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The groups joined were in the morning had great discussions. It was good to share with colleagues. I the afternoon, it was good to de-stress with yoga. Of course , I am now aware of muscles I have forgotten about years ago lol.  But a good day.  Thank you

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Walking while conferencing is a wonderful medium for getting out productive ideas. I look forward to seeing how we will employ it in the future.

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It was dark now ,and as we dipped under little bridge I put my arm around Jordan's golden shoulder and drew her toward me and asked her to dinner. Suddenly I wasn't thinking of Daisy and Gatsby any more, but of this clean, hard, limited person, who dealt in universal scepticism , and who leaned back jauntily just within the circle of my arm. A phrase began to beat in my ears with a sort of heady excitement: There are only pursued, the pursuing, the busy, and the tired."(fitzgerald,page#107)

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It was dark now ,and as we dipped under little bridge I put my arm around Jordan's golden shoulder and drew her toward me and asked her to dinner. Suddenly I wasn't thinking of Daisy and Gatsby any more, but of this clean, hard, limited person, who dealt in universal scepticism , and who leaned back jauntily just within the circle of my arm. A phrase began to beat in my ears with a sort of heady excitement: There are only pursued, the pursuing, the busy, and the tired."(fitzgerald,page#107)

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In this quote I think Nick is trying to catergorize all the different types of people in the world and especially the different types of people in his life. He's trying to say there are only a very select few and they are all very different. Some people decide to go after certain things and pursue what they want such as relationships with people they have interest in and others are too busy or tired with work or anything to go after what they desire and stay within themselves going after something that might not even make them happy.

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It was a thought-provoking presentation. Even though I don't have many discipline issues in AP classes, it was beneficial to think about how I communicate with my students and the meanings they derive which may be different from the meanings I intend.
Once example of having my thinking challenged was the presenter's suggestion that we don't say "please" when we ask students to do something like get out their classwork. (If you want to know why,  you should sign up for this workshop.)
Cathleen Holbrook

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I really enjoyed all the new ways I learned of how to incorporate technology into the classroom. I look forward to trying out each method to engage my students.

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I learned so much from this all day workshop. I took pages and pages of notes and my mind was cranking all day on ways I could apply this in my classroom. I would definitely like to learn more skills. Beth was an excellent teacher. I was focused all day. Bianca

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Learned about padlet, doctopus and goobric.
I did not find the class discussions enlightening.  too much venting and not enough problem solving.  Often a few dominated discussions, and it was difficult to hear from everyone without a facilitator to give everyone a chance.
Jim Melanson

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The session on blogging was very helpful and informative. Getting the basic idea of how to blog allowed me to see how it can be implemented in Social Studies classes. I realized blogging allows students to write in a way that interests them and because they know their writing will be seen by others it should/can lead to improvements in spelling, punctuation, and grammar.

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Today's session was very informative and  exciting to learn. I wasn't too familiar with blogging or how it operated, let alone make my own. It also led to teacher discussion on how other subject areas can incorporate it into their curriculum.

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I had a wonderful experience
learning about how to incorporate blogging as a part of writing instruction. This is an excellent way to get students excited about daily writing. I would like some more professional development on creative ways to incorporate blogging across curriculums. Perhaps something on thematic units across curriculums with blogging as the thread to weave all the disciplines together would be useful.
- J. Glauda

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Having attended a productive EdCamp at Dutchess Day School in the past, I was excited to see it rolled out at RCK.  I love that the sessions were not facilitated by anyone, creating a platform for open dialogue which allowed colleagues to speak up with a willingness to share during sessions. The conversations were lively.  The session I found most worthwhile was “inquiry”.  The participants ranged in grade levels and subject areas but we were still able to share what “inquiry” looks like in each of our classroom.  We were able to share what works/doesn’t work in our classrooms as well as offer suggestions and ideas to each other for upcoming projects.  As a 12th grade teacher, it was reassuring to see that inquiry is being taught in middle school so the concept will be familiar to students as they progress through their high school years.  We did all come to the consensus that “inquiry” is not easy to teach or for students to understand.  It involves repetitive modeling by the classroom teacher and ongoing practice by students to find a topic that they truly are passionate about and eager to “inquire” about to learn more.
-Meg Mullins

