Click here for more information on the work of the Innovate 2.0 Committee and learn about Broadalbin-Perth’s original strategic plan, “Innovate.”
Jump to the notes from a specific table:
Table 1 Notes
- People skills
- Finding an answer that works for them — not a definitive answer
- Relevancy
- Project-based learning
- Standards need to change
- Finance with younger kids; making life skills fun
- Being able to advocate for what you need
- Don’t teach to the test
- But the test still matters
- Different ways to assess instead of Regents
- BE RELEVANT
- What are teachers going to need?
- Mental health for teachers and students
- Curiosity — being able to ask questions to get the right answers
- Being able to fail and get out of their comfort zone
- How to do hard work without — Grit
- How to develop healthy relationships
Table 2 Notes
- Mapping skills, PK-12 on careers, skills, activities, self-advocacy, and exposures so teachers know and understand what students have done prior.
- Overall social skills and computer skills and digital literacy and how to respect and make safe choices on the computer.
- Foundation skills (elementary school):
- Empathy and compassion (coming into pre-K)
- Inclusivity
- Coping skills
- Dealing with letdowns (failures)
- Problem-solving
- Internships at the lower level schools or more exposure to careers and visits to workplaces and colleges to inspire those students.
- Students know strengths and skills early on and are informed that it’s ok to choose and have the knowledge about careers to make decisions on classes in the secondary.
- Junior High
- More career and college visits and mentorship programs with older students to provide opportunities to connect with peers.
- Secondary
- Options that students can have such as financial support like scholarships that students can have, fee waivers for testing like AP and SAT testing: $96
- Government exposure
- Visit passions early
- Skills
- Grit and stamina… academic especially. Get burnt out easily and don’t know how to deal with the stress of their challenge, time management, flexible thinking
- Project management fundamentals
- Note-taking and study skills
- When they leave
- Life experiences for our students that are cultural and diversity based
- Cultural influence and understanding of diversity
- Incorporating into the curriculum, books, projects, programs, and trainings
- Students’ awareness of the world outside of Broadalbin. Travel, visit cities, etc.
Table 3 Notes
- Personal finance class is important
- Has been really helpful – concepts of check writing, stocks, etc.
- Took CFM prior and a lot of content was the same
- PIG/ECO are required for graduation — some overlap
- Knowing the job market ….. Students need to do their exploring
- Shadowing/exposure is important even at the younger grades
- Hard to select college major without having experiences of shadowing
- Need to do projects where students find out what they are passionate about
- Students need to know they can have more than one career path
- Counselors do a good job at bringing people for students to meet with
- Would like to get more field trips built into the day — talking and seeing are different
- Take students to FMCC so they can see what a college is all about
- Summer camps for secondary students so they can get in-depth experience in things like drones
- Summertime opens opportunities for out-of-school exploration
- Shadowing would be good
- Really like the idea of short-term shadowing experiences IN ADDITION to the internships — valuable to learn what you don’t like as well as what you do like
- Some of this should be student-driven, but maybe lists of options would help
- It would be good to talk to someone who has the job that you are looking into
- How can we start giving CTE experiences earlier, prior to 10th grade?
- Can we use our school staff (IT) to invite students to “intern” with them internally?
- Maybe have a student IT team …. Help desk people
- What can we do as a district to bolster experiences of working with others – collaboration?
- You have to prove in an interview that you can work with others
- You don’t want to go through 4 years of college to find out you did not do enough exploration. Students follow a job title without knowing the ins and outs of a job.
- Students need to know what jobs/job titles are available
- We need to infuse more career information into coursework/course connections
- Students need to understand the content is important, not the grade
- Rank is not relevant in the real world. Ranking can interfere with support and collaboration
- Students learn differently. Retention of information is different for all students. It shouldn’t be about remembering for the immediate test but rather for the long term
- How do you know what college will be like? Is HS too supportive?
- It’s not about regurgitating an answer but it’s the ability to work through a problem
- If you enter a class with a 100, you are not being challenged. It’s a waste of a student’s time
- Where do skills get assessed for their passions rather than their content knowledge? Example, students providing technology support for drama
- In what world are you asked to solve a problem alone without resources?
- Adults are not ranked in employment
- Students feel evaluated by their grades — that’s why grades hold so much weight
- Grades give students a false sense of security
- The application of information
- Volunteering is important in so many ways, even if it is student-to-student as support
- Students may be scared to volunteer because they don’t want to have a bad interaction with others. After COVID, small talk is hard.
- This may be getting better as time goes on
- Grit, perseverance… Can’t let small challenges stop you across any platform
- Allow yourself to be vulnerable at times
- We all suffer a little bit
- Can’t filter out all the hardships in life
- How do we expand and grow/shift our programming at a younger level?
