1. Back-to-School Night! Freshman Year
Welcome to AVID
Back-to-School Night! Freshman Year

2. The Mission of AVID
The mission of AVID is to ensure that ALL students, and most especially the least served students who are in the middle:
will succeed in rigorous curriculum;
will complete a rigorous college preparatory path;
will enter mainstream activities of the school;
will increase their enrollment in four-year colleges; and
will become educated and responsible participants and leaders in a democratic society.

3. What is the theme of 9th grade AVID?
We want all students to become GREAT:
Be Goal-oriented
Be Responsible
Be Erudite
Have Awareness of Self
Use Teamwork
These words form the theme for this year. As we go on this year, students will be asked to reflect on these words and how they are growing with respect to being Goal-oriented, responsible, erudite, having awareness of self, and using teamwork.
In short, the big question this year is “Who are you and what do you want?”

4. What are the AVID Essentials in Grade 9?
Learn and refine AVID strategies for studying, planning, and organization. (Tutorial, Cornell Notes System, Binder Checks, IRCs)
Explore the many careers and colleges available to students.
Become familiar with the path to college

5. Signed IRC Due (every 2 weeks) Teambuilding activities
A Sample Week in the AVID Elective
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Tutorial
AVID Curriculum
Binder Check
Signed IRC Due (every 2 weeks)
Teambuilding activities
Twice a week we have specialized study groups called tutorial.
On Wednesdays, students have an organization day. This is where students do Binder Checks and Notes Checks. Every 2 weeks students turn in a grade check, or IRC.
Twice a week we do the AVID curriculum, which makes the invisible curriculum of schools visible. We work on organization, writing and critical thinking skills, and study skills, in addition to college and career exploration.
AVID Curriculum includes:
Reading and Writing Curriculum
College and Career Preparation and Information
Collaborative, inquiry-based work (ex: Socratic Seminar)

6. How is this class graded?
25%: Binders
25%: Assignments & IRC
25%: Tutorials
25%: Projects, Essays, Volunteer Work, Extracurriculars, & Portfolio

7. Volunteer/Community Service
AVID students are required to participate in at least 15-hours of Community Service per semester.
Students must complete and return their “Volunteer Log” for credit.
Review Volunteer Criteria Carefully on the Volunteer Log (ex. working at for-profit organizations not volunteer)
Volunteer Activities are one of the things that colleges look for in a college applicant. They want students who are active in their community. Additionally, these opportunities provide students the chance to develop skills they will need in the workforce and to explore career options.
Volunteer work must be for a non-profit, community centered project. Babysitting family members, helping the neighbor mow his/her lawn, or working in a for-profit business are all wonderful things for students to do. However, they do not fall under the type of volunteer work that colleges are looking for when the look over an application. Working for a food kitchen, participating in a coastal clean-up, helping at an elementary school tutoring or running a carnival, and other community activities are more along the lines of what colleges are looking for on applications.

8. Extracurricular Activities
AVID students are required to participate in at least one club/sport/other extracurricular program per semester.
Students must complete and return their “Extracurricular Log” for credit.
Extracurricular activities also include sports leagues outside of school and after-school jobs in addition to clubs and sports at the school.
Some clubs also do community service. They are a great way to get both extracurricular and volunteer credit. Some of the service clubs at SLHS include Jefferson Service Club and Interact.

9. Preparing for College: College Entrance Tests
Most 4-year colleges and universities require:
SAT-I or the ACT (American College Test)
Some colleges also require or recommend the SAT subject tests
Students should take practice tests to become familiar
with test formats:
All students take the PSAT through the school district.
This year, we will focus particularly strongly on test prep, with vocabulary and practice problems to help students prepare.
This year we are preparing for the ACT Explore, which is a practice ACT test. The ACT is one of the college entrance tests that some colleges require as a part of their application process. Right now both the CSU and UC schools want either the SAT or ACT test.

10. Preparing for College:
Grades and GPA
Sophomore year is the BIG year that GPA starts to count.
GPA is an average of the points earned for each class. Colleges look at academic GPA (focus on A-G courses).
A = 4 B = 3 C = 2 D = 1 F = 0
Some Honors and all AP classes are weighted, which makes them worth an extra GPA point:
A= 5 B = 4 C = 2 D = 1 F = 0
While some Honors classes count for an extra GPA point, very few do in Freshman year. See the list of courses in the course catalogue online to see if your honors classes qualify for the extra grade point.

