Equity and Access Training Opportunity

Last week, I mentioned a number of summer learning opportunities for educators, including the district offered Red Apple classes. One particular Red Apple class that might be of interest to many of you is the Access and Equity training. This particular session will address questions such as: Why do some students experience success at school while others back away from challenge? and Does our educational community unknowingly have beliefs or use behaviors that inadvertently create inequity and deny students access to learning? Conversations will focus on how our district can work towards eliminating gender, racial, and class-based achievement gaps by addressing areas such as access; pedagogy and curriculum; and student, teacher, and community identities. Time will be spent exploring recent research in these areas through group work, individual reflection, and small and large group discussions.

If we truly believe that we as a district are seeking "To educate and prepare each student to succeed in a changing world," these are the ideas we need to explore and the conversations we need to have.

The Access and Equity training will be offered twice this summer: June 20-23 (at New Tech) and August 8-11 (at CTE). Like other Red Apple courses, graduate credits will be offered at a small cost through Augustana and USF.

I urge to you to consider this training as part of your summer learning. Once you've decided to do it, register here. ;-)

Operation Spring Cleaning

As you wrap up the year and start to clean out drawers and cupboards, please keep these two things in mind.

1. For the first time, the Sioux Falls Public Schools Education Foundation is hosting a teacher swap meet next fall on Thursday, August 11th. If you have items you no longer need but another teacher may want, consider reserving a table at the swap meet. You can choose if you want to sell your items (you set your own prices) or trade for other items. See the details in the poster below.



2. If you don't wish to participate in the swap meet but are looking for a place to dump your no-longer-needed-treasures, please consider emailing me! I will help the treasures find new homes. (Because I have 1/2 a cubicle at IPC, I am unfortunately unable to accommodate really large treasures...) On the flip side, if you are looking for an item, you may also email me to see if I have it.

Summer 2016 Graduate Credit Opportunities

Free grad credits are nice...but they aren't always available.

In the meantime...If you are looking for grad credits to move you to the next lane on the salary schedule or to finalize your recertification, here are a few options to consider.

First, a few degree advancement reminders...

If you are looking at completing any graduate credit work this summer or early next fall, remember to submit your Coursework Pre-Approval forms. The district review committee will review forms one last time this school year, and forms are due by noon on Friday, May 27. Access documents and guidelines on inSite.

FREE Graduate Credits

The Dakota Writing Project is hands down some of the BEST PD I've had, and their Summer Institute is coming up quickly. It runs June 13 - July 8, and this year, the first three weeks are on campus at USD and the fourth week is online. The DWP just sent out information that they can pay 100% tuition and fees for the first 12 who register. (The Institute is worth 6 graduate credits!) If you are interested, please email Michelle Rogge Gannon before May 23 at mrogge@usd.edu for the details. (Email her ASAP so that you can be one of the 12!)

Online Graduate Credits

​If you are interested in completing self-paced graduate credits in your PJs and in the comfort of your own home, you might want to check out Learners Edge Professional Development. Learners Edge offers (mostly 3 credit) courses on: Teaching Excellence, Instructional Strategies, Classroom Management, Literacy, Brain-Based, Technology, Leadership, and Design & Assessment. Browse their Summer/Fall 2016 Catalog here. Also, a handful of colleges endorse their courses, and you can request your credit through one of the colleges listed on the Learners Edge website. (Augie is one, so if you already have a few graduate courses through Augie, you can add any Learner's Edge course to your Augie transcript.) Lastly, if you are new to Learners Edge, use promo code FRIEND20 to receive $20 off your first ​3-credit course.

Local Graduate Credits

There are also a number of great opportunities available here in town. 

• ​The District offers Red Apple courses, which offer teachers opportunities to get grad credits for less than the typical university cost. View the Red Apple calendar here. 
• Augie and USF both offer continuing education courses during the summer. View Augie's list here and USF's list here.
• New Tech is also offering the Project Based Learning Academy again. There are two courses offered: Academy I - Introduction to Project Based Learning, and Academy II - Integration of Project Based Learning​. (Click on the links to view descriptions.) Registration closes on May 23.

Happy learning!

Author April Henry

I KILL PEOPLE, BUT ONLY ON PAPER

Welcome to my little corner of the Internet. I'm a New York Times bestselling author who loves kung fu, Brazilian jujitsu, and all things salty. 

Anyone slightly worried about me? (Hopefully not because I am unfortunately NOT a New York Times bestselling author...and nothing else in that list describes me, either.)

So who does the list describe and why should we care?

YA author April Henry welcomes guests to her website with those words, and we care because she is coming to hang out with us (I mean, our students) next fall!

Something about hearing that an author is coming to visit our schools always stirs my little bookworm heart...

Anyway, next fall, Henry will be spending almost a full week with us in South Dakota, and sandwiched between her speaking engagements with the 2016 SD Festival of Books and the SD Library Association's annual conference, she will be visiting some of our Sioux Falls schools. (Ask your librarian if she is visiting your school because I don't have all of the details.)

I spent a little time snooping around her "little corner of the Internet" because I haven't read any of her books...yet. (I plan to this summer.) I am intrigued! She has some interesting quick reads under her Bio tab:

If your students are headed to hear her speak, they might have fun searching through her pages. (And a few of them might work well as informational text practices, too.)

Have fun exploring!

"Thou Shalt Not Commit Logical Fallacies"

"Thou Shalt Not Commit Logical Fallacies" is an amusing approach to understanding fallacies. It associates 24 types of fallacies with an image, provides a definition and an example, and connects the type of fallacy to the real world by explaining where it is often used. Look at all those "best practices" in action! Bonus: If you like the "Thou Shalt" information, you can download a free PDF poster for you and your students here. (Scroll down to the bottom to find the free PDF, or if you really like it, you can pay for a large, colorful poster.)

"Logical Fallacies or Fallacies in Argumentation"is more straight-forward by providing a list that includes definitions for 20 types of fallacies, along with two examples of each type. Students could build upon this by creating a visual summarization and/or coming up with the real-world application.

What Author Should I Read Next?

"What else do readers of _______ read? The closer two writers are, the more likely someone will like both of them. Click on any name to travel along."

Looking for a new author to explore? Have a student who could use a suggestion or two?

The Literature-Map website is designed to provide readers with quick access to other authors they might potentially enjoy. The reader types in the name of an author he/she enjoys, and the Literature-Map produces a web of names. Each name on the map is an author similar (in some way) to the submitted author. As the tagline says, the proximity of the names visually tells the reader how likely they are to enjoy both of them.

(I tried it out with a few authors I enjoy, and it provided me with some other names I know I enjoy, as well as new ones to explore.)

Like that? The Global Network of Discovery also has a music map and a movie map. Check them out here.

Padlet Hacks

Padlet is by no means a new tool for the classroom, nor is it new to our district. I have seen it used in classrooms, and for a while, it was a regular on the list of tech tools to explore during building PD sessions. (For those of you who jumped on the bandwagon early on, remember that Padlet was formerly known as Wallwisher.)

Padlet created this padlet "Hacks" wall a few months ago, and it contains tips and tricks for using Padlet more effectively. If you use Padlet or are considering using it, I would encourage you to check out the hacks.

Happy hacking. Happy posting.