Week of February 27th

UAI Staff News

Volume IV

Issue 23

Week of February 27th, 2017

This Week's Memories

 

Winterfest and Spring in The Winter!  We wrapped up the start of February with another fantastic full-school assembly.  Performers from our annual Winterfest dazzled the crowd, and Ms. Kree & Ms. Jen put together another wonderful celebration of our girls, their cultural diversity, and their talent! Following this joyous assembly, we welcomed a vacation full of spring weather a rejuvenation!  We are all well positioned as we launch this next interval of the school year.  It's a long one, but with six weeks of uninterrupted instruction, it promises to be a very productive stretch!  Let's get to it!!

To Do's for this Week

[MONDAY, 27FEB17] Full Staff PD - Lesson Rehearsals.  One of the practices of Artisan Teaching is doing a run-through of a planned lesson with colleagues. Very often we only talk about lessons.  By actually doing them, a whole new realm of feedback and insight is made available to teachers.  During Monday's PD, please bring your lessons planned for Wednesday 01MAR17. Upload those lessons into THIS FOLDER by PD time on Monday so that your peers have access to what you've planned.  Teachers will be paired and each partner will have a chance to practice their lesson and hear feedback.

[WEDNESDAY, 01MAR17] Lady Eagles Playoffs, Round 3.  Our Lady Eagles are dedicated and play with heart!  After a tense game with #4 seeded Queens HS, our strong, smart and bold players upset the lead seed with a 52-50 victory!  Congratulations to our amazing team!  On Wednesday, they head to round 3 at the Julia Richmond Complex to hopefully continue the pattern of upset as they pursue victory over the #13 seed.  Wish them luck!

[WEDNESDAY, 01MAR17] Superintendent Walsh Visits.  Superintendent Fred Walsh will be returning to evaluate UAI on the 2nd PPO visit of the year.  We will be visiting about 7-8 classrooms. The schedule below is still tentative (I must finalize with Fred before our visit).  In particular, we are looking to see how teachers are planning to "take the pulse" (aka formative assessments) of the class and how teachers pivot to the student data they get when they conduct these assessments.  Checking in with students to see how much information they are successfully uploading is key to effective teaching.  Teachers should be planning to use formative assessment strategies throughout the lesson to check on how well your teaching is taking root.  Colleen shared a resource to give you ideas for formative assessment techniques to use in your classes.   Please make sure that your lessons include these techniques and that your lesson plans include your planned responses to predicted student outcomes in response to these techniques.

SEL Updates

SEL is Good Teaching.  <excerpted from Edutopia Article, "SEL is Good Teaching", May 2016> When working with schools, I often hear, "I don't have time to teach SEL. I have a lot on my plate right now." It is true that in order to successfully implement social and emotional learning (SEL) programs and services, teachers and schools need to invest their most precious resource: time. Teaching an SEL curriculum, creating school-wide activities, or receiving professional development also requires commitment and some strategic planning. Are you discouraged by this? Don't be! The good news is that there's another side of the story: many teachers already use teaching strategies that support students' growth in this area. Do your students reflect on their work? Do you use pair-shares in your instruction? Do you celebrate your students' accomplishments? If so, you might already be supporting students' social and emotional development!  Click Here to Read the entire article.

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

Saturday and or After School Test Prep for MS ELA.  I am looking for teachers to work with groups of 10-15 students to prepare them for the MS ELA exam at the end of the month.  Sessions can be help after school or on Saturdays (teacher preference), and teachers will be able to select students from a list of at-risk students provided.  All teachers are eligible to apply.  The focus will be on test prep - helping students understand what questions are asking, building stamina etc.  Teachers will be responsible for preparing materials.  Teachers who are interested must sign up for two 90 min sessions (and identify days) OR one 3-hours session on Saturday.  Please RSVP to Kiri no later than Friday 03MAR17 at 3pm.  Sessions will begin next week.  

Week of February 13th

UAI Staff News

Volume IV

Issue 22

Week of February 13th, 2017

This Week's Memories

 

February Family Friday. The 8th grade students shared their researched and well-crafted Capstone Projects with their proud parents.  Many thanks and kudos to Marsha and Kristina for making sure our students and families had such a great opportunity to share and celebrate learning.  Many more thanks to the 7th & 8th grade team for coming together to make sure the event was seamlessly executed!

