JCCS Student Writing Contest

JCCS Student Six Word Memoir Writing Contest

Everyone Has a Story: What’s Yours?

Can you tell your story in six words, no more, no less? You are challenged to create a Six Word Memoir along with a backstory explaining your memoir and an accompanying visual (photograph, drawing, symbol, etc). Your teacher will have examples of other student Six Word Memoirs as well as additional information on how to write a Six Word Memoir.

Contest Details:

All submissions due by December 14th. Winners will be announced by December 17th.

Awards for both Elementary and Middle School/High School. Gift cards awarded in the following categories: Most Thought Provoking Six Word Memoir, Most Creative Six Word Memoir, Funniest Six Word Memoir, and Best Overall Six Word Memoir.

If you want more details, go to https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jb9qlFPfcZ5Jdw1mnkStpbuIPC76tYbYI5AzEOYd22Q/edit?usp=sharing

Why do social studies teachers need to teach literacy skills?

This week we had 14 JCCS social studies teachers come together to look at how to teach integrated literacy in their content area. With No Child Left Behind, we found that social studies was in fact left behind. With the Common Core State Standards, social studies is now front and center alongside the literacy standards.

Research shows that a majority of students struggle with evidence based argumentative writing and historical thinking. In a 2010 National Assessment of Educational Progress test, "88% of 12th graders could not 'communicate reasoned interpretations of past events, using historical evidence effectively to support their positions'" (National Center for Education Statistics). Our JCCS Instructional Focus emphasizes the importance of students being able demonstrate deep understanding by making and defending a claim with evidence. Focusing on argumentative writing and historical thinking aligns perfectly with both the research and our instructional focus.

How do we teach argumentative writing in the social studies classroom? Just like in English Language Arts, we have to intentionally teach the writing process to students -- prewriting, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing. Students benefit from mini lessons on this with the teacher modeling how it's done, guiding students in practicing it, and then releasing the work to students to work independently. Graphic organizers help students to think through their essays. With shorter term students, you may want to use the They Say, I Say Template.

So what is meant by historical thinking? A great resource on this can be found at Stanford History Education Group and in particular the Historical Thinking Chart that highlights the importance of sourcing, contextualization, close reading, and corroboration. Additionally, this website includes some fun, interactive activities to introduce students to historical thinking as well as a lot of lesson plans that look at history from an inquiry stance.

If you missed it, you can access the materials from our resource links.

How to Build a Human

                      TableTop Whale is an Original Science Illustration Blog

Interactive Infographic on How to Build a Human

A designer with a molecular Biology degree made charts, infographics, illustrations, and published them every two-three weeks. The site has not had any new material since last January...but there is some really cool material on this site. 

Animated Skeletal Muscle on her blog

The owner of the blog said: "I'm working on a pretty extensive non-science art project right now, and it's been taking up a lot of my time. I was also invited to be on the panel of judges for the Malofiej Infographics Summit in Spain, so I'm going to be out of town for a while doing conference things. But I promise I haven't forgotten about this blog, and I'll be back soon with more science :)"-Eleanor Lutz

However, I highly recommend this site for information to use with your students, and inspiration for student design projects. As we work to add the A "Arts" to STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics), and make it STEAM...there are some great project ideas here!

Animated 42 Butterflies of North America

I encourage you to look throughout her site, but I found the infographic on "How to Build a Human"...(second entry down on the blog)...simply fascinating! The direct link is also linked to the screenshot at the top of this blog entry. Let us know if you find this site useful, and if it springboards any projects or discussions with your students. **This is a public blog on the web and comments are open. **





She  uses Photoshop and Illustrator, mainly with a Wacom drawing tablet. Here's her tutorial for using photoshop to make animations. 

                                                   Tabletop Whale blog found here

What you need to Build A Computer,  "TableTop Whale"- by Eleanor Lutz

Digital Content Portal (DCP)

Here are a few cool features in the Digital Content Portal that we thought you’d want to know about:

• Playlists in California Streaming – curate pertinent videos in a playlist and share them with your students, your colleagues, or the world! You can also view the Public Playlists that are created by educators from around the state. Click on PLAYLISTS

• Our ebook collection is over 10,500 titles! Click on EBSCO EBooks and you are sure to find something of interest. Better yet, let your students pick their next book and read it online.

• There are over 400 ready-to-use vocabulary lists aligned to books you are teaching in your class. Explore TeachingBooks.net for these lists and many more resources to give all readers insights and opportunities that deepen their understanding and joy of the books they are reading.

If you have questions or need additional support you can always contact Cindy, cidunlevy@sdcoe.net, or Jonathan, jonathan.hunt@sdcoe.net.

Determining the Best Approach to Building a Solar-Powered Pizza Oven

                             Build It, and They Will.....Eat!!

Solar-powered pizza oven for smores

     I found this resource on the web along with a link to Bill Ferriter's blog. He is a science teacher and a strong supporter of students analyzing, synthesizing, comparing and contrasting and evaluating in every single class every single day.  The standards ask students to grapple with the concept of energy, and the notion it is neither created or destroyed. The goal of the below lesson was to help students recognize that light energy can be converted into heat energy. This teacher conducted this investigation with students right before Thanksgiving and made s'mores in the ovens. This could be ramped up with engineering concepts as students evaluate their design, and remodel for more efficiency or used as an access point to the concept of energy transfer and allow the kids an opportunity to plan, and build something.

     Let us know in the comments on the blog if you try it on with students, and how it goes. Also, if you have an idea to modify the lesson to be used in your specific program let us know! Share with your peers your successes, or challenges that arose within the project. Please share any pictures of completed solar ovens so we can add to the blog and share our students successes. 