- Open the dialogue about careers in all classes
- PLTW has helped with these conversations
- Needs be across all grades/classes not just through clubs
- Students need to practice how to have respectful communication with others
- How can we change the structure of our classes to build/align across content areas to build experience for our students?
- Eliminate “vomit assignments” (ones where students are asked to just regurgitate information).
- Why do I want to read this book that the teacher has assigned?
- How do these courses/assignments connect to student futures?
- How do we get to “societal awareness” about careers?
- Kids don’t know what they don’t know. They don’t know what careers are available to them other than the key job titles
- What about an interstate exchange student? Experience innercity
- Skills will be learned
- Will learn about different jobs, different cultures, teaches inclusion, acceptance
- (Domestic exchange/Regional exchange) Kids don’t get a taxi, bus, Uber, plane, etc.
- Difficult to transition from small town to a large college campus
- Empathy/service needs to be built among student population
- All students should be involved in community service projects
- Consider making community service hours a requirement for graduation
- Students need to open their minds about what human/community service is away from “charity” to more of a benefit to the community they live in
- All students should be involved in community service projects
- Students need to have open options and to learn what options are available
- Knowing their direction will help make connections with their future choices
- Students/parents need to have “counselor meetings” beginning in junior high to start talking about career options. Junior year is TOO LATE
Table 4 Notes
- Internet safety
- Protect self from scams
- How to deal with pop-ups
- Make good choices online
- Perhaps a class
- Lack of social skills
- New interaction- how do you navigate it? (Balance)
- Communication skills
- Tone
- Body language
- The consequences of what you say, need to be able to acknowledge the consequences
- Lack of social interactions
- Builds up to future interactions (interviews)
- College
- Internships
- Jobs
- Everything is being mechanized
- Less energy in chores, and more time, what do you do with that time?
- Agricultural jobs less filled, less interest
- Electricians, plumbing work (lack of interest)
- Perhaps there should be more interest in skill based jobs
- Etiquette
- Customer service
- A curriculum
- Skills with computers, and recognize the effects of computers
- Computer literacy
- Soft skills(communication)
- OM
- Future Cities
- Start computer literacy early
- Need to learn basic life skills
- Cooking
- Change tire
- Change a lightbulb
- Hopefully new program that will teach, currently being built
- A lot of people hire out
- Solving situations and problems with higher-ups and bosses with social skills
- Soft skills and programs
- Figuring out what programs look like to encourage this experience
- Programs where you depend on other people, athletic programs
- Learn from mistakes
- How do you expand these programs and make them more accessible?
- Work-based learning
- Implementing skills
- Before sending out to learn in a setting where you have to learn
- Help build the soft skills
- With (business teacher Joelle) Zendran
- Dress bitmojis
- Have activities built into a course, not a course, but skills, discovery seminar
- Given a problem, figure this out together, more opportunities
- Project-based learning
- You tend to flock to people who are similar to you, interests, classes, and worked with people you would never normally learn (in a college class)
- You end up having to work with a lot of different people later in the future, be willing to talk to people you would never normally talk to
- Previous district
- Freshman seminar
- Transition big
- Life skills
- Make a quarter course- put students in positions to critically think-OM
- Like CharacterStrong
- Need something consistent
- Less learning labs
- Low stakes
- You can be flexible
- Freshman seminar
- Vulnerability
- Public speaking
- A lot of kids are hesitant
- Nice to have, graded on speaking
- Still difficult, learn to talk, get watched
- Helps gain confidence to speak your mind
- It’s hard to talk to people you aren’t close with or have similar interests with
- Have some teachers choose people you’re not friends with
- Students are relatively vocal
- Public speaking
- Make first year of high school an orientation
- Kids learn better with activities rather than lectures
- Skills
- Time management
- Big for colleges
- Need to move closer to just be given a project and just do it
- Students have a lot of activities
- And screen time
- It’s easier to get distracted these days
- Prioritizing activities
- Homework
- Get to college
- Give each subject a certain amount of time
- Need to help students get ready for college workload and workplace (skill set)
- Big for colleges
- Less hand-holding, figure out themselves and let them learn from their experiences (less babying)
- Advocate for yourself, time management
- Time management
- Still transitioning
- Got used to weaker deadlines
- There’s a noticeable difference
- Slowly getting there
- Bring back a love of reading
- Helps them a lot
- Reading comprehension
- Need to keep driving home
- Bring in courses
- Independent reading in courses
- Ties into time management
- (English teacher Kristina) Marshall’s classes
- Important for staff and students
- Independent reading in courses
- Battle of the Books
- A little small this year
- Teach AP World with novels
- What do students do if they don’t have tech?
