Dear families,
We are thinking of all of you during these challenging and uncertain times. As we navigate through uncharted territories, let us remember that we are a community and distance does not mean that we need to be distant.
UAMA is committed to ensuring that our students have access to the daily rigorous instruction and emotional support they are accustomed to while we practice remote learning. This email will lay out our most immediate next steps, as well as provide resources we hope will be helpful to you and your family during this crisis.
In order to best support our community we will use the uamusicandart.org website as the main hub for conveying information, posting updates, and as an access portal to our remote learning platform. Please make sure that you are checking the website daily for news and updates. We will also us the Kinvolved texting platform to communicate directly to parents and students with links to any new update.
During this time of remote learning, it is imperative that we have the most up-to-date contact information for both our parents and students. Our staff have spent that last 24 hours reaching out to all of our households to ensure that we have current email addresses and cell phone numbers. If you have not heard from us, it is because we have not been able to reach you. Please immediately fill out this link Parent Contact Form so that we can effectively communicate with you.
Below we have organized under specific headings how remote learning will be rolled out and how families may obtain technology. We are here to support you during these uncertain times so please feel free to reach out if you have any questions or need assistance.
Our thoughts are with you.
Please be well,
Paul Jonathan Thompson
Founding Principal
Urban Assembly School of Music and Art
Technology
On March 19, 2020 we will be providing laptops to families that need them. We have a limited number of resources and they will be distributed on a first come first serve basis. Parents will need to be present and fill out the STUDENT DEVICE LOAN AGREEMENT in order to obtain a laptop. Please email our Parent Coordinator, Cierra Copeland copeland1@uamusicandart.org if you need a laptop.
Also on March 19, 2020 between 8:30 AM – 3:30 PM we will have available Hot Spot devices in order for students to access to access the internet. They will also be distributed on a first come first serve basis.
All remote instruction will be conducted through Google Classroom. This is a technology that all of our teachers have employed for a number of years so this will not be new for students. In order to access Google Classroom every student has an individualized UAMA Gmail account that they use to access all of their classes. Parents can access all of their student’s classes and see their work deliverables through their students account. If you want Guardian Access to your students Google Classroom you must request access by emailing the teacher of the course directly. Once they receive you request they will invite you to have Guardian Access.
General Instructional Philosophy
At UAMA we believe that the most powerful work we can be engaged is building our students analytical skills so that they can effectively navigate the dominant culture. The most effective way of doing this is by building their ability to be proficient readers, writers, and their capacity to build coherent and reasoned arguments. Toward this end all lessons, curriculum planning and team meeting time is dedicated to improving students’ skills in these three areas. This focus builds our students’ literacy and requires students to employ these three modalities to independently complete complex tasks. To achieve this, students are responsible for completing a marking period deliverable that includes the writing of an augmentative essay. All of this is to say, that as we engage in remote learning, all students will be responsible for reading rigorous texts that their teachers will organize, doing copious amounts or writing – either through daily free writes and the Marking Period Deliverable, and engaging in discussions through video conferencing centered around developing and defending a point of view.
Daily Instruction
All UAMA courses utilize Google Classroom to present student facing materials (documents, playlist readings, activities, prompts, etc.) daily, weekly, and marking period deliverables (daily response posts, google classroom questions and peer replies), and Projects (all student work builds toward the demonstration of Five Key Cognitive Strategies (KCS) Proficiency in End of Marking Period and End of Course Mastery Based Projects).
At UAMA we believe that learning does not stop in the classroom or during the school period/day. Students have 24hour access to all materials through the online learning platforms already employed across the school.
All learning activities are divided into two learning formats:
- Synchronous learning which refers to a learning event in which a group of students are engaging in learning at the same time, like video conferencing.
- Asynchronous learning is a student-centered teaching method that uses online learning resources to facilitate information sharing outside the constraints of time and place among a network of people.
Synchronous Education
Teachers will be available online to students for instructional supports during specific “office hours” of availability to respond directly to student needs. During office hours teachers will be available for 4 hours a week to provide direct instruction through Goggle Meets, a live on-line video conferencing platform. Below is the schedule for office hours:
- HUMANITIES & MUSIC MONDAY & WEDNESDAY
10:00 – 11:00 AM
1:00 – 2:00 PM
- STEM & PHYS ED TUESDAY & THURSDAY
10:00 – 11:00 AM
1:00 – 2:00 PM
- BARD Sequence EVERYDAY MON-THURS
AM 9:00 – 10:00
- Peer Group Collective FRIDAY
10:00 AM
ASynchronous Education
Asynchronous instruction includes all of the direct student-centered work students are responsible for completing independently. Examples of this include:
- Daily Free-write Prompts (approx. 15-20 minutes a day, 75-100 minutes a week)
- Weekly Reading and Response (1 hour a day, 5 hours a week) from a playlist of curated rigorous readings posted weekly on google classroom
- Students select a minimum of two texts to read and respond to using a dialectical model providing evidence from the text used to support a claim the student is making based on response to a course essential question, OR evidence is analyzed by the student to demonstrate how the text connects to course essential questions
- Student post responses to multiple peers’ replies
- Weekly / Marking Period Deliverable (approx. 5 hours a week)