February, while a short one, was a very busy month! Check out our Twitter "February Story" through our #innovate135 here.
The first week, Lindsay attended Apple Academy training in Cupertino, California. There was so much to bring back from this training! We knew that we’d want to use as much as we could during institute day. So in the days following we started putting together a presentation based on formative assessment that would incorporate as many innovative best practice strategies as possible. We decided to frame our portion of institute day around the theme of Growth Mindset. From there, we established norms and objectives for the day. We also wanted to be sure to include the ISTE standards where they were applicable. Throughout the day we worked to empower our learning, encourage global collaboration and creatively communicate. Below, are the skills and tools introduced at our Institute Day:
- Back Channel’s: Twitter and Today’s Meet
- Infographics: Canva
- Sketchnoting
- Choose Your Own Adventure: Google Forms
- Gamification: Quizziz
- Authentic Feedback” 140 character Twitter Challenge
- Apple Teacher
Our Institute Day ran where in the morning all Junior High teachers were divided into various rooms. There were facilitators in each room who were either involved in Apple Vanguard or Teacher Leaderships programs. The rooms were meant to be a variety of content specialties and grade levels. The room facilitators then each went through a Google Slides presentation and introduced the topic for that session. We spent about 15 minutes on each topic. At the end of each session, every teacher was asked to tweet out a take-away, reflection or question response related to the new tool or strategy. Our #135EdChat feed was bursting with innovative ideas, conversations amongst peers and cross building collaboration! In addition to using Twitter we also had teachers up and moving walking and talking about their take aways. The feedback from the day was overwhelmingly positive so we hope to do it again soon! 
Apple Vanguard this month were very productive days with our K-5 teachers. Teachers came to the meetings with a growth mindset, ready to try anything we threw at them! Our “students” (aka teachers) are empowered and we have successfully established a culture of learning during our Vanguard meetings by establishing group norms and creating a personalized learning environment. Teachers set personal goals based on the “ISTE Student Standards”. We look forward to seeing these goals in action throughout the next few months. During this day, our K-2 teachers really dug into Seesaw and worked collaboratively on how to bring Seesaw more into their classrooms in different and more innovative ways. Additionally, teachers created various interactive notebooks using Numbers & Pages. Our 3-5 teachers really dug into “Edpuzzle”. Teachers curated their very own lessons for their students and were shared throughout the group. The discussion and ideas shared during these meetings are collaborative, creative and eye opening. There are many "ah ha" moments throughout the days. During the days, we had a #135echat going as a “water cooler” back channel. If you haven’t checked out the #135edchat hashtag in awhile you better~tons of great ideas. 
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