:30 PM
Goldey-Beacom’s baseball program associate head coach Matt Trate was called up as a minor league hitting coach for the Delmarva Shorebirds, an affiliate of the Baltimore Orioles.
Trate has been with the program in both of its seasons, beginning in 2017 when the program competed for the first time in the Division II era. After one season, Trate was elevated to associate head coach as well as serving as the Lightning’s recruiting coordinator. His main on-field responsibility was developing the team’s hitters and offensive philosophy.
The 2018 unit took a step forward by closing with a winning record in the Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference — 17-15 — and competing in the league tournament. The squad won five of their last eight games to make the conference tournament and saw four players named All-CACC. The Lightning also saw an increase from 50 doubles to 84, 35 stolen bases to 67 and 219 runs to 257 in 2018.
“The Goldey-Beacom Baseball program is excited about this well-deserved opportunity,” said head coach Tom Riley. “We are going to miss the daily energy and passion that Matt brought to our program. Our program is all about family and our core values centered on excellence. Matt Trate embodies those values. The Orioles are getting a great coach, leader, friend and person. We wish Matt, (wife) Mallory and (son) Braden the best; and they will always be part of the Lightning Baseball Family.” Prior to his arrival at Goldey-Beacom, Trate has had stops at Division I University of Akron, Anne Arundel Community College and Cecil College.
Trate, who has been a physical education teacher at Delcastle Technical High School since 2014, played two seasons at Cecil Community College before transferring to Wesley College.
Pre-Retirement Workshops
The Office of Pensions is hosting pre-retirement workshops to provide information regarding the Delaware State Employees’ Pension Plan benefits. There is no cost or pre-registration required to attend these workshops. Participants will learn how to prepare their own estimated benefit using the Pension Office website. You are encouraged to bring your Comprehensive Annual Statement. Please be on time to the workshops, seating is limited and to ensure you do not miss important information.
Please check the Office of Pensions website for the most up-to-date information concerning dates, time, and locations - https://open.omb.delaware.gov/WorkshopEvents/preretirement-workshops.shtml
Unable to attend one of these workshops? We offer evening, daytime, and summer workshops throughout the year to accommodate a variety of work schedules. Visit our website at www.delawarepensions.com for future workshops, the online calculator, and pre-retirement workshop video.
NOTE: This Announcement does not apply to Delaware Transit Corporation (DTC) employees.
Questions about the validity of this email? Contact pension.training@delaware.gov or call 302-739-4208.
Tired of Kahoot?!?! Try GIMKIT!!!
Anthony Tiberi recently told me about a FREE, new educational gaming resource called Gimkit. The game was created by a high school student and has a lot of great features.
Mastery tracking will repeat questions until a student has mastered the content.
Students earn in game “cash” that can be used to purchase power-ups, etc.
Students in a class can be the creators of a game.
The game can be played live as a whole group or at different times individually.
A report generates data about your students’ progress.
Import Quizlet sets to create a game.
Click on the button below to learn more and sign-up.
If you need assistance, please contact me for an appointment.
~Tara
Delcastle Instructional Focus
Talking in the classroom
Content-Area Conversations
by Douglas Fisher, Nancy Frey and Carol Rothenberg
Guided Instruction
During guided instructional events, teachers use talk to determine what students know and what they still need to know. This is an opportunity to use questions, prompts, and cues to help students complete tasks. Although guided instruction is teacher led, this does not mean that students are not talking. They use talk to ask questions—of the teacher, of peers, and of themselves—as well as to clarify understanding, provide feedback to a partner, and reflect once more on their learning.
As we will see in subsequent chapters, teachers can use talk during guided instruction in a number of ways. For example, an art teacher might meet with a small group of students who have difficulty with perspective in their drawings. He asks them to compare and contrast several drawings from his collections of books and then has them give one-word explanations of the differences. The students use words such as proportion, line, and shading. Through talk, this art teacher is able to facilitate increased understanding for his students.
