 An immersive learning game platform offered through CABOCES is called Breakout EDU. This concept takes the idea of an escape room, a recreational activity where teams work together to get out of a locked room, and turns it into a learning activity for students where they work together to open a locked box. The idea behind this activity is that students will use their brains to solve various puzzles to get inside the tightly locked box which has a number of various locks connected to it. These locks can be 3 or 4 digit combinations locks, directional locks, key locks, or even words locks requiring students to spell the correct word in order to open the lock. Various simulations and games are available on the BreakutEDU website, but teachers are also encouraged to build their own games for their students.
Math teacher Mrs. Mansfield’s recently gave her 7th grade students a Breakout challenge, and then added a twist. After having students work in two separate groups to complete the ‘Linear Equations vs. The Avengers’ Breakout game, she assigned a new task for her class. Working in small groups, each set of students was asked to create their own Breakout style activity for their classmates. Creativity was welcomed as students would create puzzling activities and mathematical challenges that their classmates would attempt to solve. Complete with an assessment checklist and rubric, each group received direction and instruction, and will conduct and share their activities in a few weeks.
By: Rob Griffith, CA BOCES Professional Development
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Check out this month's Advancing STEM Challenge!
And They're Off! Advancing STEM Challenges are designed to bring engineering and design to your classroom in a simple, easy-to-implement, challenge-based way. Modify our Advancing STEM Challenges for your classroom. A new challenge will be posted monthly.  An exciting project officially launched throughout the region on March 12th: CA Today, an education podcast brought to you by the Instructional Support Services team of CA BOCES. The purpose of the podcast is to promote continual learning for educators in Cattaraugus and Allegany counties. Hosted by Sarah Wittmeyer and Brendan Keiser, each episode will focus on not only the latest and greatest instructional practices, but the ones that are tried and true. Additionally, we’ll be highlighting the exciting things that are occurring in classrooms and schools throughout the region, while also exploring how the ISS Division can support educators and schools.
A podcast is very similar to talk radio. Episodes, which are audio recordings, are typically focused on exploring a topic through conversation, stories, or interviews. People can subscribe to a podcast to receive new episodes as soon as they are released. The nice thing about podcasts is that you can listen to them anywhere at any time! Sarah Wittmeyer, who had the initial idea to start the podcast, shared, “I was thinking about ways to connect to teachers and administrators in our region, to share resources, and to highlight the great work we’re doing for our students, in a way that fit into our busy lives as educators.” Our current format for the podcast will be releasing a new episode each month. The episodes are structured in two different ways. First, a large episode will be released that has Sarah and a CA BOCES co-host exploring different topics, learning about an app or something new from the BOCES SNAP platform, and interviewing a colleague from the ISS division to learn more about what they do and how they can help schools. For example, episode 1 was hosted by Sarah and Brendan in which they explored innovation in the classroom, interviewed STEM Coordinator Clay Nolan, and learned about Apple Clips from Rob Miller. The second type of episode will be shorter and will focus on one sole topic for that episode. Episode 2 explored MakerSpaces by interviewing Franklinville’s Technology Integrator, Betsey Bradley, who shared how the MakerSpace at Franklinville High School/Ten Broeck Academy was created and how it has impacted students. Of the experience, Betsey shared, “I enjoyed the time I got to spend talking with Brendan about MakerSpaces. Although we were being recorded, it felt more like a conversation than an interview. He listened and responded to what I had to say, with ease, and smoothly made connections with the research and preparation he did beforehand. It was definitely a worthwhile experience!" You can stream us on our website at http://catoday.caboces.org/. The full audio library with show notes that have links to additional resources can be found on our website as well. You can also subscribe and listen to episodes on iTunes and Stitcher. Finally, continue the conversation by connecting with us on Twitter @CATodayPodcast! We’re very excited to start this new journey! If you have something you’d like to share with the region, please reach out to us at catodaypodcast@gmail.com. We’d love to have you on the show!! Special thanks to everyone who has supported this endeavor, including our website developer Alex Smith, graphic designer Kim Survil, Tim Clarke, Tim Cox, and the initial podcast committee team! By: Brendan Keiser, CA BOCES Professional Development Take your students on a trip...without leaving the classroom. Virtual field trips are a great way to connect your students with experts from around the world. Download our May Virtual Field Trip guide. Schedule a trip: Carrie Oliver, 716-376-8270, carrie_oliver@caboces.org Karen Insley, 716-376-8281, karen_insley@caboces.org 
Congratulations to all teams that participated in this year's Odyssey of the Mind Region 19 Tournament! Check out this month's AdvancingSTEM Challenge!
