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| | | | Induction and Beyond April 2020 I Spring Edition Newsletter |
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| A message from TR@TC...
According to the Almanac’s Planting Calendar, April is a time in which to plant seedlings for many of the vegetables we enjoy in the summer and fall. It is also a time of rebirth, one in which many trees around NYC begin to blossom with beautiful spring flowers that add to the beauty of the season. Could this time of sequestered status be one in which we can begin to think about the seeds we want to plant in our lives? If so, what do you want to reap when this time of pause is over?
It is indeed a time for new beginnings, in more ways than one, and we are arguably the most adaptive species on this planet. How will we adapt to a world that is transforming before our very eyes? What will we prioritize? What will we leave behind? These are just some of the numerous questions circling our minds at this time.
As you continue reimagining teaching and learning in your virtual classrooms, we offer our gratitude for embodying what it means to be the real-life superhero our children need right now. Thank you for the many hours you’ve spent redeveloping your curriculum - even as many of you juggle teaching from home, while supporting the home learning of your own children. We thank you for choosing this noble profession, for choosing to love, nurture, and provide some measure of consistency for the children of this great city.
Wishing you and your loved ones good health and joyful noise.
Yours in appreciation,
The TR@TC Team
When we say "we are here to help," we truly mean it. Please email us with your questions and requests-all emails will be answered.
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| | | The challenges students with special needs have encountered these past few weeks, go beyond having access to technology. These unprecedented circumstances have highlighted the deep rooted inequalities that exist in our society, and our hearts are filled with hope as we learn and connect with the many activists who have come together to advocate for the rights of these populations of students. We are grateful for administrators who are supporting their school's SpED and ENL Coordinators in reimagining ways to ensure their students receive the services they are entitled to. In the following, we share a list of curated resources to help you along.
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| | Special Education Resources- SETSS Remote Learning Guidance - This resource created for teachers, by teachers, includes everything from guidance around compliance to sample schedules for Paraprofessionals and other service providers.
- Read and Write Extension for chrome books to help students with dyslexia and others who need instructions read out loud.
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| | English Language Learner Supports
Sharing Credits: Lum Fube, Alfonso Perez |
| | | Kudos to the warrior spirit of our early career teachers, who have not missed a beat; in the midst of all the chaos, they have identified new and creative ways to continue connecting with and supporting the learning of their students. Below we highlight a few of the efforts shared with us. Please keep them coming!
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| | | Momoko (Momo) Sullivan: First Year Science Teacher Momo has gone to great lengths to enhance the learning of her students, as they moved to the virtual classroom. 1. Google Sites - Serves as the "home base" for all her students and their families 2. Pear Deck - Helps her create interactive google slides to increase engagement. 3. Padlet - Offers students a platform to post class work assignments and engage in class discussions. 4. Blob Tree Activity - Used at the start of every class as an informal SEL check-in with her students.
Sharing credit: Alfonso Perez |
| | Maya Alexander: First Year SPED/ELA Teacher
Maya has developed a clever way of taking attendance, while also connecting with the students in her virtual classroom. Through the use of Google Classroom discussion posts, she asks students for feedback about the class and how they are feeling overall; the responses serve as her attendance record and enable her to start conversations with her students in an authentic and meaningful way.
Sharing Credit: Wendy Barrales |
| | | Ali Haridopolos: Third Year Economics Teacher In addition to working with various advocacy groups in her efforts to defend the rights of educators and families, Ali has created an online discussion board for her students to weigh in on a variety of high interest topics.
Sharing Credit: Wendy Barrales |
| | | | Crystal McIntyre and the ladies of TYWLS Bronx go to Broadway
The world has changed so much since these photos were taken!Pictured here are the students of TYWLS Bronx, following their culminating unit field trip to see To Kill a Mockingbird, on Broadway. Kudos to Crystal for creating an ELA unit with multiple entry points for ALL her students!Here's to a future in which we can continue supporting these types of learning experiences. |
| | | | Travel Grants and International PD Opportunities Travel may be restricted for the time being, but it's no reason to give up on your desires to enrich your professional learning. We encourage you to take a look at the various grant opportunities below, and plan for the future.
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| | CONGRATULATIONS ARE IN ORDER! Martha St.Jean: Math Educator and Wellness ActivistWe congratulate you on becoming a 2020 Fund for Teachers Fellow and look forward to learning more about your experiences in South Africa, as you endeavor to explore school segregation in post-apartheid Johannesburg. You make us proud! |
| | Sharing Credits: Gladys Aponte, Wendy Barrales, Suzanne Pratt, and Laura Marie Thompson
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| Upcoming Events and Professional Learning Opportunities |
| | We are grateful for many things these days, and our partnership with Success In Motion is one of them. Thanks to our collaborative efforts, we are able to offer FREE Wellness and Online Teaching Support to ALL members of our extended community. Please join us for weekly wellness workshops and customized Virtual Coaching sessions.
