Meetings for grade level piloters

Dr. Brenner has approved 3 hours of paid time for piloters from each grade level to get together and go over how things are going with the TCI materials. Please determine a time that works for your grade level and then let me know the day and time (fourth grade has set a time for a Wed. evening from 4:00-6:00 for right now with the other hour to be determined). As you discuss things, please use this blog to indicate the following:

1) What are the specifics about using the TCI materials that are excellent and meet your expectations for teaching students?

2) What are the specifics about using the TCI materials that are issues we will need to address as we consider training for teachers for next year?

3) Are there technical problems you've run into using the online materials? If so, what are they and how have you tried to either solve them or work around them?

4) What other ideas do you have for using the TCI materials (e.g., ISNs - what makes sense?, prep that needs to be done for lessons, other materials needed, etc.)?

5) What would be on your "we must have" list for the proposal to the school board and what would be on your "wish list"? (let's get down everything we can think of and go from there - it doesn't hurt to think "outside of the box"!)

When you have determined your time and meet, make sure you print off the payroll request form located in the District folder in First Class. I will try to at least make it to part of each of the meetings, so I can turn in those forms for you or you can send them to me.

I will continue to add other comments and/or new blogposts to this blog, so please continue to check it. Thanks for all that you do!!

Anne

Student TCI Subscriptions

To add students, access your class list via your Teacher TCI login by clicking on the "My Classes" tab. Follow the directions below:

-Some of the students have 5 digit student numbers (6 is required for passwords)...so to make it work, Kent added a 1 after their number. So if the student number was 65432, he added a one, so the password is 654321.

-Since the usernames are the first name plus first letter of last name, there were many of the same. To fix that a 2 was added (KentR2)...or two 2's were added...but no more than 3 had to be added to a students username.

-Teachers should be able to export that information out to help students get logged in.

Idea Exchange

The Idea Exchange is a place to share the different ways you are using the TCI materials and lessons, along with other ways to integrate Social Studies content, e.g ., titles for guided reading, current event sites, writing ideas, Discovery Learning media, etc.

Click on the comment link to post to this portion of the blog. The "Post a Comment" window will appear on your screen and you can type your message there. Additional comments are above that field. Scroll up to view them.

Social Studies Essentials

Our committee spent the day answering the question,"What is essential for our K-5 students to learn in social studies?"  After reviewing the North Dakota Content and Achievement Standards:  Social Studies, teachers met by grade level and determined which benchmarks met the following criteria:  teacher input, endurance, readiness, leverage, and testing.