October 2018 PD&RC Pride!

October 2018

The Professional Development & Resource Center (PD&RC) Pride is a monthly email communication celebrating the work facilitated by BT BOCES PD&RC to advance teaching and learning. This will also be an opportunity to highlight resources available for loan as well as upcoming regional events. We hope you find this communication helpful and welcome your feedback.

1st Annual Southern Tier Science Conference

Regional Science PD Specialist, Maureen Smith, spearheaded efforts to bring the first annual Southern Tier Science Conference to our region and on October 4th approximately 85 educators from around the area attended this after-school event.

With over 20 presentations, participants were able to hear about things such as Motivating Students Through Engineering, Putting the T in STEAM, Compost in a Bottle, Google Expedition - Journey Through a Cell and many others.

Participants also had the opportunity to view products from FOSS/Delta Science , STEMscopes , Roberson Museum and Science Center , LabAIDS , and the Rogers Environmental Conservation Center .

During the refreshment break, participants also had the chance to collaborate with colleagues, speak further with presenters and win raffle prizes donated by many different vendors! The feedback that we have received so far has been nothing but positive with participants and vendors excited about the possibilities for year two!

We extend our many thanks to Chenango Valley Central School District and the High School for the use of their facilities, FOSS/Delta Science, STANYS and the Master Teacher Program of NYS for their support and generosity, the vendors and the presenters for sharing their valuable information. Finally, a big thank you to all of the conference attendees, because without you this conference would not have been such a great event!

Health & Physical Education Regional Conference Day

On October 5, approximately 60 health and physical education teachers from across the region joined together for a collaborative regional professional development day.

Owego Elementary School hosted the day, where the focus was on learning from each other about practices that can improve the health and wellness of our students. PD&RC Director, Kerri Bullock, welcomed and addressed all of the participants, sharing updates from the region and State Education Department relevant to health and physical education. From there, teachers had a variety of opportunities to continue their learning.

The following teachers shared presentations with their colleagues:

Maggie McNamara [Sidney CSD] - Incorporating Fitness into MS/HS PE

Koren Kinney and Rob Glielmi [Owego-Apalachin CSD] - Using Heart Rate Monitors in PE

Kelly Breward [Binghamton CSD] - Digital Breakouts and Formative Assessments in Health

Marianne Hertzog [Binghamton CSD] - Fun, Fit, and Educational Activities

The physical education teachers also had an opportunity to learn from U.S. Games trainers, Nick Kline and Maureen White, about the Online Physical Education Network (OPEN). These national trainers provided lesson and activity ideas from the OPEN curriculum around the areas of fitness, lacrosse, and Sp ikeball . The teachers enjoyed experiencing the lessons through the active professional development session.

Comments from participants included:

“M-E wanted to thank you for a great day of activities. Your work putting it together was impressive.”

“You always provide quality professional development. We literally used something we learned from the day in our practices and classes the next Monday!”

Thanks to Owego-Apalachin CSD for providing the venue and to all of the presenters for what turned out to be a great day of collaborative learning and something we hope to continue in our region in the future!

Math Grade 6 PLC & Regional Collaboration

On September 25th, Regional Math Specialists , Paul Volkert and Cody Osterhout , joined 11 teachers for ½ day sessions for 6th grade PLC (common scope & sequence, common assessments, DDI) and also 6th grade Regional Collaboration (share instructional strategies & best practices). The 6th grade PLC cohort was a continuation of the group's June session when they collectively agreed upon a common scope and sequence for the 2018-19 school year.

We started with a discussion about the state assessment, focusing on the released items and how these items might impact our agreed upon scope and sequence. We then made a common assessment that the group would administer and subsequently bring data back to the group to have DDI conversations and complete the group's DDI chart. One of the benefits of this group is that some schools are administering the common assessments on paper, while others are doing it on the computer, lending to conversations about how the students' approach will help drive instruction in the classroom.

In the afternoon, we reviewed the things we have done in the 6th grade Regional Collaboration thus far. These activities included fix the flaw and instructional scaffolding. Also during this session, teachers stepped into the shoes of students and worked on their mathematical critical thinking with activities from Robert Kaplinsky’s Open Middle; this online resource provides an outlet for teachers and students to hone in on their knowledge of the mathematical practices and have the ability to extend their thinking to their classroom.

If you didn’t have an opportunity to participate in the first sessions, consider joining the group for the rest of the year; links to register are provided below.

Marbotic Smart Kit

Mix traditional wooden toys and touchscreen technology with the Marbotic Smart Kit . The letters and numbers in this kit work with 7 different apps to help your students learn how to read, write and count.

This no Wi-Fi, no Bluetooth, no battery toy is meant for kids ages 3+. An interesting thing to note is that when your student holds the metal handle, the tablet detects the letter/number through their body’s static electricity! Click here to see a video of this toy in action.

To get more information or if you would like to borrow our Smart Kit*, visit https://tinyurl.com/medialibrarysmartkit

* Tablet required, if you do not have access to one you can borrow an iPad from the Media Library: https://tinyurl.com/medialibraryipads

As always, please contact Kristina Garcia at [email protected] if you need assistance ordering any of our Media Library Resources.

Arts-In-Education provides cooperative performance scheduling of professional artists in the areas of dance, media arts, music, theater and the visual arts for component school districts. Performances occur in participating schools or at a performing arts center. Residencies in the arts are an integral part of this service and can be custom designed to fit district curriculum needs. All performances serve to enhance the regular curriculum and to integrate the New York State Learning Standards for the Arts.

The following venues are offering student matinee performances in November and December: