Clif Notes 3/04/19
50 Years Of Building The State & Now Global Workforce!
DATES TO REMEMBER
This Week -
Monday - 8am Start for Extra Help
Tuesday - Faculty Meeting
Wednesday - Academic PLCs; Interims to Students
Thursday - Academic PLCs; VOYA in C100
Friday - No PD-School in Session (weather related make-up day)
Upcoming:
3/10 Daylight Savings Time Begins
3/12 PSATs - 9th & 10th Grades
3/13 SkillsUSA Awards Ceremony
3/15 Winter Sports Banquet
Voya Sign ups RE-SCHEDULED
The Delaware Retirement Savings Plan is a valuable employee benefit that provides us with the opportunity to save money through the convenience of pre-tax or post-tax (Roth) payroll deduction into a 403(b) and/or 457. In addition to competitive investment options and easy to use technology, the plan provides us with access to financial advisors from Voya Financial who are available to provide additional support as we plan and save for the future.
Marianne LaRock-McGuckin, from Voya, will be here at Delcastle Technical High School on Thursday, March 7. If you are able to find 20 minutes during the day, you may want to schedule a 1on1 appointment to review your account, consolidate plans, enroll or simply learn more about the Delaware Retirement Savings Plan. An email reminder with a link to sign-up for an appointment will be forthcoming.
If you are not able to schedule an appointment when Voya is here, go to www.delawaredefer.com for more information. You may also select “Schedule An Appointment” from the opening page and schedule an appointment at one of four locations throughout the State. -Marianne
BPA Competitions
On Tuesday, February 26, the following students competed in various BPA Competitions and qualified to go to the national competition in Anaheim, California! Please congratulate them when you see them!
1st Place Winners
Amy Caceres - Intermediate Word Processing
Iman Jervey - Interview Skills
2nd Place Winners
Alan Castro Vazquez - Intermediate Word Processing
Axel C. Castro - Fundamental Desktop Publishing
3rd Place Winner
Paul Allen - Extemporaneous Speech
4th Place Winner
Erandy Cruz-Alcantara - Fundamental Desktop Publishing
HOSA
Dual Enrollment/Summer Original Credit Meetings
On Wednesday, March 6th, all 11th grade students must attend a Dual Enrollment/Summer Original Credit meeting in the auditorium. There will be two sessions.
AM Career Areas @ 10:00 am - 11:17 am
PM Career Areas @ 1:30 pm - 2:59 pm
Staff must escort students to the auditorium.
Please Note:
On Wednesday, March 6th, @ 1:30 pm - 2:59 pm, all 11th grade Nurse Tech, Biomedical, and Surge Tech students must attend a Dual Enrollment/Summer Original Credit meeting in the auditorium. Please allow them to be dismissed from their academic classes at this time. Students are responsible for making up any missed work.
Dental Assisting students will attend @ 10:00 am - 11:17 am
Where are they now...
Bryce and Maria are currently in their second year in the district’s 18-21 Program and have both secured employment with the University of Delaware!
Bryce was recently hired to work as a General Utility Worker and Food Server at Pencader Dining Facility with Aramark. After just one week of employment, staff are already impressed at how well he initiates and ensures for accuracy in every task he is assigned. Bryce keeps moving, follows all directions, and loves doing his best. He always has a smile and a great attitude.
Maria was hired by Aramark in January. She works at the Trabant Student Center 5 days a week. Maria works with a team to clean, straighten, and restock the dining areas in the Trabant Student Center. She works diligently to complete her responsibilities while greeting customers with a smile. Maria reports that she enjoys working on a college campus and having responsibilities that a lot of people depend on her to complete well. ~ Princilus
Girls Basketball Team Makes The Playoffs
Congratulations Wrestling
The Cougars earned their way into the DIAA Dual Team Tournament hosted at Smyrna High School and represented themselves well. During the Blue Hen Conference Individual Championships, Delcastle placed 12 out of 13 wrestlers in the top 8, including 5 Conference Champions. Eight wrestlers earned their way to the DIAA Individual State Championships. Two Cougars wrestled their way to the podium. Congratulations to Doug Markland, 4th place at 152 and State Champion, Liam O’Connor, 160. Liam is Delcastle’s seventh State Champion and the winningest wrestler is school history with a Varsity Career record of 149-37. Congratulations!
Gearing up for the 50th Gala.
As we gear up for the 50th Gala we want to remind staff to get your tickets now. Please do not wait until the last minute. Also, letters have been released to our business partners for sponsorship. Our sponsors will receive tickets with their donations. We have three different sponsorship levels Gold ($1500), Silver ($1000) , and Bronze ($500). Tickets will be subtracted from the ones that are posted online. So, get you ticket now.
This is an event that you do not want to miss. https://delcastlehighschool.ludus.com/
Convert Microsoft Office Docs to Google Docs!!!
This is a friendly reminder that Microsoft Office Docs (Word, PowerPoint, and Excel) are NOT compatible with the student Chromebooks.
