November 2021
Dear AfterCLASS Community,

Happy November, a time of gratitude. We are grateful for the dedicated teachers and all that you do for our children. We would like to show this gratitude by offering our space to you and your colleagues, by hosting thought-provoking events and professional development series tailored to your needs, and by highlighting all that you do each day. We need to hear from you! Send us a name of a teacher to feature in our newsletter, on our website, and on our social media posts. Let us know which workshops you would like to attend or which resources you need. AfterCLASS is designed for you.
We just wrapped up the most recent series of our Teacher Activism Book Club. We fully enjoyed learning from Pedro A. Noguera's The Trouble with Black Boys: And Other Reflections on Race, Equity, and the Future of Public Education. We will start our Teaching for Black Lives book club November 15th! This club will meet four more times over the academic year, reflecting on articles, webinars, and strategies to make change in our classrooms and in our community. We will also offer a workshop on explicit phonics instruction, a hot topic that many teachers want to learn more about, and we will host a support session for Praxis: Secondary Principles of Learning and Teaching.
Last month, It was great to hang out with familiar faces and meet new teachers at our first AfterCLASS Social Hour. We will host another holiday happy hour in December, but first we will co-host a Teacher Appreciation Night at the Louisiana Children's Museum on November 11th and host a Film Screening of I Promise at AfterCLASS on Thursday, November 18th. So many ways to connect with us this season, so many ways to show that we are truly grateful for you.

Sincerely,
The AfterCLASS Team
We are so excited about this partnership! Please join us on November 11th 5:30PM-7:00PM at the Louisiana Children's Museum for refreshments, chances to win free passes to the Museum and AfterCLASS prizes, and an interactive tour of the Museum's exhibits, which highlights creativity and problem solving and how the exhibits connect to your current Pre K-3 academic standards. Although the Museum tour will focus primarily on these grade levels, all teachers are welcome to come learn and play.
Registration is required. Sign up now!
Exciting Opportunity from
our Community Partner

Be Loud Studios is a New Orleans non-profit that amplifies kid confidence through radio production. This spring, Be Loud is offering a fellowship experience for NOLA-based educators (in and out of classrooms) interested in creating and broadcasting audio content with youth. 

Thanks to WHIV 102.3FM, Be Loud Studios hosts the Be Loud Radio Hour every Saturday that features content from Bricolage Academy, New Harmony High School, Dancing Grounds, and other awesome organizations. For the upcoming calendar year, they would like to partner with local educators and organizations that want to broadcast the voices, work, and experience of youth in their community. Click the link below to learn more about this exciting opportunity!
We want to feature teachers for their dedication. Send us the name of a teacher to spotlight. Tell us in a few sentences why you're nominating this teacher and we will contact them for an interview that will be featured in our newsletter and on our website.
Teaching Tidbit: Advance Organizers

An advance organizer is a tool used to introduce the lesson topic and illustrate the bridge between what the students have learned and what they are about to learn. It acts as a conceptual bridge from the old information to the new information.There are three basic purposes of advance organizers:
  • They direct students' attention to what is important in the upcoming lesson.
  • They highlight relationships among ideas that will be presented.
  • They remind students of relevant information that they already have.
 
Click here for some common types of advance organizers from Understood.org, a highly-recommended resource for educators.