SAS Educational Programs

Last week I wrote about the upcoming Performance Evaluation Parent Input Survey, through which SAS teachers will seek feedback on their performance. Beginning in January and February, 2009, and through the Spring, SAS teachers will seek feedback from all their constituents, including their students, their teacher colleagues, their administrators and, through these surveys parents.

The Purpose of Performance Evaluation

The goals of the performance evaluation program, developed over the past three years by SAS administrators and teachers after extensive research into best practices of teacher performance evaluation, are tied to important teaching and learning goals. These are to “enhance student learning through improvement of professional practice”, to “identify the need for, and encourage the pursuit of professional development and personal growth,” and to “recognize and reinforce professional practice.”
In order to do all three, and in particular the latter goal, teachers and their supervisors are gathering evidence of actual instructional practice. That evidence is gathered through a variety of means, including:

• formal classroom observations,
• goal-setting with their supervisors,
• a comprehensive construction and review of a portfolio of professional practice.

Teachers’ professional portfolios will include parent survey data and reflection and will be one of many points of evidence that a teacher will consider when developing the summary of their work for the school year they will use as the basis for setting and adjusting professional goals in the coming months and years.

Purpose of the Survey
From the beginning, the purpose of the survey has been to give teachers an opportunity to receive feedback from parents for the purpose of professional growth. The partnership between parents and teachers is a critical part of our mission. All of us, including educational professionals, work best when we receive accurate, informative feedback.  We need to know what we are doing well, and how we might expand the positive aspects of our practice to more effectively meet the needs of our students.  As educational professionals, like all people, we also need clear feedback to identify areas for improvement.

The survey is a vehicle for parents to provide this information — both celebrations and observations for follow-up – to each of their children’s teachers.

What the Survey is not…
The parent feedback survey is not a venue for specific complaints about an educational professional. Such concerns should be directly addressed to the appropriate teacher. Concerns of this nature can be communicated in writing or face -to-face, or to the individual’s supervisor.
Parent communication to school personnel is not only necessary, but essential.  We encourage all parents in our community to not hold their concerns for a survey, but to address them in a timely and personal fashion.

Survey Specifics
The online surveys will be available for completion for one week (see dates below).

All surveys are administered by an online survey service to assure anonymity for both parents and teachers.

During parent coffees, principals will demonstrate how to use the online survey; technicians will be on hand to help parents who would like help to complete the survey then and there. It is not necessary to attend a coffee to complete the survey.

The online survey will be available in English, Chinese and Korean.

The survey dates:
Puxi campus HS: Jan 7-13/ Pudong campus HS: Jan 8-14
Puxi campus MS: Feb 11-17/ Pudong campus MS: Feb 5-11
Puxi campus ES: Feb 18-24/ Pudong campus ES: Mar 5-11

Four sample survey questions:

• The teacher generally helps me understand how well my child is learning.
• The teacher generally provides me with timely feedback on my child’s learning and performance.
• My child is motivated, happy and enthusiastic about learning in this classroom.
• The teacher generally understands and supports my child as a learner.

Completed survey data will be compiled by a technician in the Human Resources office and passed along to teachers in a PDF file. The information is provided to the teachers and will be reviewed by supervisors with the teachers through portfolio review and through end-the-year summary evaluation conferences.

While parent input to performance evaluation is very important, it is one of many pieces of complex evaluation process.

This article cross posted to ParentTalk online

Technorati Tags: Performance Evaluation, SAS, Shanghai American School

The following letter was sent to the Pudong Elementary Community:

December 2, 2008

Dear Pudong Elementary School Parents,
I would like to take a moment to share with you the Elementary School Principal search process in which we are currently engaged for the 2009-10 school year at our Pudong Campus. As we have done in many cases in the past, we have engaged International School Services to assist SAS in the recruiting for this position. The position announcement was posted by ISS last month and continues to be posted at this time.