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| - April 6th, 13th, 20th, 27th: Mindfulness Monday - Join us for morning meditation session from 7:30am until 8:15am
- April 8th, 15th 22nd, 29th: Wellness Wednesdays - Join us for a variety of cardio based sessions from 4:30-5:15pm
- April 7th: Online Teaching Virtual Coaching - Join us for customized sessions, every week. Get your questions answered and learn new ways to leverage online platforms to increase engagement and connection in your virtual classrooms.
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| | | | | Sharing Credits: Gladys Aponte, Wendy Barrales, Jim O'Toole
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| | For Families
Sharing Credits: Alfonso Perez, Suzanne Pratt, George Torres |
| | | Poetry Month Will NOT Be Cancelled! Here are a few poetry collections from Bookriot.com's 50 Must-Read Poetry Collections.
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| | Excerpt from website: “In this stunning debut, poet José Olivarez explores the stories, contradictions, joys, and sorrows that embody life in the spaces between Mexico and America. He paints vivid portraits of good kids, bad kids, families clinging to hope, life after the steel mills, gentrifying barrios, and everything in between. Drawing on the rich traditions of Latinx and Chicago writers like Sandra Cisneros and Gwendolyn Brooks, Olivarez creates a home out of life in the in-between. Combining wry humor with potent emotional force, Olivarez takes on complex issues of race, ethnicity, gender, class, and immigration using an everyday language that invites the reader in. Olivarez has a unique voice that makes him a poet to watch.” |
| | Excerpt from website: “In Andrea Gibson’s latest collection, they continue their artful and nuanced looks at gender, romance, loss, and family. Each emotion here is deft and delicate, resting inside of imagery heavy enough to sink the heart, while giving the body wings to soar.” |
| | Excerpt from website: “In this powerful and imaginative debut poetry collection, Fatimah Asghar nakedly captures the experiences of being a young Pakistani Muslim woman in America by braiding together personal and marginalized people’s histories. After being orphaned as a young girl, Asghar grapples with coming-of-age as a woman without the guidance of a mother, questions of sexuality and race, and navigating a world that put a target on her back. Asghar’s poems at once bear anguish, joy, vulnerability, and compassion, while exploring the many facets of violence: how it persists within us, how it is inherited across generations, and how it manifests in our relationships with friends and family, and in our own understanding of identity. Using experimental forms and a mix of lyrical and brash language, Asghar confronts her own understanding of identity and place and belonging.” |
| | Excerpt from website: “In Oculus, Sally Wen Mao explores exile not just as a matter of distance and displacement but as a migration through time and a reckoning with technology. The title poem follows a nineteen-year-old girl in Shanghai who uploaded her suicide onto Instagram. Other poems cross into animated worlds, examine robot culture, and haunt a necropolis for electronic waste. A fascinating sequence spanning the collection speaks in the voice of the international icon and first Chinese American movie star Anna May Wong, who travels through the history of cinema with a time machine, even past her death and into the future of film, where she finds she has no progeny. With a speculative imagination and a sharpened wit, Mao powerfully confronts the paradoxes of seeing and being seen, the intimacies made possible and ruined by the screen, and the many roles and representations that women of color are made to endure in order to survive a culture that seeks to consume them.” |
| | | | Excerpt from synopsis: "The simple delights in baby’s natural world—a bird, a fish, a leaf, a snowflake, a raindrop—are celebrated in the traditional Japanese poetic form, the haiku. In just 17 syllables, a moment, a season, the elements are joyfully captured. Betsy Snyder's peaceful little board book has tabs to encourage little hands to turn the pages and adorable artwork to delight everyone!" |
| Excerpt from synopsis: "This poetry collection tastefully showcases the extraordinary Langston Hughes. Langston Hughes was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist. He was one of the earliest innovators of the then-new literary art form called jazz poetry. Age Recommendation: Ages 8 and up
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| | | | Resources to Support you RIGHT NOW |
| | | Joyful Sounds
Excerpt from website: "Missy Smith (QueenEarth) is a singer/songwriter and creative professional. She has over ten years of experience as a performer, educator, and event planner. Her coursework and portfolio includes writing and composition, curriculum and instruction, diversity and inclusion, and arts integration for classrooms, events, and programs. She has a passion for curating spaces for community conversations and loves working with higher education administration, student leaders, and spiritual communities." Sign in to enjoy her live music sessions with your loved ones! |
| | Social-Emotional Learning Resources
- Random Acts of Kindness - Find various ways to spread love and kindness
- Teaching Tolerance - What Educators Need Right Now
- Smiling Mind is a non-for-profit web and app-based meditation program developed by psychologists and educators to help bring mindfulness into your life.
- Child Mind Institute is an independent, national nonprofit dedicated to transforming the lives of children and families struggling with mental health and learning disorders. They work every day to deliver the highest standards of care, advance the science of the developing brain and empower parents, professionals and policymakers to support children when and where they need it most.
- Upper Manhattan Forest Kids - Love of the Outdoors in the Time of Quarantine
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| | | Get Your TC Alumni ID and Stay Connected! - Reserve rooms in the TC Library
- Activate permanent gmail account
- Access partner discounts
Sharing Credit: Tara Laohakul
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| | TR@TC
Teachers College, Columbia University
525 West 120th Street
Zankel Hall, Room 411
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