AdvancingSTEM Challenges are designed to bring engineering and design to your classroom in a simple, easy-to-implement, challenge-based way. Modify our Advancing STEM Challenges for your classroom. A new challenge is posted monthly. Post a photo of your students in action in our comment section or post a comment on how you modified the Challenge to work in your classroom. During a Family Engagement Night, Allegany Limestone Elementary teachers, Mary Jo Reed and Caroline Miller present the topic “Growth Mindset” to parents. Over 185 students and parents attended the Family Engagement Night to learn more about Growth Mindset. A growth mindset movement would not be complete without the support of parents. When parents learn about the mindsets and how a growth mindset can help their child become more motivated and engaged, they are more than willing to begin the work at home. Researcher “Carol Dewek states that students who believe their intelligence can grow with effort and practice - like a muscle - do better in school and in life. This belief is called a growth mindset. Students with a growth mindset understand that they have control over their own success. They are more motivated to work hard; they put more effort into their schoolwork; they are more resilient in the face of obstacles; and they ultimately do better in school. In contrast, students who believe intelligence is set at birth - like eye color - have what is called a fixed mindset. They tend to do worse academically because they give up when challenged and think that having to work hard means you don’t ‘have what it takes’. The good news is that mindsets can be changed, and when they are, students show a significant increase in their academic achievement.” Parents can model a growth mindset by speaking candidly about the mistakes they’ve made, and what they’ve learned from them. Speak positively about the mistakes and struggles, and this will show students that taking risks and making mistakes are a natural part of the learning process. Explain to their children that trying hard things is what helps us grow, and you can’t be perfect when you try something hard!  Researchers have learned about mindsets that help students reach their full potential into accessible information and practical recommendations for teachers and parents.(www.mindsetkit.org)
After the presentation, parents and students enjoyed making pizza and door prizes donated by local businesses and PTO. By: Marguerite Andrews, CABOCES Professional Development All Schools Day brings component districts together to share Video Conference courses from within and outside the region. CABOCES Distance Learning hosted a successful All Schools Day February 9th. Lead by the Distance Learning Coordinator Karen Insley counselors and administrators from nine districts met in person and over Zoom to offer and seek video conferring courses. Video Conferencing courses are live courses where students and teachers meet from different locations utilizing a video and audio connection. Exciting offerings for next school year include College Biology from Belfast, College Sports Management from Boliver-Richburg, College Calculus from GV, and a suite of Agricultural Business courses from our partners in the Erie 2 BOCES region. You can learn which video conference courses are available for the next school year on the Distance Learning Database located on the CABOCES Distance Learning webpage. The guest username and password are distance. By: Justine Lombardi, CABOCES Learning Resources   On February 5th and 6th, CA BOCES’ Digital Star Lab visited Friendship Central School (FCS) providing students in pre-k through fifth grades a sampling of what the digital planetarium offers. David Yochum, the middle/high school science teacher, arranged for the visit and offered four of his 10th grade students an opportunity to instruct an eighth-grade class on pertinent topics using this technology.
