We are now officially more than halfway through the 1st quarter of the school year! As we continue to navigate the realities of educating our children, some things are quite different, and some remain the same. What remains constant is the effort and student-centered nature of our team. It is hard to express how much I appreciate the time, effort, and passion you have put into doing what you do each day. Our parents and our community are appreciative and lucky to have each of you serving their children.
Resource of the Week
Being five weeks into the school year, and facing a little uncertainty about our path forward, one thing I'm confident we are going to need to do is be prepared to teach remotely for a longer period of time. There has been a lot of work and study into what makes for effective online teaching and learning. The article this week is a post that provides some insights into what makes effective online learning happen.
"Tips for Teachers Teaching Remotely: The Ultimate List" by The Albert Team
October Staff Meeting
Our Staff Meeting for October will feature both asynchronous and synchronous learning activities. I'll be sharing an interactive presentation with you sometime on Monday. The goal of the meeting will be to understand effective distance learning strategies and to continue to strengthen staff relationships. You will receive an invitation through Google Calendar to join a small group virtually, to briefly get to know more people in our building better, and to share your plans on Thursday (10/8) afternoon at 3:00.
Livestream in 8th Grade ELA
In 8th Grade ELA, Mr. Odden live-streamed an activity from his classroom. The other classes tuned in, as well as the students from home.
Mr. Odden said, "We did a book preview, so I thought it the live stream future would be more engaging than a video for this particular lesson. I had some students in my group present about the books, and I was very happy with how it went."
Mrs. Andringa, who was facilitating this lesson in a different classroom also thought it was effective, stating, "To have them hear from Eric about the books was way more effective than how I would have presented them. It went really well."
As we learn and the consistency and reliability of our technology continues to improve (knock on wood), more options are available for how we can deliver instruction, and start to build in more student to student collaboration in our practices. If you have facilitated some new strategies that have been effective, I'd love to hear about them and share with others.
Sharing Appreciation
I wanted to share a note from a parent, giving the 7th grade team a "shout-out"
Hello,
I just wanted to say thank all of you for having the Google Meets on Wednesdays.
Mason wasn’t too sure about it, but after being able to see all of you, homework went much, MUCH better!
Also, thanks for your understanding while he was out for the extra 2 weeks.
You all are doing a great job and we know this is not easy.
Stay strong and you have our support!
Have a great weekend!
Early Release on Thursday (10/15)
All students will be released at 1:15 on Thursday, 10/15. We'll plan on keeping our elective schedule and times the same (5th grade won't have specials on this day), however, each team can take a look at their schedule and modify the core classes however you feel would work best for your grade level. If you need some help thinking through the changes, just let me know, and I can put something together.
Parent-Teacher Conferences
Monday LiveStream Link
After receiving quite a bit of feedback about the pilot of a potential new Monday Morning tradition, it seems pretty clear this is something the kids want to continue. We'll keep it rolling on Monday morning, so I'll ask you to join in the live-stream at the link below. You can tell the kids to keep the requests and ideas coming in.
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