UAI Staff News
Volume XII
Issue 15
December 9th, 2024
Just Two Weeks. We have just 10 school days remaining in 2024 and until the winter break! We are beginning week two of our solid run of three weeks without break or interruption in lessons. So, now is the time to push harder and dig deeper! Here are some quick ideas to help you (straight from Edutopia's 10 most significant research studies in education)
- Weaving in some success points along the way. Students realize the most success when their teachers push them hard to succeed while persistently upholding high expectations AND those same teachers are also are warm, nurturing and empathetic. In this 2024 study, The “remembered success effect” (Finn, 2010) refers to the finding that challenging academic tasks that start or end with extra opportunities for success are preferred to challenging tasks that do not include these opportunities.
TRY THIS: make sure to include things you know kids CAN do alongside the things you are pushing them to learn in each of your tasks coming up in the next two weeks. These moments of "remembered success" will encourage students to persist and push themselves to reach further. - Learn to Love Academic Mistakes. No one actually enjoys making mistakes or being wrong. There's a lot in our evolutionary history that has made us really mistake averse. However, what is also true is that we, as evolved humans, make mistakes all the time and sometimes mistakes end up better than the original idea! In this study, researchers found that "engaging the students interactively to focus on errors, and the reasons for them, facilitates productive failure and learning from errors."
TRY THIS: Plan for mistakes. Task students to articulate what went wrong AND what went right. Being able to explain why a solution, piece of writing, or piece of work is accurate/correct or in need of revision/correction and why is a wonderfully rich opportunity for all learners.
Important Upcoming Dates
- WED 11DEC - District Evaluation Visit (PPO)
- THU 12DEC - Winterfest
- FRI 13DEC -
- UAI Theatrical Production of Rabbit Hole
- UAI Staff Winter Celebration (Details TBD)
- MON 16DEC - APES Trip with Tom (Details TBD)
- TUE 17DEC - Cooper Hewitt Design Museum Trip (Amanda & Judy)
- FRI 20DEC - Rapid Dismissal at 2:20PM
- MON 23DEC - 01JAN25- Winter Recess - NO SCHOOL
Upcoming JANUARY Homecoming Events
- 02DEC-10JAN - Homecoming Court Selection
- 06JAN-10JAN- Homecoming Spirit Week - Details to Come
- 08JAN (7th pd) - Homecoming Assembly (7th pd) HC Court Announced
- 09JAN (7th pd) - Homecoming Parade (thru UAI Halls)
- 10JAN - Homecoming Dance (7:30-10PM)
Announcements & To Dos
December Reset. We need to do a reset and make it stick for this month. For each day in December, please make sure you....
- Cell phones
Start EVERY class with a reminder to silence phones and put them in the charger or put them away. Use this POLICY to reestablish good habits. EVERYONE needs to do this together. Please do NOT be the one person who forgets. If you forget, we all suffer. Please make a reminder and please do it at the start of each class - EVEN if you think you do not have to do so. We just have to do this all together. It will help students get the message faster if we are all in on this together.
PLEASE - DO NOT allow students to take calls during class. That is NOT EVER ok. If you have done that so far, that's ok. Just communicate that you misunderstood school policy, and now you need to follow the correct one. It's not personal, it's just the school rules.
PLEASE USE THE CELL PHONE Violation form and follow up with deans to make sure they are seeing it. - Bathrooms, Halls and Passing.
Bathrooms are closed for the first and last 10minutes of class. If a student asks to use the bathroom, please just delay by saying, "Yes, you can go - but they won't open for 10min. You'll be first to go, I promise!" Or say, "I'm so sorry, they just closed"...If it is an emergency, of course you should let them go - but remind students that emergencies are rare and that you do not expect them to use this emergency excuse too frequently.
Regardless of the reason, no more than 1 student is allowed out of the classroom at a time. I've run into clusters of students from individual classrooms. We need to remind our subs about the rules (we'll give them a one sheet), but we also need everyone to remember.
Passing - please make sure you are ending your classes on time. Classes should end two minutes before the start of the next period. So if 2nd period starts at 9:25, 1st period ends at 8:23. Please do NOT let students out early or late. Set timers for yourself to remember. Of course things will happen, but do your absolute best to get really good at starting and ending on time this month.
Learning Huddles. We'll be using the Learning Huddles in our PD time on Monday for our ENL students. This is a change since Friday. So, we'll be pushing the huddles to next week.
Dept Superintendent Visits for PPO. Dept. Supt. Melanie Lee will be visiting UAI (Formally for the first time) on Dec 11th, to see classrooms, meet with staff, students & families, and evaluate our school!
Old Announcements That are still on the To Do list
[REPOST] Graded Assignments for MP2. Also on Friday, folks will have time to create all the assignments that will be graded for MP2 in GAMA (Grade and Messaging App). As announced at the start of the year, you should be telling students at the start of each unit what their assessments will be and which of those assessments will be graded and which will be aimed at helping the prepare for the graded assessments. In this same path, those graded pieces need to be in GAMA. This is the way that students will be able to see their grades. Staff will have MP2 to get used to transferring and updating grades (just like we used MP1 to get used to taking attendance and using GAMA). By MP3, we will be communicating with families & students that GAMA is our LMS (learning management system). So we want staff to be fairly fluent with it prior to that launch.
[REPOST] Outreach. Lots of folks have not yet remembered to log their outreach so far this week. Please remember that you have until 3PM tomorrow. Folks who failed to log this week's outreach and last week's outreach will receive emails reminding them. You will receive a total of 5 warnings this year. On the 6th time you forget to log outreach, you will lose your privilege to conduct the outreach remotely. I really don't want to rescind that privilege and that's why I'm providing FIVE chances to get it right. Please make sure you are setting a reminder in your phone or calendar to log your outreach each week. You need to make sure this gets done.
For these next few weeks, please make sure you are prioritizing contact to families of students who are not yet reaching our school goal of receiving >80 in your class. Please invite students to Office Hours on Monday to get extra help from you if needed.
Per Session Postings
For ALL per session activities, please complete Per Session Application Form
Restorative Justice Coordinator - Filled: Sue Rissberger
Classroom SetUp and Planning. 12 hours total. All Classroom Staff (Teachers & Paras) are eligible. Tue 27-29Aug .
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