During my two days at FCS I was able to introduce students to an outer space view of planet earth, moon phases, constellations, nebulas, the milky way, and the planets in our solar system. Each field trip ended with watching the sun rise from the surface of Mars. Students were awed by the experience and demonstrated an increased awareness of our solar system as the planetarium allows for on-demand instruction regardless of temperature and time. Collaboration with your school librarian is made easy when resources, like the following suggestions, are paired with lessons:
By: Cece Fuoco, CABOCES Learning Resources
Update:
The following teams are advancing to the Odyssey of the Mind State Tournament at Binghamton University on Saturday, April 7th. Congratulations to our winning teams!!! Problem 1: Triathlon Travels Division 1 = Ellicottville Central School Division 2 = Seneca Intermediate School Problem 2: Emoji, Speak for Yourself Division 1 = Wellsville Elementary School Division 2 = Bolivar-Richburg Central School (1st place) Wellsville Middle School (2nd place) Problem 3: Classics…Mockumentary! Seriously? Division 1 = Wellsville Elementary School Division 2 = Wellsville Middle School (1st place) Allegany-Limestone Middle/High School (2nd place) Division 3 = Genesee Valley Central School (1st place) Wellsville High School (2nd place) Problem 4: Animal House Division 1 = Seneca Intermediate School Division 2 = Ellicottville Central School Division 3 = Salamanca Central School (1st place) Fillmore Central School (2nd place) Problem 5: A Stellar Hangout Division 1 = Wellsville Elementary School Division 2 = Wellsville Middle School Division 3: Allegany-Limestone Middle/High School (Allegany, New York) On Saturday, March 24, 2018, 37 teams from across the Southern Tier will be showcasing their creativity at the Odyssey of the Mind Regional Tournament. Odyssey of the Mind is a world-wide creative problem-solving tournament that promotes original and divergent thinking as a team sport. Divergent problems, that is, those with more than one solution, encourage students to learn and lead the way using 21st century skills. By working in teams of up to seven members, participants learn teamwork, the appreciation and understanding of others, and the concept that a group is a more powerful thinking force than an individual. Allegany-Limestone Central School will be hosting about 250 creative kids aged ten through eighteen years old, who will be showing off their brain power in this high-energy tournament. The winners, who will be announced at the end of the day, will represent Region 19 at the New York State Tournament at Binghamton University on April 7 and possibly World Finals at Iowa State University on May 23-26. Teams from 14 area school districts have worked hard to come up with 8 minute solutions to one of these five mind-bending problems posed by Odyssey of Mind: Problem 1: Triathlon Travels On your mark…get set…go! In this problem, teams will ride on and drive original vehicles in an Odyssey-style triathlon. They will try to score in “curling,” hit the right targets when “jousting,” and “run track” by navigating a course in two directions. Between these events, the team will entertain the audience and the vehicle will change appearance. All of the action will take place in a team-created performance that features the vehicles’ triathlon travels, a commentator, and a coach. Problem 2: Emoji, Speak for Yourself Three-dimensional emojis will be used to communicate the life story of a once famous, but now forgotten, emoji. Teams will create a performance where the emojis demonstrate special functions like growing, turning into a team member, and changing into a different emoji. Performances will also include a choreographed dance, a technical representation of texting, and sounds to enhance the performance. The twist? No spoken language is allowed. Problem 3: Classics… Mockumentary! Seriously? There are often two sides to the same story. In this problem, characters don’t always agree as they recount the classic story where they appeared. The team will select a classic from a list and present different characters in a humorous documentary-style performance where details are added, denied, exaggerated, and disputed. There will be interviews, behind-the-scenes “clips,” and voice-overs that take the audience through the story and help present the events as they “really” took place. Whose side will you be on? Problem 4: Animal House Over the years, Odyssey of the Mind teams have designed structures that changed into many unbelievable shapes and sizes that balanced and held as much weight as possible. This year, teams will turn their balsa wood structures into animals! Since animals need to eat, they must be fed. The structure will have its appearance transformed and explained during an original performance. During the performance, the structure must hold the team-created food while it supports weights. Problem 5: A Stellar Hangout In the outreaches of the universe, there is an Intergalactic Hangout where all sorts of creatures from different worlds stop, eat, refuel, and relax. Teams will create a humorous performance centered on this science fiction hangout that includes original creatures, foods, and a search for space treasure. There will also be a worker character, entertainment, and a futuristic map at the hangout. Students have spent months of their free time solving these problems as well as developing teamwork skills, independent study, friendships, confidence, all while improving their brainstorming and problem-solving techniques. They learn new things and utilize their individual strengths to solve the problem. Teams also learn how to budget money since there is a cost limit to each problem. Throughout the day, one will witness imaginative costumes, elaborate props, dances, original songs and poetry, creative writing and much more. Not only do the participants compete within their chosen problem, but teams must also perform well in a “spontaneous problem”, where they solve a new problem on the spot. They must be creative, quick thinking and work well together as a team. Saturday, March 24 is the culmination of many months of work from students, coaches, parents and judges who all work together with the common goal of encouraging creativity, supporting STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Math) and learning new things in a fun environment. Spectators are welcome to join in the excitement of the day. The competitions start at 8:20 and continue throughout the day. The Awards Ceremony begins around 3:15. Thousands of teams from throughout the United States and 20 other countries participate in this program. For more information visit www.odysseyofthemind.com, www.nysoma.org or call CABOCES Student Programs at 716-376-8323. By: Jean Oliverio, CA BOCES Student Programming
“I wanted my students to feel more relaxed and comfortable while they were working on tasks in my classroom.” These words were spoken by Hinsdale 3rd Grade teacher Christine Goodling when asked about the recent transformation that has occurred in her classroom involving new seating choices and a more flexible furniture arrangement. Mrs. Goodling continued, “I wanted to create a classroom that was more visually welcoming and engaging, while promoting more collaboration and freedom for the students to work anywhere they pleased.”
