UAI Staff News
Volume IV
Issue 18
Week of January 9th, 2017
This Week's Memories
Homecoming. Many shout outs to Jen, Doris, and Mara for making our first official homecoming event a success. During the day, Mara invited our alumni to come and speak with our juniors and seniors about the college experience. Alumni from all four of our graduated classes came to speak to our current students. They had so many questions for our alum, who were happy to share their insight and experience. Later that night, Jen and Doris planned a wonderful event for our girls and the alumni. Delicious nibbles and festive decorations abounded. Thanks to all of our chaperones (Jamie, Elena, Kristina, Brandon, Doris, & Jen)! You all made a wonderful evening for our girls!To Do's for this Week
[MONDAY, 09JAN17] Full Staff PD. This Monday, we're pausing on Pods to prepare for the next full staff January PD day (30JAN17). To do this, please bring the summative assessment for your first unit of the spring semester as well as the accompanying grading rubric. The goal of these next two Monday PDs and the 30JAN PD is to give you enough time and feedback to work through a complete unit. So, be sure to bring the assessment that pairs with the unit that you will start at or near the beginning of the spring term (which begins on 31JAN17).
We are asking that your assessments fall within specific parameters.
- Social Studies: Please select a thematic Regents essay task. Natalie, you can use the US History Regents as inspiration and revise it to meet your middle school students.
- ELA: The task should be from the LDC unit you are revising or creating.
- Spanish: Please adapt a task from the Regents or proficiency exam for a summative task.
- Science teachers: Use New Visions Curricula's summative tasks as models for your culminating assessments. Link here.
- Math teachers: Use New Visions Curricula's summative tasks as models for you. Link here.
The assessment can be a draft or a task you used last year, adapted to fall within in expected parameters. You will have work time both on 09JAN and 23JAN to complete work on the task. So, you are not expected to bring a completed assessment. Rather, bring as much as you can to substantively work on refining the assessment. We will all be working out of 409 on Monday. Bring technology and needed resources for this assessment planning.
[TUESDAY, 10JAN17] UAI @ Brooklyn Nets. Our annual school trip to the Nets at Barclay's Center is coming up next week. This year, we're charging $30 to cover the ticket price. Pizza party was cancelled. Please see or email Jen with specific questions.
[WEDNESDAY, 11JAN17] College Awareness Day. 11JAN17 is College Awareness Day for the DOE! To celebrate, we're asking all UAI staff to wear apparel from their alma mater. Additionally, we would love for you to decorate your doors (or just your class door windows) with the mascot from your alma mater. Kree will be working with Mara to promote the day with students. To help them, please hype the day up in your classrooms this week!
[WEDNESDAY, 11JAN17] Lady Eagles at Home. Our wonderful basketball team returns home on Wednesday. They are currently in 4th place with a record of 4-3. With 5 games left in the season, we're not out of the running yet! Hope always springs eternal! Come out and help our team lift their spirits by cheering them on to a win this Wednesday!
[WEEK of 09JAN17] Prepare for MidYear Reviews and Admin Check In. Starting next week, Colleen & Kiri will be conducting our Midyear reviews to check in on pedagogical practice. Please make sure you log into Advance to review your feedback for this year in preparation for the review. In addition please CLICK HERE to review complete expectations for your review. You should have already received a calendar invite for your scheduled review. If you did not receive it, please email Kiri ASAP.
Additionally, Val will be touching base with each of you to briefly review your data around progress with professional responsibilities including staff attendance, student attendance outreach, and updates in Skedula (both anecdotal and grades).
[THIS MONTH] Prepare for end of the semester. There only a few days remaining in this semester. It can be source of stress for our students. Please review the SEL strategies below to help them cope with their emotions in your class as you prepare them for the end of the term.
SEL Updates
Continuing our unit on emotions, this past week, 6th grade SEL class focused on anger. Students opened up about emotions that frequently underlie their feelings of anger (jealousy, loneliness, rejection, sadness, etc.) and worked to recognize situations and settings that tend to make them feel angry. Students vowed they would work in the future to implement de-escalation strategies the next time they find themselves in these "trigger" situations, including:
- Belly breathing
- Positive self-talk
- "Flip the script" (reframing their thinking)
- Taking a walk
- Envisioning a peaceful scene
- Removing themselves from the situation as appropriate
- Writing in a journal
- Talking to someone they trust
Teachers can remind students to implement their strategy of choice if they notice they're feeling angry in the future.Over the upcoming week, students will be discussing stress and anxiety, and ways they can make gratitude a daily practice to help keep their stress levels low.
Add this calendar to your own! See that little "+" sign in the bottom right hand corner? Click on it to have it show up in your personal google calendar!
Per Session Posting
Regents Prep. If you are interested in offering regents prep sessions to students beginning this week, please email Val ASAP. Unfortunately, we can't do Saturday sessions now (although we will have them in the run up to June). After school only (or during lunch or before school). Please let Val know your schedule and provide her with the list of students with whom you will be working. Regents prep hours are flexible and will be available to staff through 1/23. Teachers must have a minimum of 5 students to have their per session hours approved. So, please do make sure you understand that these positions require that you are reaching out and recruiting students.
No comments:
Post a Comment