Prepping For The First Day

We've spent a lot of time in the past few weeks prepping for our first day of E-Time (January 6th).  At our most recent SEM Professional Learning session, we shared some ideas on what to do/plan for that first session.  Remember, for many of our students, this will be their first exposure to SEM and enrichment!  Below are some guiding topics and questions that we thought might assist our teachers.  Thank you Mrs. Kirby and Mrs. Raney for pulling this together!

First Day of E-Time

• Class discussion of key words: enrichment, E-Time, interest, choice, passion, discovery
• Show students some of the common interests within the classroom from Renzulli profiles
• Complete grade level interest surveys - (binder in the workroom)
• Group students with common interests and give them time to discuss what types of activities they would enjoy doing.
• Discuss what some of the activities could look like-
• Making cards for new students
• Researching your favorite sport
• Learning how to take care of pets
• Scrapbooking
• Creating clay sculptures
• Interviewing community helpers
• Designing an ocean mural
• Performing magic tricks
• Using problem-solving skills to solve pattern block puzzles

Our Hollywood Debut!

It's been a long time coming....

I've finally been able to put our experience at Laurel Mountain Elementary into a short movie!  There are some great examples of current enrichment clusters as well as some good advice and suggestions from the Principal and SEM Coordinator.

Once again, we would like to send a big THANK YOU to Laurel Mountain for hosting us and spending the time to answer our questions.

E-Time Is... E-Time Is Not

Our professional learning on E-Time earlier this week was a big hit!  We began with our Scavenger Hunt of the Laurel Mountain S.E.M. blog (see previous post).  We then had an energizing and enlightening (more "E" words) Skype session with Laurel Mountain S.E.M. coordinator Nicole Levitan.  She was kind enough to share her time answering questions and giving advice on how Laurel Mountain has successfully implemented E-Time.

Drawing on what we took away from the Scavenger Hunt and from speaking with Nicole, we then created a list on the SmartBoard of what E-Time Is and Is Not.  Check it out...



We wrapped up our professional learning with a challenging reflection piece facilitated by Laurie O'Neill.  Each teacher thought of one word that summed up the afternoon's learning.  They then shared their word with their E-Team.  Each team then wrote a sentence incorporating every teacher's word (that's when it became a bit challenging).  Check out their sentences below.  It wasn't as easy as it sounds!



A-Hunting We Will Go...

.... Scavenger Hunting that is!
                                               

Teachers, you'll be playing the part of a detective and completing a Scavenger Hunt of Laurel Mountain's S.E.M. Blog.  More specifically, we will be looking at the different components of E-Time.  I think you'll find that this will be incredibly productive as we build our understanding of what E-Time is and what E-Time is NOT.  Also, you'll see some concrete examples of how Laurel Mountain classes are using their E-Time (with ideas that you can take-away)!

You're with your new E-Team, so let's get started!  First, open the following link that will guide you through our Scavenger Hunt:

E-Team Scavenger Hunt.

Then, use the following link (to the Laurel Mountain SEM blog) to help you discover the answers to the Scavenger Hunt questions:

http://sematlme.blogspot.com/

 

Happy Hunting!

 

 

Countdown to E-Time...

So we've updated our students' Renzulli Profile, now what?

If our E-Time (which begins January 6th) is truly designed around our students' interests and talents, our next step will be to analyze these profiles and search for commonalities.  Those commonalities will be the launch-pad for designing our E-Time sessions.

Teachers, as you review your class profiles, what commonalities do you see in:

• students' interests?
• students' learning styles?
• students' expression styles?

By December 2nd, please respond to this post, and indicate what similarities/commonalities/themes you see among the students in your class.  When you respond to this post, please sign-in using your Coppell GMAIL account.

We look forward to discovering more about our students' talents and interests!

Laying The Groundwork...

Yesterday's Professional Development session on SEM focused a lot on laying the foundation for what is 21st Century Learning.  What will be required of teachers to effectively reach 21st Century Learners?  How can we teach and prepare students for careers and fields that don't yet exist?  These are all questions we attempted to tackle.  Check out these two videos we referenced:

Dan Brown's Open Letter to Educators
Changing Education Paradigms by Sir Ken Robinson
The videos above will certainly get you to thinking on the direction we're heading!
We then spent a large amount of time discussing how S.E.M. can address the needs of 21st Century Learners.  S.E.M. provides students opportunities to explore learning based on their own interests and talents... What could be more compatible with 21st Century Learning?
While it has taken us a bit of time to get S.E.M. "off the ground," we all agree that now is the time!  This will be an extremely laborious task and process (as we saw at Laurel Mountain Elementary), but we are ready to begin.  Check out our Journey to S.E.M. roadmap below.  It was part of the vision that was shared with the Austin faculty yesterday afternoon.

Thoughts???

Sallie Ride In Action...

Students in Mrs. Wettreich's 4th grade class are studying all the different careers in the field of Science.  Today, they did an activity from the Sally Ride training where you match different scientists "in action" with their title and field. 

Overheard while taking these photos... "I didn't know you could be a scientist and work in movies!"

Check out these photos...

Students will also reflect on how we view scientists and answer questions such as:

• Who can be scientists?
• What are characteristics of scientists?
• Where do they work?

Students will then do a Google Image search of "Scientist."  What do you think they will find?  Will it be an accurate portrayal of real world scientists?