11. Interim Report Card (IRC)
IRC Must be completed with Parents/Significant Adult and signed. (Make sure you have access to Aeries/ABI!)
Students with a D or F in a class MUST get mandatory tutoring within two weeks of the IRC.
If students don’t get tutoring, they lose points in AVID.
The first IRC was due this Wednesday, 9/21/2016

12. Binder Expectations
There is a strong organization system in place using the rings of the binders.
No loose papers!!
Assignment Calendar Complete: Every assignment / every period / every day.
10 pages of Cornell Notes/week
Time management: Just 2 notes each day
Right now we are only on 6/notes a week.

13. Cornell Notes
Cornell notes are a way to interact with notes that force students to look at their notes at least Three more times.
The purpose is to help students retain the knowledge they receive in class and to study more effectively.

14. The reason for Cornell Notes comes from the research of Ebbinghaus and Cornell. Ebbinghaus was a researcher looking at memory and information retention. He found that if you do nothing with the information that you gain, your brain will throw out almost 70% of it before the first day has gone by. Within one week you have lost over 75% of that information. This means that students who do nothing to review or retain the information in their notes will only remember 25% of what they learned if their test comes within one week of learning the material. While teachers do help students retain information by having them practice and develop their understanding in class, but that often isn’t enough practice for most students.

15. Here you can see how Cornell’s research into repetition comes into play. He found that if you interact with the material for just a few minutes every few days, you can bring your retention of that material to near 100%.
Chi-Ming Ho, 2009

16. Which leads us to the 10-24-7 rule
Which leads us to the rule. Students should interact with the information they learn within 10 minutes of learning, then again within 24 hours, and at least one more time within 7 days.

17. Cornell developed this system of interacting with notes to help students retain their information. Students should take notes in the left-hand column. Within 10 minutes after taking the notes, they should interact with and fix their notes. This first repetition includes highlighting key points, circling key words, and putting a star by anything that might be on a test.
The second repetition comes when students begin to write questions in the left-hand column. These aren’t necessarily questions the student doesn’t understand, but are the types of higher-level thinking a student can use on the test.
The third repetition comes within one week. Students write a summary that answers the questions they wrote in the left-hand column.

18. As you can see, once a student does all these things, they have a well-organized and easy-to-review set of notes. Students can review by quizzing themselves using the questions on the left-hand column or by reading over the summary at the bottom.
In 9th grade, the number of required notes increases gradually from 5 to 10 over the space of this quarter. The focus is on creating quality notes and using the Cornell system to get enough repetitions to retain the information they are learning.

19. Tutorials
Tutorials are like study groups: students ask each other questions in order to help each other understand concepts.
Tutorials are Inquiry focused – they involve the targeted use of questions to allow the student to figure out their problem for themselves.
In 9th grade, we are focusing on the process of identifying specific points of confusion when students have a problem and supporting each other as they try to solve their own problem.

20. Tutorials TRFs are Tutorial Request Forms
These are due at the beginning of each class on Tutorial days.
They are available online as well as provided in class a couple days before Tutorials (to allow students plenty of completion time).
Students must work their problem to their point of confusion (POC).
Students create a question based on POC.

21. Portfolio
The portfolio is like a scrapbook of a student’s best work for the year.
This is created and worked on in the Elective class.
The work archived in the portfolio is there to help students remember the steps they took on their high school journey towards college. It not only includes examples of the students’ best work, but also a record of their volunteer and extracurricular activities, as well as their college and career path exploration.

22. And so much more… College and Career Exploration
Advanced skills in reading and writing
Help with college application process
Support from peers and teachers
AVID is not just Cornell notes and tutorials. When students really invest in AVID, they form a support system that’s akin to a family. Having a strong peer support network has been shown in numerous studies to help keep students taking the most rigorous courses they can, as they have other students to study with and talk to about their work.
In 9th grade, our big focus is on exploring what is out there and getting to know the four-year path to college. Students will experience a variety of activities designed to get students thinking about what they want for their lives and what career and college options are out there.

23. Thank you for watching my Back-to-School Night Presentation!
9th Grade AVID Elective Teacher:
Ms. Teryn Kravitz
(510) x
If you have any questions, concerns, or just want to touch base about your child, please contact me via or leave me a voic .