Weekly Teacher Download for the week of Aug. 29, 2016

ALL TEACHERS

• Compliance training due for all teachers: All teachers must complete their Sexual Harassment and Discrimination Prevention and Workplace Bullying compliance courses by Wednesday, Aug. 31. The courses are to be completed using OneSource Me, and employees are automatically enrolled under the “Learning History” tile. Read more.
• Are you developing expert learners? The targeted outcome of every great instructional practice is not to develop content experts but to develop expert learners. But what is an expert learner? What type on instruction leads to expert learning? The Office of Special Education encourages all teachers to watch this video featuring Universal Design for Learning educators who explain how UDL practices can create expert learners.

ELEMENTARY TEACHERS

• Beginning of Year Reading Assessments: As an integral part of Literacy By 3, students are to complete a Beginning-Of-Year (BOY) one-on-one Benchmark Running Record (BRR) and a computer-based Istation reading assessment. Results from these important literacy assessments provide data about individual student reading behaviors and will assist to identify reading strengths as well as instructional needs for each student. The window for the BRR is Aug. 22-Sept. 23 and the Istation window is Sept. 6-23. Click here for more information.

SECONDARY TEACHERS

• Check out “Thinking Made Visible” video series. Filmed in HISD middle and high school classrooms, this educational video series focuses on best-practice literacy instruction and includes brief videos on setting up reader’s and writer’s workshops. In addition, full exemplar lessons based on HISD’s curriculum are available. To access these videos, visit https://vimeopro.com/hisdpsd/thinking-made-visible/.
• Best practices for safety and security in Master Courses and online: Effective digital instruction is no different than effective traditional instruction except that teachers should regularly acknowledge online safety and security guidelines. It is always best practice to make sure that students have regular dialogue about good digital citizenship. In an effort to keep teachers and students safe with online curriculum materials, the curriculum team may occasionally need to make changes and revisions to online content. When this happens, teachers will see a message at the top of their page noting that a new online version of that resource is now available. Teachers should click that link to update their course to receive the most recent version. See the attached document for directions how to Accept Updates to Online Materials. Additionally, to ensure that a YouTube video is aligned and safe for instruction, it is important to uncheck the box for additional recommendations in advance.  Teachers should always check with their colleagues to vet instructional materials found online.  Many times, a resource can look appropriate at first, but will quickly switch to something else unexpected.  Attached is a document for Best Practices for Using YouTube in the classroom. Please reach out to the Secondary Instructional Technology Team at 713-556-7241 or aborzon@houstonisd.org if you need further support or have additional questions.

READ OF THE WEEK

The hidden benefits of reading aloud — even for older kids

DEAL OF THE WEEK

20% off at Madewell. Show your valid teacher ID when you check out.