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  • The Distinctive Way
    • Mission and Vision
    • Strategic Plan
    • Distinctive Schools Blog
    • Approach
  • Impact
    • Who We Serve
    • Results
    • Spotlight Distinctive
    • Case Studies
  • TEAM
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  • COVID-19 Response
    • Reopening | Learn at Home, Learn at School
    • Reopening | Learn at Home, Learn at School – plan de reapertura
    • Technology Help

Distinctive schools blog
school updates, education news, and all things personalized learning

Distinctive Women: Celebrating International Women's Day

3/15/2017

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MELA celebrates International Women's Day! 

Distinctive Schools Celebrated International Women's Day! We are honored to support the work of innovative, dedicated, incredible women every single day. We recognize how profoundly women affect our organization and the work that we do.   
Second and third grade students at Minnesota Early Learning Academy discussed how the powerful women in their lives help to run the world! Their amazing teacher, Colin Alsbro, used the presentation below to lead students through a discussion of how women they know and famous female leaders have affected their lives, and continue to inspire them! 
Students created the following tree map as part of their discussion Who Runs the World? Girls!  They also wrote letters of gratitude to people who inspire them. 
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Third grade student, Natasha's letter to a woman she admired, Beyonce!
Thank you to the women who are part of our Distinctive Schools family, and women everywhere! We appreciate you and thank you for all that you do for our network, students, families and our schools. 
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Jeremy Crowe: Trailblazer!

3/10/2017

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Trailblazer teachers and staff hold a vital role in developing school reform, and we are grateful for their dedication to our network! This month we are featuring a Trailblazing Teacher and Mentor Teacher from CICS Bucktown.
This month's trailblazer is someone who works diligently to understand and meet the diverse and individualized needs of his students. He builds and maintains meaningful relationships, and engages his class by connecting learning with their personal interests. Mr. Crowe's classroom is an incredible community, where students post, share and communicate through writing their own blog posts on Otus. Be sure to stop by room 210 the next time you visit CICS Bucktown to see all of their incredible work!  
We feel so fortunate to have him at CICS Bucktown, please join us in congratulating a Trailblazing Teacher, Mr. Jeremy Crowe!​

Mr. Jeremy Crowe: Featured Trailblazer!

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Juggling Two Languages in One Mind

3/8/2017

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Juggling Two Languages in One Mind

A bilingual brain navigates between two languages without noticing the transition, the learning occurs all over this process and knowledge is built from these interactions in a powerful way. Distinctive Schools is extremely proud of CICS West Belden's Kindergarten Bilingual/EL classroom teachers, and the way they are navigating this on a daily basis!
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Ms. Schafman and Ms. Amario navigate so beautifully between two languages, watching them teach is like viewing a beautifully choreographed dance. Their dedication to this class and all  the changes in teaching practices this year has been so inspiring.

They seamlessly transition from English to Spanish, while the students are highly engaged, using both languages, and mastering concepts and academic vocabulary. Watch the video below as they lead Spanish calendar, which highlights how engaged the students are, and how strong this team is. 
West Belden's Bilingual/ EL Kindergarten teachers encourage students to use both languages to make meaning. Teachers work to build student speaking and literacy skills by modeling, and the cognitive process is observable at all levels. Students are learning in both languages. 
Thank you to CICS West Belden school leadership, Distinctive Schools Academic Team, and the EL team for driving this model. We know this is just the beginning, but are so pleased to see such progress!
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Distinctive Guest Post: 21st Century Music!

3/2/2017

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A NEW CURRICULUM FOR A NEW CENTURY​

Guest Post by: Frank Cademartori
Who thinks they are musical and who thinks they could be musical? These are questions that grace the entrance tickets my students take at the start our ten-week 21st Century Music Elective. The results are always the same. Very few consider themselves musical and even fewer think they could develop that ability. Yet in just ten weeks the students go from creating a playlist on Spotify, to having their own original music on the site. We enable this growth by empowering students, giving them the tools and skills they need, and allowing them to collaborate with peers by both giving and receiving feedback, until they create what they deem to be a successful product.
This doesn’t happen instantaneously  of course, but is accomplished over time using carefully curated materials and activities to build both students’ skills and confidence. Students are given the time and space to explore and create. They also learn the valuable skills of giving and receiving critical feedback. Finally, the work they do is driven by choice and personal interest and always ends in a tangible product they are proud to showcase.
The 10-week course starts with an engaging activity that has students creating, administering, and analyzing the results of musical surveys. Trying to find what music and musicians the class thinks are the best, students create categories and nominees and then administer the survey via Google Forms, looking at and then creating a Spotify playlist based on the results. We touch on the business side of music, covering not only complex ideas like merchandising, licensing, and endorsing, but also selling music directly. Students choose from a variety of web-based tools to create their own beats and after getting feedback from their instructor, submit a final version.
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 Feedback is important, because it forces students to work at the higher levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy as they evaluate and analyze their music. We start with songs from professional musicians, followed by analyzing previous classes’ work, and finally their peers work. Students slowly become more attuned to, and more confident with, their likes and dislikes, as well as what could be improved. Feedback is not only important to the creative process, but also develops them as learners. Once they accept that their first attempts will not achieve perfection, they become more open to criticism and are more willing to persevere. ​
The create>feedback>adjustment loop carries on through another guided project of creating an original music piece using web-based programs that allow students to select and arrange samples, change the tempo, and add effects. The culmination of the course is an open-ended project that allows students to create and collaborate on a personal project that is relevant and meaningful to them.
The course is based on tangible projects and skills that develop successively. Students start at the same place, but as it progresses students begin to move at different paces. Culminating each weeklong unit an additional, optional assignment opens up. Additional assignments involve  “real-world application” of what we’ve been working on, including tasks like  re-branding an artist, using your beat to record beat-poetry, or conducting an interview and creating a podcast. This allows  learners to dive deeper and pursue areas that they are personally interested in. The flexible curriculum caters to all learning styles and skill levels, while still challenging students at all levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy. They become motivated, self-directed learners upon seeing the real impact of their work. By the end all my students considered themselves more musical than when they started.
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To read more from Music Teacher, Frank Cademartori, check out his blog: ​A Sound Mind.
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