• Technology Education

The instructional technology specialist works with teachers to support their efforts to achieve technology competency and to integrate technology into the curriculum. Planning between the instructional technology specialist and the classroom teacher is the means that makes this integrated instructional technology program work. The teacher brings to the planning process a knowledge of subject content and student needs. The instructional technology specialist contributes a broad knowledge of technology, an understanding of teaching methods, and a wide range of strategies that may be employed to help students learn technology skills. Characteristics of the Educational Technology (or Instructional Technology) Program Throughout the school year, instructional technology support is scheduled in a flexible model, available to all grades. This model supports the curriculum while integrating Recommended Instructional Technology Standards into the learning environment. The support provided by the Instructional Technology Specialist may be in the form of:

· Teaching a model lesson

· Co-teaching with the classroom teacher

· Assisting in the preparation (or follow-up) for using technology

· Providing on-time professional development, i.e. specific training at a time of need

•         Drama Education

At the elementary level, drama is defined as the ability to think creatively and to use one’s imagination.  The students accomplish this through activities such as puppetry, skit creation, characterization, holistic dramas, play writing and reading and creative body movement.  By participating in such activities, drama helps children develop a sense of self-esteem and self-worth.  It encourages and strengthens their abilities to work in groups.  It also helps to build skills such as listening and respecting another person’s work.

Drama provides students with an additional outlet to express themselves.  Drama class is a place where everyone can succeed.   As a class, we support and encourage one another so that everyone has the confidence to participate in activities in front of an audience.

•         Music Education

In music classes at the Northeast Elementary School, all grades are working to achieve a solid understanding of the basic elements of music:  melody, harmony, rhythm and form.  All students are encouraged to sing their best and to use proper performance techniques such as stage presence.

The basics of rhythm notation for grades K-5 are taught through the use of musical rhythm instruments.  Pitch notation of the treble clef staff is introduced in the third grade with the recorder.  All grades use musical melodic Orff instruments such as xylophones and metallophones.

  Developing an appreciation of music occurs through singing, playing, moving and listening to many different styles of music.  A basic understanding of the history of music is also discussed in the upper elementary grades.

•         Physical Education

One of the primary goals of physical education is to teach every child, from the physically gifted to the physically challenged, how and why they should keep themselves healthy and fit throughout their lifetime.  In the physical education program, learning experiences are provided which are developmentally appropriate and will teach children how to be physically active in ways that increase physical competence, self-esteem and joy through lifelong physical activity.

The physical education curriculum includes a balance of skills, concepts, game activities, rhythms and dance experiences designed to enhance the cognitive, motor, affective and physical fitness development of every child.

Throughout the year, activities are taught to allow children the opportunity to work together to improve their emerging social and cooperation skills.  These activities also help children develop a positive self-concept.

Regular fitness assessment is used as part of the ongoing process of helping children understand, enjoy, improve and/or maintain their physical health and well-being.

Children are taught exercises that keep the body in proper alignment, thereby allowing the muscles to lengthen without placing stress and strain on the surrounding joints, ligaments and tendons.

Physical education classes are designed so the ALL children are involved in activities that allow them to remain continuously active.

•         Science Education

Science, in the elementary schools, is presented as a joint effort between the regular classroom teacher and a Science Specialist who visits Gr. 1 through Gr. 5 classes on a weekly basis.  Each class with the Specialist is held for 55 minutes while the classroom teacher provides additional time in class with extension lessons that reinforce the Specialist’s lessons.  The Science curriculum is based on the recommendations of the Massachusetts Department of Education’s “Curriculum Frameworks for Science and Technology”.  All grades cover a wide area of topics ranging from the Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Earth Sciences to incorporating health issues such as substance abuse prevention, child abuse prevention and personal health.

Over the course of this year, your child will learn that science is a way of looking at the world.  He or she will come to learn that scientific inquiry and knowledge clarifies his or her view of the world.  In the Science program, your child will spend time everyday exploring and discovering about their world with experiments, observations, measurement, drawing and writing.  They will also be reading and learning about the history of science and stories of great scientists and other young people who find wonder and delight in the world around them with science.

