Highlights of ACSF In Isaac Dickson Elementary

 

2012-2013 Awards

 

Laura Lane, May Castelloe, Rhonda Sizemore, Rachel Resser, Marti Sullivan, Ali Trainor, and Lauren Evans are Isaac Dickson Elementary classroom and resource teachers who will continue this year as Reaching All Learners Fellows. This extension will support them in developing and implementing research-driven strategies that will help them effectively engage their students. During the 2012-2013 school year, they will continue to assess the individual learning needs and styles of their most disengaged students. They will also implement student-centered lessons and teacher practices that the team developed during their first Fellows year. Additionally, they will expand upon their research on current best practices that support student engagement and increase student achievement. 

·         # of Students Impacted: 320

·         # of Teachers Impacted: 7

 

Cathy Sorensen and Jesse Emry of Jones Elementary and Isaac Dickson Elementary are Fellows on the Integrating iPads project. Currently, iPads are being piloted at both elementary schools. Through this project, Cathy and Jesse will research best practices in order to ensure that these devices are being used in a way that effectively engages students and improves learning outcomes. They will seek professional development opportunities, visit schools where iPads have been successful, experiment with new technologies and apps, collect and analyze data from teachers and students, and share what they learn with district leaders. By researching best practices, this team will discover how to best integrate iPads into instructional practices in elementary classrooms.

·         # of Students Impacted: 370

·         # of Teachers Impacted: 21

 

 

Mark Ackerman of Hall Fletcher Elementary, Isaac Dickson, and Claxton Elementary has been awarded $250 for P.S. I Love You. This project provides a unique opportunity for students who are currently in foster care, or whose parents are in prison, or the military. These students will meet as a group, once a month, to write letters to their parents. This type of environment allows students to support others, reconnect with their loved ones, practice their writing skills, and increase their vocabulary. 

·         # of Students Impacted: 15

·         # of Teachers Impacted: 20

 

 

2011-2012 Awards

TAPAS Awards

Patti Evans with artist Adam Wright

Patti Evans, May Castelloe and Mairead Smitka, of Isaac Dickson Elementary School, have been awarded a Progress Energy and Innovation Grant for Food for Thought. This unique collaboration between three teachers and a writer-in-residence will provide approximately 55-70 students with yearlong creative writing projects in the Isaac Dickson Community Garden.  These 1st, 3rd and 4th grad classes will work with teaching artist and local farmer Adam Blake Wright from Asheville Writers in the Schools to use writing as a tool to advance students' skills in literacy and the understanding of energy.  This residency will build valuable writing skills, develop critical thinking, increase literacy and self-esteem in students, and further investigate the historical, dietary and socioeconomic aspects of food and its production in Western North Carolina.  This project is jointly funded with ACSF Innovation and Progress Energy "E" Education funds.

 

Libby Kyles, Shannon Fields and Kelly Schultz, of Isaac Dickson Elementary School, have been awarded an Innovation Grant for Writing to Change the World.  This program, now in its fourth year at Isaac Dickson, engages students in meaningful writing about issues of concern to them through innovative teaching concepts, connection with the local and global community and through prevailing technologies.  A Teaching Writer will visit each of the 5th grade classrooms to facilitate weekly writing workshops focused on inquiry-based revision and supplemented with a project blog and website.  The students will record essays at a local radio station, explore questions with topic mentors from the community, and research a topic using digital and print technology.  The project will culminate in student presentations at TEDxyouth which will be filmed, edited and uploaded to the TEXxyouth@isaacdickson website and YouTube channel. 

 

Gaelyn Evangreene, of Isaac Dickson Elementary, will continue her project and be joined by Jennie Robinette, of Claxton Elementary. This renewal will support the Fellows in further implementing Conscious Discipline in their classrooms as well as sharing it with eight other ACS teachers.  All teachers involved will increase their understanding and knowledge of brain based discipline and classroom management.  Each teacher will have the two group study books as well as a set of classroom read aloud books. 

Tonya Sweater, Holly Gregg, Kimberley Eggett, Victoria Angelotti, Mary Elston, Molly Peters, Jeri Lutz, & Kelly Schultz are ACS Fifth Grade teachers who will continue this year as 5th Grade Science Fellows with the leadership of Donalyn Small.  For the 2011-2012 school year they will develop assessments that build on  their work in the previous year.  Using this grant they will create lessons and adjust their pacing guide to accommodate to new science standards.  By creating an organized assessment method of current standards, they will be better prepared for teaching and assessing their students when the new essential standards are implemented.  

