It's not too late to make plans to come to the 2019 Conference on Literacy. You and your colleagues can come to the Marriott to register onsite. Our online registration fees are closed now, but it's still a great deal! Come take advantage of seeing the amazing speakers, exhibits, and general sessions that we have to offer.
Find our list of speakers, authors, and registration book
at ccira.org
|
|
2019 Fall Conference Call for Proposals
Are you passionate about teaching writing? Is there something that has "clicked" with your students that you think might help writers in other classrooms? Perhaps you've learned something that's improved student achievement in writing or implemented something that has impacted your students as they grow as writers.
You are exactly who we are looking for!
This year for PPIRA's fall conference on October 19, 2019, we are looking to our wonderful educators in the Pikes Peak region for session proposals. This year's conference will focus on writing strategies that can be used across subject areas in support of a variety of learners including gifted, ELL, and students with special education or accommodation needs.
When thinking about your session proposal, please focus on strategies an educator could use in his or her classroom rather than the promotion of a particular curriculum or resource used in your building.
Click the link below to go to the session proposal page. Proposals are due no later than April 1, 2019.
Please share this email with other educators in your building and across the region via email or social media whom you think have strategies to share!
|
|
Teacher-Leadership and Other Double-Redundancies: A Candid Leadership Conversation with Pete Hall
Joining forces with
CCIRA
and
EducationHall
,
CO ASCD
is offering this incredible event with Pete Hall, inspiring thought leader, author, and international leadership guru!
Teacher Leadership and Other Double-Redundancies: A Candid Leadership Conversation will be held on February 8, 2019 from 6:15-7:30 at the Denver Marriott Tech Center in Maroon Peak! The cost of the event is only $25 and space is limited. If you are a
Premier CO ASCD Member
, then this event is free to you!
Why should you head over to the CCIRA Conference, meet up with CO ASCD, and check out Pete Hall Friday, Feb. 8 at 6:15? It's simple, It's time to invest in you, the leader of the classroom, the leader of the team, the leader of the school, or the leader of the district! It is time to carve out some time for you!
A Little Ditty about Pete Hall:
After a teaching career that spanned preK-8 over three states, Mr. Hall served 12 years as a principal in three Title I schools: Anderson Elementary in the Washoe County (Reno, NV) School District, and Sheridan Elementary and Shaw Middle in the Spokane (WA) Public Schools. Under his leadership, Anderson ES was the only Title I school in the State of Nevada to earn “High Achieving” designation; Sheridan ES earned accolades from the Washington State Office of the Superintendent for its growth and achievement; and Shaw MS earned a Career & Life Readiness Award from the State of Washington.
Mr. Hall’s written works include authoring over twenty articles on leadership and publishing eight books:
* The First-Year Principal (Scarecrow Education, 2004)
* Building Teachers' Capacity for Success: A collaborative guide for coaches and school leaders (ASCD, 2008)
* Lead On! Motivational lessons for school leaders (Eye On Education, 2011)
* Teach, Reflect, Learn: Building your capacity for success in the classroom (ASCD, 2015)
* Fostering Resilient Learners: Strategies for creating a trauma-sensitive classroom (ASCD, 2016)
* The Principal Influence: A framework for building principals’ leadership capacity (ASCD, 2016)
* Creating a Culture of Reflective Practice: Capacity-building for schoolwide success, ASCD, 2017)
* Relationship, Responsibility, and Regulation: Trauma-invested strategies for fostering resilient learners (ASCD, 2018)
|
|
|
|
Look for them near the Exhibit Hall at the Conference to find out more!
|
Founded in 2006, the CIPA Education and Literacy Foundation (CIPA ELF) is a 501 (c) (3) tax-exempt public charity, the purpose of which is to facilitate and support child and adult literacy and education in Colorado. CIPA ELF programs include The Young Authors League, Book Benefit Program, Classroom Literacy Support, Senior Storytelling, Visiting Authors, CIPA EVVY Book Awards, Shelter Reading Buddies and Computer Literacy Assistance. Since 2006, CIPA ELF's Book Benefit Program has distributed over $300,000 worth of new books to libraries, schools, hospitals, prisons, and various organizations all across Colorado.
|
|
Mama Norah: A Kenyan Adventure
By Stevi Quate
|
|
After flying for almost 24 hours and traveling nearly 9000 miles, we landed in Nairobi, Kenya, but our travels were far from over with. We still had one more plane ride and a two-hour bus ride before we arrived at our destination: Wagwe, Kenya, a small fishing village near Lake Victoria. When Nancy Meredith and I first began thinking about joining Teachers Across Borders – Sweden (TAB), we hadn’t thought about the length of the travel. Instead, stories of our colleague, Dave Schmidt, tempted us. Dave had talked about the work TAB had done in Wagwe: support of four schools and the community, development of water treatment facilities, construction of toilet facilities at the schools, and college sponsorship of some students. He had also warned us that we’d be sleeping in dorm-like quarters, swaddled in mosquito netting with bathing facilities reminiscent of a camping trip. But it was the stories of the students that most influenced our decision to go: students orphaned because of AIDS, students working hard with dreams to attend college, students who lived in simple dwellings often without electricity, students who wanted to change the future of their village, knowing that education was the key.
