(1) “SMARTER” Summer Institute – an institute to address educators’ need to learn more about assessing the Common Core State Standards, including the creation of assessment items for all ELA standards, including a performance task.

(2) Put Writing Back into the Curriculum – an institute exploring innovative ways to include the Common Core State Standards for narrative, opinion, and informative writing into classroom daily activities, including creating and sharing lesson plans for use in Delaware classrooms and using a CCSS-aligned rubric to assess student writing.

(3) Teaching Non-Fiction Writing with Style – an institute exploring how to incorporate the Common Core State Standards’ focus on informative writing instruction into Delaware classrooms.

Additionally, the Delaware Center for Teacher Education is offering year-long partnerships on this topic.  Dr. Bonnie Albertson is working the Smarter Balanced as a reviewer of ELA items.  She’s very knowledgeable about the SBAC assessment framework –and how SBAC is designing assessment items that link to the Common Core State Standards.  If you are interested in inviting Bonnie to work with your teachers this coming academic year, please contact Bonnie at 831-0722 or bonniea@udel.edu.  Bonnie is eager to share all that she has learned with Delaware teachers!

This school year, 100 kindergarteners attending the J. Ralph McIlvaine Early Childhood Center in Magnolia, Delaware entered the state’s only Chinese language immersion program. The program was successfully launched thanks to the efforts of several University of Delaware alumni and the support of UD’s Confucius Institute.

Kevin Fitzgerald, superintendent of the Caesar Rodney School District, jumped at the opportunity to provide kindergarten students with the advantage of learning Chinese. Fitzgerald earned his doctorate from the School of Education. Principal Sherry Kijowski and Assistant Principal Brook Castillo of the McIlvaine Early Childhood Center, both also School of Education graduates, were responsible for implementing the program at the center. Please see the full story online.