Virtues Anchor our Learning

Julia Olmedo (AP), Kelley Horvath (Inclusion Teacher), Jennifer Connolly (Math Resource), Nicole Wagner (Reading Specialist), Bridgett Palmer (STAT Teacher) – Chapel Hill Elementary

Virtues Anchor our Learning at Chapel Hill Elementary Watching students stick with a complex non-fiction passage utilizing the Notice and Note Nonfiction Signposts, shows their determination to focus their energy and efforts on a task.  Through our integration of Notice and Note Nonfiction by Kylene Beers and Robert E. Probst within the larger BCPS curriculum framework, students are more fully engaged and questioning the text they are reading. Across curriculum areas, students are adopting a questioning stance discussing what changed, challenged, or confirmed their thinking with one another.  When students utilize the Notice and Note Nonfiction signposts and strategies their engagement with the text deepens leading to greater rigor.  Students are steadfast and persistent as they construct meaning from nonfiction making connections from one topic to another and from one content area to another.   Students and teachers at Chapel Hill Elementary participate in their daily mathematics lessons with determination and perseverance.  As a school, students and staff are dedicated to high-level application and problem solving as we focus on the foundations of mathematical discourse. Teachers and students are mindful to incorporate rich mathematical vocabulary into their conversations and journal writing and make a deliberate effort to incorporate mathematical conversations and connections to the real world on a daily basis. During shared learning, collaborative small groups and in their written work, students challenge not only themselves, but their classmates, using Math Talk stems to spark dialogue and engage in meaningful problem solving applications.  At Chapel Hill, teachers have taken pride in creating supportive classroom environments that encourage risk-taking and provide safe learning zones for students to meet the high expectations that are placed upon them each and every day, and we are so proud of their commitment to successful learning and academic growth.

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“We want kids as readers of nonfiction to be active, to challenge the text, and to invite the text to challenge and change them. When students recognize that nonfiction ought to challenge us, slow us down, and make us think, they’re more likely to become close readers.” – Kylene Beers and Robert E. Probst