The next steps in this search process are as follows:
1. We will finalize our candidate profile for use in identifying candidates from among the applications we receive.
2. I will consult with members of our administrative team in Pudong and Puxi to conduct the paper screening from the stack of applications we currently have.
3. From the application and dossiers provided, we will identify a list of candidates for the first round interview process.
4. We will form a faculty interview team who will participate with me in conducting phone interviews of promising candidates based on their application materials
5. These phone interviews will be conducted by the interview team as soon as we can establish a schedule according to the availability of the candidates who will be located in various parts of the world.
6. We will conduct extensive reference checks on each of or finalists candidates as we seek to identify two to three outstanding candidates for consideration by the Board of Directors.

The time line we will follow needs to be somewhat flexible as it will to some degree be determined by the schedules and time zones of those candidates we seek to interview. Our goal is to move forward as much as possible in the next few weeks before the holiday break.

As always, I thank you for your continuing support of the Pudong Campus Elementary School.

Dennis Larkin Ed. D
Superintendent

———————————————–

The following letter was sent to the Puxi Middle School Community

December 2, 2008

Dear Puxi Middle School Parents,

As you may be aware, our current middle school Principal, MS Bernadette Carmody, has accepted the position of High School principal at the Dubai American Community School. All of us at SAS offer our congratulations to Bernadette and wish her every success in her new career opportunity. We also wish both Bernadette and her husband, Arnt Wollom, our very best hopes for them in their new school community, city and country next school year.

I would like to take a moment to share with you the principal search process we have followed and to outline for you the next steps in this process so that you are in the loop as things move forward.

Beginning in August we posted the position opening with International School Services to recruit interested administrative candidates from around the world. We also formed two committees, the first being made up of SAS administrators and the second of middle school faculty members. The administrator committee worked with me to review the dossiers of all candidates who applied and to participate with me in conducting first round interviews of prospective candidates. This process was completed by the middle of November. The second committee, made up of middle school faculty members, is now engaged in conducting second round interviews of all candidates identified through the screening process. We are currently in contact with six candidates to arrange for these second round interviews to take place in the next two weeks or so.

In summary, the next steps are as follows:

1. We will conduct second round phone interviews with candidates who have been selected from the paper screening and first round interview process.
2. Phone interviews will be conducted by the middle school faculty interview team and will be facilitated by me. We hope to schedule these interviews at mutually convenient times during the next two weeks.
3. We will conduct extensive reference reviews for each of the candidates we feel would make an excellent choice to serve as the next Middle School Principal for the Puxi community.
4. We will seek to identify two or three outstanding candidates to present to the Board of Directors at the December Board meeting confident that any of these finalists would make a fine selection for our community.
5. The final appointment process will be determined depending on the outcome of identifying the finalist candidates. We hope this will take place some time in the month of January.

I do want to publicly thank Middle School faculty members Jason Robinson, Theron Mott, Melanie Ryan, Ross Dunn, Linda Wagener Laura McDonald, Dave Baxter and Francesca Mulazzi for volunteering to work with me through this final stage of the search process. It does take additional time and energy over an above their usual responsibilities. I greatly appreciate and value their input.

I will provide further information to you in the coming weeks as this process moves to a successful conclusion.

I thank you for your continued support of our Puxi Campus Middle School.

Sincerely,
Dennis Larkin Ed. D.
Superintendent

Ivan Doig writes in the first line of his book The Whistling Season, “When I visit the back corners of my life again after so long a time, littlest of things jump out first.”
The line strikes me now much as it did when I first picked up the book about a year ago. It makes me realize that the little things we do for our students in our classrooms are really what is going to matter most in their lives, years from now. 

I think back to my grade 4 classroom, which in retrospect was my best year in elementary school.

I could probably blame that school year and my amazing teacher on my passion some 20 years ago to be “the best fourth grade teacher that I could ever be” — that is what I told the principal sitting across a huge desk from me giving me courtesy interview.  He hired me on that line, and I worked as hard as I could to recreate that feeling I had as a fourth grader in West Park Elementary School in Hermiston, Oregon.  Mrs. Mullay was my teacher and she was a master at creating a wonderful sense of community and with a feeling of safety inside that classroom space. 