  The below handout can be downloaded for free from the linked blog in the first paragraph or from this google doc link.

     

Energy Form and Changes Simulations to push into the topic of energy: Here

Determining the Best Approach to Building a Solar-Powered Pizza Box Oven

Over the next few days in class, we’ll be building a solar-powered pizza box oven and cooking our own S’mores.  Your group will be responsible for determining the best setup for your solar powered oven based on what you already know about energy.  Make good decisions and you’ll have delicious S’mores to eat.  Make poor decisions and you’ll be left eating cold marshmallows on hard graham cracker!

Start by watching this video outlining the steps necessary for building your solar-powered oven:  http://bit.ly/solarovensmore

Then work through the steps below to determine the best strategy for building your oven.  Remember to NOTE: Note key points, Observe options, Think it through and identify possibilities and Express your personal choice.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Step 1:  Note all of the variables that you can control in the design of your oven. 

What options do you have in designing your pizza box oven?  What can you intentionally change about your oven design?

Variables

Step 2:  Think together and identify three variables that will be the most important to designing a successful oven.

Can you defend your choices using science knowledge gained during our energy unit?

Important Variable:	Why this Variable Matters:

EXPRESS YOUR PERSONAL CHOICE BY BUILDING AND TESTING YOUR SOLAR POWERED OVEN.  COMPARE YOUR RESULTS TO THE RESULTS OF GROUPS THAT USED A DIFFERENT OVEN DESIGN FROM YOUR OWN.

Step 3: Planning for future ovens

What changes would you make if we built another oven?  How would those changes improve your results? 

Change Needed:	Why this Change Matters:

Strategies for Reading Non-Fiction with Students

                                        Before, During and After: Strategies for Reading Nonfiction

Every weekday on the Time Learning Network blog they take an important or interesting news or feature story from the week and turn it into a quick series of questions and activities designed to help students both understand the story and connect it to their own lives.

Each edition has suggestions for engaging the class before they read the story; questions about the article for during and after they have read it; and activity suggestions for going further.

The story picks range from politics to pop culture, science, social media, sports, history, the arts and literature, so you can use this as a source of compelling nonfiction for lesson plans, homework assignments and extra-credit projects.

Teachers often ask for resources for non-fiction topics that include a variety of contents, and choice. This is a great resource of topics, and strategies to engage students with non-fiction informational texts.

Let us know in comments on the blog if you try this lesson and have success with your students.



Lesson can be found here.

Math News for ALL math Teachers from Mindy

           Posted on Blog on behalf of Mindy Shacklett for Carnegie Math Pacing Updates:

                                                                    Good morning all!

So...after working with Cohort 1 and preparing for our upcoming Content Seminar on Nov. 12 (where does time go?!), we made some decisions regarding pacing/timing.

1) Finish Unit 2. Take what time you need between now and Friday, November 20 to finish Unit 2.

2) If you finish Unit 2 prior to Friday, November 20 venture into Unit 3 - know that you will not complete it though!

3) Monday, November 30 EVERYONE begins UNIT 4. During my planning for our Nov. 12 Content Seminar, I noticed that there isn't much "bang for the buck" in terms of standards addressed to spend significant time in Unit 3 this year - next year our pacing will be better and we will readdress this (there is some good stuff there but not very much that contributes to students meeting standards).

4) The Nov. 12 Content Seminar will focus on UNIT 4 - I know I originally said 3.1 but...see #3 

5) The November 12 Content Seminar will be held in CCR Main Conference Room (the room we've been meeting in) and with the cooler weather, I'm sure the AC will be working wonderfully 

Questions, thoughts or comments? Bring it!

Credit guide from Math Cohort 1 Integrated Math 1

Have a wonderful day all!

Mindy

Mindy Shacklett
Lead Mathematics Coordinator
Learning and Leadership Services
San Diego County Office of Education
6401 Linda Vista Road, Room 321 South
San Diego, CA 92111

Current Events Lesson from New York Times Learning Network

              What should you do when a stranger shows up at your door asking for help?

 

African Migration Crisis

Globally record numbers of migrants have had to abandon their homes due to crime, war, and other threats. 60 million people this year alone were on the move looking for a new homeland. New York Times Learning Network has created a lesson for students to explore the global migration crisis, first through maps and photographs, then with a class reading and discussion, and next by way of a research assignment. In our quest to provide opportunities for students to think globally this lesson provides a slideshow using photographic journalism where a picture really can tell a thousand words, and short videos.

Mediterranean Migrant Crisis 

If you scroll a bit further down the lesson the section titled: Inquiry Activity- you can ask your students to delve deeper into the global migration crisis by doing their own research. They might want to start with one of the suggested Key Questions, or use the Think/Puzzle/Explore process(PDF) to help them figure out what they want to investigate further. There are provided resources with different perspectives and stories from around the world. Depending on your Learning Target you might want to ask students to choose one or more articles from the list provided, or to do more intense research in The Times and elsewhere, before writing up what they learned and presenting to the class.

Migrants, mostly from Syria and Iraq, set out along a highway on the Danish-German border

Further down the lesson in the section titled: Going Further- There are ideas to Hold a Congressional Hearing, Organize a Model United Nations, or any other idea you might have for interactive learning and presenting.

Also check out: Migrant Children, Arriving Alone, and Frightened.



                                                       Key Questions for the lesson:

•  How much responsibility should individual people or nations take for welcoming migrants from other countries?
• Why do some people or nations view migrants as a threat, while others view them as a boon?

As always please share on the blog if you try this lesson, or components of this lesson and how it goes in classroom.

Link to lesson:Border Challenges: Responding to the Global Migration Crisis