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Districts are gearing up for the holiday season by traveling to the North Pole. You heard that right. Cattaraugus-Little Valley, Pioneer, West Valley, Fillmore, and Salamanca will be traveling Around the World with Santa and spending time with Mrs. Claus this season, right in their classrooms! These are just some of the types of trips available from the Distance Learning Department.
Christmas trips not really your thing? Randolph is participating in the classic Gingerbread Boy Virtual Experience from the Center of Puppetry Arts. We also have classroom collaborations like “Brown Bear” for elementary, or Career Connection Conversations for high school students that are all free to attend. December’s Career Conversation is with Meme Yanetsko of the Olean Area Chamber of Commerce. These free collaborations are brought to you by the New York State Distance Learning Consortium. The NYSDLC offers out a classroom collaboration for elementary and a Career Conversation session monthly for free for being a part of Distance Learning. Is there a topic you want to see in the offering? Let us know! We are always looking for new ideas to benefit our teachers.
We can find a virtual field trip experience for just about any topic that you come up with. We try our best to provide free/low cost opportunities that work with your curriculum. For more information or to schedule a Virtual Field Trip contact Carrie Oliver at carrie_oliver@caboces.org. To see upcoming events check out the flyer here: https://www.smore.com/40vj6-upcoming-virtual-field-trips Happy Holidays! By: Carrie Oliver, CA BOCES Learning Resources
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CA BOCES offers a collaborative music library with over 215 music charts for borrowing. Thirty-two charts have been checked out this fall for band concerts making this a well utilized resource. Music teachers in participating districts send purchasing requests to Catherine_Dunkleman@caboces.org who then orders the music through an approved vendor. Upon receipt, Cathy catalogs the charts into Insignia. With a simple search, music teachers may view a chart's summary, select "Click here to watch" for the score, and easily book an item for delivery and use for a semester or school year. When returned to Learning Resources, inventory is taken and any missing or damaged sheet music is replaced per copyright law.
For those curious to see the music collection, visit resources.caboces.org and log in. Search by selecting call number and type in ML. Searches may be narrowed by categories located in the left column of the web page. Some choral teachers have expressed an interest in having a similar collection. If your school is interested in joining this service, contact Amy_Windus@caboces.org or Cecelia_Fuoco@caboces.org By Cece Fuoco, CA BOCES Learning Resources With the start of a new school year, Community Schools hosted the inaugural, bi-annual Community and Schools Together Event. Nearly 100 educators and community partners came together on September 30th to teach, learn and collaborate with one another. The region collectively chose to focus on advancing mental health and wellness at this event. This came as no surprise, considering that 46% of children experience at least one adverse childhood experience (ACE) and approximately 20% of adolescents have diagnosable mental health disorders. School and community partnerships are key to the growth and development of policies, procedures and best practices for mental health.  Dr. Liz Anderson of Binghamton University’s NYS Community Schools Technical Assistance Center welcomed the group and set the stage for the day. She discussed school and community collaboration, and reminded us that collaboration challenging, yet rewarding. “When we collaborate, we know that our strengths will be maximized, our weaknesses will be minimized and the result will be better for families, schools and communities,” said Anderson. The relationship between a community and a school is reciprocal in nature. Communities provide schools with a context and an environment that can reinforce the values, culture and learning. In addition, communities can also expand the variety of opportunities and supports available to students and families. In return, schools offer the community an enduring public institution that often serves as the “hub” of the community, especially within our rural region. This event truly reflected the four pillars of the community schools strategy, which include, expanded learning opportunities, collaborative leadership and practices, family and community engagement, as well as, integrated student supports. A combined total of twelve breakout sessions took place throughout the day, and were facilitated by school leaders and representatives as well as community agency representatives. Sessions covered things such as family engagement, community trauma coalition, probation services and new legislation, model mentoring programs, addressing traumatic stress with restorative practices, school resource officer support, utilizing the community schools strategy in rural context, health services in school settings and substance abuse prevention and intervention services for schools. As we move forward to begin planning the next CST event, to be held on March 23rd, we welcome schools and community partners to participate in the planning process. Our goal is to build upon the collaborative spirit that was developed during the inaugural event and increase the outcomes for our region. By: Katie Mendell, CA BOCES Community Schools
We are preparing students for a world that wants go-getters, decision makers, designers, creators, and dreamers. The old system of school is focused on compliance, but if our students are compliant when they leave us, they will always need to follow someone else’s rules and our society is not made for that. Empower: What Happens When Students Own Their Learning? by John Spencer and AJ Juliani challenge our thinking about engagement in schools and push for classrooms that empower our learners.