Collaborative Tasks
In this phase of instruction, students are provided an opportunity to work together, with the teacher monitoring and supporting as needed. Talk becomes critical when students discuss tasks or ideas and question one another, negotiate meaning, clarify their own understanding, and make their ideas comprehensible to their partners. It is during collaborative tasks that students must use academic language if they are to focus on the content. Here again, their understanding grows as they talk with their partners to reflect on their learning. A number of classroom structures, such as reciprocal teaching, literature circles, partner discussions, and so on, require students to talk together. Our experience suggests that this phase of instruction is critical for English language learners to use the language and, as Bakhtin noted, own the words and ideas.
Independent Tasks
It might seem strange to suggest that talk plays a critical role during independent activities. But think about the self-talk (inner speaking) you use when you complete independent tasks. Some of this self-talk occurs in your mind, whereas some is vocalized. Again, thinking occurs as we use language, and this type of talk is an important aspect to learning. As students work independently, they may also use talk to receive input on their work and give feedback to others. Reporting out after independent work may require a more formal register of language than that used during collaborative activities.
As an example of the type of instruction in which talk permeates the learning environment, let us peek inside a classroom as students read and discuss Hattie Big Sky (Larson, 2006). The teacher has just finished reading a chapter aloud. As she was reading, she regularly paused to provide context clues for vocabulary words. For example, when she came to the word skyscraper, she paused and commented, "What a great word! I know from the context that it's a type of building, but I can really see this in my mind. The big tall buildings in Chicago must have seemed to really scrape the sky. Have you seen buildings like that? Describe a skyscraper to your partner."
At that moment, the classroom bursts into talk. Teresa leans over to Javier and says, "Like totally covered in glass, you know, all shiny so that you can see yourself. It's so big, you can see the ocean when you're up there."
After the reading and think aloud, the teacher asks students to think about the differences in life in San Diego today and Montana in 1918. She says, "There are two things on my mind that we should talk about. There are differences and similarities between San Diego and the town Hattie lives in: Vida, Montana. And there are also differences and similarities between today and 1918. Choose one of those topics to discuss with your partner."
Pedro turns to Alex and says, "They had nice people and mean people, just like we do. But they got bad weather and we don't." Alex responds, "Yeah, and they have farms and we don't, but they have chores like we do."
Following the whole-class and partner discussions, students moved to their collaborative learning groups. The teacher had purposefully organized the membership in these groups such that students at the beginning levels of English proficiency had access to language brokers who could support their participation. She also focused on creating groups with diverse interests and skill levels such that the group would become interdependent as they processed information.
One of the collaborative learning tasks required students to create a readers' theater script based on the chapter they had read. Their teacher knows that students will reread the text, talk about it, practice reading the scripts, and provide one another feedback on their speaking parts as a component of this task. A few lines from the script written by Alex's group highlight the ways in which language and talk are used to facilitate learning:
Narrator: What will I do? I don't want to freeze to death.
Hattie: I put on all of my clothes at once, every stitch. That will help me face the extreme cold.
Mr. Whiskers: I'm not going outside with you—you're crazy! But there might be milk. I guess I'll go.
Narrator: The cow was waiting so Hattie braved the weather.
Rooster Jim: Howdy neighbor.
Hattie: Oh, hello. Do you want some coffee? I'm almost done and could use some company.
The class continued on with productive group work and all of the talk associated with it. In this classroom, the teacher and her students share the responsibility for talking. Importantly, not just one student talks at a time; during partner conversations, 50 percent of the students are talking at a time. The important thing to remember is that this talk has to be purposeful; it can't just be social if we are going to see improvements in achievement.
Summary
As we analyze why many students are not learning what we are teaching, we must evaluate our own practice for evidence of student talk throughout the day. Oral language is the foundation of literacy, and as such, it requires focused attention in planning. Altering the ratio of teacher to student talk doesn't just happen. Rather, it occurs through both believing in the importance of student talk and planning with a clear purpose and expectations. But before we discuss how to plan lessons that integrate purposeful academic talk, reading, and writing, we must be clear on our own understanding of exactly what academic oral discourse is. We turn our attention now to an analysis of the elements of discourse in the classroom.
Continue reading next week....