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The Connected Classroom

Information on and from Cooperating School Districts of Greater St. Louis' Learning Division

Category Archives: Collaborations

#CCSSUbDOur first Common Core State Standards and Understanding by Design Summer Institute- a collaboration with the St. Louis Area Curriculum Coordinators Association (SLACCA) and Authentic Education- was a great success this week at the Fox School District. Educators from several Missouri districts, including, but not limited, to Kirkwood, Ladue, Parkway and Rockwood, attended three days of professional learning. Another three-day session of the CCSS & UbD Institute takes place July 8-10 at the Ritenour School District. Learn more at www.csd.org/wiggins. More photos from the June session will be posted to Flickr; you can read some of the thoughts shared by following the #CCSSUbD hashtag on Twitter.

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collaborationIn our region, there are schools and districts that use the language of PLCs and others that emphasize data collection/data teams. One of the sessions offered at the Common Core and Understanding by Design Institute is designed to honor the power of collaboration—for adults and for the students in our classrooms.

An important focus of the Common Core is for students to engage in academic discourse. One way in which they do this is through productive, collaborative, learning experiences where they answer questions, build understanding, and solve problems. In order for our students to engage in these collaborative experiences, we must engage in academic discourse through our own productive collaboration. In the session, educators from the region will explore and develop strategies for productive collaborative experiences in the classroom with students as well as outside the classroom with colleagues.

To learn more about the other sessions being offered over the course of this three-day professional learning opportunity, click here.

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SSA eventSessions for next week’s Support Staff Academy Mini-Conference have been posted! Taking place June 5 at Lindenwood University, SSA’s Mini-Conference offers a great selection of sessions for attendees participate in. Here’s a small sampling of what’s being offered, visit the website to see all the sessions. Registration is still open.

• Everyone Get Ready! Dealing with the Media
• Preparing for Retirement: (PEERS) Public School & Education Employee Retirement Systems of Missouri
• Secrets of a Professional Organizer
• Safe Schools: Everyone Plays A Part!
• Saving Time with Online Documents: Google 101

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Show-Ne a Movie statesCooperating School Districts’ Show-Me a Movie Contest is now open to students in Missouri and its border states: Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska and Iowa!

The entry form and reflection form will be posted online soon, but guidelines, deadlines, rules, and frequently asked questions are now online.

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The American Heritage Society is providing online resources for teaching English Language Arts and U.S. History. The Society is building the system with a grant from the Helmsley Charitable Trust, which is making a major commitment to developing tools that teachers need to help students meet the expectations of new College and Career-ready academic standards.  According to the Society, “Heritage Education will link thousands of quality nonfiction resources to Common Core standards, providing easy-to-use guidelines about what high school students need for success. This extraordinarily rich archive includes thousands of historical essays by the preeminent historians of the last half century.”

Key Features:

  • Thousands of primary historical documents from leading museums and archives across the U.S.
  • Over 5,000 American Heritage Magazine essays written by leading historians over the last 60 years
  • 300 bundles of essays linked with primary sources, CCSS, and instructional strategies
  • Resources grouped by Lexile measures, Historical Era, ELA Themes

In addition, the Heritage Education project is seeking teachers, schools and school districts to participate in a pilot program in Fall 2013. They are looking for ELA and U.S. History teachers who teach high school students. They’ve extended the application deadline until May 31, learn more: heritageeducation.org/more-information.

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Google Certified TeacherLearning & Collaborating with Google Drive (formerly Docs) is a full-day of educational technology professional development offered by the Learning Division of Cooperating School Districts this summer.

Come create using these free Google Tools, and open up your classroom for your staff and your students.

Did you know that you could use the basic abilities of Word, PowerPoint, and Excel in an online collaborative environment by logging onto Google- anywhere? Are you interested in creating a variety of online forms for assessment through surveys, quizzes, and questionnaires? Would you like to create classroom drawings or charts to access anytime or anywhere?

Come learn about the six tools in Google Drive from Google Certified Teacher Bill Bass and discover how these online collaborative environments can expand your classroom and save you time. You’ll learn how Google Drive and other Google Apps can support learning 24/7.  PRE-REQUISITE: You must have a Google Account and/or Gmail. Learning & Collaborating with Google Drive is scheduled for Friday, June 14, from 8:30 a.m.  to 3:30 p.m. The cost is $145 for a CSD member; $185 for a non-member. For those interested,  one graduate credit is available after completing additional coursework. Register online.

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Learn from Julie Smith (who describes EdTech Evangelization as her new passion) how to use Web 2.0 applications to help your students create curriculum-based podcasts, infographics, screencasts, cartoons, online posters, illustrated timelines and videos.  See how this type of creation on the part of students can help them meet Common Core State Standards. In addition, one graduate credit is available through Lindenwood University by taking this workshop. Requirements for graduate credit: attend class; develop a lesson plan that incorporates the technology learned; and write a reflection explaining how technology enhances your lesson plan.

tele classWeb 2.0 for the Common Core​ takes place Monday, June 24 from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. at Cooperating School Districts. The cost is $145 for a CSD member and $185 for a non-member. For additional information, contact Joan Forrest. Register online.

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tech bootThe Learning Division of Cooperating School Districts is excited to invite you to participate in a week long edtech bootcamp! You should register for this summer professional development experience with Meg Ormiston if you want to create a classroom where students are engaged in creating projects aligned to the Common Core State Standards using digital tools. Meg feels teaching and learning today cannot be done without integrating technology and redesigning projects for students. This training is open for any interested K-12 educator.