This fall, Ryan McGinnis, Tessa Levitt, and Sarah Wittmeyer hosted a 6-week online book study on Facebook centered around the Empower text. 30 teachers from the region logged in weekly from 8-9pm to participate in discussion of the ideas presented in text. We explored how to shift the classroom and put the learning into the hands of the students. How can we, as teachers, facilitate learning experiences that put students in control? Where can we let them take over the process? How do we do this within the parameters of curriculum, standards, the schools we work in, etc.? How do we give students more ownership in the learning process? What have we done in our classrooms to empower our students? Where do we start? The best part of the entire discussion was learning how teachers in our region were upping the game for their students. From genius hour, to inquiry, to project-based learning, and beyond, our students are so lucky to have such creative and innovative teachers! We will be having a “face-to-face” meeting at the end of November as a culmination to the learning and a check-in to see how things are going with empowering our students. If you are interested in learning more about our Facbeook book studies, please reach out! We will be hosting another in Spring 2020! Stay tuned! By: Sarah Wittmeyer, CA BOCES Professional Development  Have you ever taken an online course? Do you have any idea what is available in the catalogues of online providers? Well… I sure didn’t have any idea of the range of availability to our students. I entered into a new position this school year with Instructional Support Services Division as a Distance Learning teacher for Learning Resources, and let me share with you that I am very excited and in awe of what I can now help offer to our students through CABOCES. Even amongst all of the overwhelming moments that the new school year brings I am HOOKED ONLINE and sinker!!  As I started being introduced to the inclusions of the position, I began to realize all that was available and waiting for students to utilize. The course catalogues, with content areas across the board, displayed on the website and promising to enhance the educational experience in addition to the core and elective selections offered within their district. I would encourage you to take a moment and browse the listings, share it with your friends, coworkers, even your children at home. The students are supported through the Learning Resources department with any technical difficulties or questions as well as communications with course instructors as needed. It gives the students more choices, individual learning skillbuilding, and support as needed. What more could they want ?? 😊
I look forward to working with all the students in all the districts who are taking advantage of this wonderful opportunity. If you have not done so already, take time to check out the long list of opportunities available to our students. Pass the line (HAHA).... and enjoy the atmosphere of being HOOKED ONLINE for learning. By: Lisa Scott, CA BOCES Learning Resources John Butler and the Cattaraugus County Government Intern students helped at the Turkey Giveaway at the Cattaraugus Community Action, Inc. The county government program is run through CA BOCES with students participating from Allegany-Limestone, Cattaraugus-Little Valley, Ellicottville, and Randolph. CCA, Inc. partners with the community to provide strengths-based opportunities for vulnerable people to achieve economic, physical, and emotional security. You can visit their website at https://www.ccaction.org/  Challenge
Did you know, STEM Day falls on November 8? There’s no way around it: children are significantly better off with strong science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics skills. That’s why STEM education programs are so important. It’s undebatable that these subjects push society forward, and these programs help to find fun and engaging ways to teach them to students, which is all worth commemorating. So, on November 8, we celebrated STEM Day! How can you celebrate? By taking part in the STEM challenge on this day or any other day this month. This month's STEM challege is a little different. The challenge is to build and make a model to brainstorm and answer, "What does STEM mean to you?" Students can build a model to represent what they think STEM means or how they see it using various materials. There are no criteria or contstaints to this challenge. It is an open-ended, metaphoric prompt to let students explore and think critically about the solution. Materials
Hints and Tips for Success
By: Clay Nolan, CA BOCES Learning Resources  Teams have been hard at work since the school year began to prepare for the Southern Tier’s largest Lego League tournament ever. The program, sponsored by BOCES, continues to grow by leaps and bounds in the Cattaraugus-Allegany region. On Saturday, November 16th, 27 teams from 14 school districts are participating in this year’s FIRST Lego League robotics tournament series held at Houghton College. Congratulations to Archbishop Walsh, Belfast, Bolivar-Richburg, Catt-Little Valley, Cuba-Rushford, Ellicottville, Fillmore, Franklinville, Friendship, Genesee Valley, Salamanca, Scio, Wellsville, and Whitesville for accepting the challenge to explore the fields of architecture and urban engineering.
First Lego League, a world-wide robotics program, was founded in 1989 to inspire young people's interest and participation in Science and Technology. Each year a new challenge is designed to motivate kids to get excited about research, engineering, math and problem solving, while building self-confidence, knowledge and life skills. Learn about this year’s challenge, City Shaper, here: https://firstinspiresst01.blob.core.windows.net/fll/2020/city-shaper-challenge.pdf The Campus Center at Houghton College is the place to be on Saturday, November 16th to see more than two hundred 9-14 year old students, plus their coaches and families, and over 3 dozen volunteers discover innovative ways to explore robotics while having fun! Spectators are invited to attend to cheer on all the teams who tackled the City Shaper challenge. At the Closing Ceremony, the seven teams who will advance to the Championship Tournament at the University of Rochester on December 8 will be announced. Southern Tier Lego League Tournament details:
Call or email BOCES Student Programs at 716-376-8323 for more information. We're looking forward to seeing everyone on Saturday, November 16! Thanks for supporting the Southern Tier Lego League teams! Jean_Oliverio@caboces.org Student Programs CABOCES 716-307-0877 |
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