IMLEA Monday Minute

IMLEA sends its respect and appreciation to all of our schools for the time, support, resilience, dedication, and perseverance in meeting the new policies, procedures, and minute by minute changes. You have all shown such care, concern, and determination to meet the needs of your students, staff, community, and each other. Not knowing the future of any kind of schedule has to be very frustrating and yet we all understand the need to protect the lives of all students and staff.

We support you however you need us...we work with the IDOE as a CSI and TSI Partner; in addition, we partner with AMLE, Special Olympics; National Forum to Accelerate Middle Grades Reform and INSPIRE3. Contact us at any time at imlea@iasp.org.

Shirley Wright, Executive Director

While many Indiana districts are close to the end or have already finished the 19-20 school year, this recent collection of articles from ASCD Express, their free newsletter, has several posts that might be of interest.

Last week's AMLE webinar with Dr. Lori Desautels, "Addressing Adversity, Trauma, and Resiliency with our Young Adolescents during COVID 19" is archived for viewing on the AMLE website. During this time, AMLE is making many useful materials available to members & nonmembers alike.

In addition, Dr. Desautels collaborated on DOE's Educational Neuroscience Toolkit

Fun fact: AMLE's executive director, Stephanie Auditore, first met and heard Dr. Desautels at our IMLEA conference last fall, and has arranged for her to provide webinars and speak at next fall's AMLE Annual Conference.

Thinking about next school year? Dr. Desautels also shared a piece on LinkedIn,

"Returning, Re-Integrating and Regulating ( Pandemic School Transitions)"

MiddleWeb now maintains a list of their most popular articles of all time (since 2012); many of them have been accessed more than 100,000 times! On their homepage, you can also find the current top articles along the left side (under the star) and the ten newest posts down the center. I've often maintained that anyone teaching a course related to middle-level pedagogy and strategies would do well to start with MiddleWeb!

WIth at least 19 different technology tools, as shown in this chart from Stevenson High School in Illinois. It also includes a detailed comparison for each one.

• Summer Digital Learning Book Study, Copyrighteous by Diana Gill on Moodle (log in, then use Join Code copy2020) Some public libraries have it available on Hoopla.
• SEL Videos & Resources for Educators
• Continual Updates to Their Remote Resources Page
• Summer Math PD Opportunities
• Digital Course Creation Workshop, June 17-18
• Extensive Computer Science Opportunities for Teachers
• Summer Book Club for Leaders

Thanks to librarian Carli Sauer from Carmel Middle School for sharing her Bitmoji scene for Young Hoosier Book Award voting. You can post or share this link with students; usually school librarians conduct and submit the voting for YHBA, but this year students may submit their own votes. Some want their librarian to be notified, so there is a link on the YHBA page to do so. (And, speaking of Bitmojis, the Bitmoji Craze FB group is nearing 60k members, and I have added to this Wakelet of tutorials and resources.)

• In addition to part two of the neuroscience session for students this Thursday with Mayim Bialik, Varsity Tutors is hosting several other "celebrity" classes for students AND a wide variety of classes for students K-12, throughout the summer, everything from Minecraft to public speaking, to art, drama, and academic subjects, all free!
• INSPIRE3 update with students and families (also linked below)
• Continuous Learning Weekly Challenges from DOE-New Ones Added-Students and Families Can Complete (no tech required)
• Connecting with Code Camp from Rose Hulman (Grades 4-8 Next Week, can complete later)
• Girls Who Code Activities
• Free Access to eBooks & Audiobooks, compiled by Indiana School Librarians (A few of them will need a librarian to request access)

If you have any students who you think might be interested, they can take part in this national survey by popular education speaker Peter DeWitt. He will use the results to inform some of his future presentations and for his "Finding Common Ground" blog for EducationWeek. It might also be helpful if you decide to design a survey for your own students.

Champions Together/Special Olympics was not able to hold many events this spring, but our liaison Tori Cox is still available to assist you as we look toward next year. They have partnered with the Indianapolis Indians on the extensive activity packet below (pages 9-11 are the inclusion pages), and Mike Hasch created the Bingo Board. Students who complete the entire bingo card can complete this form to receive a set of inclusion tiles. We will put these on our website as well.

Highlights included in this weekly INSPIRE3 Update for 5/18/20: Thank You for sharing this Update with your staff as these resources would be helpful with their e-learning/distance learning efforts and they would also be beneficial to parents and students at home. Many have reported that whole-family projects have been among the most meaningful and memorable activities during this time.

