SAS Educational Programs

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.

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