Teaching and Learning News
September 4, 2015
Learn Spanish!
Spanish for Effective Communication: Educator Series
January 28-March 3, 2016
Join co-workers and other educators to learn the vocabulary you need to effectively communicate with Hispanic students and their families. You will learn simple ways to give and receive information necessary on a daily basis. The course is an interactive conversational approach to basic communication. It will include useful classroom vocabulary as well as cultural differences as they apply to the educational system. Materials include custom CD and handbook. More
Video of the Week
Spotted This Week
Sanitation District Visits Peter Winkler's Class (MES)
Rita Bird spotted at Moyer checking out the fifth grade and SD1's introductory lesson taught by an SD1 representative.
4th Grade Class (JES)
Students (HMS)
2015-2016 District Goals
1. Ensure individual student growth and achievement through the effective utilization of data to purposefully and reflectively guide instruction.
2. Foster a culture of collaboration focused on professional growth and quality instruction.
3. Engage all students in relevant, real-world experiences that promote innovation and creativity through collaboration, communication, and critical thinking.
Next Book Club Meeting-October 6
The first district book club was a huge success! Thank you to FTEA for sponsoring the snacks and drinks and for the door prize (Barnes & Noble gift card)! Remember, everyone is invited, and we would love to have even more people join us next time.
The title chosen for the next meeting is All the Light We Cannot See (see below) by Anthony Doerr. It sounds like it will be a great read!
The discussion will be held October 6. Location-TBD.
Happy Reading!
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE
From the highly acclaimed, multiple award-winning Anthony Doerr, the beautiful, stunningly ambitious instant New York Times bestseller about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II.
Marie-Laure lives with her father in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where he works as the master of its thousands of locks. When she is six, Marie-Laure goes blind and her father builds a perfect miniature of their neighborhood so she can memorize it by touch and navigate her way home. When she is twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure’s reclusive great-uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them they carry what might be the museum’s most valuable and dangerous jewel.
In a mining town in Germany, the orphan Werner grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments, a talent that wins him a place at a brutal academy for Hitler Youth, then a special assignment to track the resistance. More and more aware of the human cost of his intelligence, Werner travels through the heart of the war and, finally, into Saint-Malo, where his story and Marie-Laure’s converge.
Doerr’s “stunning sense of physical detail and gorgeous metaphors” (San Francisco Chronicle) are dazzling. Deftly interweaving the lives of Marie-Laure and Werner, he illuminates the ways, against all odds, people try to be good to one another. Ten years in the writing, a National Book Award finalist, All the Light We Cannot See is a magnificent, deeply moving novel from a writer “whose sentences never fail to thrill” (Los Angeles Times).
NGSS Short Courses-PD Opportunity
The Partnership Institute for Math and Science Education Reform (PIMSER) is presenting a variety of professional learning short courses (NGSS Short Courses) covering different concepts included in the Next-Generation Science Standards (NGSS).
· Experience activities as a learner and discuss implications for best practice and highly effective teaching with other professionals.
· Strengthen grade-level specific understanding of content and/or science and engineering practices.
· Examine misconceptions and naïve conceptions and learn how to design experiences to help students change these misconceptions.
· Leave each session with examples, resources and unit outlines to implement the NGSS.
Course - $125 each
Grade Levels
Date
Waves
1 & 4
September 30
Life Science
K & 2
October 19
1 & 4
October 20
3 & 5
October 21
Planning and Carrying Out Investigations
K-5
October 27
Engineering Design Process
K-5
November 13
Earth Systems
2 & 4
November 17
Constructing Explanations and Engaging in Argument from Evidence
4-8
December 1
Developing Units Aligned to the NGSS
K-12
December 3
Complete details, including session descriptions and registration, are available at
Safe Schools Training Reminder
Please complete all online training by September 15. Remember that you will need to complete the modules for FERPA/Confidentiality, Sexual Misconduct, and Blood Bourne Pathogens.
District Travel
Board policy allows up to the following amounts:
Breakfast: $10
Lunch: $15
Dinner: $25
For travel to high rate cities (such as Louisville or Chicago), meals will be reimbursed at the daily per diem rate established by the General Services Administration (GSA). You can find this rates at the following link: www.gsa.gov/perdiem
Itemized receipts MUST be turned in with the reimbursement form. Per board policy, requests for reimbursement are to be turned in to Central Office within ONE WEEK of your return.
We cannot reimburse for extras, such as snacks or coffees.
Please let me know if you have any questions.
"Like" The Bird Project on Facebook!
Upcoming Dates:
- September 7: Labor Day, No School
- September 14: Monthly Board Meeting, 6:30pm
- September 15 & 23: Educational Study Seminar #1
- By September 15: Self-Reflections Due in CIITS
- September 16: Late Arrival Day; First Quarter Midterm
- September 17: PLAN and Explore Testing
Trivia Question of the Week
Hint: You have to like the Facebook page to know this!