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The session on blogging was very helpful and informative. Getting the basic idea of how to blog allowed me to see how it can be effectively implemented in Social Studies classes. It allows students to write in a way that interests them and because they know their writing will be seen by others it can/should lead to improvements in spelling, punctuation, and grammar.

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We discovered how our students can use blogging to write using their own voice. This can be useful in my Social Studies classroom as a useful tool to expand the writing process!

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Today's session on blogging gave more ideas of how to have students experience digital citizenship and practice digital literacy.  It was also very encouraging seeing that the examples she had were some of my own previous students. I do not feel I need any more resources as we looked at the tools that were used and were able to test it out.

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Blogging: Getting Students to Write for a Wider Audience

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Blogging: Getting Students to Write for a Wider Audience

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It was nice to learn about ways to integrate technology into the classroom in a way that is meaningful and can really enhance student writing. Students seem to be overly focused on fast technology (Instagram, Snapchat, etc.) they consume massive amounts of text and images and have learned to respond in a way that is quick and shallow.  Blogging is a good way to encourage students to go deeper and really think about what they are writing. I am excited to use blogging in my classroom as a way to have students take ownership over their work and their ideas.
- Meryl E.

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During the afternoon session of Edcamp, I had the opportunity to learn about blogging in the ELA classroom. I have tried using Google Sites with my students this year and wasn't 100% pleased with the results, so I was interested in learning about how another teacher was incorporating similar writing techniques into their own classrooms, as well as what platform they were using to blog within their classrooms. At the end of the session, I left with new ideas about how to incorporate this style of writing into my classroom, and feel excited about trying this again from a new perspective!

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This afternoon's session on blogging enabled me to have another avenue for students to share their passions. C. Furnia's examples were inspiring on how creative students can be when they write about what interests them. My intent is to incorporate this into my curriculum.

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I spent a very productive time during my walking meeting with Aaron Ellis. I would like to add this type meeting
locally to my work day :)

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Today at EdCamp I attended several seminars that focused on a variety of curriculum based subjects. My first session focused on the inquiry design model in the classroom and promoting inquiry as a skill for students across curriculums. This was an excellent topic and was Socratic in nature - I spoke with several colleagues about their experiences and my challenges with implementing the IDM. We worked together to try and come up with some ideas for furthering our inquiry in the classroom.

The second session that I attended focused on new technology that could be incorporated into a lesson to allow students to record songs and create their own digital media content for projects. This was a useful tool but not the most applicable to my personal experience.

The final session for the day was devoted to enhancing and challenging our honors students. The session started out slow but began to pick up some steam as we talked about what it really meant to be an honors student. Many teachers came away with a better plan for how to challenge their honors students and work on transitioning students from the middle school honors program to high school AP curriculum and beyond.

For our second part of the day, we went on a walking meeting as a department and had an amazing discussion about our own practices and how to improve the overall environment in our schools and classrooms. The walking meeting was an effective way to end the day and allowed for us to collaborate in an unique manner that many of us had never tried before. This was a very successful EdCamp, even without any facilitators in the discussions.

