ISY LEARNS
ISY Learns Update – April 1, 2021
Eric Brown, Director of Curriculum & Learning
April 1, 2021
“The greatest sign of success for a teacher is to be able to say, ‘The children are now working as if I did not exist.” – Maria Montessori
The theme for Quarter 4 will focus on Partnerships and will center around SDG 17 (Partnerships for the Goals) as well as SDG 16 (Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions). We have now finalized the enduring understandings and essential questions for each division, and these will guide some of our discussions as we build our units, design our assessments, and develop our learning experiences.
| Enduring Understanding | Essential Questions | |
| PreK – Grade 1 | Working together is important and helps us learn. |
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| Grade 2 – 3 | Life thrives with collaboration and adaptation. |
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| Grade 4 – 5 | “Great discoveries and improvements invariably involve the cooperation of many minds” – Alexander Graham Bell. |
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| Grade 6 – 8 | Effective partnerships enable the unity of people, prosperity, and the planet to progress toward the SDGs. |
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| Grade 9 – 10 | Effective partnerships have the greatest capabilities. |
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Here are some helpful and/or interesting articles, resources, and videos:
- Check out this FREE MOOC on strengthening stakeholder engagement and implementation of the SDGs.
- Lee Ann Jung provides insight on getting more out of PD than “entertrainment.”
- Tom Guskey summarizes his model on teacher change.
- Katie Martin considers what questions to ask when planning learning for next year.
- Eric Sheninger discusses the Power of Collaboration.
- Daniel Veneble keeps it real when discussing inconvenient truths about grading.
- Sunil Singh challenges us on the “myth” of falling behind.
- Jason Stricker lays out steps to bring intentionality to an instructional leadership team.
- The Mastery Transcript Consortium argues that colleges are moving from transactional to transformational.
- Have you ever seen the pythagorean theorem modeled with water?
- Bring the Louvre to you!
- Finally… “bearenting” and “cattening” video to make you smile.
How can we celebrate student and teacher successes? Consider submitting to the ISY Learns Blog by emailing ebrown@isyedu.org.
Previous ISY Learns Posts
ISY Learns Updates – December Edition
This December Edition of ISY Learns Update provides a brief update of Quarter 3 planning as well as interesting/helpful updates for ISY teachers.
Engaging Students to Ask Better Questions
“The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.” – Albert Einstein. This post talks about how to get students to ask better questions and why that’s important.
Releasing Stress by Reading
Danny McCamlie explores how reading can reduce stress for adults. Looking at a study from the University of Sussex he looks at what books to pick and what to avoid.
Activating Curiosity
This next blog post features the first leg of our tools that support learning – curiosity. We’ll dive into how you can activate students’ curiosity by having them make observations of a provocation.
Tools that Support Learning
Welcome to the inaugural post of the new ISY blog – ISY Learns! In this post the new Director of Curriculum & Learning, Eric Brown, lays out his plans for going through his philosophy of learning.