That year was a tough one for me both educationally and health-wise. It was about this time of year, in 1974, that I ended up requiring surgery, which I am sure scared my poor mother to death. I lived in a hospital bed in the shadow of my elementary school for what seemed like eternity. My teacher visited me a couple times, dropping off schoolwork and a copy of Black Beauty, the book she was reading aloud to us at the time.  After Black Beauty was Old Yeller; we even got to watch the Disney version of the film after we finished the book. 

The school probably had one film projector, and I am sure that my teacher had to fight to reserve it for the three or four days it took to complete the 4-reels of the film. 
Even back then, teachers struggled with access to technology tools, but that did not stop Mrs. Mullay from using the tools as often as she could and focusing on creating a strong classroom community. In fact she used the tools to reinforce the idea of community, while using these to broaden our horizons and show us there was a bigger world than what was the small attendance area we called home. 

Much like today as our teachers at SAS fully exploit the tools that they share through the school; technology tools that make a difference to each and every student in our school. 

Technology tools in classrooms: Computers and the Internet

Computing in the classroom setting has been around for approximately 30 years.

In those thirty years we have seen a variety of computing companies come and go (remember Radio Shack computers?). We have see a variety of resources be developed.  Did you know that the Internet is just a little over 5,000 days old? 

We have seen an expansion of tools that are useful for sharing information. We have seen a development of tools that allow for collaboration both locally and globally.  We are beginning to see a change in the way our instruction for our children is being delivered and being assessed using the tools now available to us via the internet.

This growth and constant change has produced considerable consternation among teachers, administrators and parents about where to go next, what do first and what are the skills and concepts that students should truly be learning in order to successfully compete for admissions into the best colleges and universities around the world. 
To me though, the bottom line is the classroom community. 

Look no further than the homeroom students whom we serve day-in and day-out through an academic year. In giving them the tools to be effective, competitive, and skilled learners, we will not miss the mark for excellence by far.

Because of this I have, with the technology leaders and administrators at our school, developed what we feel is a list of classroom based tools that will translate well in our current environment as well as in the environment we are building for our future classroom environment. 

Some of you may have heard me speak in past weeks about moving our school’s technology programs forward by placing into the hands of our students web-based learning tools. Over a backbone of dynamic data networks, I believe we can lead our students to first engage in learning with the classroom peers and then build an audience with their peers world-wide.

Community versus audience

As we step forward with technology planning at SAS, we must keep in mind that there is a certain priority to our work.

I believe the number one priority must be to establish a strong community locally. With the tremendous tools that allow for global collaboration, it is easy to jump to the audience level without considering the classmate across the room or down the hall.

Web-based tools like blogs and Wikis allow our students to create, share, collaborate and expand their knowledge. Without the face-to-face follow-up our children miss out on the key reason we send them to school in the first place — to learn in a dynamic environment lead by qualified instructors.

It is after the local work is completed that the “audience” can be expanded; further sharing, exploration and even collaboration can be exploited from the Web — thus the importance of having a solid, classroom-based set of resources.

Resources for the classroom

As simple as it sounds, the classroom must have a basic set of tools.

For a start, projector that can show an image of a computer screen (LCD projector) is a basic tool for all classrooms today. As I enter my daughter’s classroom in kindergarten, I see her teacher using an LCD projector to create learning opportunities in the same way I see IB science teachers doing their work.

Second, a classroom needs the tools for sharing multimedia projects.  Multimedia in its current format will include movies with sound and, possibly, animation. The LCD projector takes care of part of this equation and the inclusion of a simple sound system will accomplish the rest. 

Finally, a basic tool for classrooms that is also a tool to share, collaborate and demonstrate is a document camera which allows a teacher to share with the classroom a book, a drawing, a microscope, and even their own two hands.  The more dynamic part of this is the fact that it serves as a recorder of lessons and demonstrations as well, allowing for the lessons to be reviewed and shared within and outside the classroom community.