Nancy and I learned that we would be working with the teachers and students at Mama Nora’s Education Center. Mama Nora’s Education Center was named after the matriarch of Wagwe, an older Kenyan woman who became a surrogate parent to orphan and poor children in the 80s. We heard stories of how up to 14 children could be found gathered around her dinner table. In honor of her, the community developed the Education Center, which opened in January, 2014 with the goal of educating orphans and the poor.
Before we left for Wagwe, Kenya, Nancy and I had gathered materials, purchased picture books that might appeal to Kenyan children, and made plans for our work with the teachers. However, the first day that we visited Mama Norah’s we realized that our plans wouldn’t work. Our picture books would, but our goals were out of whack with the needs of the school.
What made us say this? We thought our books would augment a library, not become the library. One teacher guarded her well-used stack of picture books she had bought years ago when she traveled to Sweden, but there was no whole school
library, no other classroom libraries, and no picture or trade books tucked away in a closet.
We thought that teachers would have more supplies than they did. As Nancy explains to teachers here in the States: “Imagine your
only
resource is a piece of chalk.” We saw how teachers had to write all their lessons on the ancient, decrepit chalkboards and then erase the board in order to add the details for the next lesson. We saw the kindergarten teacher write in each of her 19 students’ notebooks an alphabet-matching problem. For 20 minutes, she copied the problem over and over – a task that a photocopier would have solved in less than a minute.
We saw up to five students gathered around one of the well-used textbooks and with stubs of pencils jot down their answers. Students complied with the teachers’ request that they copy from the board and quietly followed directions. We also saw teachers who loved their children and worked tremendously hard at following a very controlled curriculum with next to no supplies.
Along with the teachers, we developed a plan with an overarching goal: build a culture of thinking – a culture for teachers as well as students. And to work towards that goal, we agreed to:
•
Model for the teachers various ways they might use books with their students in order to encourage student thinking
•
Provide workshops for the teachers
•
Offer resources for the teachers that would support their goals of creating a culture of thinking
•
Observe and coach teachers
•
Provide pencils for students who were writing with pencil stubs
So each day for our two weeks there we worked side by side with the teachers and the students.
In return, the teachers thanked us over and over, several times commenting that it was the best professional development they had ever participated in. In classes, we saw students smile and laugh as they read their new books and zealously looked for the next one to devour or share. And the students in gratitude composed a dance and song
for us that they presented in the schoolyard, performers decked out in traditional clothing and face paint.
Since we’ve returned home, our support of Mama Norah’s hasn’t stopped. We’re in email contact with the teachers, and we’re continuing to gather supplies such as picture books, professional journals, notebooks, pencils, and pencil sharpeners. Our plans for returning to Mama Nora’s next summer are beginning to take shape.
But this is no longer a project supported only by Teachers Across Borders-Sweden and a handful of American teachers. CCIRA has recently revived the Foreign Affiliate’s Committee, and Nancy and Stevi are proud to be members. The goal of the committee this year is to support Mama Nora’s in terms of gathering supplies that will make a difference to the students in this school. To reach this goal, we’ve developed a Go Fund Me Page (
https://bit.ly/2QgxKw8
) and hope that members of CCIRA will donate. We’re also hoping that other teachers will consider traveling with us next summer to provide staff development in literacy to the hard-working, caring teachers at Mama Nora’s. If you’re interested in learning more about how you could contribute to this cause, be sure to attend our session at February’s conference and feel free to contact Stevi Quate:
[email protected]
-- Stevi Quate
|
|
|
|
|
* Notice the stub of the pencil.
|
|
Did you enter for a gift card to use at the conference? The answer to our question was....
Make Time!
The winners are:
Jan Anttila
Kay Miller
Congratulations!
We will be in touch with you both!
|
|
The Birth Certificate of America - Waldseemüller Map Activity
The
Waldseemüller map
is a phenomenal piece of history. Coined the birth certificate of the Americas, the map was originally published in April 1507 by German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller. This was the first map to use the name “America”, which was used in honor of Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci.
Maps like this can often contain too much information, but breaking the map up into tiles to be more easily analyzed can help students understand how parts fit together as a whole. The tiled map linked below has 12 sections, so depending on class size, you can decide how many students per section and/or how many map packets to use.
Procedure:
Discuss the parts of a map: compass, scale, title, legend or key, notations.
Pass out one section of the map to each student and/or each student group.
Ask them to share their findings with their partner. What do they notice? Places, foreign languages, flags? What questions do they have?
Have students find another student with the same section and compare their findings.
Ask students to assemble the map in its entirety. What new information is shared from each new piece? Does this piece confirm or eliminate guesses others had?
Students can then share their findings with the entire class.
|
|
Visit
CCIRA t
o look over the array of grants and awards CCIRA offers. Begin to think about applying for a grant or nominating a deserving educator for an award to be presented in the Spring of 2019.
|
|
|
|
|
Please join in the excitement surrounding the new CCIRA Blog! It is off to a great start and will open up your world to ongoing professional development ideas with the ease of your computer screen! Start today by clicking on this link:
|
|
The new Vice-President will be announced at the General Assembly on Thursday, February 6th.
|
|
 |
CCIRA Executive Committee
|
|
|
|
Is your local council, state committee, school, or community doing something extraordinary for literacy in Colorado? Do you have a great idea to share with other educators on how to enhance literacy in the classroom? Do you know of a conference or event that CCIRA members might be interested in attending? If so, please contact
Anne Cook to submit information for publication.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
