I realize we JUST got out of school and some of you may want to throw something at me but it's 91 days until the first day of school-- our NEW school! I can hardly stand it. I am so excited. I know there is so much to be done in these short 91 days but what an exciting journey this has been and will continue to be.
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- As you know voting has been going on to name our school. The final name will be taken to the board on June 20th. I. CAN'T. WAIT!
- Welcome Jennifer Kiowski as our nurse. She is coming to us from Travis/6th Grade center
- Welcome to Christine Gasca as our receptionist. She is coming to us from Crockett.
- I am completing interviews to fill our final 4 openings and hope to have those completed this week so we will be fully staffed.
- We have 229 students who were accepted to our school for our first year. (264) is full capacity. All letters acceptance & wait list letters have been sent to applicants. I am getting transfer requests in each day.
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Let's jump back into our book study: STEM-Infusing the Elementary Classroom. I want to recap just a little bit since we had a brief break.
Chapter 1: STEM-Infusing All Content Areas: You provided your favorite quotes from chapter 1 and by far your comments were about how STEM is good for the brain or like "CrossFit" for the brain. STEM helps make connections. Many of you were already using Padlet and sharing your experiences. I guess I'm a little late to the game, but I love learning from each of you. We'll have some Padlet experience in our June 1-2 meetings.
Chapter 2: Why STEM in Elementary? I believe everyone is in 100% agreement that the earlier students are exposed to STEM the better not only will they be, but our nation as well. Vickie's thought of "Why not?" sticks with me as well. There are some people in our community very skeptical of this program. We WILL show them how beneficial this is to our students and our future.
Chapter 3: Rigor Meets Relevance: AWWWW.... this probably is one of my favorite chapters. It doesn't matter if we are a brand new teacher or a veteran teacher, we all agree that we have fallen into the trap of developing lesson with a high level of relevance and less rigor. It's a balance and something that MUST be in the forefront of our minds at ALL times. I love the reflections that each of you made and how many of you went back and gave your students an opportunity for the higher rigor in your lesson.
Now here we are at chapter 4: The Cross-Cutting Concepts Approach to STEM-Infusion.
WOW! What an ambitious approach to curriculum. BREATHE - team --- I'm not going to take this on in year one! :) Remember that year 1 is about laying a firm foundation as we STEM Infuse our lives.
As a teacher, integration came naturally to me as it does to many of you. Yet, I never worked intentionally Cross-Cutting Concepts as they are listed on page 31. During our GT training we will be working on integration of our current pacing guides. Using our current pacing guides, let's think about how we can have more of a cross-cutting conceptual approach to our lesson planning.
Look at "Your Next Step" on pg 35. Use your pacing guides for the 1st 9 Weeks. The assignment says to use 2 content areas that would fit under one umbrella (listed on page 31). Of course, math/science is where we should start. If you are feeling ambitious, look at ELAR/SS as well. Brainstorm a design challenge in which your students connect the information in those 2 (or more) disciplines to the cross-cutting concept. Pinterest is your friend for many design challenges!
Comment about your thoughts from this chapter by Thursday evening, June 1st.
Bring your ideas from "The Next Step" to our Engineering Design PD on July 17-18.
I will see you on Thursday at 8:30 - Wesley United Methodist Church!
Chapter 2: Why STEM in Elementary? I believe everyone is in 100% agreement that the earlier students are exposed to STEM the better not only will they be, but our nation as well. Vickie's thought of "Why not?" sticks with me as well. There are some people in our community very skeptical of this program. We WILL show them how beneficial this is to our students and our future.
Chapter 3: Rigor Meets Relevance: AWWWW.... this probably is one of my favorite chapters. It doesn't matter if we are a brand new teacher or a veteran teacher, we all agree that we have fallen into the trap of developing lesson with a high level of relevance and less rigor. It's a balance and something that MUST be in the forefront of our minds at ALL times. I love the reflections that each of you made and how many of you went back and gave your students an opportunity for the higher rigor in your lesson.
Now here we are at chapter 4: The Cross-Cutting Concepts Approach to STEM-Infusion.
WOW! What an ambitious approach to curriculum. BREATHE - team --- I'm not going to take this on in year one! :) Remember that year 1 is about laying a firm foundation as we STEM Infuse our lives.
As a teacher, integration came naturally to me as it does to many of you. Yet, I never worked intentionally Cross-Cutting Concepts as they are listed on page 31. During our GT training we will be working on integration of our current pacing guides. Using our current pacing guides, let's think about how we can have more of a cross-cutting conceptual approach to our lesson planning.
Look at "Your Next Step" on pg 35. Use your pacing guides for the 1st 9 Weeks. The assignment says to use 2 content areas that would fit under one umbrella (listed on page 31). Of course, math/science is where we should start. If you are feeling ambitious, look at ELAR/SS as well. Brainstorm a design challenge in which your students connect the information in those 2 (or more) disciplines to the cross-cutting concept. Pinterest is your friend for many design challenges!
Comment about your thoughts from this chapter by Thursday evening, June 1st.
Bring your ideas from "The Next Step" to our Engineering Design PD on July 17-18.
I will see you on Thursday at 8:30 - Wesley United Methodist Church!
SK loves Rockets!
