On Tuesday, February 4, AVID students from IJSHS, PJSHS, and CCJSHS attended the SOAR STEM and Trades Symposium held at University of North Florida in Jacksonville. Sponsored by NDIA First Coast Chapter, the event brought together industry, post-secondary education, and military to show students a myriad of options available to them in a variety of STEM-related careers in our Northeast Florida Region. The day began with a keynote address by Kate McAfoose, President of Chang Robotics. She shared with students her background in engineering and how her company has integrated robotics into a variety of career fields including agriculture, healthcare, manufacturing, and transportation. She was followed by Parul Patel, President of Pelocity, who motivated students to find their passion and not give up on what they want to do. She talked about all the different pathways students have in front of them and that it's okay to go the "wrong" pathway for a short time. Students were then treated to a panel of decorated military officers from a variety of branches. The next portion of the event allowed students to attend breakout sessions on Engineering/Biomedical Engineering/Cyber IT, Artificial Intelligence/Robotics, Technical/Trades/Public Service. These sessions allowed students to ask questions of presenters and interact in a smaller setting with some of the professionals at the event. Students were able to visit representatives at tables throughout the afternoon where they were able to participate in demonstrations and various other engagement activities. For more pictures from this event, click here.

Michele Knowles, one of our AVID trained and AVID Site Team members at QI Roberts Jr. Sr. High School, was honored as HCA Teacher of the Month for December by HCA Putnam Hospital and the Education Foundation of Putnam County. Michele teaches pre-AICE Geometry and Advanced Placement Statistics. She is the advisor for National Honor Society and the Debate Team. She is an integral part of the math department and the AVID Site Team at QIRJSHS. As her principal Joe Theobold said, "Michele shows she is Fearless Learner because no matter the challenge, she meets it. She has been a key part of the QIRJSHS math team, participating with Impact Florida, whose mission is to empower education leaders to recognize, support, and scale great teaching practices so that all children are able to realize success in life--as a learner and a presenter." Our AVID district team finds it no surprise that Michele was honored in this way--when you walk into her classroom space you can feel the enthusiasm and excitement she brings to the classroom each day. Congratulations Michele!

Ms. Wanyanga's AVID students at Crescent City Jr. Sr. High School were in the "thankful" spirit this last day before Thanksgiving break and wrote some sweet thank you notes to their teachers, past and present! Happy Thanksgiving!

This past month we visited PJSHS to check in on our AVID Peeps!  We saw so many amazing and wonderful things happening in our AVID Classrooms!

In Ms. Brazzeal’s AVID class, students start off the week with Daily Academic Vocabulary that introduces them to challenging words they may come across again in reading as they continue their education. Each day, Ms. Brazzeal completes a different activity where students interact with the new vocabulary word. Students also do a grade check where they look at their current grades and troubleshoot where they need improvements and how to get those improvements done. Since the nine weeks had recently ended, Ms. Brazzeal had students write three new goals for the new nine weeks and discuss those goals with their peers. We heard great conversations about why students had chosen specific goals and how they thought they would reach those goals!

Mrs. Everett also had her students think of some new goals for the new nine weeks and then she had them read a positive affirmation to get them started off on the right foot for the new nine weeks. She finished the class period with a discussion and activity where students learned about the differences and similarities between “college” careers and “trade” careers. 

Goal setting was the buzzword of the day even in our senior high AVID classes with Ms. Lands. Her students recently worked on how they could be support systems for one another. One of our favorite activities to see in Ms. Lands’s class each week is her “College of the Week” and “Career of the Week” activities. Students use Xello to research a specific college, university or tech school and a specific career. This week’s victims: Appalachian State University and Computer Hardware Engineer. Ms. Lands says these assignments really help her students to see what opportunities are out there and just how specific some careers can be since students often choose big broad career categories. 

Ms. Thompson’s classes are diving into a unit on intelligence and were completing a worksheet with brain teaser type questions. Then students had to answer the question: Do you think these questions actually measured your genius?  One student said, “No, because I have real world thinking. Like my knowledge is based on handsy, physical intelligence so I disagree.” Another student stated, “Yes because it makes you think out of the box to test how you think. Like numbers 7-10 you really had to think and use your brain.”

We also saw some great “AVID Walls” around PJSHS like college pumpkins, mirror, mirror on the wall with positive affirmations, powerful vocabulary, SMART goals, and descriptions of what AVID IS! We love how PJSHS does AVID! For more pictures from our visit, click here.