On Wed, Jul 25, 2012 at 9:51 AM, Jerry W. Cobbs <cobbsj@uah.edu> wrote:
Good morning all,
If you haven't noticed, AMSTI has grown considerably in terms of staff. We have well over 250 Google Apps accounts, a good indicator of full-time staff numbers.Due to school schedules, we tend to make staff changes in bunches at certain times of the year. In the process of back & forth emails, sometimes it gets confusing to keep up with who is working where.To streamline the process, we now have a "Staff Info Change Form" on the website. The page is in the drop-down menu under "Staff Pages."This page is not visible unless you are logged in under one of the staff accounts-- "directors," "materials," "amstiscience," "amstimath," "SDEupdate." This is to protect from random pranksters submitting a form.Once you go to the page, the form should be self-explanatory. Just fill out the change info and click the "Submit" button. An email will be sent to me, to Ben Hicks, and to Debbie Newsome at SDE.Below the form, there is also a file uploader for photos. You can use it to send a photo with your request. Please note that if you are ONLY updating a photo for an existing staff member, you still need to also submit the request form. The uploader by itself does not send out a notice, so we will not know you have a new photo unless you use the form. There is a checkbox on the form for "New Photo Only".Thanks, and please let me know if you have any questions!
One additional note-- in re-reading this, I don't think I pointed out that we'd like to use this for ALL contact info changes, not just new hires. New phone numbers, emails, office addresses, and title or position changes as well. There are fields on the form to note each of these.
Next Week's PDs - August 13 - 16
August 13, 2012
White Plains Middle School: Data Driven
12:00 -2:00
Tanya
August 14, 2012
Attalla Elementary
Data Driven
8:00-10:00
Kay and Cherie
August 14, 2012
Alexandria Elementary
Data Driven
3rd grade: 8:00 - 9:30
4th grade: 9:30-11:00
5th grade: 12:30 - 2:00
Amber, Tara, and Shelley
August 15, 2012
Saks Elementary
Data Driven
2;00 - 3:30
Tanya
August 16, 2012
Questioning
10:00 - 12:00
Kay, Tara an Cherie
Science Activities
1:00 - 3:00
Polly, Cherie, Tara and Shelley
Math teachers meet with Kay
1:00 - 3:00
Hokes Bluff Middle School
Data Drive
9:00 - 10:30
Tanya
10:30 - 12:00
PLT meets with Tanya
RSS meetings Sept - May
Good news! Wendy Warren contacted me on Wedneday to reserve rooms at the In Service Center for the meetings Sept through May. I have rooms reserved and we are waiting on an official form from the SDE requesting to use rooms at the InService Center. But I think that is just a formality. So yea!
I hope we are able to leave the morning of the 29th because I have a Key Leader meeting on the 28th. We do not have times for the 29-30th yet. I asked Wendy and she said they are working on a place and determining times and she will notify me when everything is set.
I believe our training on the 29th and 30th will involve the InSights Database for College and Career Ready Standards AND the Global training that was held at the InService Center on Wednesday.
7 Habits training
The PD is listed on the JSU website. Please register. Other AMSTI sites will send people too. September 4 -6 is the PD. Tuesday after Labor day. The specialists and I will be at a meeting in Montgomery, August 29-30, (Wednesday and Thursday before). Tim will pick me up in Montgomery and we will go to his brother's house for Labor Day weekend. I will not be there on Friday. The room for 7 Habits, (2101, I think,) needs to be set up on Friday because we will begin at 8 am on Tuesday morning. We will need tool boxes (make sure they have post it notes and highlighters), chart paper. The room should be prepare for about 32 people, (8 tables with 4 people). Do we want to bring simple snacks and water? It will be 8 - 430 for the three days so everyone will need to adjust their work time to 8 - 430 for those 3 days.
Updates:
- OGAP: and ACHE
We've heard for the past year or so... What is AMSTI doing for nonAMSTI schools? Well we are going to provide OGAP training (Additive and Multiplicative) for 2 schools in June 2013 who are not AMSTI schools. Steve has provided the funds for us to do this (no materials for the school, we will just need training materials and to print participant guides) and extended our contract so we can do this. I hope to get those dates set in the next week or so. I would love to use our math staff to present these sessions. Let me know if you think we will be able to present these sessions at that time. You can co present, two for additive and two for multiplicative.
OGAP for our ACHE schools will be October 1 - 5. Rachel Broadhead will be the presenter. Additive will be October 1 and 2 and Multiplicative will be October 3-5. This is limited to Phase II PLT schools for Multiplicative (grades 3 -8) and since this is our first offering of Additive, then any school (k-2 teachers ) who has participated in the past 4 years in ACHE PLTs has been invited to additive.
ACHE : science for grades 6 -8, will be October 25. Again, we haven't offered anything for these grades so anything ACHE PLT schools with grades 6-8 can send a science teacher. A NASA specialists will present the Basics of Rocketry.
If my MSP grant is funded, then we will build off the ACHE training and offer to ACHE schools over the three year period of the grant, Additive reasoning, Multiplicative, Fractional and Proportion reasoning to the whole math faculty at those schools. We will also, work with the lead team, (the ACHE PLT members who have had OGAP training) to provide them Coaching training so they can be the expert at their school and provide support at their school.
The list of current ACHE Schools is on a poster in my room. The list of all who have participated in on the G drive and in a folder possibly called ACHE.
- Calhoun County concern and I'm sure other systems have the same concerns
I met with Leigh Twigg on Wednesday and Natasha Scott attended the Alexandria HS COS meeting. Leigh wanted to know what our support will look like since they now have Math In Focus as their text. I said we will continue to support their schools and when we are in a school and ask to teach a lesson, we may pull from Investigations or use OGAP strategies or other strategies. Everyone is worried about 6-8th grades.
I really believe we need to develop a tool box of lessons for the major changes (objectives moved to a grade level) in each grade level. Probability and statistics are always low. I don't know how we can roll out the tool box of lessons, but those schools that have PLT teams could focus on those during one of their meetings. Right now, we just need to focus on finding / developing lessons. We need to think about this and come up with a plan. This could also develop into grade level PD that we offer in the summer for all schools. We have the Brain Compatible books and Worksheets don't grow Dentrites books that we could pull from for activities. I'm not sure how objective specific they are.
I would love to offer Pennant Fever and Pollster Dilemma (IMP books) training for all advanced math teachers. That would have to be AMSTI specific because we would have to provide materials. I'm going to think about that and how to make it happen. Textbooks do not address the standards for advanced math when it comes to probability and statistics.
I would also like to have BLOGS or Google Groups for each grade level in math or science kit in science. Those could be used to post links to lessons found. Teachers can subscribe and could have access to links to lessons. Science could use them in the same way but also as a trouble shooting source. None of this has to be in place when school starts on August 20 but I want us to think about these things and see if we can implement some. Principals have actually asked me if we those types of online resources. We can expand our help though online resources. I bet Amber or Eric can provide this PD on how to make Blogs or create Google Groups.
