Teachers College - Center for the Professional Education of Teachers (TCCPET)
TCCPET provides BEES teachers with on-site professional development coaching. With on-going classroom visitation, reflective conversations, and workshops, TCCPET coaches guide teachers in improving their pedagogical practice and creating BEES-specific curriculum. They provide one-on-one coaching for both teachers and school leaders. The primary goal is to both memorialize the excellent work that teachers already do in their classroom and create cohesion across subject areas and grade levels.
Learning Partners Program
The purpose of LPP is to foster interschool collaboration. Partner schools are given the opportunity to participate in intervisitation where they can share best practices and provide constructive feedback to improve all schools involved. Each school engages in multiple cycles of inquiry throughout the school year in which they identify a learning focus area, a problem within that are, and then implement a change idea. In this way schools aim to strengthen their practice learning from each other and from themselves.
Middle School Quality Initiative (MSQI)
MSQI is the New York City Department of Education’s focused effort to expand the number of middle schools that prepare students for college and career success. The main goal is to establish a school-wide Literacy Vision that makes every classroom a literacy classroom. Each school is invited to participate in a range of programs to improve and widen their literacy focus. At BEES, we have implemented multiple programs. The Word Generation curriculum aims to increase students’ academic vocabulary through exposure to new words across all content areas. Strategic Reading Periods allow students to tackle literacy work based on their current reading levels. In addition, BEES students are also invited to participate in MSQI-led debates and poetry slams.
Algebra For All
Algebra For All is a city-wide initiative that aims to provide algebra instruction beginning in middle school. To this end, math teachers receive professional development throughout the year. As part of this initiative, BEES math teachers provide algebra and pre-algebra instruction to ready students and work to build all students’ algebra readiness.
Urban Advantage Science Initiative (UA)
Urban Advantage aims to improve science instruction and student interest in the sciences. UA provides professional development through partnerships with the city’s science institutions, like the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) and the Bronx Zoo. Participating teachers learn how to engage students in hands-on scientific problem solving and how to design their own experiments. Urban Advantage also provides free class field trips, science supplies, and vouchers for family visits. At the end of the year students are invited to participate in the UA Science Expo where they can showcase their work at AMNH.
Achievement Network (ANET)
ANet provides a host of tools and materials that help schools improve student learning, specifically in ELA and Math classes. BEES administers ANet interim three times a year in order to collect data around student performance. ANet coaches assist teachers to analyze the assessments and the data collected to inform future instruction. Teachers also have access to assessment tools that they can use in their own classrooms.
Specialized High School Admissions Test (SHSAT) Day School
There are nine Specialized High Schools in New York City that serve the needs of students who excel academically and artistically, including English Language Learners and students with an IEP or 504 Plan. These schools have a separate, optional admissions process from the general High School Admissions application. Students can participate in Specialized High Schools Admissions in addition to High School Admissions.
What is Computer Science For All?
In fall 2015, Mayor Bill de Blasio and Chancellor Carmen Fariña announced an ambitious set of goals for New York City schools: By 2026, 80% of our students will graduate high school on time, and two-thirds of our students will be college ready. There are eight initiatives that comprise the Equity and Excellence agenda which will ensure all students receive a world-class education and have the opportunity to reach their full potential. Computer Science For All is one of the Equity and Excellence Initiatives.
Through an unprecedented public-private partnership, by 2025, all NYC public school students will receive meaningful, high‐quality Computer Science (CS) education at each school level: elementary, middle, and high school. Over the next 10 years, the DOE will train nearly 5,000 teachers who will bring CS education to the City’s ~1.1 million public school students.
NYC students will learn to think with the computer, instead of using computers to simply convey their thinking. Students will learn computational thinking, problem solving, creativity, and critical thinking; to collaborate and build relationships with peers; to communicate and create with technologies; and to better understand technologies we interact with daily. These skills will be integral to student success in higher education, the 21st century job market and beyond.
All schools will provide CS education to all students by 2025. Schools can implement CS education in a way that aligns best to their educational vision. CS can be a semester course, a multi-year sequence, or incorporated into other content area courses (e.g. science, math, art) in middle and high schools. For elementary schools, CS can be incorporated into core classes or cluster classes like art, music, or technology.
The DOE and partner organizations will offer an array of professional learning opportunities to train nearly 5,000 teachers across elementary, middle, and high school. This will ensure that all students receive at least one meaningful, high-quality CS learning experience at each school level, across the range of implementation options.