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Inquiry:The morning session on inquiry was a great opportunity to hear others share how they were approaching inquiry in their classrooms.  I learned much about what inquiry looks like in an 8th grade Social Studies room, as well as a 10th grade Math room.  The plethora of ideas that were shared was fascinating and allowed for an in-depth conversation about how to engage students.  Some ideas that we shared were stations, I notice / I wonder charts, Socratic seminar, and QFT methods.  JD

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Inquiry:The morning session on inquiry was a great opportunity to hear others share how they were approaching inquiry in their classrooms.  I learned much about what inquiry looks like in an 8th grade Social Studies room, as well as a 10th grade Math room.  The plethora of ideas that were shared was fascinating and allowed for an in-depth conversation about how to engage students.  Some ideas that we shared were stations, I notice / I wonder charts, Socratic seminar, and QFT methods.  JD

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It was nice to connect with colleagues in a different setting while getting some exercise.  We had the ultimate VIP backstage tour from Ken Tornatore.  We discussed our morning Edcamp sessions as we raised out heart rates climbing up and down the stairs and zigzagging through the maze of RCK.  We were really impressed by the large computer lab which connected to the learning lab and the library.  We really liked how the walking and talking allowed for the conversation to be very fluid.  We spoke about many different topics and the creative ideas were flowing with ease.
Linda B, Andre C, Melissa W, Cara B, and Ken T.

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EdCamp Reflection: Angela Mills and Janine Monroe (We attended all three sessions together, and we are reflecting on the day)

Session One: School Safety

We did not sign up for this session, but ended up here because the “stress management for teachers” was overflowing. We randomly entered the next room, and were not initially thrilled with topic, as it is something the two of us have discussed at length already and we have both had emotionally charged reactions to.

From the discussion, we realized that our perspective has changed in that the conversation needs to move away from (or is shifting away from) gun control and mental health, but more on building safety issues: concrete, real world, reduction in casualties-type conversations. It seems to be the only thing people really agree on.

One thing we wanted to see applied is that in the event that a teacher is out of the classroom during a lockdown, we will need students to take charge. Some kids may volunteer for this role, or a blanket statement may be made to the entire classroom. This is something that hasn’t come up with administration before, but it will need to be addressed immediately.

Ultimately to follow up, we need more training,a common language, and protocol as far as building safety and security are concerned.

Session Two: Parent Connections

Our second session was on parent communication. Others in session left, but we stayed and discussed what issues we often face as teachers when trying to communicate with difficult or frustrated parents.

Moving forward, we think that we will continue to use a script to focus the conversation if it goes off the rails; the script is found in a workbook Parents as Partners. We think that it would be helpful if this common script and additional common terms and language to talk about grades, effort, expectations, failures/successes, etc; was available and utilized district-wide, or at least that teachers are made aware of it, and could use it as their own discretion. In addition, role-playing these tough conversations would be helpful to practice this and it could easily be something done in rookie-school and refreshed maybe every 3 or 4 years.

Further, it might help if parents were given some structure and guidance for how to get the most out of parent communication. We believe parents sometimes come to the table not sure what they want to discuss and this can lead to lengthy, counter-productive conversations.

Session 3: Drug Addiction

This session started out slowly, but Dana Bolduc took charge and led us in a good direction. We learned that many of our colleagues feel the same as we do when it comes to the fear and concern we have for how and when to have conversations about drugs and addiction. We think, moving forward, we will make more of an effort to stay current in our knowledge of trends, language and behavior. You can sometimes feel like you, “know everything,” but the fact is, thing are always changing and a truly vigilant educator needs to keep themselves sharp. Diane Dichara mentioned a workshop with breakout session that is happening during our next half-day in April, and it seems sound to attend it.

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As we walked we discussed many options for the inquiry project in 7th and 8th grade. Scaffolding instruction to help students develop questions. We also worked through project ideas for the upcoming field trip to the FDR House. Many good things came from our talk with so many people's input.
Great idea to have this for the afternoon. We are thinking of implementing this on a weekly basis after school.
Joe T, Cole B. Keith M, Scott C, Lauren K, Kelly B. and Ann L.

