GMS Parent Portal

We are entering the time of year when a lot of exciting things are happening at GMS. Music programs, holidays, food drives, and athletic events will keep us very busy!

With this time of year also comes winter weather. A couple of things to keep in mind:

1. Please contact your child's school counselor or Mrs. Herschberger if you need help with providing winter outerwear for your child.

2. Cancellations and school delays will be announced on social media and local TV and radio stations. If school is delayed, we will start at 10:30 any day of the week. If school is cancelled, the announcement will include information about whether the day will be an eLearning Day.

The IB Learner Profile Attribute of the month for November is: Balanced. Balanced learners understand the importance of intellectual, physical, and emotional balance to achieve personal well-being for themselves and others.

New Tech learners demonstrate agency by building relationships with trusted adults and peers to enhance learning. They identify their own role in ups and downs of the classroom and home community.

Ask your child how s/he can demonstrate balance and agency this month!

Mrs. Yoder is in her second year of teaching 6th grade German at GMS. She grew up in Wichita, Kansas and then moved to Syracuse, Indiana on her 10th birthday. Mrs. Yoder attended Wawasee High School, where she played violin in the orchestra and graduated as valedictorian. She then attended Goshen College. Mrs. Yoder worked in Germany for a year during college, as a nanny and an aide in a retirement community. Later, she did a Fulbright Classroom Exchange in Germany, where she taught English to 8th, 9th and 10th graders.

Mrs. Yoder lives with her husband, Greg, in a straw bale house that he built. They have three nephews who are fun to spoil. Mrs. Yoder's favorite thing about GMS is the students. They are the best! In her spare time, she likes to read (in German, English, and Spanish), write, and travel.

If your child is interested in geography and wants to compete in our school geography bee, please ask him/her to stop by Room 202 for more information or email Mr. Bontrager at abontrager@goshenschools.org

November 18-26, 2019 is the annual GMS Food Drive!

The items donated support families in need in our school and other schools in our district. The food drive will run the entire week before Thanksgiving Break and Monday and Tuesday leading up to the break.

The top five donating FIRST PERIOD classes in the school will receive Dunkin Donuts! The types of food items needed in the food bank are…

ONLY CANNED ITEMS, NO GLASS because the food bags go home on the buses.

Canned vegetables, fruit, or soup

Mac-n-cheese

Rice

Cereal

Peanut butter or Jelly in a plastic jar

Pancake mix, Syrup

Pasta noodles, Canned Spaghetti Sauce

Canned meat

Ramen noodles

Plain Crackers

Boxed meals

Boxed potatoes

Donate BIG, GMS, and win a Dunkin Donut party for your first period class!

Goshen Community Schools will begin the 2020-2021 screening process for high ability programming very soon. If you wish to have your child screened for high ability identification, please contact your child’s school counselor to have him/her added to the list for screening and assessments.

GMS School Counselors are:

• Mrs. Christoffersen (New Tech) - kchristoffersen@goshenschools.org
  
• Mrs. Desmarais-Morse (New Tech) - jandm@goshenschools.org
  
• Miss Horn (GIMS) - shorn@staff.goshenschools.org
  
• Mrs. Koop-Liechty (GIMS) - jliechty@goshenschools.org

All parent requests need to be made before Friday, November 15th, 2019. By requesting screening, parents/guardians are giving permission for students to take all screeners necessary for identification.

GMS Dance students will perform their Fall Dance Showcase on Thursday, November 21st at 7:30 p.m. Dancers should arrive in costume at 6:30 with hair and makeup ready. Doors will open at 7:00, and admission is $3.

Dancers and their parents must sign off on the random drug testing policy prior to the performance. If you haven't done this, please contact Ms. Branham to make arrangements.

Monday, Nov. 4 - New Tech Showcase Night, 6:00-7:30

Friday, Nov. 8 - End of 1st Trimester

Friday, Nov. 8 - GIMS Fall Theater Show, 7:00

Thursday, Nov. 14 - Beginning Choir Showcase, 7:00

Sunday, Nov. 17 - Winter Band Concert - Prelude 4:30, Finale 5:45

Thursday, Nov. 21 - Fall Dance Showcase, 7:30

Nov. 27-29 - Thanksgiving Break, No School

The 8th Grade Community Project is a major activity for students to complete in year three of the MYP Program at Goshen International Middle School.

The community project focuses on community and service and gives students an opportunity to develop an awareness of various needs around our school, the community, the country, and the world.

The community project engages students in a sustained, in-depth inquiry-based project that leads to service as action to fulfill a need in the community.

The community project is completed individually, with a partner, or in groups of three. The topic of the project is determined in consultation with an MYP teacher who has the responsibility of supervising the project development according to the MYP assessment criteria.

The aims of MYP Projects are to encourage and enable students to:

• Participate in a sustained, self-directed inquiry within a global context.

• Generate creative new insights and develop deeper understandings through in-depth investigation.

• Demonstrate the skills, attitudes and knowledge required to complete a project over an extended period of time.

• Communicate effectively in a variety of situations.

• Demonstrate responsible action through, or as a result of, learning.

• Appreciate the process of learning and take pride in their accomplishments

  
  

Students began work on the community project in mid-October, and the work will culminate in the Spring with presentations and celebration. For more information, see the document below.

In eighth grade English classes, students are taking a deep dive into agency, one of the five key learning outcomes for New Tech students. They have been learning about agency since sixth grade, but now, they are going beyond the surface so that they can teach others about it.

There are eleven indicators of agency that students learn about through their time in New Tech classes. Since the beginning of the school year, students have been reading and learning about these eleven indicators. Students recorded a video describing the indicators of agency. It is early in the school year, and these are the students’ first attempt at Oral Communication, another outcome for New Tech students. So, they are not perfect, but the students do communicate important ideas about the different aspects of agency. Click here to watch the videos: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlAOfA3O5BBRAwQHmAFtb6i5ppObHkzhT

During this project, we take some time to focus on one or two key indicators. For example, in October, we are focusing on the indicator, Seek Challenge. The Agency rubric describes a student who is proficient in Seek Challenge as:

• With encouragement, takes on academic challenge and risks to pursue learning.

• Describes some personal barriers (mindset, beliefs, circumstances) that inhibit taking risks

To introduce this concept, we engaged in a team building activity where the goal was to put as many pieces of paper in between two people as possible in seven minutes.

We learned through this activity that our mindset and beliefs about a task can dramatically affect our results. We found that the teams who started this activity believing they were going to win were more successful than those who did not.

Students are finishing up the final product for this project, Choose Your Own Adventure stories about characters to make decisions to show one or more indicators of agency. These will be used to show fifth graders and their families from Goshen elementary schools what agency is all about at our November 4th showcase. We are still getting feedback from our fifth grade buddies at Mary Beck Elementary in Elkhart. Click here if you would like to read the stories as well: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1dV0BvLLI2y9e93NaUbJgTLQKJxgntPztP3yLeLWT7_w/edit?usp=sharing These are not final drafts, but we’re getting closer with help from each other, our teachers, and our fifth grade helpers. Would you like to give us feedback as well? Email Mrs. Sapp at brsapp@goshenschools.org.

To learn about Agency in New Tech schools, click here: https://newtechnetwork.org/resources/new-tech-network-agency-rubrics/

Email: lherschberger@goshenschools.org
Website: https://gms.goshenschools.org
Location: 1216 S. Indiana Avenue, Goshen, IN 46526
Phone: (574)533-0391
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/goshen.middle.school/
Twitter: @GoshenMiddleSch