Maine State Science Fair Returns

Dear Teachers,

Maine State Science Fair is back for its 72nd year, with more to offer than ever before! MSSF is focused on exciting student research and welcomes projects in the fields of computer science, engineering, life sciences, mathematics, behavioral & social sciences, data science, and all STEM fields. Visit maine-state-science-fair.org for more information.

New Venue

The 2018 Maine State Science Fair will take place on Saturday, March 24 at Thomas College in Waterville. We invite high school students – working alone or in teams of 2-3 – to share their original projects with their peers and a cadre of judges from industry, higher education, research institutions and government.

Solve It! Challenge

We’d like to announce a new partnership with Gulf of Maine Research Institute. Together, we are launching the Solve It! Challenge. Teachers and students have told us that one of the toughest parts of a project is coming up with a good idea. This year, we’re asking students to address a problem that’s relevant to Maine. Of course, we’ll still accept the great variety of projects we have in the past, but some students may choose to take the Solve It! Challenge.

Teacher Guide

We are also pleased to launch an MSSF Teacher’s Guide that compiles the many resources we’ve produced over the last several years. It includes recruitment materials and resources to help support student participants. If you have any resources to add or there’s something you wish was on the site, email Stefany at sburrell@mmsa.org. And don’t forget to bookmark the link!

Scholarships

Students can also compete for lucrative scholarships from Maine colleges and universities. The University of Maine and College of the Atlantic are already on board to offer scholarships and hope to announce others in the coming weeks. Stay tuned for details.

Get Started

If your school participated in MSSF last year and you have a Scienteer account, you can now log in and invite your students to get started on their projects. If you are new to MSSF, or if you don’t have a Scienteer account, please preregister your school at maine-state-science-fair.org. The deadline for students to submit their projects for approval is January 26, 2018. For help with Scienteer, check out the online manual and user guide.

Don’t hesitate to contact either of us if you need help. We look forward to working with all of you this coming school year.

Sincerely,

Mike McKernan The Jackson Laboratory michael.mckernan@jax.org 207-288-6806

Stefany Burrell Maine Mathematics & Science Alliance sburrell@mmsa.org 207-514-5613

 

—

 

 

SAT: Standards, Instruction and Responding to SAT Data

SAT: Standards, Instruction, and Responding to SAT Data

During full day workshops, teachers will take a deep dive into either ELA (Evidence-based Reading and Writing along with the essay) or math to better understand how the SAT measures our learning standards, how to use data from the SAT results to inform instruction, and what instructional moves reflect the deeper learning necessary to demonstrate achievement on the Updated SAT. Participants in this day-long workshop will learn about the updated SAT and how to use the system of supports to benefit student learning and teacher instructional strategies.

•   The ELA (ERW) session will include strategies for identifying instructional priorities based on data, a deeper understanding of the standards and how they are assessed, and an exploration of essay data and instructional strategies for on-demand writing.
•   The participants in the math session will identify common errors and misconceptions in student responses and will experience instructional strategies to support student learning.

  Participants will have to register for either ELA or math sessions for the full day. Schools are encouraged to send teams consisting of content teacher leaders at grades 9/10 and 11/12 as well as a building administrator or curriculum coordinator.

Downloading the Apptegy App

Hi Folks- a few people are having trouble finding the app.  If you are one of those folks, please try typing in Apptegy AOS 98 in the search bar on the app site.  That should help.

 

Announcing the AOS 98 APP

AOS 98 is rolling out a new app to help improve our communication among our schools, with each other, our students and our communities.  We are moving slowly in our first year of implementation, but I expect that we will be able to use this app to communicate with the parents of your students, with your students, for co-curricular issues when there is a change in schedule or practice and with our community. School events, live feeds, news, employee documents, employment opportunities and school board documents will now be available for anyone who is interested in accessing this information.

Downloading the app is easy.  Simply go to the app store and type in AOS 98 in the search bar.  If you are using a tablet, make sure you use the phone app for this.  The app for AOS 98 should appear and you can download it on to your phone.  For those of you who do not have a smart phone or tablet, this information can also be accessed on our new AOS 98 website. The address for this is http://aos98me.apptegy.us This website is the only website for our district. Once you are on this site, you can access your schools website from this page.

When you open the app go to settings, where you can choose your default school. Please take a minute to turn on notifications and identify where you would like to receive notifications from. For example, if you teach at BRES, but your children attend the Edgecomb Eddy School, you will probably want notifications from both schools. You may also choose to receive all notifications from each site listed. Make sure you hit save before you exit settings.

For the first year, we will be using this app to share newsletters, announce events and upload board documents. As we become more familiar and comfortable, this app will eventually replace the instant alert to call off or delay school. We will be asking for some folks to pilot phone or text announcements later this fall.

Who comes to school because of you? Thank you for all you do for our children.

Pathways to Proficiency

Maine ASCD is bringing author Mike Anderson to Lewiston this October to talk about the power of student choice.  Here is the link for more information.

http://events.r20.constantcontact.com/register/event?oeidk=a07eeg6b7u9069ee2e0&llr=9jupm5cab

Good Question Scoring Guide

Good Question Scoring Guide

What does a Good Question do?

I was at a workshop last week that provided me with some food for thought.  Nothing new, nothing earth shattering, but just some gentle reminders.  So, I thought I would share.

What does a good question do?

Marzano’s Super Seven Elements

Good Afternoon–  There is research showing that seven elements in Domain One have the greatest impact on student achievement.  They are:

Element 6:  Identifying Critical Content

Element 11:  Elaborating on New Information

Element 12:  Recording and Representing Knowledge

Element 17:  Examining Similarities and Differences

Element 18:  Examining Errors in Reasoning

Element 20:  Revising Knowledge

Element 22:  Engaging Students in Cognitively Complex tasks involving Hypothesis generation and testing.

I came across a resource that I hope you may find useful.  It is a bit lengthy, but if you chunk it into digestible bites (element 9) it provides us with some recommendations for classroom practices.

Click to access 0581_01122016_Marzano-Super-7.pdf

Hope you find this helpful!

Conference on Proficiency-Based Instruction

November-December2017strand12flyer