Q4 Academic Advising

Students may use this spreadsheet to plan 4th Quarter and Final Exam goals for all of their courses:
Tip:  If you accidentally type in the BLUE boxes, just refresh your screen and try again

Final Grade Calculator

Use these Calculators to plan for 4th Quarter and your Final Exams.
Tip:  If you accidentally type in the YELLOW boxes, just refresh your screen and try again.


Use this calculator to discover how your 4th Quarter grade and your Final Exam could impact your Final Grade for a class.

Use this calculator to discover what you will need to earn on your final exam to get your desired Final Grade for a class.

High School Character Education 1/2 Day Assembly

One of my job responsibilities is to develop and implement our High School Character Education (CE) program.  From experience, I know that throwing around the words "Character Education" is a big "turn-off" to high school students- especially our students who have had Character-Ed thrown in their faces since Kindergarten.  Consequently, I have had to become creative at disguising CE...  As you would expect, a big part of my CE program is through advisory, but I have also been asked to continue our school's tradition of utilizing 1/2 days of school for "whole" school character education.  On Thursday, I created such an event.

The general ideas for the half day came from my Student Advisory Council (SAC), a panel of students who help plan advisory events.  (Right now, in their first year of existence, they mainly just brainstorm ideas.  My hope is that they will eventually take over the leadership/planning of advisory/assemblies too.  I can dream.  Right?)  The SAC had a variety of dreams for the how to spend the 1/2 day and after LOTS of talk, I finally narrowed them down to two major activities: Watch a movie (called Face to Face) and have a "Challenge" assembly.

Face to Face (F2F):  This is a CE tradition at our school where students watch a movie with a moral lesson and then discuss it in small groups.  The majority of movies watched through F2F have dealt with sad, true stories, racism, genocide, and death.  The SAC requested that we find a light-hearted movie instead (especially since this is the 1/2 day of school before spring break).  I also wanted to tie together the movie/discussion WITH the challenge assembly.  After a lot of googling- I settled on Monsters University.  I knew that I was taking a risk.  Would the students like it or think it was too childish?  Would they have already watched the movie?  Would anyone take the moral lessons of the cartoon seriously?  The overall feedback I received back from the Advisors was positive.  The students enjoyed the change in move themes.  Click on the photo below to view the discussion guide for Monster University.  I found many different discussion ideas from Common Sense Media, Babble.com, buzzfeed.com, MochaDad.com, and Damaris.com.

As a side note:  Through the wonders of Redbox, I was able to secure enough movies to show in small groups- beware Redbox will only allow you to rent 5 movies on a previously-used credit card and 3 movies on newly-used card.  Also note that your school MUST have a license to show movies in a large audience.

Minute to Win It Assembly:  The SAC had difficulty defining their  exact idea of a "Challenge" Assembly.  Ideas ranged from have a "Challenge Day" to plan a field day.  It was almost impossible to get 20+ teenagers on the same page.  As the date loomed near, I finally had to make an executive decision- especially since I was the one who:  1) would be held accountable for the event, and 2) would be responsible for organizing the entire event.  With the "ideas" of the SAC and the genius of pinterest, I settled on planning a Minute to Win It Assembly.  After lots of "youtubing", I settled on 13 challenges which cost about $200 in supplies.  The assembly lasted about 80 minutes.  I tied together the F2F movie and Minute to Win It Assembly by focusing on the lessons of perseverance, adaptability, individual uniqueness/contribution, and friendship.  Here is the presentation I used during the Assembly which explains events:

Based upon all the smiles, laughter, and  student & teacher participation, I believe the events were a success at building our high school community, therefore teaching "Character Education" without ever saying those words.  The feedback I received from our staff corroborated my "beliefs".  And we all know the importance of data.  Here is a copy of the form I used to collect teacher feedback/data:

Hopefully, you can use my ideas to create your own character education events.  Now it is time to enjoy my spring break and start thinking about my next big project- Academic Awards.