This might not sound groundbreaking, but there has been an influx of recent research centered around learning space design and school classrooms. Beyond just making classrooms look appealing or eye-catching, educators around the world have started looking holistically at how schools, classrooms, and other learning spaces can be transformed for optimal student engagement. A well-designed and thought out classroom space can provide care for students and teachers alike. These spaces can alleviate outside stressors on students and allow them to focus on learning, while other spaces can be arranged to promote collaboration, creativity, or places for quiet, pensive thinking. Using the book, The Space: A Guide for Educators by Rebecca Louise Hare and Dr. Robert Dillon, Mrs. Goodling and I set about on our journey to transform her classroom into something more learning-centered and student-friendly. We started with a few guiding questions:
First, we identified a variety of seating options for each space we were going to create using wobble stools, exercise balls, camping and gaming chairs, as well as keeping a few traditional chairs in the room should a student still prefer one of those to use. We next identified what we thought each space in the room should be and removed items that were a hindrance to creating an open, flowing, and flexible arrangement in the classroom furniture. Around the room, places for students to work were created on flat surfaces by applying whiteboard surface film to areas like columns between windows, on the front of the teacher’s desk, and on the sides of carts and other furniture around the room. A few tables were brought in and replaced student desks, while pillows and beanbag chairs were added to the reading carpet area for comfort. To make these changes more meaningful and lasting, the final step in the first phase of our classroom transformation process was to sit with the students and review all of the new areas, seating choices, and classroom arrangement opportunities there were now. The students worked as a class to identify names for each station, like the Chat Café. They also collaborated to come up with expectations and norms regarding what was acceptable at each location around the room, and this helped to foster a sense of involvement and ownership in these new classroom spaces. The students have welcomed this change, saying that the new arrangements and options make them feel “more comfortable,” “able to focus on our work better,” and “gives us choices for where to work and how to work around the room.” By Ryan McGinnis, CA BOCES Professional Development  This year at Whitesville Elementary, we have focused our monthly breakfast club theme on Barbara Gruener's book, “What’s Under Your Cape? Superheroes of the Character Kind.” The book is a wonderful character education resource book for elementary educators. It is filled with ideas, activities, and suggested children's literature which teachers can use as they help to instill good character into the hearts of students. Our monthly themes follow the acronym of SUPERHERO. Each month during the 2017-18 school year, the students in grades k-4 learn about character education with a mini lesson and a call to action. S - Service U - Unconditional Acceptance P - Perseverance E - Empathy R - Respect H - Honesty E - Enthusiasm R - Responsibility O - Obedience  Each month, Mrs. Emery discusses and helps students to tap into their inner superheroes to bring out the superhero in themselves. The monthly lessons weave character education into the school day and empower our kids at Whitesville to be the best they can be. By: Tessa Levitt, CA BOCES Professional Development
The largest ever Scholastic Challenge Competition was held on Saturday, February 3 at Portville Central School. This annual event hosted a record breaking 44 teams who competed in a Junior Division and Senior Division, for grades 6-12. Scholastic Challenge is a fast-paced contest that tests knowledge of academic trivia and current events. Teams of four students measure their ability to recall details from a wide variety of topics. Congratulations to all the teams and to the first and second place teams in each division. Thank you to 50+ volunteers that made the event possible.  Senior Division Champions - Fillmore Central coached by Bill Kelley & Mary Kay Kelley (pictured L-R: Josh Buck, coach, Rory Kelley, Michael McDonald, Evan Nugent)  Senior Division 2nd Place - West Valley Central coached by Bryan Hansen (pictured L-R: coach, Cody Keller, E.J Thiel, Nathan Dash, Sarah Sheffield)  Junior Division Champions - Scio Central coached by Mary Zdrojewski (pictured L-R: Jackson Broach, Will Broach, Max Morris, Jordan White, coach)  Junior Division 2nd Place - Hinsdale Central coached by Sara Centanni (pictured L-R: Matthew Beeman, Sara Beeman, coach, Christy Childs, Fransisca Childs) By: Jean Oliverio, CA BOCES Student Programming
 Students in Mr. Griffing's Chemistry Class, Cuba-Rushford Central School  High School Teachers, Cuba-Rushford Central School Do you think communication is an important skill? I’m sure you immediately answered, YES, It sure is! Students in Mr. Donald Griffing’s Chemistry class found this out, first hand. Here is the backstory as to how this all happened. I experienced this activity at my professional development retreat at the beginning of January, and thought it would be a great way for the CRCS staff to experience the importance of communication. So, during the high school’s faculty meeting, Cuba-Rushford teachers and staff went through the same activity. Mr. Griffing found the communication exercise so valuable, he wanted to repeat the activity with his Chemistry classes. He hoped the students could see the importance of specific directions, and common vocabulary. He thought this would be a great way to remind them about being careful and clear in their lab reports, specifically with their data tables.