• LTG Simple Safe Service project guides includes step-by-step instruction, reflection, and connection to optional lesson plans
  
• Highlighting these new K-12 guides: Shout Out to Teachers; Help Neighbors with Yard Work; Gratitude Pen Pals; Boosting Happiness with Neighborhood Art
• What to Teach While Learning from Home - Link learning to a purpose beyond ourselves. Inspire youth with learning, service action, and conversations about generosity and our roles in civil society. Suitable for classroom assignments or families.
  
• Simply TeachOne Lesson Today List of single-session K-12 lessons covering a variety of themes, plus related resources.

  Highlighting these lessons: Women of the Industrial Era; Mother Teresa; How Can We Care; The Lion and the Mouse and a list of folktales from around the world to teach generosity.
  

• Snapshots of Service-Learning Stories and Articles

• LTG free K-12 lessons and Toolkits, Moments of Service Monthly Calendar, Current Events
  

• generationOn website free service/service-learning resources for teachers, students, and parents
  

• INSPIRE3 Mini-Grant update
• Visit our INSPIRE3 page on the IMLEA website HERE or the IASP website HERE and Connect
  
• Digital Resources include Power Points and Tutorials
  
• Contact information for free assistance
• Thank You Very Much for sharing our updates and page with your staff, colleagues, and parents

This week's Kindness 101 episode from Steve Hartman is "Fortitude." I have enjoyed all of the episodes; last week's on "Service" had a story about a teacher that was particularly moving and memorable, and this one includes a student who will amaze your class. The final stories next week will be about "Compassion." Keep this in mind for Advisory next year! There is a Facebook group for Educators sharing even more ideas.

May 19: PD on ICE (Indiana Connected Educators) Social Event on Zoom: Remote Learning Wins, 8-9 pm ET

May 20: AMLE Leadership Roundtable, "Planning for the 2020-21 School Year," 3:30-4:30 pm

May 20: #INedChat-Creatively Meeting Students' Needs During Summer and into Next Year, 8 pm ET

May 21: Dollar General Literacy Grant Due

May 21: Literacy in a Changing World Symposium (includes Daniel Willingham & Doug Lemov as speakers), 12-5 ET

May 22: Leslie Fisher webinar: Screen Casting, Capturing & Sharing Plethora! 7 pm ET

May 26-27: Solution Tree Mind the Gap Webinar, Assessment, 3:30 ET

May 27: Leslie Fisher Webinar, "New Kahoot! features. New Microsoft Teams features. New fun!" 4 pm ET. (Postponed from May 13)

May 29: Deadline to Submit Entries for AMLE Innovation Challenge-changed to June 15

May 31: New Deadline for IMLEA/AMLE Membership Discount

June 1: Deadline for Students to Vote for Young Hoosier Books

June 2: Free Webinar from CIESC: Leading Virtual PL: Top 10 Q&A Session, 9 am ET

June 8: DOE Summer Digital Bookclub on Copyrighteous Begins (see above)

June 10-11: EL Leadership Workshop, CIESC/Perry, 9-10:30 am ET

June 15: New deadline for IMLEA Innovation Challenge

June 17-18: DOE Digital Course Creation

July: AMLE Back tp School Camp (fill out survey here)

July 20-24: ICE Online Conference

November 12-14: AMLE National Conference, National Harbor, MD

February 21-22, 2021: IMLEA Conference

Tim Wilhelmus's ongoing, extensive list with even more PD.

I saw the quote below in a newsletter from the Center for Teaching Quality this morning. You will probably never be the same teacher you were before the pandemic; your students will probably never think of school in quite the same way. Hopefully, that means in some measure that despite all the difficulties encountered, the creativity, flexibility, and other talents that have been utilized during this time can be assets to future learning.

This is the final "regular" Monday Minute for the 2020-21 school year. We will be posting more updates and adding to resources on our website, including free professional learning opportunities we predict will be worthwhile. You can access past Monday Minutes via this link on our webpage, and you can follow us on Facebook and Twitter; we will be posting there more frequently. Principals and others: Feel free to forward this newsletter to your staff, and email us at any time.

Join Us! Membership Benefits & Application

Shirley Wright, Executive Director

Susie Highley, Director of Operations

Fax: 317-454-0749

Email: shighleyimlea@iasp.org
Website: https://www.imlea.org/
Location: 11025 East 25th Street, Indianapolis, IN, USA
Phone: 317.894.2937
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/IMLEA-Indiana-Middle-Level-Education-Association-170748717595/
Twitter: @IMLEAorg

The deadline for the special offer of joint membership has been extended to May 31. You can find the details here, or on our IMLEA webpage. If you have already joined just one of the organizations, your additional membership fee will be pro-rated; you are not required to join both, but will see the advantages to doing so. If you have any questions, feel free to contact Shirley Wright.