Classroom environments are keys in the future of learning

Classroom Environments are key in the future of learning at SAS.

It is because of this focus that we move the idea of Technology 2012: The Future of Learning at SAS. The technology team has worked hard to solidify the concepts of technology use in the classrooms of our elementary schools, middle schools and high schools, based on building learning communities and giving them powerful tools to the students for the future.

It is our hope that when our students visit the back corners of their memories of their school experience at SAS, they can tell the story of a  school that took bold steps to give them  the tools to learn, collaborate and share both locally and globally.

Edge for Excellence . . .
Supporting technology in SAS classrooms

Our first annual fund campaign, Edge for Excellence aims to bolster a plan, written by the SAS technology committee, to give our students a technological edge in guiding their learning. It will accelerate implementation of that plan and move quickly to integrate emerging technologies into classrooms across the K-12 curriculum on both campuses such as those discussed in this week’s edition of Inside SAS. You might say this year’s Edge for Excellence campaign aims to ensure that the use of rapidly-emerging techologies and the acquisition of related skills will be integral parts of every student’s learning at SAS.

Reposted from ParentTalkonline

By Andrew Torris, Deputy Superintendent

Technorati Tags: annual fund, technology school in classrooms, SAS, Shanghai American School

The week of October 12-16 was an intense week of conversations and observations for the 16 members of the Western Association of Schools and Colleges Visiting Committee that were assigned to visit and review the work of the Focus on Learning Self Study for Shanghai American School.

Self Study visiting team members were:

• Tim Carr, Headmaster of the American School in Japan (Chairman)
• Dr. Ron Carruth, Superintendent, Whittier City Schools, Whittier California (co-chairman)
• Richard Bisset, Mathematics Teacher, Singapore American School
• Diane Bohm, Consultant, ESF Schools, Hong Kong
• Natalie Broderick,Director of Student Services, HKIS, Hong Kong
• Jon Hill, Technology Teacher, Seoul Foriegn School
• Mark Jenkins, Direction of Curriculum and Professional Learning, Jakarta International School
• Stephen Lehman, IT Director, International School of Bangkok, Bangkok
• Joseph Levno, Vice Principal, Brent International School, Manila
• Carole Mondin, Librarian, American School of Guangzhou,Guangzhou, PRC
• Karen Moreau, Director of Curriculum and Staff Development, Taipei American School
• Michael Powell, Mathematics Teacher, International School of Kuala Lumpur
• Isabel Searson, Principal, Taejon Christian School, Daejon, South Korea
• Dr. Deborah Taylor, Deputy Director, Kaohsiung American School
• Ruth Auty, Humanities Teacher, International Christian School, Hong Kong
• James Gerhard, Assistant Principal, Ruamrudee International School, Bangkok

The team spend the days on the two campuses speaking with self study focus committee members, students, PTSA board members and members of the school administration. They also spent one evening speaking with Rick Wang, School Board Chairman and school board members Cindy Qui, William McGrath, and Caroline Yun.  All in all, they were able to meet a broad spectrum of school community members from both campuses and confirm that the self study was accurate and comprehensive.

On Thursday afternoon, the visiting committee members split up to both campuses and completed a simulcast presentation of their findings. The major findings were that the school is to be commended for the following:

• An impressive, thorough, and honest self study which involved all key stakeholders in the school community.
• Establishment and pursuit of an inspirational vision, core values, and long-range planning which has provided guidance, focus and direction for the SAS community during a time of rapid growth.
• Recruitment of a talented, passionate, and committed faculty and staff despite rapid growth and an increasingly competitive global hiring environment
• In response to significant numbers of new faculty the administration has redesigned the orientation process to support professional development and promote ownership of the vision, mission, core values, and the EAGLES.
• Planning and development of excellent purpose-built facilities and resources on two campuses which are clearly designed to enhance student learning and sustain the commitment of “one school-two campuses” to serve two communities in distinctly separate locales of Shanghai.
• Significant progress on curriculum articulation and mapping, which has brought coherence and clarity to the learning program.
• Multiple opportunities and modalities for rich professional learning.
• Effective collaborative structures and communication protocols among community members.
• Ample opportunities for parents to contribute to the learning environment and supportively engage with the school.
• Initiation of an advancement model which has enhanced communication, marketing, admissions, and fundraising potential.
• Profound improvement in the admissions office services, closely articulated with academic personnel, which have increased the recruitment and retention of families.
• A strategic financial plan which is designed to facilitate long-term financial stability.
• Effective and principled management of extremely rapid growth which enabled uninterrupted, quality educational opportunities throughout the time of construction.