The entire class was given a chance to become familiar with two of the six objects the activity called for, before the activity started. The class had to come up with common terms to call each item. This would help with visualization and familiarity while building the items in the activity. Students were placed into groups of four. To set the stage for the activity, two students volunteered to be blindfolded and then were given a task to complete, while blindfolded. One of the students was given an object, already put together. This student was the “direction giver”. He or she was then asked to describe to the other blindfolded student how to put this object together…the problem was, this student’s object was in six pieces. The student responsible for building the object, was called the “direction receiver”. The other students were observers, and were instructed to only watch the activity. They were not allowed to help. They would be sharing their observations after the activity was completed. This was not an easy task! It became very clear to all students how crucial specific vocabulary, as well as specific directions, were to complete this activity. There was a lot of explaining, questioning, and re-explaining during the exercise. Once the duo thought they were done, they raised their hands for their constructed objects to be checked for accuracy. The students worked diligently on getting their objects built. It was very difficult for some, and to others it felt impossible. The great thing is, NO ONE GAVE UP! They persevered through it all. The conversations afterward were interesting to hear, as the perspectives of the observers were heard, as well as the challenges the receiver and the giver faced. By: Kathleen Agnello, CA BOCES Professional Development  According to several teachers and students, Freedom Train was one of the best performances ever in this area! Eighteen area schools provided an inspirational experience for their students last week. Over 1800 fourth and fifth graders from Cattaraugus and Allegany counties attended the TheatreWorks USA performances of Freedom Train. Freedom Train told the motivational story of Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad. The audience enjoyed dramatic story telling, dance and powerfully performed songs from the time period.
TheatreWorks USA is a professional acting company based out of New York City. It is America’s largest and most prolific professional theatre for young audiences. BOCES Art-In-Education helps schools enrich the lives of their students by providing opportunities to experience the performing arts. Genesee Valley, Franklinville and Arcade Elementary opened their auditoriums to host these performances. For more information about bringing TheatreWorks shows to your area, contact Student Programs at 716-376-8284. By: Jean Oliverio, CA BOCES Student Programming Check out this month's AdvancingSTEM Challenge!
AdvancingSTEM Challenges are designed to bring engineering and design to your classroom in a simple, easy-to-implement, challenge-based way. Modify our Advancing STEM Challenges for your classroom. A new challenge is posted monthly. Post a photo of your students in action in our comment section or post a comment on how you modified the Challenge to work in your classroom.
High School ELA students in Jessica Brassard-Moore’s ELA class in Cattaraugus-Little Valley decided that they would use it to solve problems. After reading Bram Stroker’s “Dracula” the students determined a character as their custome and used the engineering design process to create a solution for that customer. Most of the students chose Van Helsing as their customer and designed products that would help him defeat Dracula.