 

10th Grade Field Trips.  The 10th/12th Grade team took the 10th graders out on one of their student-choice field trips this past Friday.  During these trips, teachers coordinate a variety of field trip options, allowing students to self-select into one of the options.  This Friday, the majority of the grade picked to go see the movie, Fences, or ice-skating in Prospect Park.  The movie goers were glued to the screen for over 2.5 hours while the skaters took risks and pushed themselves to try something outside of their strength zones!

  

12th Grade Trip to Skyzone.  The seniors kicked off their final term in high school with a raucous trip to Skyzone.  Martine, Danielle, and Doris chaperoned.  Upon return, both kids and adults had ginormous smiles and raved about the good times had by all.  Danielle even got to safely show Jada who was boss!

  Musical Reconstruction.  Ana Marinez demonstrated her mastery of the US History Topic of Reconstruction, by performing an original song (to the tune of "Sweet Home Alabama"!  In Brodie's words, [this was an] "awesome reminder of why we have the best job in the world". Thanks for the share Mr. Brodie!

 

InspirED Youth Leadership Lab.  Jen & Lauren took several of our students to join The inspirED Youth Leadership Lab.  This series was developed to further the goal of fostering a nationwide movement for emotional well-being in schools. At the event, our team worked with students, educators, administrators, social and emotional learning experts from across the country.  

 




6th Grade Interviews.  This weekend over 100 prospective students came to UAI on Saturday to be interviewed as potential matches next year's 6th grade class.  Many thanks to Ms. Val's hard work in this dramatic increase in enrollment numbers.  Last year, we only had about 70 students interview.  Thank you also to all of the teachers and staff who stepped up to support the seamless flow of over 100 students and their families (which totalled nearly 300 people) on Saturday!!

To Do's for this Week

[MONDAY, 13FEBB17] Full Staff PD - Unit Planning.  For the next few weeks, we will be visiting classroom to observe collaborative reasoning in action and in planning.  At this point, all staff have been trained in Collaborative Reasoning and text selection.  Here's Colleen's resources:  CLICK HERE.  Please reference these resources in planning for collaborative reasoning.  We will be there to support your work on Monday during PD!

[TUESDAY, 14FEB17] Lady Eagles Playoff Game.  Please join our Lady Eagles as they play against Frank Sinatra in the first playoff game of the this season.  It will be at home at 5PM on Tuesday.  Let's support our community by supporting our teams!  Looking forward to seeing you there on Tuesday!

[15FEB17] Winterfest.  Our annual celebration of After School activities and display of students arts and artistic talent will be on Wednesday, 15FEB17.  Please join us in celebrating our girls in the gym from 6-8PM.

[17FEB17] Black History Month Assembly.  We will be having our next full school assembly on Friday, Feb 17th.  This will be a slightly early assembly to accommodate a staggered rapid dismissal for the building (SLJ and AIL are dismissing early on Friday).  The Assembly will begin at 1:30 and we will rapidly dismiss at 2:15PM.

SEL Updates

This section of the blog has been largely dedicated to student SEL development.  For this week, prior to the vacation, I wanted to share some articles that spin that tables and allow us to consider our own contributions to the emotional equation of our classrooms and learning environments. 

Click Here for the full article:  Educator's Social Emotional Skills Vital to Learning

Here's an excerpt: 

Social and emotional competencies aren’t secondary to the mission of education, but are concrete factors in the success of teachers, students, and schools.

“I yelled at my students too much today.” “I thought I was going to lose it when Nick acted up in class again.” “I’m so stressed out that I don’t want to teach tomorrow.” Statements like these are all too familiar to educators. What teacher or administrator hasn’t felt stresses that make it difficult to focus on teaching and learning? Who hasn’t needed to call on a deep well of social and emotional resources to overcome those challenges? In the current national focus on teacher quality, the essential role of teachers’ social and emotional competencies is often overlooked. 

But ask educators when they need those competencies and they’ll likely respond “every day.” And ask students to describe the teachers who most influenced them and why, and their answers will likely include qualities in the social and emotional area — the ability to listen and empathize, pick up on a subtle social cue, find a student’s hidden strength, or model calm under stress. These educators and students know intuitively what research has shown: Social and emotional competencies influence everything from teacher-student relationships to classroom management to effective instruction to teacher burnout. 

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

No new postings this week.