The areas that the visiting committee directed for follow up were outlined in order to sustain healthy progress towards SAS’s vision for 2012. The visiting team noted that the school must consider its personnel, priorities, and pace in order to effectively address the following areas:

• The administration and faculty develop and implement the technology infrastructure in a manner consistent with the SAS vision that will support and increase the integration of the technology to enhance student learning within the classrooms and for communication throughout the school.
• The administration and faculty continue to promote the implementation of a learning community that utilizes a range of collaborative processes that support an ongoing focus on improving student learning.
• The administration and faculty set in place a consistent, comprehensive school-wide assessment program that measures student learning and aligns with the learning outcomes.
• Further attention should be given to the intentional integration of the vision for learning and the EAGLES into the academic curriculum, co-curricular activities and classroom instruction.
• The administration and faculty should devise ways to track the efficacy of professional development and link it to student achievement, performance evaluation and goal setting.
• In order to realize its vision of 2012, the Board of Directors, the SAS finance department and the divisional administration should continue to identify ways to streamline budgeting in execution of its multi-year strategic financial plan.

A formal finding of the report has been forwarded to the Western Association of Schools and Colleges Commission on Accreditation for review and confirmation. A formal notification of the accreditation term and requirements is expected in the spring of 2009.

The SAS community wishes to thank the visiting for their voluntary effort on behalf of our students and our community.  Their work was of the highest quality and will benefit SAS for years to come.

The self study team slide show used at the presentation of findings is below.

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

celebrations
A high school mathematics Core Pre-Calculus course has been added to mathematics options on both campuses; Contemporary Mathematics and AP Statistics have been initiated this year on the Pudong campus. These additions make mathematics education for students even more exciting at SAS.

This year we plan to further enrich the mathematical education of our students through the integration of an authentic project into each mathematics class. Authentic student work will supplement and enrich the learning both of students and of teachers. The high school mathematics team across campuses has striven for alignment from the beginning. We will continue to work closely with cross-campus colleagues on our 2008-2009 goal by posting these projects on the Pudong/Puxi shared drive. Puxi department chair, Emily Leopold said, “We have all wanted to continue to make our classes more dynamic. New to SAS, Allan Wager brings project-based mathematics experience to us and Clive Russell has also done interesting projects with his students. Even David Surowski, working from stateside, is sending us project possibilities.” The realization of this goal really is a celebration of the talent and dedication of our staff to continually make the learning better for our students.

Announcements and reminders
For anyone looking for a pretty straightforward discussion of what authentic student work is, how to design the tasks, and how to assess them, try this 2008 site by Jonathan Mueller (North Central College in Naperville, Illinois): http://jonathan.mueller.faculty.noctrl.edu/toolbox/whatisit.htm

The Ed Programs 2008-2009 Calendar is up and running in the staff section of portal.saschina.org. This year the calendar is in digital format. Regularly updated, the calendar can help you plan ahead. Watch it for professional development dates, for Wednesday meetings, and for task forces and committees.

You will also find the 2008-2009 Curriculum and Professional Development Handbook in the staff section of portal.saschina.org. Limited print copies will be available after break.