The students individually brainstormed solutions and then worked on designing. The used a free 3d modelling website called Tinkercad (https://www.tinkercad.com/) to design their projects. Some students were given a quick tutorial, but soon became experts in the program sharing their newfound 3d design skills with each other. When students finished designing their projects, they were able to 3d print an actual product and “pitch” the products to their teacher and classmates. The lesson idea originated form the website http://www.novelengineering.org/. In a Novel Engineering lesson: “Students use existing classroom literature – stories, novels, and expository texts – as the basis for engineering design challenges that help them identify problems, design realistic solutions, and engage in the Engineering Design Process while reinforcing their literacy skills”. Novel Engineering can be used for many different types of literature and across all grade levels. This is a great way to integrate STEM/STEAM lessons and the engineering design process into ELA classrooms. They provide many examples on their website These students used a 3d printer but any materials for making or designing could be used to develop a solution. By: Rob Miller, CA BOCES Professional Development  Welcome to digging a little deeper into the resources we have available to our component school districts in our warehouse.
This month’s spotlight is…..the GoPro! Why go amateur when you can go pro! How can this be used in the classroom? Here are a few examples: A class in Pittsburg used the GoPro Hero3+ camera and chest mount so that they could film each of three amusement rides from the rider’s perspective. What made this project increase its learning value was that a student next to the camera was equipped with a smartphone and an app called Physics Toolbox that captured acceleration data during the ride. The video they submitted presented a multi-split screen that allows the viewer to experience the ride while watching real-time graphs of the measured accelerations. Students correlated the action in the video with the graphed accelerations and related these to the physics concepts involved in the ride, specifically Newton's Laws of Motion. Or, most schools have a morning news segment performed or produced by students. GoPros can be used to add content comprised of student-made videos. Student created videos can create quite a bit of excitement for these news show and get even more students interested. Or, CABOCES has been working with Houghton College and UB for our Writing with Video series. Composing with GoPros? Yeah! You can do that! So what are you waiting for? Take a look at our warehouse and give GoPros a try! By: Alexandra Freer, CA BOCES Learning Resources Last week District Superintendent Lynda Quick, Esq. learned that Cattaraugus-Allegany BOCES has been awarded a grant for $466,686 from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). The grant, known as the Rural Utility Service (RUS) Distance Learning grant, will be implemented by Cattaraugus Allegany BOCES and eleven area school districts to upgrade video conferencing equipment and other technologies.
The equipment upgrades will provide all three Cattaraugus-Allegany BOCES Career and Technical Education (CTE) Centers, as well as Belfast, Bolivar-Richburg, Cuba-Rushford, Franklinville, Friendship, Genesee Valley, Hinsdale, Olean, Salamanca, Scio, and Wellsville Central School Districts, with new portable, high definition video conference capabilities that schools will use to provide students and teachers with a variety of distance learning opportunities including videoconference courses, virtual field trip experiences, and expanded access to nanotechnology capabilities. This is not the first USDA RUS Distance Learning grant received by Cattaraugus-Allegany BOCES and component school districts. The Distance Learning Team at CA BOCES has been applying for and receiving RUS grants since 1997, resulting in eight previous awards and millions of dollars in equipment for our schools. “Over the years, USDA funding has built a virtual school in our region," stated Lynda Quick. Over forty virtual classes connect via video conference every single day, allowing schools to share the instructional expertise of their outstanding faculty members. Additionally, hundreds of students to take other online courses because of this funding. These virtual courses are critical in expanding offerings in small rural schools that, over time, have been stripped of the ability to offer many (or any) AP, college credit, or elective courses to their students. Lynda Quick also shared, "This award helps put a dent in leveling the playing field. It helps our students build a transcript that can be competitive in the post-secondary arena." Grant implementation will begin immediately.
Looking back on 2017, there were some consistent trends of topics that dominated the national dialogue with regards to ELA instruction.
