Category: News & Views

Commissioner’s Update – April 14, 2016

From the Maine Department of Education

The Maine Department of Education is pleased to conclude the 2015-16 “Content Corner” collection with this third release of instructionally-focused articles for Maine educators. The third collection of articles completes this year’s focus on effective practices that support student learning in the content areas.

The third collection includes:

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News & Views

Adult Ed graduate keeps business skills local

Although she believed firmly in the value of a good education and always planned to finish high school and attend college, Michelle DeIulio says she discovered at an early age that traditional school just didn’t work for her. | More

Maine CTE Director recognized by DECA

This month in Tennessee, Maine’s State Director of Career and Technical Education will be honored as the 2016 Maine DECA Association Administrator of the Year. | More

Educator talent pool recommendations due soon

The Maine Department of Education is accepting recommendations through April 28 for the 2016 Maine Educator Talent Pool. | More

Maine DOE invites school transportation teams to attend regional safety conferences beginning next week

Each spring school transportation teams participate in six statewide regional school transportation safety conferences. | More

ACCESS for ELLs 2.0 and alternate score reports and family resources available

ACCESS for ELLs 2.0 score reports were made available online on April 8 and printed reports will be delivered on April 15. | More

Personalized learning: voices from the field

Maine educators shared their stories about personalizing learning at the New England Secondary Schools Consortium conference in March. | More

Nominations sought for Teacher Appreciation Week

During this year’s Teacher Appreciation Week (May 2-6), the Department wants to extend a personal thank you to some great teachers. | More

Annual Maine DECA conference offers competition and awards

The Maine DECA 48th State Career Development Conference was held recently. | More

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LATEST DOE Career/Project Opportunities

Maine DOE invites school transportation teams to attend regional safety conferences beginning next week

Safety is priority one in school transportation. This commitment to safety is why Maine school transportation traditionally has one of the best safety records in the nation.  Annual training is the foundation of safety.  Each spring school transportation teams participate in six statewide regional school transportation safety conferences.

Continue reading “Maine DOE invites school transportation teams to attend regional safety conferences beginning next week” →

“Content Corner” releases final round of instructional improvement articles

The Maine Department of Education is pleased to conclude the 2015-16 “Content Corner” collection with this third release of instructionally-focused articles for Maine educators. The third collection of articles completes this year’s focus on effective practices that support student learning in the content areas.

Continue reading ““Content Corner” releases final round of instructional improvement articles” →

Creating a discourse community in the world language classroom

For students to have adequate opportunity to acquire language and develop proficiency in a language other than English, maximum use of the target language in the classroom by teachers and students is critical. While the research-based recommendation is that target language use represents 90% of teacher and student discourse in the classroom, many teachers struggle to maximize the use of L2 (world language that the student is working to learn during instruction).

Continue reading “Creating a discourse community in the world language classroom” →

Clear learning targets and feedback strengthen social studies and science learning

How do we know that students understand and are learning what we intend in our classrooms? When do we adjust our instructional sequence or delivery of content to meet student needs? To answer these questions, we first must answer this question: What is the role of formative assessment in our classrooms?

Continue reading “Clear learning targets and feedback strengthen social studies and science learning” →

Using calendars in preschool, why or why not?

Walk into a circle time in preschool in September and in June when the teacher is “doing calendar.”  It’s Wednesday. The teacher asks the children, “If yesterday was Tuesday, today is……?” The cacophony from the children includes the answers, “Saturday,” “Friday,” “Monday,” and pretty much any other day of the week.  It doesn’t change whether it is the beginning or end of the year. Why? Preschoolers are not developmentally grounded in past and future. For the most part, they still live in the now. Days of the week do not make sense-no matter how many times the activity is repeated. Yesterday, today and tomorrow are not solid concepts for three, four and five year olds.

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Close reading with text-dependent questions: conducting a text investigation

Making meaning of a complex text is itself a complex process. When students flex their literacy muscles to read something that is challenging for them, they grow as readers, as thinkers, and as writers.  Helping students develop stamina and supporting a productive struggle with challenging texts through routine practices provides the foundation for strong writing skills.

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Feedback: A Valuable Teaching Strategy for Health Education and Physical Education, Part 2

The health education and physical education article focused last month’s Content Corner instructional improvement article on student feedback. This month’s article examines student feedback to the teacher. There are many sources for feedback about a teacher’s instructional practices. Administrators, peers and students can all provide valuable feedback to teachers that benefits all by responding to specific prompts for actionable feedback. Honest feedback from students can help improve teaching effectiveness. Teaching students the principles of constructive feedback is a beneficial lifetime skill and necessary to providing teachers will helpful feedback. Feedback needs to focus on teaching strategies such as class structure, usefulness of activities/assignments/homework and not personal characteristics or qualities. There are a number of online tools available such as the Great Schools Partnership resources found at info@iwalkthrough.org and “Ten Tools to Try”  available at http://www.georgebrown.ca/staffdevelopment/Student_Feedback/tentools.html#one. Teachers may also choose to develop their own Google forms for student feedback.

Continue reading “Feedback: A Valuable Teaching Strategy for Health Education and Physical Education, Part 2” →