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Amongst many of the issues we’ve discussed we agree that parent involvement is crucial to the development of the student as a reader and lifelong learner. Durimg our walk and talk, our group discussed how a student’s long term success was contingent upon having an adequate attendance policy. - BH, TR, SG, DP, RW

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I enjoyed our discussion regarding civic duties. We covered some of the philosophical issues relating to what it means to be a good citizen and how this translates in the classroom. We discussed the effects of technology on students and their capacities to interact in person with others. It was interesting to hear what others had to say regarding this!
-GB

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I enjoyed this discussion, especially learning how Dweck’s research can be applied in different subject areas.  I would like to talk more with my department about how we can apply this research to our curriculum, our classroom routines, and the feedback we give students. -JB

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During the Cell Phone Addiction workshop, each of us agreed that our students and even some of us are addicted to this devise.  While setting limits and parameters are mandatory we found that many of us use them in our instruction.  However, abuse of the cellphone within the classroom still persists.  Some of us check them in and out at the beginning and end of class, yet there are still a number of students who cannot put them down or simply refuse to surrender them.  Others seek to tie the proper use to a some sort of grade.

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Calibri (Body)

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During our walking meeting we discussed the sessions that attended and what we can incorporate into our classrooms. In the first session we discussed the Inquire Project. A great discussion that we had was how our students struggle with developing questions and ways that we can help scaffold teaching lessons to develop their skills to become more independent. We were encouraged by the fact that even high school students are still struggling with this concept. Many great strategies were shared for many learning abilities like an image o the day where students write questions about what they wonder from the picture.

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During our walking meeting we discussed the sessions that attended and what we can incorporate into our classrooms. In the first session we discussed the Inquire Project. A great discussion that we had was how our students struggle with developing questions and ways that we can help scaffold teaching lessons to develop their skills to become more independent. We were encouraged by the fact that even high school students are still struggling with this concept. Many great strategies were shared for many learning abilities like an image o the day where students write questions about what they wonder from the picture.

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In the 2nd and 3rd sessions we discussed how we can integrate technology to motivate our students and get them more engaged in our lessons. We discussed hyperdoc, Goggle Classroom, Blogger, Common Sense education.  All are great resources that can easily be implemented in the classroom.

-Ann & Kelly

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Amanda Mack, Stephanie McCaffrey, Tina Phelan

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Amanda Mack, Stephanie McCaffrey, Tina Phelan

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While walking discussed preparation for the rigors of high school for middle school students. We also discussed cross curricular instruction and the need for more collaboration between content areas as well as grade levels.

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When I attended the “grants” workshop this morning, we discussed how grant information can be shared among faculty members. To save on time, we will begin a Google doc with general school stats that are often needed to complete the paperwork.

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When I attended the “grants” workshop this morning, we discussed how grant information can be shared among faculty members. To save on time, we will begin a Google doc with general school stats that are often needed to complete the paperwork.

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High Interest Reading for Freshman and Effective Writing Assignments

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High Interest Reading for Freshman and Effective Writing Assignments

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In our walking meeting we discussed the importance of finding interesting and engaging reading for our students.  We bought and reviewed a graphic novel version of The Odyssey and would love to see it ordered for our students to use in future years.  We also talked about the various writing assignments we offer our students for the Hero's Journey unit and reflected on how to improve our teaching, particularly how to teach effective arguments.  Going forward, we plan to work collaboratively to create new and unique lessons, tools, etc to pair with the graphic novel version of The Odyssey.  We are excited, also, to find and incorporate other graphic novel versions of texts.  Not only do they engage students (reading Beowulf in class this past week, we both saw students actually self-motivated to flip ahead and see what would happen!) but they also make texts far more accessible for  ENL students.

-Amy & Carm

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Hello EDCAMPers: Please post your experience on today's PD. Here are some prompts  What did you learn or experience  that you will apply to your practice?How did this experience change/impact your perspective?How will you follow up this professional development experience? What support and resources will you need?

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Hello EDCAMPers: Please post your experience on today's PD. Here are some prompts  What did you learn or experience  that you will apply to your practice?How did this experience change/impact your perspective?How will you follow up this professional development experience? What support and resources will you need?