- Need to work with other people, and communicate with others, needs to be learned, start early
- How to encourage students to work with people they haven’t worked with before
- Need to force students to be together
- School cafe
- Have students run it
- Brings people together
- Students run it often during lunch
- Students from the Patriot Academy
- Requirement
- Business course, interact and talk with others
Table 5 Notes
- Problem-solving skills
- In the video shown at the beginning, all the robots were created to solve a problem
- Application of skills
- Exposure to different aspects of the workforce to help navigate their options for their future and the path they will take.
- Not all students know what they want to do the rest of their lives at 18 when they graduate.
- Start younger to exposure to the workforce.
- Shadow program for older students that incorporates parent professionals.
- Get students out into the community to local businesses.
- Work-based learning sooner than senior year
- Extracurriculars
- Model UN
- Debate
- Respectful discourse to provide more opportunities
- Odyssey of the Mind
- Make connections to state/local government (i.e. visit state capital)
- Offer more opportunities for students that are in the accelerated programs
- Character-building opportunities
- Volunteering (tie that into career opportunities too)
- Observations may be the first step before volunteering to understand the purpose or how to interact.
- Getting parents on board sooner with opportunities in and outside of school to build exposure to more activities, hobbies, and future potential jobs.
- Volunteering (tie that into career opportunities too)
- Mentor/mentee to help people take the first step. Getting anywhere takes support from others to get things started.
Table 6 Notes
- Experience the professional work environment, however that may look.
- Find a path through your interests or things you enjoy that you see yourself staying with.
- Work-based learning that gives a look at the field of study.
- Do the skills lead the student to being able to work in the field?
- Students graduating without basic skills like problem-solving and how do they work as a team when the opinions will be different. Students learn to work through collaboration.
- Students vocalize that they are conflicted about what they want to do because they don’t have enough knowledge of the subject area.
- Communication skills (respectful exchange of ideas)
- Point of view — How are we teaching? How are kids learning this? Debate Club, Mock Trial
- Problem-based learning
- Career and tech at junior high level
- COVID developed kids with grit; students want to also be at school and they are engaged.
- Written communication is as important as verbal communication.
- AI — How that will play in the development of students’ communication?
- Learning to compromise in a debate-type situation.
Table 7 Notes
- Resilience/grit
- Risk-taking
- Getting over the fear of failing
- Communicating (appropriately)
- Public speaking
- Articulating thoughts and opinions in a respectful debate
- Age-appropriate debate/disagreements
- Consistency in argument and debate across all years
- Teaching open-mindedness?
- Teach the “why”
- Charged atmosphere
- How to feel empowered to discuss without fear of being under a microscope
- Consistency in messaging and alignment
- “Why” of learning
- What did students miss out on?
- Education
- Soft skills
- Project-based learning
- Work-based learning
- Group work
- Time management
- Natural consequences
- Try and fail as a planned “event” as a learning opportunity and a way to normalize failure
Table 8 Notes
- Don’t want students to grow up and never even try new things.
- Mandatory travel!
- Break small-town mentality
- You can be anything, but you don’t know what you don’t know
- Incorporating service into the school day/more of a requirement to graduate
- Keep service local
- A “big event” yearly?
- Tie into a senior day – work in am fun in pm
- Social skills
- How to communicate effectively
- How to handle conflicts
- Professional etiquette
- Collaboration
- Research skills
- Academic integrity
- Technology
- Yearly internships?
- Giving kids opportunities along the way to hone in on what their strengths are and how they can best elevate themselves into the workforce
- Reading and math comprehension
- Thinking critically and problem solving
- Internships
- Trying things out
- Open up doors that are not common
- Exposure to many different areas
- Trying things out
- Emphasis on traveling and learning what a city really is!
- Mass transportation, etc.
- Travel Club?
- Exchange students
- Training on dangers of the internet
- More cyber security (for all students)
- Connection to real life as much as possible
- It is too hard for kids to grasp without immediate feedback, which doesn’t always happen immediately online
- More cyber security (for all students)
- Public speaking/professionalism
- Eye contact, no fidgeting, etc
- Soft skills
- Collaboration and teamwork embedded throughout courses
- More shadowing and internships
- Early on – let’s not wait until college is over to have our internships
- On-campus opportunities
- Busing during school day to provide service opportunities to those that don’t have supports at home
The post Innovate 2.0 Feb. 9 meeting – Table notes appeared first on Broadalbin-Perth Central School District, Broadalbin, NY.