ECST Mathematics Department
Newsletter
November 8-12, 2021
Embedded Files
ACTIONABLE ITEMs
Immediate Action!
Immediate Action!
I have met with a few parents recently and as always, I go directly to PowerSchool to look up the students' grades. It is hard to explain to a parent why the students is failing when there are only one or two tests/quizzes and there should be close to the minimum of 6 by now.
A reminder to set up your grade category percentages and to enter the minimum number of grades according to the document that was shared with you on September 2nd (ECST Grading Categories). View the document for a list of artifacts for each category. The simple fix may be that some of the grades were entered under the incorrect category.
Senior Teachers
Senior Teachers
The list of seniors who have NOT YET met the graduation testing requirements will be released to the senior teachers this week. If you teach seniors, I will share a Google sheet with you to identify the students who will begin tackling the assessments in the NJDOE second pathway for the class of 2022 until they meet a cut score.
Keep these dates on your calendar:
Nov 16 - Accuplacer at NT
Nov 17 - Accuplacer at WCT
Nov 18 & 19 - Accuplacer at PT
Dec 6 - ASVAB at NT
Dec 7 - ASVAB at WCT
Dec 8 - ASVAB at PT
Dec 15 & 16 - NJSLA Alg1 for 12th grade students who have NOT YET met the requirements.
The NJDOE Portfolio Appeals Process will begin in January for those seniors who have NOT YET met the testing requirement by January 7th.
Verify that you have read the newsletter
Verify that you have read the newsletter
A few of you have been anticipating my checking if you have read the newsletter. Your wait is over - this is the week!
View the video above, then complete the questions on this Google Form.
REMINDERS FOR
NEXT TWO WEEKS
November 10, 2021 (Wednesday): Last Day of Cycle 1
November 11, 2021 (Thursday): Veterans Day
No Classes for staff & students
November 13, 2021 (Saturday): ECST School Fair
November 16-19, 2021 (Tue-Fri): Accuplacer (12th grade NOT YETs only)
Nov 16 at NT
Nov 17 at WCT
Nov 18-19 at PT
WORTH SHARING &
INTERESTING FINDS
Observation Reminders for My Learning Plan
Tenured teachers - 1 announced & 1 unannounced observations
Non-Tenured teachers - 2 announced & 1 unannounced observations
For announced observations, complete the pre-observation questions BEFORE the pre-observation conference; include the lesson plan (district form or edConnect PDF) and any relevant lesson resources.
For unannounced observations, the pre-observation conference and questions do not have to be completed.
After each observation, complete the post-observation questions; non-tenured teachers should complete the self-review as well.
SAT Follow Up from November 1st
College and Career Readiness Benchmarks - We briefly discussed the benchmark scores on November 1st. Thank you to Mr. Bickram Singh for always keeping us focused on meeting these benchmarks. Here is the chart from College Board:
Joseph Dedalonis attended a PD session at the NJEA Convention on Thursday that had similar goals to the inservice session that you attended on November 1st. This was confirmation of our efforts being worthwhile. Joe mentioned that the list of topics for each domain should be pointed out to the Math Team . They can be viewed on page 47 of the SAT Teacher Implementation Guide.
Heart of Algebra
Problem Solving & Data Analysis
Passport to Advanced Mathematics
Additional Topics in Mathematics
Holla at me if you are interested in learning more about Desmos Activity Builder.
What's New on Desmos Activity Builder?
This information was released last week.
You can now select multiple student responses at once by selecting the checkboxes above their work in the Teacher View. You will be able send feedback to all students selected, present selected students work right from the Teacher View, or save them as an album in Snapshots.
We updated our greeting page for student activities to show the signed in account name. If working with someone else, students can choose “Add their name” to show their partner’s name in that activity.
Text to speech (Beta) is available for students to turn on in the Accessibility Settings area in the student sidebar (click the hamburger in the top left corner of an activity). Once enabled, students will be able to hear the text in any note on a screen and adjust the playback speed.
Desmos Help Center: Upcoming Free Events and Webinars
Desmos Help Center: Upcoming Free Events and Webinars
Saturday, November 13 1:00pm ET (Register )
Desmos Activity Facilitation for Intermediate Users | 1 hour
Designed for intermediate Desmos users, this session will focus on using the dashboard features to deepen the classroom conversation. We’ll focus on using the snapshot tool and other features to promote and celebrate student thinking and communication.
Tuesday, December 14 6:00pm ET (Register )
Intro to the Desmos Graphing Calculator for New Users | 1 hour
Learn how to create dynamic and concrete visualizations of abstract mathematical ideas. You’ll explore ways students can use the graphing calculator’s tools—including points, tables, functions, and lists —to experience and develop their own power as mathematical problem solvers.
Tuesday, November 30 8:00pm ET (Register )
Intro to Desmos Activities for New Users | 1 hour
Join us to experience a Desmos activity as a student and learn how to use the activity features to support student learning and celebrate and develop their brilliance. Once completed, you’ll have fluency in the activity dashboard, including anonymizing the class, pacing throughout the activity, and pausing student work to facilitate conversations.
More Webinars and Recordings On Demand can be found HERE .
Dr. Eric Milou's Math News
Dr. Eric Milou is a long-time New Jersey math educator who shares a monthly newsletter that is full of interesting finds. Dr. Milou is a past president of AMTNJ. In the October Math News, he shared this gem: https://www.mathstunners.org/ . The website, Stella's Stunners, contains a library of problems that can be used as warm ups, exit tickets/cool downs, assessments, and for instruction. Thank you to Kevin Agnew for reminding me of Dr. Milou's Math News.
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