Week of 06FEB17

UAI Staff News

Volume IV

Issue 21

Week of January 30th, 2017

This Week's Memories

 

Youmna (Class of 2023) and Tamia (Class of 2019) are this month's SEL students of the month.  In addition the kindness quilt is inspiring our middle schoolers to remember the importance of positive, pro-social emotions.  In times the leader of the free world fails to display appropriate social-emotional skills on an international platform, it's doubly important to make sure we help our students internalize behaviors that will promote their own and our country's future success.  Please help celebrate our students of the month in your classes by congratulating them or drawing the rest of the class's attention to their posters in the halls.  Also, help the rest of our students understand the significance of pro-social behaviors like SLANT, accountable stem talk or emotional regulation in creating positive learning environments.  Remember, SEL in an of itself is not a set of complex skills. The rigor for SEL is in the routine! Let's make sure to touch on it daily, in small ways, with consistency!

To Do's for this Week

[MONDAY, 07FEWB17] Full Staff PD - Unit Planning.  We will be continuing our work from last Monday's PD.  Please bring unit planning materials to PD on Monday!  The majority of time will be IWT for unit and/or lesson planning.

• [10FEB17] Door Decorating Competition. The doors are starting to develop nicely.  Some look amazing!  Please try to complete your doors this week.  Reach out to Ms. Jen or Ms. Kree to get support (both supplies and labor) in order to finish your door by Friday 10FEB17.

• [07FEB17] Middle School Dance Tickets Are on Sale. Ms. Jen & Ms. Kree are coordinating a middle school dance.  Please encourage students to seek out tickets from Ms. Jen or Ms. Kree

• [10FEB17] February's Family Friday.  Ms. Kristina & Ms. Marsha are planning a celebratory event to have their students show off their written work with their families for our Family Friday (which occur the first Friday of every month) in February!  Thank you Kristina & Marsha for your hard work in getting our parents in to celebrate our girls' academic achievements!

• [15FEB17] Winterfest.  Our annual celebration of After School activities and display of students arts and artistic talent will be on Wednesday, 15FEB17.  Please join us in celebrating our girls in the gym from 6-8PM.

• [17FEB17] Black History Month Assembly.  We will be having our next full school assembly on Friday, Feb 17th.  This will be a slightly early assembly to accommodate a staggered rapid dismissal for the building (SLJ and AIL are dismissing early on Friday).  The Assembly will begin at 1:30 and we will rapidly dismiss at 2:15PM.

SEL Updates

HS SELThis week students focused on being aware of and managing their emotions. They learned how to recognize emotions in themselves and the cues (physical, mental and behavioral) that come with them. They learned to recognize what escalates their emotions and some de-escalation strategies (i.e. belly breathing, self-talk, flipping the script and time out). 

Next week they will focus in on two emotions; anger and stress. We will discuss how we react and how to cope with both. For anger, they will practice and expand upon de-escalation techniques, learn to be proactive instead of reactive and how to let go of residual anger. For stress they will focus on how our body and mind may react in the face of stress and changing your state vs. changing your situation. Relaxation techniques will be introduced and practiced.  Managing negative emotions is a learned skill.  Help students solidify these skills by referencing their SEL work during lessons and work time.

MS SEL6th grade students finished up their discussion on de-escalation strategies this past week. Students can now articulate any number of different strategies that they can use if they are becoming angry, sad, anxious, etc. If you notice a student becoming overwhelmed by a particular emotion, please cue them to practice one of these strategies, by saying something like, "I notice you're becoming angry- is there a de-escalation strategy from Power Group that I can help you practice right now?"

The theme of next week's 6th grade SEL lessons will be "Fighting Off Victimitis" and "Taking Full Responsibility," something we're very excited to spend some time reviewing! Students will hear stories of teenagers and adults who overcame significant misfortune and obstacles to achieve great success. Students will spend time discussing how effort, hard work, and taking advantage of things we do have control over can help them move past their own obstacles as well. 

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

Saturday Recruitment.  This Saturday we will be conducting interviews for our incoming 6th graders.  Cherry,  Paula, Doris, Kristin, Kristina, Jamie, Marsha, Elena, Matthew, Carol, Del, Nancy
Sursattie, Jen, and Val have already signed up, but I'm still looking for a few more teachers.  We have a lot of kiddos coming, so if you can join us to help, that would be greatly appreciated.  Staff report at 9AM for orientation.  Students and Families arrive at 10AM.  We will finish around noon with interviews and clean up will take about 30-45min.  So the entire day will be 9AM-1PM.