• Elementary Library Media Program

Elementary classroom projects, which require that students employ information literacy skills are most successful when the teacher and the library media specialist plan together. Most often the teacher is responsible for teaching the content of the curriculum and the library media specialist is responsible for teaching the information literacy skills and for assisting teachers as they follow the curriculum.  Because the library media specialist works on an open schedule, the teacher signs up for an initial planning meeting at his/her convenience.  At this meeting the teacher supplies the curriculum topic while the library media specialist identifies the appropriate information literacy skills and recommends library media resources. Together they schedule the number of library media visits necessary.  Time is always allotted for modeling and instruction in the relevant information literacy skills as the project progresses.  The relevant information literacy skills are selected from among those defined in the Massachusetts English Language Arts Framework and Information Power.

To further assist student research, we teach students how to follow the The Big SixÓ model. After the number of visits necessary and the duration of each has been determined, the teacher writes the days and times in the library media specialist’s plan book. An added strength of the open schedule is the opportunity it provides for teachers to schedule additional times for the library media specialist to give individual attention to those students needing it.

Massachusetts English Language Arts Framework

Language Strand

Discussion: Standard #1 Students will use agreed upon rules for informal and formal discussions in small and large groups.

Questioning, Listening and contributing: Standard #2 Students will pose questions, listen to the ideas of others, and contribute their own information or ideas in group discussion or interviews in order to acquire new knowledge.

Oral Presentation: Standard #3   Students will make oral presentations that demonstrate appropriate consideration of audience, purpose, and the information to be conveyed.

Beginning Reading: Standard #7    Students will understand the nature of written English and the relationship of letters and spelling patterns to the sounds of speech.

Reading and Literature Strand

Understanding Text: Standard #8  Students will identify the basic facts and main ideas in a text and use them as the basis for interpretation.

Nonfiction: Standard #13   Students will identify, analyze, and apply knowledge of the purposes, structure, and elements of nonfiction or informational materials and provide evidence from the text to support their understanding.

Composition Strand

Composition: Standard #19 Students will write with a clear focus coherent organization, and sufficient detail.
Composition: Standard #20 Students will write for different audiences and purposes.
Composition: Standard #21  Students will demonstrate improvement in organization, content, paragraph development, level of detail, style, tone, and word choice (diction) in their compositions after revising them.
Composition: Standard #22  Students will use knowledge of Standard English conventions in their writing, revising and editing.
Composition: Standard #23  Students will organize ideas in writing in a way that makes sense for their sense.
Composition: Standard #24
Students will gather information from a variety of sources, analyze and evaluate the quality of the information they obtain, and use it to answer their own questions.
Composition: Standard #25  Students will develop and use appropriate rhetorical, logical, and stylistic criteria for assessing final versions of their compositions or research products before presenting them to varied audiences.

  Media Strand
Analysis of Media: Standard #26  Students will identify, analyze, and apply knowledge of the conventions, elements, and techniques of film, video, television, multimedia productions, the Internet, and emerging technologies and provide evidence from the works to support their understanding.

Media Production: Standard #27  Students will design and create coherent media productions with a clear controlling idea, adequate detail, and appropriate consideration of audience, purpose, and medium.

Information Literacy Standards for Student Learning

  Students who are information literate will:

· access information efficiently and effectively.

· evaluate information critically and competently.

· use information accurately and creatively.

  Students who are independent learners are:

· information literate and pursue information related to personal interests.

· information literate and appreciate literature and other creative expressions of information.

· information literate and strive for excellence in information seeking and knowledge generation.

Students who contribute positively to the learning community and to society are  information literate and:

· recognize the importance of information to a democratic society.

· practice ethical behavior in regard to information and information technology.

· participate effectively in groups to pursue and generate information.

  The Big SixÓ

1. Task Definition- What have I been asked to do?

2. Information Seeking Strategies- What resources will be helpful to me?

3. Location and Access- Where will I find the information I need?

4.   Use of Information- What information is helpful? How will I record this information?

5.   Synthesis- How will I organize and present my information?

6.   Evaluation- How well did I do?   Did I do what I was asked to do?

Sources: Massachusetts English Language Arts Curriculum Framework, Jun 2001.

Information Literacy Standards for Student Learning  prepared by the Association of School Librarians and the Association for Educational Communications and Technology, c1998

The Big SixÓ created by Mike Eisenberg and Robert Berkowitz.

 
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