March Newsletter- Freshmen and Sophomores

Here is this month's counseling newsletter for Freshmen, Sophomores, and their parents.  The big push for this month is to begin thinking about summer opportunities.  I scoured the internet and created two whole pages on summer opportunities in (mostly) the North Carolina area.  Slowly, but surely, my newsletter "readership" is picking up steam.  At first, I felt as if no one was reading them.  Now, I have students stopping by to ask me questions related to the newsletter.  I guess the work is paying off.  Also, in March I discussed college admission requirements for high school foreign language, reminders about the end of the quarter, spring/summer timeline from Peterson's,  and an article from NPR about the cost of not going to college.
Click the photo below to see the full version of my newsletter:

  

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0ByGF4omWKhV8cFp3RU01MGJaZGc/edit

Highlights of February Advisory

 As I mentioned in my last post, this month has been crazy for the counseling department as we completed course registration for next school year.  As a first year high school counselor, this was a new and slightly stressful experience for me- although I also really enjoyed the experience.  Honestly, there is a nerdy, secretary that lives in my soul who loves to make lists, cross off boxes, form spreadsheets, etc.  Registration fed that part of my soul.  Plus add in all the student and family meetings,  the graduation requirements "puzzle", and all my day to day activies- it was a bus month.  (And I am not going to mention the 3.5 days missed due to snow during all of this!)

So with that said, I did still give out a variety of Advisory Lessons this month.  I will highlight my top 5:

1.  Our groups are continuing to do the Your Turn To Lead activity on Wednesdays.  We are about 1/2 way finished, and I have to tell you that I really like this activity.  As always, a lot depends on the Advisor- but for the ones who put forth even a tiny bit of effort, the pay off was amazing.  I have thoroughly enjoyed watching the students lead their team building activities.  (and it bought me a ton of time during scheduling!)

2.  Are You Smart Enough For the ASVAB:  We are trying to encourage our students (especially Juniors and Seniors) to sign up for the ASVAB.  I created this lesson to help students understand what types of questions are on the ASVAB and hopefully generate some interest in taking the test.


3.  Stand By Me:   This is one of the Friday Film Clips lessons which I adapted from The Source for Youth Ministry  (I think I already mentioned how much I LOVE this site for finding youtube clips and discussion questions for advisory.)  This lesson points out the importance of standing by others BEFORE you need support yourself.  I love the video

4.  College Bound:  This is a lesson adapted from Common Sense Media, a free resource for media related curriculum.  Check out their site if you haven't already for lessons on a variety of topics.  This lesson deals with how a student "digital footprint" can affect college admissions, scholarships, and employment. 


5.  The Happy Secret:  This is a TedEd adapted lesson originally created by Sonya Terborg   Students watch Shawn Achor's 12 minute talk on the secret to happiness and then discuss the difference between happiness and success. 

February Newsletter

Here is the newsletter I put out to my Freshmen/Sophomore students and families for February.  It is packed with information about this month's course registration for next year, top 10 Freshmen/Sophomore mistakes, and the reasons to begin a College List now.  Click on the photo to see the newsletter:








Once registration is over, I'll have time to post highlights of this month's High School Advisory lessons!

Film Clips Lessons Made Easier!

While searching for advisory lessons, I stumbled across this FREE resource for lessons using youtube/ short videos: The Source for Youth Ministry.   Each lesson includes a link to a short on-line video and then a list of discussions questions.  Yes, because these lessons were created for Youth Ministry, they all relate to a Bible story.  Therefore it IS necessary to edit the lessons to make them appropriate for a public school.  This is NOT difficult to do.  I cannot tell you how excited I am to find this website.  Our advisory theme on Fridays is Film Clips.  This entire year I have been scouring the internet trying to find clips that I could turn into teen-related life lessons.  This site is going to make my life so much easier- which I especially need right now during Course Registration time!
So check it out.  Here is one of the lessons I adapted from their site about Inward Beauty using Dove's Real Beauty Sketches:  Forensic Self-Image (click on the image below for the lesson.)