PSU:
Sign-ups for PSU courses, The Reflective Teacher, Classroom Assessment and Teacher Leadership, are open now. You must register by November 1. You may not take the course twice for credit, so if you earned credit last year, don’t sign up again this year. To register, please visit the staff section of the SAS Portal. Fill out the appropriate registration form and the PD form and submit to your principal. Course descriptions are in the PSU Course description guide also posted on the portal and here below this posting.  If you have further questions, please email Alan Knobloch.

ed-5500-classroom-assessment-200980.pdf

ed-5500-the-reflective-teacher.pdf

ad-5560-teacher-leadership-i-knobloch-200980-182.pdf

Links to Look At:
Social studies are on deck this week for sites for teachers and kids. There are loads of good sites, but those below address special topics: archeology, polling of opinions on all sorts of issues including the US presidential election, geography and economics.

http://www.pollster.com/polls/us/08-us-pres-ge-mvo.php At this site find the marriage of social science and statistics. For daily updated information about the Obama/McCain race and an analysis of polls of all sorts, including the current economic crisis, have a look. This sit is particularly valuable for high school students, but has applications for middle school students as well.

http://smithsonianeducation.org/students/index.html Three hands-on lesson plans provided by the Smithsonian Institution enabling middle school and high school students to simulate the work of archaeologists..

http://www.econedlink.org/ EconEdLink is a program of the National Council on Economic Education and offers a source of classroom-tested, Internet-based economic lesson materials for K-12 teachers and their students.

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/resources/ngo/education/ideas.html Sponsored by the National Geographic Society, the site provides lessons, units, and activities designed to bring good geography into the classroom. Click on Kindergarten-4th grade,5th-8th grade and 9th-12 grade to find the lesson plans and activities of your choice.

http://www.peacecorps.gov/wws/educators/ The lessons, developed by the Peace Corps for students in grades 3-12, help teachers integrate global education into daily activities.

Setting the Stage for School Improvement

The process began in the offices of the Deputy Superintendent in April and May of 2007 as a team of administrators planned out the processes and committees that would guide the SAS community through the Western Association of Schools and Colleges- Focus on Learning self study. Little did the community know at that time, but the process would have a profound impact on the way SAS will look at itself as a school community and how it does it work over the next 4-6 years.
Dr. Larkin has often referred the self-study as the “stealth study”. The process used through the academic year 2007-2008 incorporated a structures currently in place through the school. In many schools, the self study process results in additional short-term committees being formed. Not at SAS, where the “steering” committee for the school’s self study is the Student Programs Committee, a standing committee that serves as a advisory committee for the educational programs office. Additionally, teaching teams from around the school served as data analysis teams for curriculum and instruction, thus developing a large base of school involvement among the faculty and staff.

Like most self-study efforts, a few specialized, short-term committees were formed, but in comparison to other schools, the number was greatly reduced. Groups from both campuses and in all divisions met 5-7 times through the school year to gather and discuss learning data and to develop lists of areas of strength and areas of follow up. In counting up the names on the acknowledgements pages of the document you will find a lengthy list of names of teachers, administrators and support faculty who made this process real and reflective. From a realistic perspective, information gathered from teachers across our organization has been looked at as we developed the self study document.

Special recognition in the efforts for the self study go to Ms. Lynne Coleman and Mrs. Philippa Curtis. Both ladies put in yeoman’s efforts in building a document from multiple layers of information from many different sources and individuals. Additionally, the members of the Student Programs Committee need recognition for their dedication and time. On many occasions last year, you could find up to 20 individuals reading the self study draft documents, commenting and providing valuable feedback as the process moved forward. Ashley Roukema has served as our desktop publisher and layout expert for the document itself, even working through the summer months to build, and at one point rebuild a document that that the community can be proud of and use as tool for reflection. Our communications department experts completed final touches and one last “look-see” for us! It has been a team effort from the beginning to the end.

What will I find when I read the Self-Study Report?

The document is complete and available upon request (see sidebar). Inside the document you will find a book that is divided into several key sections or chapters. The first key chapters are the Progress on Recommendations, The Self Study Process and the Student and Community Profile all of which outlines current and historical operational data about our school, the self study, and the community that SAS serves. These sections of the document does not contain any specific areas of strength or areas for follow up, but instead serve to provide a context for the rest of the report.

