Diversity Workshop An in-school workshop for diversity training for the entire faculty and staff.

AASL National Conference Highlights included learning about digital citizenship, global connections, and curriculum focused on inclusion and diversity. Additionally, Maya returned from the conference with over 50 pounds free books again this year!

MidMath National Conference Jason Naroff and Chris Denaro     This summer the middle school math team participated in an online class by Jo Boaler from Stanford. Boaler will be presenting at this conference and the team plans to further their understanding of the ideas they learned about this summer.

Teacher’s College reading/writing Caryl McCabe (4th grade) – The institute will provide more understanding of the Lucy Calkins approach to explicit reading instructions, which has been introduced this year in grades 1-5. Since implementing this practice, Caryl feels like there is a “reading craze” in her classroom and looks forward to learning more about the program.

Flipped classroom recording equip Grade 4: Caryl McCabe, Emily King, Kendra Katz, Marshall Deforest, Frances Ingram – This technology will enhance academic instruction using audio, visual, and multimedia student recordings as a key component of extending student thinking and making it visible for digital portfolios on Seesaw Learning Journal under a blended flipped classroom. As Caryl writes, “the in-the-moment critical thinking students verbalize and document on Seesaw render it an instructional goldmine.”

NSTA conference Brad Cranston (7th grade) and Ginny Lamere (Engineering Lab) – The team plans to discover new curriculum ideas, identify new teaching aids and engineering tools for purchase.

NCTE Conference   This conference focused on using writing to speak out for equity and justice, a timely subject. All middle school ELA teachers plus Kathi Maklis attended.

Art Link Cultural Connections  A pilot for next year’s third graders to develop a relationship with another class of third graders sharing artwork (physically) and storytelling via video conference.

Second Grade iPads The second grade uses dedicated iPads to create audiobooks, research projects, and to communicate about the Iditarod project.  The ones that they had access to were old and crash often.  They need newer equipment to run current apps and programs.  They requested 8 iPads and cases.

Building Learning Communities The CEF has sent teachers to BLC workshops before.  This is an Alan November led progressive education group.  The focus is on using technology in education and providing workshops on how to do that within current curriculums. 

Math Content Coaching Lesley University course that will give the MS math team plus Lesley Yanka tools to improve math instruction – including collaboration across grade level, and focusing on the journey rather than the outcomes of mathematics.

ASHA The Association for Speech and Hearing had its national conference in Boston, so we funded sending our three full time SLPs.

Summer Art Studio Rachel Levy attended a summer studio program entitled “Design Thinking: Building a Community of Learners and Leaders.”  She brought back ideas for further collaboration with Ginny Lamere and Maya Bery.