Spotted on the Boulevard: our fearless faculty sharing their summer work!

During our Professional Development day on Tuesday, Speyer faculty who received Summer Curriculum Grants explained what they learned from their research and hard work during the summer months. These grants are designed to support teachers in reflecting deeply on their practice, pursuing ideas that aim to reinvigorate their curriculum.

As you might expect, it was a panoply of ideas and learning! Mx. Ramsey and Mr. Deards explored how we may begin to intentionally incorporate LLMs (AI) into classroom life, while Nurse Allyce, Mr. Segal, Ms. Beynenson, and Ms. Blosser worked together to revise the MS Health and Wellness Curriculum, creating student-centered lessons that incorporate active engagement strategies so students see the value in learning about health and wellness. Ms. Cardillo designed curricular supports for burgeoning executive functioning needs around two central themes: Organizing Yourself (managing time, materials, routines, and task initiation) and Organizing Your Thinking (breaking down tasks, sustaining focus, managing multi-step assignments, and synthesizing information), while Mx. Ramsey and Ms. Kelly partnered to create "Dancing with Data," an integrative unit of study where students will embody code and dance that pushes the bounds of what it means to "create." The Fourth Grade team revised the year-long scope and sequence for book clubs to restructure how students read, take notes, and talk/write about literature, while Ms. Cuesta created a plethora of vocabulary and grammar tools that support students in writing original pieces in Spanish.

And those are just a handful of examples! From analyzing and revising current curricular units to ensure they are aligned with emerging goals to developing new tools and strategies to support our learners, it was exciting (and in-Speyer-ing) to hear the amazing new curricular work our faculty produced!