What is Cogs Connection?
Cogs Connection is a building-wide intervention period, similar to WIN, that all students attend daily (with the exception of Wednesday). The focus of Cogs Connection is to provide students with support and skills that are needed to be successful in school and in life. During this period, our students’ unique academic, social, and emotional needs are the focus.
During our 25 minute Cogs Connection session, the goal is to personalize and maximize learning for every student. As a complement to classroom instruction, this intervention/enrichment period allows focused, uninterrupted time for:
Individualized intervention when students need support
Skill building that provides students with necessary academic and life skills
Literacy enrichment to develop lifelong readers
Enrichment activities that integrate technology
The opportunity for students to build relationships and to learn social behaviors
The goal of Cogs Connection is to provide all students with 25 minutes each day in which they can focus on developing skills that will help them to be successful and to be their best selves.
Transformation of Cogs Connection
At the beginning of this school year, we focused additional efforts on developing an effective building-wide intervention period for the benefit of all our students. Cogs Connection may look different for your student depending on his/her needs. For some students, this time may be used for additional focused support in Math or English, others will be working on social skills, while many may be working on developing life skills such as personal finance and soft skills.
Throughout the first semester, we have been working to provide students with more meaningful and impactful activities. As part of the process, we asked students for input on what skills they would like to develop. The staff at GKHS has been and continues to work to create activities that will help students develop skills. Some activities in Cogs Connection include, but are not limited to:
Introduction to High School for Freshmen
Individualized Khan Academy PSAT/SAT practice
Literacy development using student selected books
Soft skill and life skill development (being further developed currently)
Stress management strategies
Testing strategies
Project-based learning activities
As we head into the second semester, we will continue to work on providing students with meaningful activities focused on skill development. Decisions for Cogs Connection placement and activities will continue being made using a combination of data from student assessments and teacher recommendation. As we continue to move forward, the opportunities provided for students in Cogs Connection will continue to grow; this will allow some additional student input on “workshops” they have an interest in.
We are extremely lucky at GKHS to have a dedicated building-wide intervention period. Effective building-wide interventions are extremely valuable to students and provide all students an opportunity to grow and develop. Please understand that we are continuing to transform and grow Cogs Connection. Along the way, we will experience some growing pains and there may be need to adapt and modify. The staff at GKHS is dedicated to providing students with the best possible experience. As we move forward, you will be able to see Cogs Connection become even more beneficial for all students at GKHS. It typically takes multiple years to reach the full potential of an intervention such as Cogs Connection. We are moving in the right direction!! We will provide updates along the way!!