Paired Verbal Fluency

 Instructional Strategy: Paired Verbal Fluency

Paired Verbal Fluency is a dialogue strategy that is used to engage students in conversation through social interaction. It can be used to review or summarize information, expand student thinking, check comprehension, all while building social emotional learning and providing students with peer feedback.

How it works

  1. Teacher develops and shares a question with the students. The type of question will vary but should be an open-ended question.
  2. Students are assigned pairs (randomly or pre-determined).
  3. Explain to students
  • Students will determine who will be Partner A and who will be Partner B.
  • There will be 3 rounds of different lengths (see tips). For example, Round 1: 60 seconds each; Round 2: 45 seconds each, Round 3: 15 seconds each.
  • Students will talk and listen to each other. Students cannot repeat anything that has been said by their partner when it’s their turn.
  • Explain that students will have to time themselves and when time is up, they should SWITCH.
            Round 1
            Student A: 60 seconds
            Student B: 60 seconds
            Round 2
            Student A: 45 seconds
            Student B: 45 seconds
            Round 3
            Student A: 15 seconds
            Student B: 15 seconds
  • Students thank their partners and rejoin the class.
  • Students summarize (in writing or otherwise) key points, ideas that they are not sure about or want clarified, or any questions they have about the topic.  

Tips

  • The amount for each round should differ based on student readiness and the purpose of the activity.
  • Younger students or students with less readiness may benefit from shorter times.
  • To assess prior knowledge, the amount to time should increase from round to round since they will be more likely to remember more and make more connections as they learn with their partner.
  • To summarize learning, the amount of time should decrease from round to round. You may also want to lessen the number of rounds.

CRT Schoolwide Meeting

Our PLC meeting this week will be focused on CRT. It will be on Thursday from 3:35 to 4:50. In preparation for the meeting please be sure to have completed 1 of the 3 tasks from the Characteristic 1 of the CRT playbook (slide 5, 6, 7). Please also take several minutes to select 1 student and complete characteristic 1 (student notes) on the Student Reflection. Both are linked below:

CRT Playbook (https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Q8Oeda7BB-Michx-RTt4UoLJiWz3BxT6qX2YZRv-CnQ/copy )

 

CRT Student Reflection (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1umIPetGVyvNu6wy0UhqZEbVS9askxdZp3M803xDrHJs/copy) 

Information

Previously Announced Schedule Changes

  • Tuesday, January 25 - now a full Teacher Workday (no school for students)
  • Wednesday, February 16 - now a full day of instruction for students (instead of a half-day)
  • Friday, February 18 - now a non-student day, with the morning reserved for Division PLC meetings and the afternoon reserved for a Teacher Workday

The next round of Division PLC (DPLC) meetings is coming up this Friday, January 21. Please refer to the UPDATED Division PLC 2021-22 document for the meeting schedule and Zoom links.

Please note the remaining DPLC meetings for the year will take place in the mornings on Feb. 18, March 4, and April 22.

Payroll

Thank you for completing your timecards on Friday.

Employees will receive their first paycheck of the biweekly pay cycle on Friday, January 21. This paycheck will cover January 1-14 only.

If you feel you’ve been paid incorrectly, please check your timecard in Kronos, as that is where the information is pulled from. HR will be holding virtual drop-in sessions this week and next if employees have questions they need resolved, or they should email payrollclarityquestions@albemarle.org. HR will also be messaging this information through Compass and will include it on the ACPS Payroll Clarity Project web page.

Upcoming paychecks are as follows:

  • January 21 - pay for January 1-14
  • January 31 - True Up pay for some employees
  • February 4 - pay for January 15-28

Elementary School

Please be sure to remind your students/families about supplies being available at their base schools.
 

I know with PALS testing coming up we are looking for ways to administer these with minimal disruption. They really don’t want us doing much asynchronous work, but I know our challenges are unique when compared to last year. If you’ll let me know how I can help, when you might need some coverage/substitutes, and if you have any great ideas, it would be greatly appreciated.
 

I’m redoing the announcements to reflect the days off and the sort.

Secondary School

Assessment and Grading Practices Please review the following videos for information and changes to be implemented for second semester

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bjGFlhwONRo_WYX4x5fwtUuCR31LiiIj/view?usp=drivesdk 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gBYdaSxq7-t_WGwo1cet5uFLqozXEv62/view?usp=drivesdk 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qCBrJ0syZi3w_KNzd-ny409VqDYlMBwK/view?usp=drivesdk 

Here’s the powerpoint

Thursday’s Middle School Advisory is a progress check. New procedure and new form https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dxCdVgMakSHlVGjN92WuYZXzzpWVxSusrvXFCgoAAng/edit?usp=sharing 

End of Semester Adjustment

Because several days of school have been canceled, we have adjusted the end of our first semester to January 28. Because the first semester grade accounts for 50% of a student’s year-long grade, we wanted to ensure our students have ample time to complete work and end of semester learning assessments, tests, etc. We believe this additional time will benefit all of our students. Teachers will continue to work individually with students to ensure their success.

At this time there are no other changes to our school calendar. Friday, January 21 is a half-day for students. Students will not have school on Monday, January 24 and Tuesday, January 25 as these will remain teacher work days. January 21 is an A-day and January 28 is a B-Day.



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