Rhonda Sizemore, Laura Maynard, Rachel Reeser, Ali Trainor, May Castelloe & Marti Sullivan of Isaac Dickson Elementary, are Fellows working on the project Reaching All Learners: Engaging the Disengaged.  The goal of this project is to investigate whether differentiated enrichment opportunities that are driven by brain research and student interest will improve engagement and student achievement.  Through collaboration between three classroom teachers, two reading specialists and the AIG teacher they will design instruction so that targeted students will build foundational and high level thinking skills.  Through the yearlong process the teachers will aim to develop procedures for curriculum mapping that will help teachers address the neurological, emotional and environmental aspects of learning. 
 

2010 - 2011 Awards

Betsie Stockslager, of Isaac Dickson Elementary, was awarded $1,400 for Multi-Cultural Science Experience.  Betsie traveled to Belize with the North Carolina Museum of Natural Science and then created integrated units of study in science and social studies that compared our local environment to ecosystems in Central America and around the world.  Students used videos, photographs, science equipment and artifacts from Belize and made meaningful connections to the world and cultures outside of Asheville.

 
Gaelyn Lei Evangreene, of Isaac Dickson Elementary School was awarded $2,325 to study Kindergarten Conscious Discipline. Gaelyn said conscious discipline transformed her classroom, and her students, making kids more responsible for their behaviors and increasing the peace, harmony, and kindness of her classroom. Gaelyn says that most importantly, this study transformed her and has made her a better teacher, partner, mom, and human being.  This Fellow increased her knowledge of brain-based discipline and classroom management by attending workshops on Conscious Discipline in the areas of Self-Regulation and Conflict Resolution. Purchased materials will be used in the classroom and as a parent lending library.
 
All 5 Elementary Schools are awarded $6,000 total for 5th Grade Science Fellows, a proposal written by Donalyn Small, Tomas Seijo, Tonya Sweater, Holly Gregg, Kimberly Eggett, Kelly Schultz, Molly Peters, Jerri Lutz and Victoria Angelotti. The Fellowship Team collaborated as a professional learning community to produce high quality, hands-on, guided inquiry-based science lessons that integrated math and literacy across the entire fifth grade science curriculum. Their students got dirty in Dupont Woods on field trips to the Muddy Sneakers program. Students built model cars to test out force and motion, and used the scientific method to investigate a hypothesis of their own creation and shared at the Student Inquiry Conference.
 

A Reading, Riding and Retrofit Green Team Grant was awarded to Rachel Reeser for her Foam Tray Dump project.  This project will teach the students about the environmental hazards of Styrofoam and work towards purchasing reusable trays in the cafeteria.

A TAPAS grant was given to Marti Sullivan for resident artist, Cleaster Cotton, and the AL.NU.GE Codes and Symbols project.  This project has 4th grade ESG students making up their own language through codes. 

A Micro-Grant was awarded to the third grade teachers, May Castelloe, Jesse Emry, Ali Trainer and  Betsie Stockslager for a Thomas Wolfe field trip and workshops.  The students will visit Thomas Wolfe Memorial Site and have four writing workshops with True Ink facilitator, Janet Hurley. 

Libby Kyles was awarded a Micro-Grant for Writing to Change the World project.  The students will be participating in a year long writing project including learning how to publish their work.

A Micro-Grant was awarded to Kelly Schultz for her class blog through Edublog Pro Services.  This will give students an opportunity to share their knowledge of what they are studying while practicing 21st century learning skills.      

 

2009 - 2010 Awards

Isaac Dickson Elementary School is awarded an ACSF Innovation Grant for the Por Quoi Cherokee Tales, a proposal written by Mairead Smitka.  The program will bring in Cherokee artists to enhance the study of North Carolina cultural groups for the fourth grade curriculum.

  

All five elementary schools are awarded an ACSF Innovation grant for Science Notebooks, a proposal written by Donalyn Small. This program will engage students in writing about science exploration.

 

All five elementary schools are awarded an ACSF Innovation grant for Bringing Words to Life, a proposal written by Helga Graff, Chrystal Hendrix, Martha Hayes, Beverly McBrayer, and Linda Geer.  This program brings award-winning, African American, North Carolina, author Carol Boston Weatherford to hour-long assemblies for all third through fifth graders, for which the students will have read her books and will complete follow-up activities.