First, empathy. Empathy can, and should, be taught across all content areas. For example, in technology courses, students can learn to be empathetic by considering the needs of people when they design and make/code. However, the nature of ELA offers a myriad of ways to develop empathy. Reading stories and analyzing character’s actions, choices, and behaviors can offer great opportunities to be more empathetic, as well as analyzing an author’s argument while considering their background and experiences. Another way is to focus on developing responsible and compassionate readers. Robert Probst, co-author of Disrupting Thinking, describes a responsible reader as a person who is open to letting the text confirm, challenge, or change his/her thinking. A compassionate reader is willing to see through another person’s eyes and is open-minded towards another person’s arguments or beliefs. Another hot topic was developing student voice. With the nature of state assessments requiring more formulaic writing, many teachers feel it’s hard for students to develop their own voice when writing. Author Joseph Bruchac argues that the first place to start is by having kids write about one of their four roots: ancestry, family, place, or personal experience. Every person has these four roots, yet they are “diverse and different in their content for every one of us”. Having students write personal narratives about their family, for example, is a way for students to write about something specific to their own lives. Author Nic Stone suggests focusing on subvocalization, which means being able to hear what’s on the page. She suggests having students do a short quick write, having them change the punctuation to support the sounds they are trying to convey, and then having a classmate read the writing out loud to see if the writing sounds the way the author intended. Finally, fake news dominated many scholarly articles, blog posts, and news reports. There are two main issues with fake news: 1) the discrediting of sound and valid news organizations/articles and 2) the susceptibility of believing fake news. Educators need to teach kids how to check sources, yet the fact that even adults cannot spot fake news means we need to teach more media literacy skills in our classrooms. Some of these skills include being able to examine URLs that appear unusual (websites that end with .co, for example), to discover low quality and grammatically incorrect work, and to check if other media outlets are reporting the same news. The Newseum in Washington D.C. also offers an acronym to teach kids how to spot fake news: ESCAPE (Evidence, Source, Context, Audience, Purpose, Execution). Our upcoming BOCES offerings, such as the MS/HS ELA CLC, will be focusing on these important topics and more. We look forward to sharing the learning! By: Brendan Keiser, CA BOCES Professional Development Check out this month's AdvancingSTEM Challenge!
AdvancingSTEM Challenges are designed to bring engineering and design to your classroom in a simple, easy-to-implement, challenge-based way. Modify our Advancing STEM Challenges for your classroom. A new challenge is posted monthly. Post a photo of your students in action in our comment section or post a comment on how you modified the Challenge to work in your classroom.
A shared reading experience has blanketed Portville, NY, like an early morning fall frost. Portville Elementary School, families, and the entire community have embraced R. J. Palacio's book Wonder and the exciting project: One Book One Community. One Book One Community is an initiative where the people in a school and the members of its community read the same book. The premise of this program is to promote literacy and engage students and community members in thoughtful reflections around a common text. From September to November, the teachers and students at Portville Elementary School have been reading, listening to, and talking about Wonder. The enthusiasm for the book has transcended the school walls to reach local businesses, organizations, and families. It’s not uncommon for students and their families to walk into their favorite local restaurant or dentist’s office and hear the employees and customers talking about Wonder. The power of One Book One Community comes from the reading connection formed between the students and the community and the book’s extraordinary theme: kindness. Wonder was selected for the project for that very reason: in a world that seems to have more animosity than compassion, Wonder has the power to inspire people to “Choose Kind.” Portville Elementary School and its community are not just reading and talking, they’re showing their support for the project on Face Book, Instagram, and Twitter. Lawns and business windows reinforce the project with signs: “We’re Reading Wonder; Are You?”Wonder, the movie, made its debut before Thanksgiving. With support from CA BOCES Student Programs, Portville sent 3rd-6th-grade students and their teachers to see the movie and is planning a culminating event in January-a great way to start the new year. Although the project will end soon, the conversations will continue for weeks to come.
