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Should it stay or should it go...?
Though we had another tremendously successful conference, NCES and its Board of Directors is considering putting North Country Professional Development Day on hiatus for next year. What are your thoughts? Whether you attended this year or in past years, here's your chance to weigh in. Please take a few moments to complete this brief five question survey.
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Director's Notes
October sure felt like a whirlwind, but it was an exciting month at NCES. Here are some of the highlights:
- We kicked off the month with North Country Professional Development Day. Our featured speaker, Polly Bath, drew a large audience and our overall participation was slightly higher than last year. Many thanks to our host, White Mountains Regional High School.
- October brought us great news from the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation's Tillotson Fund. NCES has been awarded $69,035 for technology integration efforts in North Country schools. The grant will support two projects. One focused on professional development in seven Coos County schools and the other for a regional middle school film festival.
- NCES was also successful in forming a North Country Technology Leadership Cohort. Through SAU 20, eleven schools are collaborating in the 2009-10 TLC group for this region.
- October marked the kick-off of a three-school professional development project in hands-on mathematics with Tom Schersten. There are 72 educators participating from Lancaster Elementary, Lisbon Regional and Whitefield Elementary.
- And last, but not least, we closed the month with an arts, culture and politics seminar on the revolution of Estonia with an event made possible through funding by the New Hampshire Humanities Council.
Lori Langlois
Interim Executive Director
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Technology Integration Project for Coos Educators
Funding through the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation's Neil and Louise Tillotson Fund will support intensive professional development for seven schools in Coos County. NCES' Technology Integration Specialist, Paula Churchill, will be visiting classrooms in each of the participating schools six times over the course of the school year. Learn more about the project at http://www.ncedservices.org/coos_tech.htm
The seven schools participating in the project are Colebrook Elementary School, Errol Consolidated Elementary School, Hillside Elementary School, Milan Village Elementary School, Stark Village School, Stewartstown Community School and Stratford Public School.
A kick-off event was held at NCES on October 29 for participating teachers. The remainder of the professional development will take place in schools.
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Demonstration lessons part of Schersten math series
 Mathematics consultant Tom Schersten is working with K-8 teachers from Lancaster, Lisbon and Whitefield. He will meet with each grade span three times and each session features a demonstration lesson with students. Here, Tom (far left), is working with third grade students using manipulatives for multiplication. The lessons are a minimum of 90 minutes each and teachers will observe a lesson at each grade level in their cohort. The teachers are intermixed with the students during the hands-on lesson.
Schools interested in collaborating in a similiar series for the 2010-2011 school year should contact NCES soon for scheduling.
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Singing Revolution
(Left-right): Frumie Selchen, Executive Director for Arts Alliance of Northern NH, Irja Cilluffo, Honorary Consul of Estonia, Filmmaker James Tusty, and Dr. Barbara Baudot, Professor of International Relations & Comparative Politics at St. Anselm College.
NCES recently hosted a seminar to examine the intersection of arts, culture and politics, using James Tusty's documentary The Singing Revolution. The documentary tells the little known story of how Estonians freed themselves from decades of Soviet occupation in the 1980s. The DVD is available for loan from the NCES Media Center.
The seminar was a joint collaboration of NCES, the Arts Alliance and the NH State Council on the Arts with funding by the New Hampshire Humanities Council.
Sponsored by: 
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Upcoming Professional Development
Student Response Systems
Topics covered will be how to set up student response systems, setting up multiple choice, Yes/No, ranking, matching, or short answer questions and viewing student results. You will learn what software and hardware the systems require, how they complement existing interactive white boards or work without one, assign student names to each “clicker” and how to save the student responses to analyze later. Both ActivExpression and Senteo devices will be demonstrated.
Date: Thursday, November 5, 2009 from 9:00 to 3:00
Presenter: Paula Churchill
Refreshments: Continental breakfast beginning at 8:30 am and lunch will be provided
Cost: Member School Staff $30, Associate Member School Staff $35, Non-Member $40
Location: NCES Conference Room, Gorham, NH
Registration: Please register by calling NCES at 800-268-5437 or 603-466-5437. Purchase orders should be faxed to 603-466-2907.
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Language Arts Professional Development
It's a long winter ahead! Come gather with Jean Mann and colleagues at NCES for a variety of evening workshops which will address areas that teachers have expressed a need to strengthen and improve.
Here's a preview:
Individual Differences: Developmentally Appropriate Practices
(for Grades K-3)
This session will address that wide span of development you have in your classrooms each year so that you can meet each student where they are. We’ll follow the predictable, sequential path of your students physically, cognitively, socially and in the area of language and look at the classroom implications. You’ll learn how to integrate all that you are required to teach into developmentally-appropriate practices for your wide range of learners.
Making Sense of Writing Traits; Teach to Your Students Not to the Test
(for Grades 1-6)
From this session you'll be able to go back to your classroom able to engage students in learning how to discover weak areas in their writing, understanding why they occur, and knowing how to improve them and the quality of a whole piece. We'll integrate contexts such as 6-Traits, standards, and scoring rubrics, and translate them into real-life language for young writers instead of points. You'll improve daily writing practices and at the same time guarantee higher test scores.
Non-Fiction Reading Strategy Instruction
(for Grades 3-6)
Did you know that cockroaches can predict earthquakes? Come and see what you can learn in this session that helps students make sense of a text. Explicit strategy instruction, transfer of learning, student application and ownership are the keys to enjoyment and comprehension for young readers.
Increase Vocabulary Understanding and Use
(for Grades 3-6)
Isolated memorizing and practicing of vocabulary words doesn't carry over into successful application. This session will offer explicit instruction on how to help students take ownership of their reading and writing vocabulary. They'll gain higher-level achievement through key strategies, reinforcing practice, and independent application.
Optimal Spelling Instruction
(for Grades K-4)
Why do students get 100 on their Friday spelling tests then spell so many things wrong in their Monday writing? This session will cover everything you need to know about teaching spelling effectively: developmental stages of spelling; authentic assessment of spelling needs; strategies and mini-lessons for phonetic, visual, and semantic patterns; sight words; word-sorting for higher-level thinking and forming generalizations; student accountability to use, proofread and edit what they know in spelling.
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North Country Technology Leadership Cohort for 2009-10
Erik Anderson
David Backler
Rick Biche
Rick Bidgood
Karen Conroy
Pierre Couture
Janet Drapeau
Bridget Gagne
Kari Goulet
Carol Grosky
Lisa Guay
Sarahjean Harris
Susan Herzog
Kim Hockmeyer
Lorna Holcombe
Steve Hoyt
Faith Kimball
Karen Laroche
Rosanna Moran
Jennifer Opalinski
Kelly Paige
Ronald Paquette
Kevin Richard
Shelli Roberts
Stephen Sexton
Dan Shallow
Jessica Sherman
Kim Stoloski
Brenda Tilton
Stephen Torrey
Courtney Vashaw Piper
Kristy Volmer
Marty Wakeman
Katie Weir
Nikki Woods
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North Country Substance Abuse Prevention Coalition
20 Youth Grants
Leaders in Prevention Scholarships
Four scholarships are reserved for the January 15-17, 2010 Teen Institute Leaders in Prevention program for teams of eight middle school students. Contact Diane Gibbs at dgibbs@nchcnh.org or 837-2519 ext 222.
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