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College Decisions

5/3/2018

Woods graduates of the Class of 2018 will pursue diverse paths in the "world beyond Woods," including full-time work and the US Navy. College matriculations will include:

American University
Appalachian State University
Art Institute of Raleigh-Durham
Carteret Community College
Davidson College
George Mason University
Harvard College & Berklee School of Music
High Point University
Macalester College

NC State University
Salem College
Savannah College of Art and Design
Stanford University
University of Georgia
UNC-Chapel Hill
UNC-Charlotte
UNC-Greensboro
Wake Technical Community College

Technology Advances in the Classroom

5/3/2018

Rachel Lawrence, math teacher and 9th grade advisor, is leading the Woods faculty in digital innovation in the classroom.

In her own words:
Technology in the classroom is important in so many ways. It's an essential life and career skill that students need to learn, just like they need to learn math or biology or how to write an essay. We often take for granted that "digital natives" know how to use technology, but increasingly students experience of technology outside of school is mostly app based and very informal, and students aren't automatically learning the kind of formal technology skills they will need for higher education and careers. Over the last two decades technology in general and the internet in particular has really changed the ways we can interact with knowledge. The ability to source information reliably, process it, and create a product from it is far more desirable than wrote memorization of facts, and technology allows students to practice those skills everyday.

I have always held the philosophy that the person doing the work is doing the learning. This means I try to spend as little time as possible working on my board while my students watch, and try to get them working themselves as much as possible. Using technology to have students look up vocabulary, view videos on key concepts, summarize content, etc not only can help move more of the action of the classroom onto them, it creates built in accountability. When students are working electronically and sharing work with each other and their teacher, they know all of their work counts. It's no longer separated into work that's collected for a grade and work that's not, it all becomes part of this common body of work that's shared.

Technology also helps streamline work flow for teachers and students. For example, teachers can post daily on Google Classroom with directions for work to complete. Students can learn to come in and automatically check Google Classroom and begin working with no wasted time. Teachers can have students sign in daily and answer a question from the homework or a reflection question from the day before, or take a picture of their homework and submit it through a Google form. Students can complete daily exit tickets through Google forms and teachers can have all the responses in one spreadsheet together to view and respond to, and then create customized feedback emails using a mail merge. These strategies make make-up work automatic for absent students, avoid wasting time collecting and returning papers, let teachers easily gather data on student understandings and misunderstandings on a daily basis, and create a shorter feedback cycle, helping students get corrective feedback when they need it most.

One of my favorite ways to use technology in the classroom is to facilitate student collaboration. For review at the end of the year I create a Google Slides document outlining the major parts of our curriculum, then assign students or groups of students to complete the slides for various parts. This creates a document that all students can access and use to help study for exams. Even more importantly, because they're working in Google Slides I can leave them comments as they're working helping to guide their work. Timely feedback while students are still developing their product is a game changer, compared to static feedback written on a paper after the fact. Students can also leave comments for each other, and you get to see a lot of the group dynamics play out as they work, helping keep tabs on who is completing what part of the assignment. As a bonus features like version history will let you track exactly which student in a group did what work, so no one gets a free ride.

There are so many great technology tools now, the GSuite, cross curricular tools like Formative or Quizziz, and content specific sites like Desmos. When used correctly rather than being an add on that creates more work and burden for teachers, they can help us work more efficiently and focus on the main work of school, learning!

Model UN takes top award at MUNCH

2/26/2018

Congratulations to Woods Charter for an amazing job at Model United Nations at Chapel Hill (MUNCH). After spending four days at UNC debating, writing directives, sponsoring resolutions and passing getting them passed, delegates from Woods Charter earned the top conference award: Best Small Delegation. From February 22nd through 25th, eleven high school students represented on six committees with the following breakdown:

UN Environmental Program
Grace Smith & Caroline Blythe: Singapore - Best Delegation award
Anjali Gupta & Ryan Lanford: Bahrain - Honorable Mention certificate
World Health Organization
Victoria Hume & Cordelia Hume: Belgium - Best Delegation award
UNESCO
Ember Penney & Heidi Anderson: Honduras
UN Security Council
Olivia Osborne: Kazakhstan
African Union
Mitchell O'Conner: Senegal
Press Corps
Sarah Falkovic: Times of India - Honorable Mention certificate

These students stood out among hundreds from all over the greater North Carolina region and not only won the top award for a small school, but more importantly represented Woods with the highest degree of integrity, intelligence, and sportsmanship. We should all be very proud of these individuals for their hard work, excellent achievement, and for representing Woods in all the best ways.

