Ashley New, iLEAD student, shared a presentation to highlight iLead with Mrs. Razor, Executive Director of NKCES and Mrs. Alford, Regional Director of Special Education. Miss New shared an overview of the program, her personal journey and the impact it is having on her educational experience. She was happy to share the successes and challenges encountered as the school implements some of America’s foremost innovations in education.  A few highlights of this unique learning experience include:

Student-Designed Education - Students design their schedule and choose how, what, when, and where they will learn.  iLEAD is a 24/7 learning environment.  Each student has a laptop and also are welcome to use their phones and other digital devices for learning.

Unprecedented Partnership with Area Technical Center
 iLEAD students choose courses at the Carroll County Area Technical Center to prepare for careers in electrical engineering, Industrial Maintenance Technology, automotive, and Informatics.

Competency-Based Education
Students advance when they master standards in a course.  Each student has control over the pace of his or her own learning.

Graduation with an Associate’s Degree and high school diploma – As iLEAD students meet Kentucky's College-Ready benchmarks, they enroll in Jefferson Community and Technical College.  The goal is for every iLEAD student to graduate with an Associate's Degree and high school diploma.

NKAGE AND NKCES PARTNERING FOR REGIONAL IMPACT: DREAMFEST

 

The Northern Kentucky Association for Gifted Education, NKAGE, is planning Dreamfest, a day for our students who are identified as gifted and talented in math, science or the visual and performing arts.  It is truly a day that many of the region’s students look forward to each year!  This year, Dreamfest will be held on the campus of Northern Kentucky University on Thursday, March 10, 2016. Students will have a hands-on, active experience in a topic that interests them while it employs and encourages their talent.  All Superintendents and Assistant Superintendents are welcome to visit Dreamfest and see their students’ enthusiasm, firsthand, for this event.

Mindfulness Demonstration for Students

Why not take some time to learn about the benefits of mindfulness on this snow day?

Mind in a Jar - Planting Seeds: The Power of Mindfulness for Children MOVIE!

Planting Seeds: The Power of Mindfulness for Children MOVIE! Help us caption & translate this…

youtube.com

 

Let's not start over but keep moving forward!

I was fortunate to be able to attend Commissioner Pruitt's first State of K-12 Education in the Commonwealth Address: Focusing the progress we have made and the challenges we face. I especially like the commissioner's response to Common Core(@1:03).
Thanks to the teachers' voice, we own the work and revisions of KY Core Academic Standards. Let's not start over but keep moving forward!

http://mediaportal.education.ky.gov/…/state-of-k-12-educat…/.

State of K-12 Education in the Commonwealth | KDE Media Portal

http://mediaportal.education.ky.gov/leadership/commissioner/2016/01/state-of-k-12-education-in-the-commonwealth/

 

NKCES P.O.P. Tours (Problem of Practice Tours)

During our ISLN meetings, instructional leaders shared the problem of practice (i.e. What instructional concerns keep you up at night?) that they struggle with in their district. At a follow-up meeting, the group also had conversation around what is working in specific areas in response to the questions. NKCES has compiled these problems of practices and possible solutions into a Livebinder
for your review. P.O.P. and Successful Strategies Compilation
We will also begin scheduling visits to some of the schools that shared strategies to the problem of practice. The first one is coming up this month and will focus on the Problem of Practice: What are the strategies and next steps that are being implemented to build continuous improvement for PLC work for our schools?
Our first visit will be on January 20th at Glenn O ‘Swing to see PLCs in action. If you are interested in this visit, please contact Michele Augsback A.S.A.P. as space will be limited. Sharing practices such as this, we can become stronger as a region ( #NKY~TheBestPlaceToLearn).

                               

NKAGE AND NKCES PARTNERING FOR REGIONAL IMPACT: DREAMFEST

The regional kick-off meeting was a huge success with 100% representation from our NKY districts. The conversation about future endeavors and potential leadership for key positions was very productive and progress was made. The next meeting with be held at NKCES on January 22nd at 12:30p.m.
The Northern Kentucky Association for Gifted Education, NKAGE, is planning Dreamfest, a day for our students who are identified as gifted and talented in math, science or the visual and performing arts. It is truly a day that many of the region’s students look forward to each year! This year, Dreamfest will be held on the campus of Northern Kentucky University on Thursday, March 10, 2016. We would like them to have a hands-on, active experience in a topic that interests them while it employs and encourages their talent.

Mindfulness in the New Year

Mindfulness in the New Year

There is a great mindfulness in education movement underway. With growing distractions and the need to engage students in learning, mindfulness provides a key for educators. Not only does it create a stronger awareness but the benefits to brain development are many.

“The picture we have is that mindfulness practice increases one’s ability to recruit higher order, pre- frontal cortex regions in order to down-regulate lower- order brain activity,” she says. In other words, our more primal responses to stress seem to be superseded by more thoughtful ones. MRI scans show that after an eight-week course of mindfulness practice, the brain’s “fight or flight” center, the amygdala, appears to shrink. This primal region of the brain, associated with fear and emotion, is involved in the initiation of the body’s response to stress. As the amygdala shrinks, the pre- frontal cortex – associated with higher order brain

functions such as awareness, concentration and decision-making – becomes thicker.

The “functional connectivity” between these regions – i.e. how often they are activated together – also changes. The connection between the amygdala and the rest of the brain gets weaker, while the connections between areas associated with attention and concentration get stronger. –Tom Ireland

Read more: What does mindfulness meditation do to your brain? Resources: http://danielrechtschaffen.com/mindful-classroom/

NKCES has Mindfulness Resources you can review to see how this strategy can strengthen student learning. Of course, let’s not forget what these strategies can do for educators who are caught in a fast-paced world ....check out whil.com or headspace.com for an easy to use mindfulness tool!

 

WORLD SAVVY

Global learning is no longer a luxury, but is essential preparation for a changing world. #WorldSavvy @danamortenson @nkces.org  

Check out WorldSavvy.org

http://nkces.org/news-release-commissioner names program review task-force/

Today, Commissioner of Education Stephen Pruitt named a task force to study Program Reviews and consider solutions to address challenges related to the Program Review process. ​

Those among the named to the Commissioner’s program are NKCES Executive Director, Amy Razor and Jay Brewer, Superintendent of Dayton Independent Schools.

See news release​ for more information.