Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Summer Start Up and Updates

Everyone, I know we've trailed off on the blog, but that doesn't mean we haven't been hustling.

In the past three months, this is what we have accomplished:


  1. Launched a successful panel discussion on the interaction between early childhood, immigration, and economic opportunity.
    • Check out photos here!
    • Commentary from the event:
      • "Dear Marvin
        I'm writing in regards to the panel ALMas organized this evening, which I thought was wonderful. It was informative about the current state of early childhood education, as well as hopeful and constructive about possible directions that early childhood education might take. It highlighted the importance of and challenges that face what I understand to be an often neglected area of concern in the debates about education reform. I let Brandi Snodgrass, my NSP supervisor, know that it was the best-organized, most informative (on the most levels) and most enjoyable panel discussion that I've attended in my four years here. Although I'm graduating in a few weeks and won't be around anymore, please let me know if there is anything I can do to help you in the next few weeks. 

        Take care.
        Sincerely, 
        Robert Blakslee"
  2. Had our college-teacher volunteers trained by our educational PhD consultants in best practices for starting pre-k literacy programs.  
    • Lessons included:  
      • dealing with challenging behavior
      •  choosing the right books
      • dialogic reading
      • evaluating and assessing the teacher
      • encouraging students to learn through positive reinforcement.
  3. Drafted battle plans for out community outreach to get more textbooks for our children as well as coming closer to finalizing our location space for the program's pilot:
    1. You can see the battle plans here
    2. With respect to our program's space, I am meeting Gage Park Library's lead librarian to talk about implementing our program through their space during the school year
    3. Rough sketch of our educational assessment for our children
    4. Revising our lesson plan template
  4. I'm back on a regular running schedule for the ultra marathon!
  5. Website being developed by our own computer programmer, Spencer Claxton!
    1. He's working for the Univ of Chicaog on cloud computing, so we're lucky to have him!
  6. I'm meeting with Leif Elsmo, MBA from booth in Strategy.
    1. Schedule August 20th for coffee, and we're talking abotu how to develop collaborations and sponsorhips with local businesses to help pay for our program.  BOOM
LET'S KEEP THE BALL ROLLING!  WE'RE BACK AFTER SUMMER BREAK AND GOING STRONG!

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