Following the Student/Community Profile is chapters labeled “Organization for Student Learning” , “Curriculum and Instruction”, “Support for Student Personal and Academic Growth” and “Resource Management and Development”. Each of these sections report and evaluate the current operations of SAS in these particular areas and identify areas of strength and areas of follow up.
Summarized in table format are action plans outlining the “next steps” for SAS. These are found in the back of the document and provide broad-based road map for the school’s improvement efforts. I encourage you to request and read our self study and more importantly, set aside the afternoon of October 16, 2008 for the Visiting team report of findings presentation.

If you would like to have a digital copy of the self study, you can do so by sending an email to SASselfstudy@saschina.org.

Printed copies will be available for review in all school libraries and school offices the week of September 16.

Technorati Tags: WASC, SAS Self Study, Shanghai American School

Friday,
September 19, 2008

Celebrations
Middle school social studies and humanities teachers celebrate teaching the writing process. A few examples include the Heritage project at Puxi, interviewing, and writing based on three of the interviews and the Pudong conflict research project in 7th grade. In interdisciplinary units, students respond to novels and use 6 Traits writing rubrics as a guide for feedback to improve their writing; students transform literature and present characters, and themes to make writing more authentic. “These examples and others illustrate integrated, interdisciplinary approaches to teaching the writing process,” writes Dave Cole.

Announcements, Reminders, Points of Interest
PSU: Last call for sign-ups for Social Psychology and Myth across Cultures. Those interested in taking this core masters course – either to count toward your masters or for recertification credit, please pop an email to Maddie Leung (maddie.leung@saschina.org) NO LATER THAN September 25. You will need to fill out the PD form as well as the PSU registration form, both attached. At Puxi: Oct 11 and 19. At Pudong: Oct 12 and 18.

Serving on our WASC Visiting Committee are a grade 5 teacher, 2 IT directors, a high school math teacher, a high school social studies teacher, two curriculum coordinators, two superintendents, 1 principal, 2 assistant principals. They arrive Oct 12.

Students at SAS: 2976
Students new to SAS this year: 605
Parents who attended Coffees in September: 739
Board members: 7
Faculty on Self Study Focus Groups, including the SPC: 48

The SAS Self Study Report is published. It has been distributed to teacher leaders and is available for checkout at all SAS libraries and at Building Offices. Electronic copies are available for download from http://portal.saschina.org

Links to Look At:
Help kids EMPOWER themselves through words . . .

http://www.edina.k12.mn.us/concord/teacherlinks/sixtraits/sixtraits.html At this online writing lab (OWL) for elementary students, you’ll find lots of supplementary resources that align with Lucy Calkins Writers Workshop. Older students can visit the Purdue OWL http://owl.english.purdue.edu/ – some great resources.

The national writing Project folks bring us to http://www.nwp.org/, a website that offers ideas for writing in a variety of subject areas, resources, professional development options and more. Registration on the site is free. It is worthwhile!

As the folks at Oxford University about words, about writing, about global English. http://www.askoxford.com/ Look here for a word a day, for arcane information about language and language change, and for word games.

http://www.etymonline.com/ This one’s fun. Site visitors can search the word histories of thousands of words. It is easy to use and has a nice definition of etymology. But beware, it has etymologies of all sorts of words.Technorati Tags: WASC, SAS, Shanghai American School, Educational Programs

Celebrations…..

K-12 Visual Arts faculty celebrates SAS art facilities, student and teacher access to materials (including online resources), the use of student visual arts journals, and the support they enjoy from their colleagues.

Here Ellen Levenhagen, ceramicist and Puxi HS art teacher works with one of her students.

Announcements and reminders

PD Opportunities:

· Critical Friends Coach’s Institute is coming Sept. 25 - 27:Thursday through Saturday and Sept. 29 - 30: Monday and Tuesday (3 PSU credits). Highly recommended by faculty who have taken it! Pop me an email if you are interested.