One Book One Community has been met with such enthusiasm that it’s anticipated to become an annual event. Social Media Links: Facebook: Portville Wonders Instagram: @PortvilleWONDERS Twitter: @PortvilleWONDERS By: Anne Mitchell, CA BOCES Professional Development  The ROBOTC for VEX training at Pioneer High School was led by Jesse Flot, a Research Programmer & Senior Software Engineer for the Robotics Academy at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), and Josh Jarvis, the lead developer for CMUs CS-STEM Network. In attendance were nearly thirty participants from various districts across the region (Allegany-Limestone CSC, Andover CSD, Belfast CSD, Bolivar-Richburg CSD, CA-BOCES Belmont CTE, CA-BOCES ISS, CA-BOCES ISS, Cattaraugus-Little Valley CSD, Cuba-Rushford CSD, Ellicottville CSD, Franklinville CSD, Fillmore CSD, Genesee Valley CSD, Hinsdale CSD, Pioneer CSD, Salamanca City SD, Scio CSD, and Whitesville CSD). What is a robot, and what can we can we teach with it? These were the first two questions that Jesse Flot used to open the ROBOTC for VEX training. The first question is fairly direct: what is a robot? Perhaps you define a robot as something like Wall-E, or maybe to you a robot is Arnold Schwarzenegger from the Terminator. The definition is as simple as SPA: a robot is a device that has the ability to sense, plan, and act. What can we teach with a robot? This second question is more difficult to answer unless we first reflect on how we teach rather than the content of our teaching. When teaching Algebra 1, my students would struggle with the concept of completing the square to rewrite quadratic expressions. Rather than using the skill of completing the square as a tool to accomplish a goal, I made the skill the learning goal; ultimately, it was not until I provided students with the necessary tools and shift my focus (using GeoGebra) that they were able to better understand the process of completing the square, how to use it, and when to use it. Similarly, “project-based learning (PBL) involves learning through projects rather than just doing projects,” says John Spencer. In other words, the goal of PBL is to focus on the learning process rather than a culminating project. Jesse explained what can be taught with robotics in the same way; he said, “the Robotics Academy at CMU uses robotics as a tool to teach programming; however, you can use robots to teach many other subjects and skills such as mathematics, physics, communication, teamwork, and time management.” With these questions answered and an understanding that the VEX robots were a tool used to help teach programming, Jesse and Josh led participants through two days of hands-on training with the programming of ROBOTC as well as the hardware of VEX robots. Participants explored intuitive and basic commands using the block coding features of ROBOTC in conjunction with the physical features of the VEX robot the first day, and on day two, participants made the progression to virtual reality with Robot Virtual World software (RVW) and explored how the text commands of ROBOTC differ from its block coding commands.
In addition to Jesse’s 16 years of experience at CMU (12 of which being in professional development), the Robotics Academy’s research-based practices helped guide the hybrid training model. From anticipating participant questions to providing examples of student questions that participants should anticipate, Jesse and Josh led participants through a highly productive two days of learning. Jesse and Josh will continue this hybrid training online from mid-February through March in which participants will gain additional knowledge of the ROBOTC language, continue to track their progress with CMUs learning management system, and explore additional features of VEX robotics.
By: Mark Beckwith, CA BOCES Professional Development  In addition to the virtual field trips we offer, FieldTrip Zoom allows students the opportunities to visit faraway places and interact with experts in a particular field, museum, aquarium, etc. FieldTrip Zoom offers both interactive and recorded opportunities for teachers to bring the world into their classroom. This is in addition to the virtual field trips that we have traditionally offered. Contact Karen Insley or Carrie Oliver to get more insight into this great offering.
To Access Fieldtrip Zoom: Teachers create an account (using their school email) at fieldtripzoom.com, book a program that fits your schedule from the Zoom Zone calendar, and then you and your class can sit back and enjoy the trip! There is no need to fill out a request form for the Zoom Zone trips since you book them on the FieldTrip Zoom Zone calendar. You can also connect anywhere with Zoom. Each district in the Distance Learning COSER is given a Zoom Pro Account for use with administrators, faculty, and students. Zoom allows multi-user video conferencing, small group conferencing, content sharing, and so much more! Zoom is very user friendly and versatile. How will you use it with your students? Contact Karen Insley for training or suggestions for Zoom use within your district. By: Karen Insley, CA BOCES Learning Resources Professional Learning Communities (PLC) is “an ongoing process in which educators work collaboratively in recurring cycles of collective inquiry and action research to achieve better results for the students they serve.” (Dufour, 2006).
Administration, teachers and staff at Hinsdale Central School are embracing the working concept of a PLC in an effort to make improvements in student performance on both 3-8 State Math Assessments and HS Math Regents exams. The work began a couple of years ago when key teacher leaders were trained by PLC Associates in Rochester and the work of Learning by Doing, but Richard DuFour. An emphasis was placed on ELA across grade levels last year and the shift was made to Math during this past summer. Evidence of the Math PLC at work in Hinsdale include Professional Development work in Math instruction with an emphasis on both state assessment data and cooperative learning structures. In addition, a tangible example of the work done by the Math PLC is a series of teacher generated posters located across the district that shows Math representation in a variety of topics and manners. Some of these examples are shown below. These posters are strategically located within the building based on Math standards at specific grade levels. Best of luck, Hinsdale, as you continue to monitor progress and address needs for your students. By: Karen Insley, CA BOCES Learning Resources |
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