New Year...New You!

Well I guess it should say "New Year...New Goals".  We are well underway in the 2016-2017 school year.  Summer seems like a distant memory at this point.  But we have to keep looking and moving forward. Part of that for me is setting goals at the beginning of each school year. Some of the goals are to continue doing the great things we already are doing.  And some of the goals are new and exciting initiatives for myself and the school.  I am proud to share with you our 2016-2017 Goals for the Schoolwide Enrichment Model at Laurel Mountain.

New goals for the 2016-2017 school year: 

Type III Learning Lab: Mrs. Levitan will create an opportunity during the school day for students to pursue a Type III project, or Passion Project. According the Dr. Renzulli and Dr. Reis, Type III Enrichment activities are individual or small group investigations of real problems based on students interests and skills with the aim to produce a product for real audiences.

PRIDE Portfolios: This year, we will be adding in a learning style inventory to help both the teacher and the student in the classroom.

Differentiation through Intervention: This year, Mrs. Levitan will differentiate instruction for students who need more academic support. She will be working with Mrs. Kaplan and Mrs. Jackson of the Rocket Room. Her goal is to focus on the students’ interests and learning styles while reinforcing the academic concepts taught in the classroom.

The Schoolwide Enrichment Model Reading Framework (SEM-R): According to the Neag School of Education, SEM-R is an enrichment-based reading program designed to:
· Stimulate interest in and enjoyment of reading
· Promote and develop higher reading achievement
· Improve self-regulation and automaticity in reading
· Encourage students to select high-interest books that are slightly to moderately above their current reading levels
· Create independent, lifelong readers

Enrichment Team (E-Team): This year, the Enrichment Team will be comprised of representatives from each grade level who have attended Confratute. This team will be the liaison between Mrs. Levitan and the teachers. They will help facilitate the growth of the Schoolwide Enrichment Model and be an advocate for its’ continued development at our school.

We will continue to grow in the following areas already in action at LME: 

Independent Investigative Method (IIM): The Independent Investigative Method (IIM) of research will continue in all grade levels K-5. We will continue to focus on increasing the level of questioning in the students’ research questions by focusing on Bloom’s Taxonomy and Kaplan’s Depth and Complexity Model. We will increase the quality of authentic products by focusing on what professionals would make who work in the field of study.

Differentiation in the Classroom: Mrs. Levitan will help in various classrooms during math and language arts to provide differentiation support in a variety of grade levels. She will work alongside the classroom teacher to help differentiate instruction and work with small groups of students. Based on their academic needs, she will either enrich or provide more support within the curriculum.

Collaboration and Resource: Mrs. Levitan collaborates with teachers in a variety of areas, such as IIM, service learning, enrichment clusters, enrichment slot activities, differentiation, and more. This helps LME to reach all of our diverse learners.

PRIDE Portfolios: The major purposes of the PRIDE Portfolios are:

· To collect several different types of information that portrays a student’s strength areas, and to regularly updates this information.
· To periodically review and analyze student work in order to make purposeful decisions about providing opportunities for enrichment experiences in the regular curriculum, the enrichment clusters, and the continuum of special services.
· To use the information as a vehicle for educational, personal, and career counseling and for communicating with parents about the school's talent development opportunities and their child's involvement in them.

This year, we will continue to work towards giving students’ ownership of the PRIDE Portfolios. The PRIDE Portfolios will provide a time for students to reflect on work and create a collection of the students’ talents and strengths.

Enrichment Clusters: In grades K-5, students will continue to participate in Enrichment Clusters for 6-8 weeks. We offer a wide variety of topics based on student’s interests. We work towards more student driven clusters guaranteeing that each enrichment cluster round is different, since the students participating are different. Furthermore, we will work on developing more student driven authentic products and services by focusing on what would the enrichment cluster look like in the “real world”.

Enrichment Cluster Tours: Enrichment Cluster Tours are for parents and interested community members. These tours allow our parents and guests to witness enrichment clusters in action.

Enrichment Cluster Showcases: Students will continue to be the docents for the displays from their enrichment cluster showcases. They will share what they accomplished and learned during their enrichment cluster. This provides a more authentic experience for the parents and guests. But most importantly, it provides an authentic experience for our students.

Parent and/or Community Experts: We utilize parent and/or community experts to assist with enrichment, enrichment clusters and/or Enrichment slots (E-slots) taking place in the classroom. 

Communication: We communicate with parents and community through the LME website, E-news, SEM blog, Twitter, Instagram, emails and Parent University classes.