AACPS OIT Byte

By: Koralina McKenna, Teacher Specialist - Office of Instructional Technology When I started teaching in 2016, I made it a point to ask students for their preferred name; I took notes on pronunciation and tried my best to get it right as soon as possible. But, it wasn't until 2020 that I added "preferred pronouns" to my first day survey. I created a way to keep track of my students preferred names and pronouns and made sure they were easily accessible for any sub or visitor in my classroom. These simple practices can affirm students' identity and help build a culturally responsive classroom. However, I quickly learned that I needed to do more to support my students and technology could make that seemingly daunting task a little easier.  In my early years, I often overlooked the Read&Write tool; mostly I found the purple puzzle piece to be an annoyance - until I came to appreciate how it could open up the digital world for all my students. During a reading heavy l...

By: Koralina McKenna, Teacher Specialist - Office of Instructional Technology The Teaching & Learning Instructional Observation/Evaluation Rubric has 34 criteria in which teachers are rated. Some of the observation stems are straight forward like "Class is neat and organized; arranged for student interactions and reflects current student learning". A teacher should receive a rating of "Effective" if the classroom is organized in a way that promotes student-to-student dialogue (think: groups), the teacher has relevant bulletin boards and student work displayed and the teachers' area is neat. If you can demonstrate that students can independently access materials and make up work; then you jump to "Highly Effective".  Move further down the rubric and you will find stems that are more complex and require the teacher to think thoughtfully and creatively about how they will demonstrate effectiveness. Observations can be stressful no matter what grade yo...