MLTI team supports districts’ technology planning through BrightBytes

“We know that districts are constantly striving to better leverage their local resources, especially when it comes to their instructional technology,” says Mike Muir, Maine DOE’s Learning Through Technology Director. “We want to support their efforts by providing them access to BrightBytes, a quality planning tool.”

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Maine DOE collaborates to host proficiency-based education webinar series

Last month the Maine DOE and the New England Secondary School Consortium (NESSC) held the first of two webinars featuring Maine League of Innovative Schools members. The webinar series is primarily designed to showcase one particular aspect of a league school’s personalized learning efforts.

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Students and educators benefit from Maine DOE Innovation Lab Network membership

A new online resource that provides performance assessments and the resources to support the teaching and learning of math, English/language arts, science, history/social studies, and the 21st century skills embedded in Maine’s Guiding Principles is now available to Maine educators.

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Statewide Arts Education Census

The Maine DOE is collaborating with the Maine Arts Commission to establish a statewide inventory of all arts education programs and resources in the state’s 754 prekindergarten through 12th grade schools. Data collection has just begun and will continue through May 2016.

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Acting Commissioner Beardsley visits public preschool classroom

Last month, Acting Commissioner Bill Beardsley visited Brittany Kamenos’ four-year old classroom at the Chelsea Elementary School. RSU 12 Superintendent Howard Tuttle, Principal Andrew Doiron, Southern Kennebec Child Development Corporation’s Executive Director Cristina Salois, Program Manager Penny Poolman, and Child Development Services Director Larry Schooley briefed the acting commissioner on the collaboration.

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Commissioner visits Houlton Elementary School

Story courtesy of Karen Donato, former elementary teacher and current ed. tech III at Houlton Elementary School.

Acting Commissioner of Education Bill Beardsley was a guest at Houlton Elementary School this past month learning more about the successful K-to-3 literacy program in RSU 29. Beardsley participated in a round table discussion with a kindergarten teacher; first grade teachers; a literacy specialist; a literacy coach; University of Maine’s literacy coach; the principal, and RSU 29’s superintendent.

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Notice of new rule: Chapter 41 instruction related to use of CPR and AEDs in public schools

The following rule, Chapter 41: Offering Instruction Related to Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation and the Use of an Automated Defibrillator in Maine Public Schools, requires public schools to offer training to students on how to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation and use automated external defibrillators.

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A mathematics three-part series professional development update

This year, the Maine Department of Education is bringing together approximately 200 teachers of mathematics to learn about and implement practices that support student engagement and learning in a professional development series titled, “Connecting Mathematics Instruction to Support Student Engagement and Understanding (K-12).”

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“Content Corner” launches instructional resources for impactful learning

The Maine DOE introduces the first of three collections of articles for the 2015-16 school year in the “Content Corner,” resources designed to support teaching and learning in Maine classrooms and make connections to classroom applications and research.

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Effectively using the NCSSFL-ACTFL Can-Do Statements in world languages

Research indicates that the identification of clear learning targets is a strong support for language learning. The NCSSFL-ACTFL Can-Do Statements for Language Learning are progress indicators for language learning, and are a valuable resource for teachers and students alike. Based on research that reveals language learners to be more motivated and self-directed when they have an understanding of the proficiency spectrum and language progressions, as well as gaining the ability to self-assess on their language ability, the National Council of State Supervisors for Languages (NCSSFL) and the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) collaborated to develop the national Can-Do statements. These are made up of two parts: the Can-Do Benchmarks and the Can-Do Statements.

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