This is especially important to understand if you want the students to complete work on these docs in Schoology. If you push out a Word doc to students their work will be lost if they don’t convert to Google Docs.
Fortunately, there is a really easy way to convert your Microsoft Docs into Google Docs BEFORE uploading them to Schoology. Please watch the short screencast below to learn how.
As always, if you need more assistance please contact me.
~Tara
Delcastle Instructional Focus
Talking in the classroom
Content-Area Conversations
by Douglas Fisher, Nancy Frey and Carol Rothenberg
Managing Talk Through Grouping
Although there may be a certain surface logic to grouping students homogeneously, the preponderance of the evidence shows that students of all abilities perform better in heterogeneous groups (Lou et al., 1996). It comes as no surprise that low-achieving students do worse in homogeneous groups because they collectively have fewer resources to draw from (r = -.60). There is a very small positive effect for high-achieving students when grouped homogeneously (.09), but average-achieving students benefit significantly (.51) from mixed-ability grouping (Lou et al., 1996).
The composition of the members plays a role in the relative success of a group. Bennett and Cass (1988) looked at the performance of groups where either the high-achieving students outnumbered the low-achieving ones or vice versa. They concluded that groups that were dominated by high-achieving students performed worse because the low-achieving student was left out of the process. This did not occur when high-achieving students were the minority in the group. A formula of two low-achieving students for every one high-achiever or two English language learners for every one proficient speaker may not be feasible for every classroom, but it is worth noting so as not to inadvertently set up groups that leave learners behind.
Achievement should not be the only factor taken into consideration when grouping students. Flexible grouping patterns that allow students to work with many classmates over time build relationships and broaden students' learning experiences. After all, the workplace is rarely a homogeneous environment—we are called upon daily to interact and work with people who possess a range of strengths and areas of need. Flexible grouping patterns are based on variables such as these:
- Language proficiency level: Students may be grouped together for a language lesson or heterogeneously to provide language models and facilitate sustained conversation.
- Primary language: Students work with others who speak the same language, allowing them to discuss new and complex topics in a familiar language.
- Skills development: Students are grouped together because they are working on the same skill.
- Interest: Students study a shared topic of interest or are spread among groups to serve as motivators.
- Work habits: Students are spread among groups to model work habits.
- Prior knowledge of content: Students are grouped to share topical knowledge.
- Prior knowledge of strategies: Students are organized to share strategic knowledge.
- Task or activity: Students are grouped together because the task or activity has been designed to meet their needs.
- Social: Students are spread among groups to serve as leaders or in other specialized roles.
- Random: Random grouping ensures that students come into contact with all members of the class and build community.
- Student choice: This pattern gives friends an opportunity to work together (Flood, Lapp, Flood, & Nagel, 1992).
To form effective groups, you must know your students well. When your classroom includes English language learners, you must be keenly aware of their proficiency levels in English as well as their understanding of the content of the task. Placing one student who is new to English in a group of proficient students may seem like a good idea, but in actuality, that student is likely to participate more with students whose level of proficiency in English is closer to his or her own: the English language learner will not feel as intimidated, and the other students may have more empathy and understanding of how the student feels. And, although it can be helpful to assign a buddy to a student who has just arrived with no English, be careful that the buddy does not do all the work and become a caretaker. Rotating buddies periodically relieves the burden of being the "teacher" and helps the new student get to know more members of the class.
Obviously, the ability to group and regroup students depending on the purpose of the task requires a physical arrangement of the room that facilitates movement. In Chapter 4, we saw how two different teachers organized their classrooms to allow for this flexibility. In some classrooms, the only solution to flexible grouping is to ask students to physically move their desks or chairs. At first glance, this activity may seem like an invitation to bedlam that takes valuable time away from instruction, but with a bit of guidance, students can learn to do this quickly and efficiently.
Students, especially those in elementary school, express a preference for working in mixed-ability groups (Elbaum, Schumm, & Vaughn, 1997). Students identified as gifted and talented in grades 5–11 acknowledged the social development benefits of working in heterogeneous groups (Adams-Byers, Whitseel, & Moon, 2004). When collaboration with peers becomes routine rather than anomalous, students settle into a pattern of work that is productive without being disruptive. Of course, managing noise and time also contributes to the smooth operation of the class.
Managing the Noise and Time of Talk
We believe that mismanagement of noise and time poses the biggest barrier to teachers' use of collaborative learning and goes a long way toward explaining the dearth of partner and small-group work in classrooms. Although school administrators understand that a quiet classroom does not necessarily equate to a learning classroom, most of us worry that the hum of activity could devolve into the clamor of chaos and that our teaching reputations will be sullied in the process. This concern may be especially true for new teachers, who know they are under scrutiny and don't want anyone to think they have classroom management problems. Even the best-designed collaborative task can be diminished by poor procedures that fail to take noise and time into account.
Continue reading next week....