May 19, 2023
“For me, I am driven by two main philosophies: know more today about the world than I knew yesterday and lessen the suffering of others. You’d be surprised how far that gets you.”
Have a quote you would like to submit for next week’s Staff Update? Click here to share the words of wisdom that inspired you most recently.
Office Survey
We are beginning to prepare for the next academic year, and the best way to organise office placements for new teachers, as well as considering any room change requests from teachers who feel they would prefer to be located in a different office.
A survey form will be circulated the week of June 5, 2023 to gather office move requests. Please note that we will try to accommodate as many requests as possible, but we can not guarantee that we will be able to meet all requests.
Staff Portal - Academics Page
Teachers, please note that the Academics section of the Staff Portal has recently been updated to provide a cleaner look and some updated content. Please review when you have a chance.
Feedback is also welcome as we look to continue improving the information and resources available to UTS teachers on the Staff Portal.
Micro:bit Maker-in-Residence Series @ Lang Innovation Lab
Please join the Innovation Team after school on May 16, for the second session of the second Maker-in-Residence series in the Lang Innovation Lab.
Tess Butler-Ulrich is working towards her Master of Education at OTU, with a focus on making and STEAM education.
The subject of this series is microprocessors such as micro:bits. For this workshop, we will continue working with the micro:bit and go over how to connect it to a device, inputs and outputs, as well as setting up micro:bit. We will also explore coding through a series of challenges and debugging activities such as creating a simple shape using the LEDs on the micro:bit or writing a short message using the LEDs.
Missed the first session? No worries! We’d love to see you there!
Please sign up here if you are interested in joining us.
ColLAB: Developing Ethical AI Literacy + Critical Thinking
The Learning Innovation team invites you to ColLAB with us on May 25, lunchtime in the I-Lab, in conversation with Tess Butler-Ulrich (UTS Maker-In-Residence, Environmental Educator, OTU PhD student in AI Literacy in Education) to consider: "How might we foster student learning of social and ethical AI considerations in STEM/STEAM learning?"
Hear about a virtual camp that Tess designed and facilitated, aimed at uncovering youth's perspectives of AI and fostering ethical AI Literacy through critical conversations and coding challenges. We will also consider ways to ensure student development of critical thinking alongside development of digital skills.
Kindly RSVP to the calendar invite by 5 p.m. Tuesday May 23, so that Paula can arrange for our lunchtime pizza.
We hope to see you there,
Learning Innovation Team (Andrew, Nat, Cresencia)
Animatronics Workshop
Want to create and play with animatronics? In this hands-on workshop, former Disney Imagineer, Paul Dietz, will lead you in building simple talking paper robots that can tell the stories of history, science, and culture.
Animatronics offers learners a way to tell their own stories, engage in STEAM, and directly supports the curriculum as a tool for students to dive deeply into a subject and bring it to life. In the process, students learn to work creatively across both technical and artistic disciplines, imagining characters, writing scripts, building mechanisms, performing voices and programming movements. It is a fun way to extend critical thinking, creativity, and communication in any classroom.
Please join the Learning Innovation Team in the Lang Innovation Lab on Tuesday, May 30, from 4:00 - 5:30 p.m. Please sign up here if you are interested in joining us.
Integrative Thinking Summer Institute
Interested in Integrative Thinking and how it can be used to engage students in collaborative real-world problem solving, across any subject area?
I-Think is offering a Summer Institute (Aug. 23-25) and registration is open. Cresencia and a few others at UTS have had the pleasure of participating in the I-Think PD and they’re always excellent. One walks away with practical pedagogical tools that can be applied and adapted in any teaching (or PD facilitation) context.
$500 of the registration cost can be covered by a 1.0 teacher’s Personal PD allocation for 2023-24. There’s a discount for groups of 5 or more, so please let Cresencia know if you’d like to register. Registration tends to fill up quickly.
Athletics Calendars
Silver Linings
Have a silver lining you would like to submit for next week’s Staff Update? Click here to share something that brought you joy recently.