I am looking forward to 'cross cutting'. The visual I get from hearing cross cutting is of my grandmother's dough when she would use 2 butter knives to "cut" her flour into the dough. The result was the best flippin' biscuits you ever put in your mouth.
ReplyDeleteI like that we are finding connections across disciplines. Projects are great for that. I imagine that I could best accomplish this with a self-contained classroom. However, I look forward to making this happen with a partner!
I am a little nervous, but mostly excited to meet this challenge in my Language Arts/Social Studies class.
You will be an amazing ELAR teacher - this I know because you will tackle this like you do any other challenge--with pure tenacity.
DeleteI love this chapter. Cross cutting makes so much sense to me. It’s like working a puzzle. The designer of the curriculum takes all the little pieces (the teks/standards) and puts them together and comes up with a great unit. (A great Big Puzzle Picture) I can envision taking all the teks/standards for ELA, Social Studies, Mathematics and Science cutting them apart and strategically placing them under big umbrella units. ELA standards of cause and effect are easily pared with social studies, science and mathematics. For example, a unit on the westward movement and survival could work together to include all content areas. Weaving similar curricular concepts are paramount. Clustering topics is a best practice strategy that makes learning “sticky.” We want learning to be like that piece of chewing gum that we accidentally step in…. it’s there for a long time! I can’t wait to launch our “Big Picture of Stem Learning!”
ReplyDeleteDiana- I see the same picture - have a million puzzle pieces and seeing how they fit to create a beautiful masterpiece. I see this type of learning truly benefiting our students once we have mastered the "how" of it all!
Delete"It is a risk, but I have found the depth of understanding students build is retained much better than when concepts are taught in isolation." This is the chapter that started to put it together for me. I had several "ah-ha" moments. Maybe this is why Social Studies has felt so disconnected for my students. They need to be able to connect it to today instead of learning about what was. This is also the chapter that frightens me. I have never seen a classroom that really cross-cuts concepts. I have always been able to make reading connections in science, but I still teach in isolation. I envision students working on Lewis and Clark while understanding shadows and earth rotation, Thomas Edison and circuits, and immigration with adaptations. But what will that look like?
ReplyDeleteUsing real world problems to create concrete learning excites me. I want my students to understand the discovery and importance of coal while creating a way to utilize our alternative energy for our planets' needs. This is learning!! They need to develop a mindset that the impossible is possible and that their learning goes beyond our classroom walls.
I am both excited and nervous about cross-cutting and I welcome the challenge that awaits us. I am comforted by knowing that I am with a group of educators that will support this idea of change and look forward to seeing the evolution of both us as educators and our students as learners.
FYI.. I love Diana's analogy of the "gum" and now I want some of Bea's grandmothers biscuits!
Samantha - I could see the wheels turning in your mind thinking about all the ways you can fit this into the lab setting that you are creating. I am excited about everything that this adventure brings!
DeleteI went ahead and read all three of the chapters on approaches to STEM-infusion (cross-cutting concepts, standards alignment, and thematic). When I got to the last one on the thematic approach (taking a theme and using it as a foundation for planning a STEM-infused lesson), it's the one that spoke to me the most...I guess because that's kind of what I'm used to in pre-k/kindergarten with themes. The author also said that many teachers find this approach to be a great first step in trying to integrate STEM into the classroom...it fits easily into existing curriculum and doesn't require reworking the entire pacing guides. She suggests that we first design a lesson using the thematic approach in order to integrate problem-solving into our existing curriculum. Then when that becomes comfortable, move to the standards-based approach by designing a challenge that allows kids to practice objectives from various content areas. Then finally transition toward a conceptual approach in which students are connecting important concepts that inform various disciplines.
ReplyDeleteI am sooooo pumped after today's meeting! Thanks everyone for a great day and I'm looking forward to many more wonderful days with our new family! :)
We definitely have to take baby steps as we make this shift - not only for our sakes but for the kids. We need to be firmly planted in how we are facilitating delivering the material in order for our students to make the connections we are expecting.
DeleteI am with Vickie. The thematic approach spoke to me the most as well. I love teaching in themes and maybe that's because that's how I teach and what I know which makes cross-cutting easier for me. Now cross-cutting in first grade is going to be a challenge only because I'm not as familiar with the content but I have no doubt that once I start looking at it and start finding things I want to do it will all come together. I am super excited about this journey!
ReplyDeleteI really like how the cross-cutting makes things relate more to the daily lives of students!!! This way the kiddos can actually relate to the problems at hand and they intertwine with the learning concepts at the same time. I also like how Diana related it to putting a puzzle together. Puzzles can be challenging and fun at the same time!!! I haven't made it to the next two parts, but themes are another way of approaching things and I like that way as well!
ReplyDeleteI love the idea of cross cutting as well...but also fear it a little bit😳 Not that it's not possible, but I incision the goal being a seamless integration. I hope I can accomplish that! When I think of cross cutting topics I think of Authors purpose and informational text. We did a huge open house project over this this past year and the kiddos loved it. The best part is they were learning about real topics that ranged from the Lincoln Memorial, to the American Revolution, to the country of Italy and even Ellen Ochoa. It was so fun to see the kids learning all of this information about topics that weren't necessarily "ELAR" topics and could teach the class about them. It was one of my most favorite projects yet!
ReplyDelete*invision...not incision 😳
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