During the course of the 5-day session, each participant will build, create, and publish project examples that they will have students complete back in the classroom. Participants are encouraged to bring materials they would like to redesign into technology rich projects. They will also learn new Web 2.0 tools to use while designing lessons aligned to the Common Core State Standards. All tech camp participants will have access to an online professional development library with 70 titles created by Meg. These 70 items are grouped into the four domains similar to the evaluation frameworks. In addition to walking away with a wealth of resources and ideas, those interested can earn three graduate credits for their participation.

Participants will:
• Design  lessons that align to the Common Core State Standards identified at their grade level.
• Analyze,  select, and organize appropriate on-line resources.
• Synthesize  the various assessment options and apply authentic assessment strategies to technology rich projects.
• Analyze  and reflect on best practice as it applies to literacy and math across the curriculum.
• Become  involved in active, professional research exploring new ways to expand their personal learning network.
• Prepare  students and teachers for the Next Generation Assessments.

Bring your own device! The July sessions are hands-on, fast paced, and relevant to teachers today. Each session is focused on the skills a teacher needs today to actively engage students in a 21st Century classroom.
To enlist in this boot camp, visit CSD’s registration site.

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D Sharon Pruitt - original owner of the photoResearch shows how important Early Childhood Education is to students’ long term success. The CHARACTERplus 19th annual National Character Education Conference this June has sessions tailored to meet the needs of Early Childhood Educators, including:

  • Early Childhood Education and Character Education: a perfect match and how to make your school feel like a home. Before a child can flourish academically, character must be established and a trusting relationship with the family must be built. Families, students, staff and community members should feel welcomed, respected and part of the team. The caring community we create starts with the climate and culture of our building.
  • D Sharon Pruitt - original owner of the photoCan you integrate Character Education to Pre-Schools? Learn more about social and emotional learning, service learning and class meetings to enhance your caring community.
  • A panel session with educators from Lindbergh, Rockwood and Southwest Early Childhood Centers, who will share resources and best practices. You will walk away with practical ideas and strategies about service learning, buddies, data collection, newsletters staff surveys , professional development and more!

In addition, conference attendees will have the chance to visit Rising Star Education‘s booth to see their latest early childhood DVD series, Harry & His Bucket Full of Dinosaurs, plus other great resources.

Registration is now open for the June 17-19 conference at the St. Charles Convention Center; by visiting characterplus.org, you can see different strands and keynote speaker bios.

Photos by D Sharon Pruitt.

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Patricia and Fred McKissack

Patricia and Fred McKissack during a 2008 webinar

by Martha Bogart

Fred McKissack died last Sunday, and the world just isn’t the same place without him.  Fred was one of those men that you always hear about on the news when they die—he was so nice, so friendly, such a good heart, etc. etc., except—Fred was the genuine article.  I don’t think I have ever met a better human being than Fred.  He and his wife, Pat, helped us here at CSD to create the New Links to New Learning videoconferencing program from scratch.  This was at a time, back in 1998, when if you asked someone to do a videoconference, the response was, “A what?”  But, CSD had received a grant from Southwestern Bell and Ruth Block’s task was to get schools interested and participating in videoconferences with students.  She approached Pat and explained what she wanted to do—provide students with videoconferences from children’s authors—and Pat and Fred were immediately in.  They didn’t know what it was, exactly, but if it helped kids, they were going to do it.

And do it they did!  Those first videoconferences were scary—Would the equipment work? Would the school personnel be able to dial in? What should the programming and content delivery look like? Would the kids like it? Would they learn anything?  But from the very beginning, the author visits were magical.  The camera would zoom in, and there would be Pat and Fred, smiling and talking, and answering questions from children about the books they had written, how they got their ideas, their writing process, how they went about researching for each book, which book was their favorite, and so much more.  How wonderful to be speaking directly to the authors of a book they had just read right from their classrooms, no matter where they were in the world!  And eventually, as we worked together to perfect the process, the students even got to do some original writing and have it critiqued by real authors.

No videoconference would have been complete without their signature sign-on—a map of Missouri with a star on the city of St. Louis. Pat would say that they were from Missour-ee, and Fred would say that they were from Missour-ah.  Then they would explain that people living on the east side of the state used the French pronunciation with an “e” on the end, while people on the west side used the Native American pronunciation with an “ah” on the end.  The kids got a kick out of it, and I never tired of that intro.

So many wonderful programs, it’s hard to pick a favorite.  Like the one where the kids developed a service project after they read Messy Bessey, and they collected toys and clothing they no longer needed to donate to others.  Or, the study of winter holidays around the world students did after reading Messy Bessey’s Holidays. Fred was the main presenter of the research process that he went through when he and Pat wrote Christmas in the Big House, Christmas in the Quarters, a wonderful book that takes place on a plantation during the Christmas before the start of the Civil War.  Then, there was the summer reading program we did with the St. Louis County Library where every student got a signed copy of Nzingha: Warrior Queen of Matamba. Children came to several branches of the library, and we did multipoint videoconferencing with Pat and Fred who were broadcasting from CSD.

Fred was in his element when he talked about the research process.  He emphasized the use of the library and the reference librarians, and he talked about primary sources and all of his and Pat’s trips to various locations around the globe to gather first-hand stories and information that formed the basis for much of their books.  He also loved to talk politics and was up on current affairs and the state of the union.  I remember having long talks with him that were interesting and insightful—with lots of laughter in the mix!  Fred was a real gentleman, and a truly “gentle” man.

What a role model Fred was to young African-American boys!  Here was a brilliant, funny, sweet man who had traveled the world, written books, researched in libraries all over the place, and yet was so approachable and willing to talk to kids and answer their questions no matter what they were.

We will miss you, Fred.  Thank you for all that you did for CSD, for the children of our region, and for embracing new technology and taking risks. God speed, my friend.

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