Dear Students and Parents,
This week SAGE (Sexuality and Gender Equity) club members Kavya Gopinath, Jannick Frampton, Hyolin Song and Adrienne Hoover were invited to an event of UN Women on Monday at the Taj Coromandel. Ms. Lakshmi Puri, UN Assistant Secretary General and UN Women Deputy Executive Director spoke and led an interactive dialogue about gender equality as part of the Youth Leap for Planet 50-50 by 2030 campaign.
During the Q&A, Kavya asked a thought-provoking question that was addressed in different ways by three of the panelists: "Considering the fact that culture, religion and traditions are often misinterpreted or misused in order to further oppress women and girls, how do we address that or counter it as we move the effort of gender equality forward without targeting the actual culture/religion/traditions?"
In other news, this summer grade 9 student Harish Srinivasan was selected as a finalist in the Genius Olympiad Competition, thereby gaining an opportunity to display his project at the finals in New York in July where he won the Silver Medal in the Science Category. Of the 2,500 people who applied for Genius Olympiad, 1,450 people were selected as finalists. These 1,450 selected applicants travelled from 69 countries. The Hindu News Paper – August 1st - featured a small article about the event. Congrats Harish!
Many thanks to the parents of seniors who delivered a beautiful treat to our grade 12 students today! What a lovely surprise.
Meet the World Language Department
A Message from Head of Department Monica Sandifer
The World Language Program at AISC strives to inspire a love for language learning, enabling students to communicate with confidence in the target language and to develop a foundation for intercultural awareness that will foster international understanding. Linguistic proficiency is essential for successful interactions in an increasingly connected world, and therefore is at the core of the curriculum. The World Language Department at AISC believes that both teachers and students should use the target language to communicate in the classroom as exclusively as possible, ideally at a 90% of the time at all levels. Our goal is to develop students’ language proficiency with communicative competence reflecting real life communication.
Learning languages today is very different than in the past; in the world language classrooms students learn to apply their learning by using the target language, by creating their own products, by becoming independent learners, by integrating technology to enhance their learning; no longer grammar is taught in isolation, covering textbooks, and teacher driven; but instead the teacher is a facilitator for students to explore, discover, draw connections with different countries and broaden their understanding of language and culture gaining insight, empathy and perspective. Language and culture are inextricably intertwined, students learn to understand the culture of the people who speak the target language through learning about the products and practices of the culture and how those relate to the perspectives of the people of that culture. In the World Language classrooms at AISC we also develop 21st Century skills such as: critical thinking and problem solving, creativity and innovation, collaboration, information, media and technology literacy, flexibility and adaptability, initiative and self-direction, social-cross cultural skills, productivity and accountability, leadership and responsibility, life and career skills.
Some of the learning examples include :
- Students use a variety of resources such as Voicethread, Newsela, Duolingo, Santillana online resources, Quizlet, TubeChop, News in the target language, and Bilingual Books
- Writing poetry in mother tongue and target languages to share creativity and literacy.
- Students role play real life scenarios
- Students listen to authentic audio clips featuring native speakers describing an event, and match the oral description to a picture, or put pictures in the order of the sequence.
- Students write a short email describing their school's technology, its use in class, and appropriate-use guidelines. They ask students of a teacher in a target language country to describe the same at their school, and then discuss the similarities and differences.
- Students create, collaborate, present ideas and think critically about different themes.
Flor Martin - High School Spanish teacher
Serge Nicolai - High School French teacher
Shauna Derrickson - High School Spanish teacher
Hannah Kingsley- Middle School French teacher
Ilona Horchler - Elementary School French teacher
Nicole Merletti - Elementary School Spanish teacher
Mónica G. Sandifer - Middle School Spanish teacher
Miriam Chakko - Middle and High School French
Carlos Adelantado Faura - Middle School Spanish
Source: Page 4. 21st Century Skills Map
Parent Coffee - High School Assessment Guidelines
Many thanks to all of the parents who attended this week’s coffee - it was wonderful to share our assessment guidelines with a full house!
If you were unable to attend you can access the presentation with brief voiceovers here. This includes the highlights from the presentation.
Further, a question was raised at the coffee regarding which standards we use at AISC. I have listed them below for your reference.
English - Common Core Language Arts Standards
Social Studies - Modified C3 Standards
Science - Next Generation Science Standards
Math - Common Core Math Standards
World Language - AISC Standards derived from AERO Standards
The Arts - National Core Arts Standards
Physical Education - SHAPE Standards
Design Technology - Under review, currently using IB MYP Guidelines
Skyward Update - This Friday
Please be aware that our first official Skyward update will be available for view after 4:00 pm on September 2nd. An update means that teachers have done their best to mark assignments to date and record them in Skyward. We have had a few quirks with Skyward this week and, so, you may have gotten "feed" messages in error. Please ignore them.
Please note that with our new assessment guidelines you may see formative assessments reflected in Skyward that are marked as “no count.” These assessments are listed so that both students and parents are aware of the student’s progress despite them not counting toward the final summative grade. Given that this is our first update, some courses only reflect formative assessments as summative assessments are scheduled for this week.
When you visit the grade book you will only see marks on the main page if summative assessments are posted. Please use the toggle down arrows on the left side of the screen for each course to see the formative assessments. Alternatively you can choose from the "display view" list next to your student's name "display all grades" to see both summative and formative assessments.
When you visit the grade book you will only see marks on the main page if summative assessments are posted. Please use the toggle down arrows on the left side of the screen for each course to see the formative assessments. Alternatively you can choose from the "display view" list next to your student's name "display all grades" to see both summative and formative assessments.
UN
International Peace Day Celebration, Friday, September 23rd
A Note from the Development Office
Second Early Release Wednesday Coming - Repeat Announcement
On September 7th, we will have our second Early Release Wednesday. Students are expected to depart campus in a timely and organized fashion. We appreciate your patience with traffic on these days. In preparation, please plan on allowing longer time for entry and exit to the school at release time. For Elementary School students, the lunch routine will not change. For our Middle and High School students, hot lunch will be served.
Sincerely,
Joelle Basnight
High School Principal