From your Board: Free PD with a Stipend & Grants available from your chapter!
We hope your first full-ish month of School is wrapping up nicely. We're now pushing big for you to help us spread the word about our Free stipend PD on Mentorship which gets you your IST certification and our chapter-funded grants for your CS Ed Week projects. Take up the mantle and go big! Try something new and challenge yourself.
Your Chapter in Action
π¨βπ¨βπ§βπ¦ Secretary Position Open! π¨βπ¨βπ§βπ¦
Would you like to take a leadership role in our community? The Secretarial position has just become available. Typical responsibilities are sending out bulletins like this using our friendly WYSIWYG editor, composing a tweet, and keeping up on meeting notes during meetings.
It's the first step towards a larger role in your community and it looks great for Domain 4 evaluation data! Reach out to Christopher to inquire on how you can join us!
To further support our pledge to promote good teaching and equitable access of Computer Science to our state we're offering 10 Connecticut schools $100 to fund their CS ED Week programs.
CS Ed Week is December 6 - 12, 2021.
What is CS Ed Week?
CS Ed week is our special week to promote Computer Science Education across the U.S.
Itβs a great time to educate your school and your district about Computer Science Education.
Itβs a great time to connect with your school, district, town and state officials about the importance of CS Education.
How to apply: Complete the following application document and submit it via this Google Form.
To promote this in the meeting we should have members mention things that they have done in the past.
An hour of code activity after school with a pizza party and raffle prizes.
Department head PD activities for CS Ed week so they could promote CS week via their curriculum.
Turn your library into a multi-media center with awards, raffles, and technology demos!
Create a Home Room / Advisory activity with raffles for completed challenges!
NEWS!
What can the National Center for Women in Technology do for you and the womxn of your classroom? Find out as they share the goings on with their organization. Believe us, it's good stuff!
Don't forget the Aspiration awards are now OPEN. What better way to empower and acknowledge the young womxn of your classroom!
Researchers at UT Austin are evaluating Googleβs CS First program. If you are an elementary or middle school teacher who is familiar with CS First, please respond to this survey by clicking the link below. A $25 Amazon gift card will be given to 20 randomly selected survey respondents.
Eligible teachers can also opt in to participate in a classroom observation and interview in Spring 2022 for a $500 stipend. You are encouraged to share this with other educators that may be familiar with this program.
Are you struggling with students not going through an internal and collaborative process before raising their hands and asking for teacher intervention? If students push away from grit towards easy answers we're teaching them to avoid problem solving. The following protocol has been implemented in computer science classrooms just like yours to outline students building agency and efficacy.
Check 1 - Check the Materials
Check 2 - Check with your neighbors
Check 3 - Check with the Teacher
If a student asks a question ask them to show you the material they reviewed and who they worked with before asking for your help.
This year our theme is all about building community, leadership, and uplifting our educators. Each meeting will have time for the Computer Science Praxis preparation, sharing out of best practices in the five TEAM modules, and more! Take a look below at a VERY brief view of what we've put together. Each meeting will also have a guest speaker, product demo, or the like.
Praxis Subject Area: Computing Systems and Networks
TEAM Module Show & Tell - Module 5 - Professional Responsibilities (Share out that cool website, PD, you've found! Self-nominate for a CT CSTA position!)
Remember, your Connecticut Computer Science Teacher's association loves you! Thanks for everything you do!
