Ruthanne Bexton,

Director, Elementary

Programs

Julia Kempkey,

Director, Secondary

Programs

In This Issue

Lucy Calkins

Rescheduled Parent Night

Elementary Math Adoption

Teacher Chosen for Dream Team

Upcoming Events

Early Fall 2015

TBD - District-wide

Parent Information

Night regarding UC

A-G requirements

and Accessing AP

Courses in high

school

New Standards.

Common Core State Standards adopted by California in 2010 requiring students to show they have a deeper understanding of the content.

New Direction.

To ensure all students no matter where they live are college and career ready. The standards are like those being used in other countries so that our students will be able to compete globally.

New Scores.

The new California assessment known as Smarter Balanced or California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP), is an online assessment and cannot be accurately compared to prior year's test results because this is a brand new system.

Quick Links

NUSD Website

NUSD Common Core State Standards

California Department of Education Common Core State Standards

Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium

Raising the Bar in Novato

New Standards. New Direction. New Scores.

NUSD Curriculum & Instruction Newsletter

May 29, 2015

NUSD Lucy Calkins Writing Workshop

Professional development opportunities for teachers abound at NUSD from GLAD (Guided Language Acquisition Development) and PBL (Project-Based Learning) to SIOP (Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol). Another teaching strategy introduced to elementary school teachers last summer was the Lucy Calkins Writing Workshop. The Lucy Calkins Writing Workshop specifically addresses the rigor associated with the Common Core State Standards in writing across all subject areas.

The workshop gives teachers the tools and skills needed to teach opinion/argument, information, and narrative writing to students in grades K-8 with the goal of teaching students to write purposefully across all subject areas, creating knowledge while writing and connecting to real life events. For example after a science experiment, students would write a lab report explaining the procedures and outcomes involved in the experiment. In addition, the workshop also includes instruction on how to include strategic performance assessments to help monitor mastery and differentiate instruction. This year, 24 teachers have attended the workshop and another 54 will attend this summer, either in New York or here in Novato. A separate workshop for principals is also scheduled in Novato this summer. NUSD is building capacity at every grade level at every elementary school to help students improve their writing skills and is excited to offer this opportunity.

Rescheduled - Parent Information Night on UC A-G Requirements

The District-wide Parent Information Night on the University of California's A-G requirements and accessing AP courses in high school is being rescheduled to early fall 2015.

Elementary Math Adoption

On May 5, 2015, the Board of Trustees approved the Math Adoption Committee's recommendation to adopt the following programs for Grades K-5:

Everyday Mathematics for Transitional Kindergarten and Kindergarten
Math Expressions for First through Fifth Grade

The elementary math adoption process included three principals, four instructional coaches and 25 teachers and every elementary school had the opportunity to pilot both programs.

Catherine Nam Chosen to be on Dream Team

NUSD teacher and instructional coach, Catherine Nam, has been selected as one of 140 teachers nationwide representing 42 states to be part of the LearnZillion Dream Team. Travelling to Washington, D.C. in May, Ms. Nam collaborated with a group of teachers

from across the country to begin developing a math unit for 4^th graders at TeachFest, an all-expenses-paid, three-day professional development that jump starts the Dream Team's deep dive into the Common Core.

Now back in Novato, Ms. Nam will work over the summer developing curriculum with her Team working virtually with their coach and colleagues with the full support of the LearnZillion staff. In August, all content that meets the LearnZillion's quality bar will be featured on LearnZillion.com.

"Over the next two months I will be continually collaborating with the other Dream Team teachers to refine and polish a 4th grade unit on measurement conversions," commented Catherine Nam. "At TeachFest, it was an honor to be part of a truly collaborative team working towards an end goal of creating a K-8 math curriculum. I am excited to bring back everything I learned and share it with teachers in NUSD and in Marin County," added Ms. Nam.

Together with a grade 3-5 band team, a coach, and a domain specialist, Ms. Nam will be creating ten lessons for a unit consisting of conceptual, procedural/fluency, and application lessons. The unit will start with a conceptually based task where students will come away saying, "I learned something new today." Procedural and fluency lessons are then developed in order to give students more practice with their new skills. After procedural and fluency lesson, students should have learned and/or practiced a more efficient way to do math and understand why it works. And finally, an application lesson task will allow the students to apply their knowledge to a real life situation. Students will be able to use their math knowledge to solve a new problem.

For each lesson, teachers, students, and parents will have access to tasks, instructional videos, practice problems, and formative assessment opportunities. Lesson plans and teacher notes will be provided, as well as examples of student work and common misconceptions. Click here for more information on the Dream Team and LearnZillion.

Congratulations, Cath!

Ruthanne Bexton

Director, Elementary Programs

Julia Kempkey

Director, Secondary Programs