Across the Aisle

11/17/2017

From Alex Massengale:
Two of the high school sophomores organized an across the aisle dialogue where more than 30 got together to talk about an issue. Several staff members came too and many came to observe in the audience. They picked the issue of gun control for their first topic and had me moderate. I was very impressed by the maturity of their conversation and how so many different nuanced and thoughtful viewpoints were put out there. They could have easily talked for two hours and we will do it again.

Entrepreneurs in Action - FBLA & Krispy Kreme

10/29/2017

Over the course of two days, the Woods chapter of the Future Business Leaders of America sold a total of 80 dozen donuts!! That's 960 donuts!

The club is raising money to go to New Orleans for the 2017 Fall National Leadership Conference in November. They will attend workshops, learn about colleges, and hear the keynote speaker Rhett Laubach.

In addition to student fundraising efforts, the PTSA has generously agreed to fund a portion of the trip.

A Random Cinematic Masterpiece

10/25/2017

It's impossible to label this multimodal production but it stands alone as a collaborative, student-generated experiment in digital film scoring and production. From the classroom of Christene Vaughan, Mass Hysteria exemplifies a free-form expression of ideas.

Discrete Math-making

10/2/2017

Aimee Haygood's Discrete Math class designed geometric constructions to illustrate patterns, measurements, and shapes with precision.

Girls Speak Out at the UN

9/24/2017

Members of the Woods chapter of Girls Learn International will represent girls everywhere at the International Day of the Girl event, Girls Speak Out, at the United Nations. The club submitted a video articulating some of the struggles girls face, which will be shown as part of the day's activities.

Learn more about the International Day of the Girl Child at the UN

Club Fair Festivities 2017

9/17/2017

Student-led clubs promote fun, leadership, service, learning, community, and growth--all key elements of the magic recipe of Woods. A lively club expo showcased this year's initiatives and encouraged everyone to engage. There's something for everyone! A few photos capture the spirit, though not all the clubs. Ask your advisor or classmates if you can't find what you are looking for.

Ms. Berg for the win!

8/13/2017

NCSU Alumna Wins Fulbright Award, Headed to Netherlands for Research Study Inspired by Students
July 24, 2017 | Emily Packard

Adrienne Berg ’15 MED will use her Fulbright Distinguished Award in Teaching to research the Dutch approach to sex education in schools.
The love of learning for Adrienne Berg ’15 MED extends from herself to her students. She encourages young people to pursue lives of leadership and public engagement through her role as high school director of Woods Charter School in Chapel Hill. In addition to mentoring adolescents, she has taught middle and high school English language arts for more than a decade.

Adrienne Berg ’15 MED: In Her Own Words
Why I chose to the College of Education:
I won a Borchardt Fellowship to study in the UK in 2012 [Ruie Pritchard and Kevin Oliver served as co-PIs on this grant], which introduced me to the College of Education, along with all the opportunities the college offers for creative research and classroom exploration. The college’s New Literacies and Global Learning M.Ed. program was a perfect fit for my interests in collaborative learning, independent inquiry and technology as an expressive tool.
What I learned at the college:
The skills and approaches that I learned at NC State can apply to any subject, so I will use them to research, evaluate, synthesize and share my work through multimodal digital media.
“I get to help students gain confidence and independence on the path to graduation,” said Berg. “I also get to model lifelong learning — showing connections between school and real life, as well as how adults can continue to grow, ask questions and learn beyond the classroom.”
Next fall, she’ll do just that through her Fulbright Distinguished Award in Teaching, which allows her to design her own research project. Berg will travel to the Netherlands to learn about the approach that the Dutch take toward sex education in schools.
In the Netherlands, the standard curriculum includes comprehensive sexuality education, which has been credited for more positive public health outcomes, including low teen pregnancy rates, low STD rates and overall healthy relationships. Berg will study the evidence-based curriculum to see what she can take back to the U.S.
The design for her project evolved from student research into the sexualization of girls through dress codes, the North Carolina curriculum in healthy living, and community surveys about attitudes toward sexuality information.
“Given the current conversations about consent on college campuses,” Berg said, “I’d like to empower high school students to navigate their transition to adulthood with information and confidence.”
Berg says that her students show great excitement to learn with her through the Fulbright program. Her scholar leadership will allow her to answer her students’ questions, and provide support for their quest to make sense of current issues in a safe environment.

Packard, Emily. “A Unique Path for Scholar Leadership.” Alumna Wins Fulbright Award, Headed to Netherlands for Research Study Inspired by Students | College of Education | NC State University, NCSU College of Education, 24 July 2017, ced.ncsu.edu/news/2017/07/24/alumna-wins-fulbright-award-headed-to-netherlands-for-research-study-inspired-by-students/.