Happy Long Weekend, Arts Fam!
On Tuesday, I had the pleasure of having most of you with me in the morning as we began our professional development day. I love getting you all together, hearing the conversations bustling at your tables- about music, art, family, friends and of course, Our Kids. As we embrace November, we shared new ideas and strategies relating to our goals, with common foci on engagement through technology/station work and use of academic language. Teachers broke into content and grade leveled groups and continued to flesh out the curriculum maps for K-8 Art and Music, and Durfee teachers collaborated on common course expectations within level one classes. By the end of the morning sessions, teachers in K-5 completed the maps, and continued to work together on shared goal work. These maps include student learning objectives, specific vocabulary for each unit/lesson, sample work, assessments and Blendspace Links. Middle School also worked on their maps, tackling the 8th grade specifically, and shared a folder with lessons, power points and other resources for all teachers to share. This work is crucial to ensure alignment within our district arts classes, and you were a huge part of making it happen. The maps are standards based, specific, concise and easy to use. Teachers using the K-5 Art Map can simply click on the links referent to lessons, and use the presentations created by our own staff to deliver engaging content. In the words of art teacher Steph Pereira, that is "Wow" work! Let's continue to work together and grow, using each other's strengths to build our own.
Here are some pictures from an afternoon session:
On Tuesday, I had the pleasure of having most of you with me in the morning as we began our professional development day. I love getting you all together, hearing the conversations bustling at your tables- about music, art, family, friends and of course, Our Kids. As we embrace November, we shared new ideas and strategies relating to our goals, with common foci on engagement through technology/station work and use of academic language. Teachers broke into content and grade leveled groups and continued to flesh out the curriculum maps for K-8 Art and Music, and Durfee teachers collaborated on common course expectations within level one classes. By the end of the morning sessions, teachers in K-5 completed the maps, and continued to work together on shared goal work. These maps include student learning objectives, specific vocabulary for each unit/lesson, sample work, assessments and Blendspace Links. Middle School also worked on their maps, tackling the 8th grade specifically, and shared a folder with lessons, power points and other resources for all teachers to share. This work is crucial to ensure alignment within our district arts classes, and you were a huge part of making it happen. The maps are standards based, specific, concise and easy to use. Teachers using the K-5 Art Map can simply click on the links referent to lessons, and use the presentations created by our own staff to deliver engaging content. In the words of art teacher Steph Pereira, that is "Wow" work! Let's continue to work together and grow, using each other's strengths to build our own.
Here are some pictures from an afternoon session:
This two-pager written by Steph Pereira at Silvia breaks down what she does with her "video tutorials" of art lessons for K-5 students. She demonstrated for teachers how she plans a mini lesson, films it, edits the film, adding text and simple effects and uses this in conjunction with her Blendspace presentations. Seamless instruction, and if you ever wondered if you could just "clone" yourself, this is pretty close! While the video runs for students, Ms. Pereira is able to rotate throughout the room, or simply watch over her group as they are engaged in the lesson. She can pause it between steps, or let it continue to run. She can also "loop" the video to play repeatedly so students can have that scaffold there in case they need reinforcement of the procedure.
Super NEXT LEVEL!
A pic from Ms. Pereira's Kandinski Concentric Circle Lesson
In the afternoon, Band, Orchestra and Chorus teachers spent time collaborating to plan upcoming performance events for our students. The team planned for All City Chorus, Band and Orchestra. This year, students from all schools will be invited to participate in additional bi-weekly practice sessions with our lead teachers to improve their skill in playing or singing. This new plan will hopefully strengthen our students' ability to perform, and I am sure it will show at the All City Concerts in the spring! This program is so essential for Our Kids, as Fall River's families sometimes cannot afford to pay for private lessons, and these bi-weekly practices will support growth beyond the classroom weekly lessons.
Looking Ahead:
- Durfee- End of Term 1- Thursday, November 9th, Grades due by 11/14
- Durfee Parent Teacher Conference- November 16th 5-7PM
- K-12 Arts Learning Walk- Wednesday, November 15th
- Veteran's Day Parade- Durfee Marching Band Participating- November 11th, 11AM
- Monthly K-8 Department Meeting- Thursday, November 30th 3:45 at Silvia and Kuss
- Durfee: November 14th Faculty Meeting is switched to Department Meeting- we will be talking about the Program of Studies for 2017 - 2018. November 29 will be used as a Faculty Meeting.
- December 7th- Release Time Day
As promised, here is the Blendspace link with a few Accountable Talk strategies, the video tutorial to the FlipGrid App and more.
Have a wonderful weekend,
Jackie
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