Instructional Coach

To start this school year, we have moved to a new model for our teams. We are now wrapping the resources of six teachers around our teams of 80 kids. This includes the four core content teachers, a special educator, and an instructional coach. I'm excited about the flexibility and nimble nature of our new construct. Here is a sample of the increase in idea and innovation flow that seems to already be stemming from this shift. Here is a recent e-mail from my instructional coach to the team.


This is the easiest access to resources from multiple federal agencies. Unlike the actual federal department sites, this one is arranged by subject area and topic making search features much easier. Take a look at the animated science demonstrations. I didn't dig in here long enough to be sure they are your GLE topics, but it looks promising.
http://free.ed.gov/

Thinkfinity: This is a collection of interactive demonstrations for students. You can search by content area and level. I left up the link to National Geographic's Living Landscapes lesson as it might complement your geography unit and give students tools they can use if they want to investigate further. The Read, Write, Think Section of this website has powerful interactive tools for teaching reading and writing skills.
http://www.thinkfinity.org/search?start=0&partner_value=no&from_links=&txtKeyWord=living+landscapes&txtKeyWord2=What+are+you+looking+for%3F&narrow=1&chkResource[]=Interactive&chkGrade[]=grades%3A6|grades%3A7|grades%3A8&chkSubject[]=Social+Studies

Thinkquest is a project based learning competition where students design educational websites. From the link below, you can view winning projects or get info on the competition. As we discuss authentic work and project based learning, I'm hopeful that the projects represented on this site will get us thinking.
http://www.thinkquest.org/library/winners/2011_projects.html

This is a site from the national institute of health. There is lots to link to our sustainability efforts. Of note are the computer based interactive resources for students as well as the career finder tool that allows students to match their interests to careers in science.
http://science-education.nih.gov/home2.nsf/feature/index.htm
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This math forum site has lots of free resources including online math puzzles and problem of the week. Students can ask "Dr. Math" their math questions. I thought this might serve as an outside expert as kids think about authentic work.
http://mathforum.org/kenken/


Here are free sheet music sites, for historical connections. The final site has multimedia resources to explore musical genre.
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/smhtml/
http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/hasm/
http://artsedge.kennedy-center.org/multimedia.aspx