Welcome to Fall!!

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It’s time to officially kick off the fall semester!  This message includes important updates about our September 12th meeting, your first fall assignment, and important administrative tasks that require your attention.  

All this information (and much much more) can be found on this website https://teamtwo.msuurbanstem.org/

In fact the immediately curious can find out ALL that we will doing in fall by going to the following: Overview of Fall where you can find specifics and links to ImagineIT and Deep-Play Group work that’s coming up.  As always, please let us know how we can best support you and if you have any questions. But that’s not for now. For now here is what you need to do/know:

First Fall Assignment (to be completed before our September 12th meeting):

Details for our September 12th Meeting:

  • Location: 26 E. Pearson St. (same classrooms we met in during our summer meetings)
  • Time: We will meet from 9am-4pm, as usual with a break for lunch.
  • Bring one random item with you to the meeting (and we mean random… in fact we mean QuickFIre random).
  • Kyle and Punya will not be able to join us in person, but will be there in spirit! We are excited that Leigh Wolf (program coordinator along with Punya & Sonya) will be there. 

There are four administrative tasks to complete ASAP:

1. Make sure your MSU email is forwarded to an email account you check regularly.

  • Just a reminder that it is extremely important to follow messages sent to your @msu.edu email account via the MSU Registrar. So be sure that your MSU email has been forwarded to an account that you check regularly. To forward your msu.edu email, log into https://mail.msu.edu and choose MSU Prefs forwarding address section and enter the email address you want your MSU mail to be forwarded to. And yes, don’t forget to hit “Save.”
  • Note, if you are having trouble with your MSU NetID (email username) you can go to https://netide.msu.edu/manage/index.html

2. Confirm your attendance in MSU’s StuInfo (https://stuinfo.msu.edu/)

  • Please make sure that you have confirmed attendance. If you do not confirm attendance, you may be subject to paying a late fee.

3. Make sure your Direct Deposit Information is correct in MSU’s StuInfo (https://stuinfo.msu.edu/)

  • Please make sure your Direct Deposit information is set up correctly as your first fellowship will be dispersed in November. To do this, simply login and then under the “Quick Links” click on “Direct Deposit” and/or “Confirm Attendance”
  • NOTE: IF you do not set up Direct Deposit you will have to come to East Lansing in person to pick up  your check. For liability reasons the university will not send out the checks via mail.

4. Confirm your grade is correct in MSU’s StuInfo (https://stuinfo.msu.edu/)

  • You received an email with final summer feedback and your grade. You can access your official grades via StuInfo>Academics>Grades.
We hope that you have fabulous first week back to school and can’t wait to see you in soon!

Feedback and Fall

Believe it or not, we are done with the summer semester. Congratulations to all of you for an amazing summer and spectacular work! 
 
This blog post has 2 action items:
(1) Providing feedback to us; and
(2) Purchasing a book before the fall semester begins, and reading it.
Taking each in turn.

Feedback

Each of you will be receiving a note from us about your work for the semester as well as the course grade. 
 
We would also love to hear from you regarding how we (the instructors) did. You should have received an email from MSU with a link to evaluate Punya (what here at MSU we call SIRS). However, you had more than Punya as an instructor – so, apart from filling out that form, we would like you to provide feedback to the other instructors (Akesha, Candace, Kyle, Missy, and Rohit) as well. 
 
ACTION ITEM #1
For feedback to Punya & the course overall, please go to: https://sirsonline.msu.edu/
For the other instructors, please go to: https://goo.gl/tlOCqI
 
Please complete these feedback forms as soon as possible to complete the semester requirements for official course completion.
 

Welcome Fall

The fall semester begins on September 2nd. And we have our first face-to-face meeting on the 12th of September. We will be sending more information about the fall semester assignments closer to September 2 – but in the meanwhile we need you to purchase a book and start reading it for the September 12 meeting. 
 
ACTION ITEM #2
Purchase the book: What Should I Do? Confronting Dilemmas of Teaching in Urban Schools by Anna Richert. 
Click on the image below to go to Amazon, though you could get it from anywhere you choose: 
Please get this book ASAP and start reading it. We will be discussing this book on our face-to-face meeting day (September 12). 
As always, the https://www.msurbanstem.org/ website will have information about this and other stuff…
…and of course you can contact us by email, Facebook, or Twitter if you have any questions.
 
That’s all for now! Take care and connect soon. 
 
MSUrbanSTEM Team

ImagineIT Phase 3 — Updates

Dear fellows,
We have been receiving some questions regarding the ImagineIT Phase 3 (section 2), mostly around the Harvard website’s Teacher for Understanding page (Project Zero). As it turns out, their Project Zero webpage has been significantly revamped and some of the resources are not active anymore. For your convenience, we have tried to relocate these and have made necessary updates to the ImagineIT assignments page. We have added useful links on this page as well. You will see the edits in strike-through. Do visit!
Let us know if you have any questions.

And, a little something for you to chuckle…

Source: thecuriousbrain.com