· Ask your principal or contact me about taking the Understanding by Design unit planning online course (PSU 3 credits)

· Don’t forget to contact Karen Campbell if you are interested in presenting at EARCOS!

· And while we are on the topic of artistic expression, our own Ginny Sampson and Kate Thornburn will be offering a weekend workshop in November on the creative process. More information to follow.

· Julie Lindsay and Sepi Johnson will conduct leadership training for elementary teacher leaders this Friday, Sept 5.

Links to Look At:

Help kids become LITERATE individuals who can communicate articulately through reading, writing, speaking, listening, and artistic expression . . .

http://www.nga.gov/kids/

The National Gallery of Art’s interactive website invites kids to the art zone to make art online. It currently features still life for kids and the BRUSHster, an interactive online painting machine. Try out the online jungle or the Dutch doll house: you’ll find a myriad of resources and ideas including information about specific artists or works of art that you can tie into lessons in social studies, language arts and English, as well as visual arts.

http://www.teachers.tv/subject Films on a variety of topics ranging from high school-aged Iraqi refugees discussing their future to Exploring the design and construction of cantilever bridges, How the BBC rates films, and Gardner speaking about his new thinking in Five Minds of the Future.

http://www.teachers.tv/artanddesign?order=transmitted&page=0 From the same teachers.tv folks come some 37 15-minute videos filled with ideas, resources for teachers and students in a variety of arts topics including photography, animation, writing opera, and using great paintings across the curriculum.

http://redstudio.moma.org/ The Museum of Modern Art site for teens, and http://www.moma.org/destination/# their site for young students both offer interactive activities for students. The home site, http://www.moma.org/ will lead you to MoMA youtube videos, and invite you to join MoMA on Facebook. It is worth exploring.

Technorati Tags: SAS Looking at Learning, Educational Programs, Shanghai American School

Welcome to the first 2008-2009 edition of Student Success @ SAS.

A huge thank you to everyone for a productive day in conversation with one another in cross campus conversations last Monday.

celebrations are coming in from across the school; the first in were K-12 ESOL, who sent along this week’s photo, courtesy of returning SAS veteran teacher, Jonathan Chambers.

K-12 ESOL teachers celebrate working hard to establish a culture of collaboration both within the ESOL department and with colleagues from other departments. Their aim has been to provide a meaningful, relevant and accessible learning environment for all of our students by integrating the development of academic English language skills into core subject areas and building content.

“We are initiating co-planning, materials development and co-teaching with colleagues.

This intentional practice of professional cooperation helps to improve teaching at SAS

and enriches learning for all students.” - ESOL faculty

Announcements and reminders

• Don’t forget to sign up for the SAS Book Club - there is a reminder in your e-mail this morning.
• The 2008-2009 Curriculum and Professional Development Handbook (with calendar) will be ready September 1

Links to Look At:

This week’s links, discovered while I was working on a homework assignment for Tom Hopkins over the summer, are resources for those of you looking to integrate global-mindedness, adaptable for many subject areas.

High school: http://epi.yale.edu/CountryScores High school students can see how the world’s countries rank in 2008 according to Yale’s Environmental Performance Index. There is a good explanation of the policy topics used as performance indicators in the 2006 web brochure of the project at http://www.yale.edu/epi/2006EPI_Brochure.pdf

Adaptable for grades 5-12: The world seed vault, located in Svalbard (setting for the icy parts of The Golden Compass), keeps endangered plants in the deep freeze: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/18/AR2006061800950.html

http://www.epa.gov/students/ This Environmental Protection Agency site for kids has activities and thought provokers for kids of all ages.

Students can create their own websites on the environment at One Environment: http://www.abc.net.au/civics/environment/03_students.htm

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Summer School Programs have a new look and we are looking forward to addressing the educational and recreational needs of our students and guests this summer.   See attached documents.

Final Summer Program Booklet

schedule-summer-program-2008.doc