Advisory: Week of January 13

This week our school celebrated Health and Wellness week.  I was asked to create lessons in advisory that would tie into this theme.  With the help of the middle school counselor, we created a few activities that will hopefully spur some discussion about health and wellness and are fun too!  Check out these lessons:

• At our school, we sometimes pair up our middle and high school advisory groups into what we call our "School Families".  On Tuesday, we asked for our "families" to get together and complete this Zumba lesson plan:

BOND WITH YOUR MIDDLE SCHOOL FAMILY! "Physical wellness" involves understanding and appreciating the relationship between sound nutrition and how the body performs.  It requires participation in regular physical activities that improve cardiovascular strength and endurance, flexibility, and muscular strength. "Social wellness" is the ability to relate to and connect with other people. "Emotional wellness" is the awareness and acceptance of our own feelings and the feelings of others.  It’s the ability to acknowledge and share feelings of anger, stress, sadness, or fear, as well as joy, happiness, hope, and love.   Combine these three areas of wellness by inviting your Middle School Family to join you as you all try your best to keep up with this Zumba fitness routine: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qa2IWYs3ags   Remember this is about having fun, getting exercise, and bonding!  Laughing burns calories too!

• In October, I created a lesson called Lunch Scholars which is an adaption of Jay Leno's Jaywalking.  My high school students LOVED this activity, so I decided to create something similar specific to Health and Wellness IQ:

Wellness Week Trivia:  How much do you know about Health and Wellness?  Click on the presentation below to watch a quick Jay Leno video and then try your hand at Wellness Trivia!  

• Our Friday theme is "Film Clips".  I found a great lesson from PBS Learning about Prescription Drug abuse and adapted the lesson to meet the needs of my school advisory.  Click on the lesson below to see what I sent out to my advisors:
  

January Counseling Newsletter for Freshmen and Sophomores

At the end of last week I sent out my January Newsletter for Freshmen and Sophomores.  Since I recently went over PSAT results with my students, I focused a portion of the newsletter on student questions about high school testing.  The other major portion of the newsletter was dedicated to the many opportunities in North Carolina available to my students with upcoming deadlines.  Here is a copy of my newsletter for those of you who are looking for ideas:

January Newsletter Pg. 1

January Newsletter Pg 2

Happy New Year!

After a couple of weeks off (and fighting colds the entire time), I'm back to work with lots to do!  Here are some of this week's High School Advisory Lessons:

A Lesson on goal setting called:  Looking Back/Look Ahead:

January, with the semester change and the new year, is an obvious time of year to think about goals and focus on a plan of action.  I found this lesson from East High School and adapted it to meet the needs of my school. 

Your Turn To Lead:
OK.  I stumbled across this idea while googling team building activities:  have advisory groups create and implement a team building activity in other advisory groups.  I quickly realized that this met a number of my goals:
1) building of leadership skills
2) building relationships BETWEEN advisory groups
3) creating FUN activities related back to our school's mission
and
4) Students doing MOST of the planning.
Genius, right?  Well. I will know for sure by the end of this month.  Listed below is the lesson plan I created for getting groups started.  They had about 3 group meetings to plan their lesson/activity.

Beginning next week, my first couple of groups will begin presenting their activities.  That is when I will really know if this idea works.  I am planning to make this into a competition.  Our students LOVE a health competition!  I will have teachers evaluate the student leaders and I will have the student leaders evaluate the student participants.  Here is a copy of the student leader evaluation:

I did the evaluation as a Google Doc form, so that I will be able to easily collect the data for the winning advisory group!

Rules For Being  Human:  This is a four minute video is based off the book "If Life is a Game, These are the Rules" by Cherie Carter-Scott. 

 After watching the video, students were asked to reflect on the rules and how they apply to their own lives.  Students are then encouraged to write their own rules for life.  I found this idea over at Middle School Advisory 101.  Check out her blog for a variety of great Advisory lessons.