COMMUNITY
That’s right! We’re so eager to see you this summer that registration for Summer Institute (SI) and AVID DigitalXP opens Tuesday, February 8—one full day earlier than last year!
AVID’s professional learning events are an incredible, structured opportunity for educators to connect virtually or in a blended learning environment to hone their craft through collaboration, critical inquiry, and reflection. New to SI and DigitalXP this year are three separate Communities of Practice (CoPs) for AVID Elective and AVID Excel Elective educators, the inclusion of PreK for all elementary offerings, two course offerings for computer science, and much more. Be sure to check out the AVID Professional Learning Guide for details on specific CoPs!
Event dates for Summer Institute and AVID DigitalXP can be found at AVID.org/summer-professional-learning.
The AVID Speaker Contest is taking Summer Professional Learning to a new level this year. Educators and students from across the country are spreading their AVID impact story in various ways and sharing with the world what is now possible. If you or your students have an AVID story to share, it's not too late to get started. Check the speaker contest resources in MyAVID to get your class started on telling their stories and view this curated selection of AVID stories from the past.
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Short Film: l'Yunni Phillips
Rap: Jedd Bloom
Poem: Maria Hernandez
Essay: Randa Branson
All AVID educators and students are encouraged to apply. We are accepting entries in all formats: essay, poem, short story, or video that could be a song, rap, or impassioned speech.
Full contest details are available on AVID.org/speakercontests. Both written submissions and videos will be accepted, and although not required, a video recording of you delivering your speech is highly encouraged. Be sure to submit your essay or video to the appropriate link below:
As before, we hope to feature all types of voices from the AVID world, including AVID Elective and AVID Excel Elective teachers and students, AVID Elementary educators and students, and AVID Site Team teachers, counselors, principals, district leaders, and any other educator or student impacted by AVID. We also welcome students who attend an AVID Schoolwide campus to enter the contest. The deadline to enter is Tuesday, February 15.
The Spring Regional Professional Learning workshops and events are open for registration and are included in your benefits of annual membership. Please find details of our digital offerings (topics, dates, descriptions, etc.) in our Regional Professional Learning Portal, and register early to guarantee your spot.
We believe learning and fun go together; we also believe that learning during summer should be double the fun—or even fun2—which is why AVID Summer Bridge is a wonderful way to leverage your ESSER funds before they are gone.
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AVID’s English Language Development (ELD) Summer Bridge is designed for emerging to bridging English language learners in grades 6–10 and focuses on reading, writing, oral language, academic vocabulary, study skills, self-determination, and leadership. Download the curriculum sampler.
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AVID’s Math Summer Bridge offers two programs designed to support students in middle and high school with ensuring they are ready for rigorous 7th-grade math courses or Algebra I. Explore the curriculum samplers below:
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AVID’s Science Summer Bridge curriculum is aligned with Next Generation Science Standards and leverages inquiry and project-based learning to develop critical thinking and scientific problem-solving skills for middle and high school students. Explore the curriculum samplers below:
Log in to MyAVID to find out more about AVID Summer Bridge.
Asking for help is difficult. Really difficult. It requires that we be vulnerable, authentic, and clear about what we need help with. Alternatives to asking for help include struggling, frustration, feeling isolated, making excuses, and even failing. And as awful as those options are, we often choose them over asking the very people who care most about our success for help. Let that sink in.
Self-advocacy, or the ability to communicate your needs, is a valuable component of student agency. A life of possibility requires mastering the art of asking for help. Here are four ways to teach students how to ask for help:
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Normalize how difficult it is for almost everyone by talking about it with your students. Share examples from your own life that your students can relate to or brainstorm how we see friends or classmates going to extreme measures to avoid asking for help. Validate that this is difficult and that it takes time and intentional practice to learn how to do it well. And then engage in a conversation about how good it feels to help someone who needs it—that it’s an amazing feeling to show up for someone else when they need it.
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Ask your students for help. There are a million ways to model asking for help in your classroom. Consider having rotating classroom “jobs” that you ask students to volunteer for or asking students to help you improve a lesson that just didn’t go the way you thought it should have. You can even problem-solve how to handle classroom norms being repeatedly broken as a group.
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Celebrate. When students ask for help, celebrate their courage. Create a classroom culture where self-advocacy is recognized and where relational capacity creates space for vulnerability and allows students to show up as themselves. Develop a classroom culture where perfectly imperfect humans are okay with being imperfect and even ask for help from their peers to prove it.
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Create opportunities for repetition and coaching through Collaborative Study Groups, Scholar Groups, and tutorials. Repetition, scaffolding, and coaching are what students benefit from as they move through the before, during, and after phases of these collaborative and inquiry-based processes. Log in to MyAVID and explore the Collaborative Study Groups resources or visit the Tutorials Webpage for resources and information.
AVID at Grace Lutheran
by Nicole Clifton, Principal, Grace Lutheran School
Are You a STEM School or an AVID School?
by Kathy Ray, Principal, Porter Elementary School
When Kathy Ray, principal of Porter Elementary, heard concerns that the school’s new STEM initiatives interfered with their AVID goals, she knew she had to set the record straight. Learn how one school uses the Elementary Coaching and Certification Instrument (CCI) to align their dreams of continuous growth with AVID to provide all students a future of endless possibility.
For the first time in over two years, the AVID community was able to gather together for a national event, connect with one another, share ideas, and be inspired to go further together. AVID National Conference was made even more special when the AVID Alumni Panel captivated the audience with an update on where the students from the People Like Me video are now, as well as their impact on the communities around them. Together, we discovered that this collection of AVID alumni represents entrepreneurs, educators, health care systems developers, and restaurant owners.
Afterward, the AVID Student Panel captured our hearts, as the students shared quite adamantly how important organization and collaboration are to their school success because of AVID.
There was a palpable enthusiasm and fervor throughout NatCon, as educators rolled in and out of sessions led by fellow AVID educators on school impact, motivation, equity, and educator agency and were provided resources and tools to take back to their home campuses to grow college and career readiness for every student.
We were also thrilled with the attendance and response for the 2021 AVID National Conference Leadership Forum. We appreciate all of those who came and took part in the networking and professional learning sessions. The PowerPoints and handouts from the professional learning sessions at the Leadership Forum are available in MyAVID.
AVID’s mission is to close the opportunity gap by preparing all students for college readiness and success in a global society.
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