Orange+CIG+Group+Meeting+Minutes+10-22

Orange CIG Group Meeting 10-22-09 California University of PA Library 4:00-6:00 Attending: Diane, Jackie, Jessica, Joe, Lorraine, Tracey and Cory

The group convened at 4:25 due to traffic causing late arrivals. While waiting for the large group the first arrivals picked roles and Cory shared the group Wordle. Wordles may be created at [|www.wordle.com]. Cory used transcripts of each person describing their classroom for to create the Wordle.

Jessica led the opening activity- all placed three items about themselves in a bag without putting names on the lists. Then each person chose 3 items and tried to match the notes with the person. We found out that:

Cory is afraid of falling, is NOT afraid of heights and flies a plane.

Diane likes to grown anything and has grown a grapefruit tree indoors. Can juggle (she is also a clown), has climbed a mountain in the Rockies

Jacki is pregnant and expecting the birth of her first child in May (but she doesn’t know what it is), likes to ride motorcycles both on and off the road, and just got married.

Jessica’s favorite movie is Little Mermaid, has an uncle only three years older than she is and once petted a tarantula on a trip to Mexico.

Joe: is running a 10K on Thanksgiving Day, loves teaching but can’t wait to go back to school and if he were not a teacher he would be s news anchor or a funeral director.

Lorraine’s favorite movies are The Patriot and A Walk in the Clouds, hates all chocolate but peanut M & M’s, does not have a teaching degree in any of the arts.

Tracey aspires to earn her PhD., got her driver’s license at age 20 and Met the director and lead actor of the Ghost Whisperer!

Announcements, sharing and housekeeping: Lorraine and Jessica had asked for help getting Ethernet cable and speakers- Cory brought some from home for them. Cory’s husband will make Ethernet cables for those who can’t use wireless. Tracey also requested an Ethernet cable. Washington School District will not allow wireless computers which is problematic for them. There was some discussion about this. Tracey has actively been working on the issue of technology use in her district. Cory promised to check with Mara to see what support our program can offer. Tracey shared a resource book that she has found wonderful with her students with Art Therapy Exercises. She used a form of the Paper People exercise with them that she found in this book.

Next Diane and Cory led the group through the Passion Profiles Activity. Using information from last times Paper People descriptions, plus their own passions the group each chose and discussed the area of teaching they were most passionate about, then explored questions in this area. The choices were: 1- The Child 2- The Curriculum 3- Content Knowledge 4- Teaching Strategies 5- The Relationship Between Beliefs and Professional Practice 6- The Intersection Between Personal and Professional Identities 7- Advocating Equity and Social Justice 8- School Context and Impact on Student Learning.

Through this discussion kept on target by time keeper Jacki, the group identified the area of overlap as The Child. Next they explored questions based on the description of this passion. Diane asked Lorraine to write group thoughts on the board while Joe recorded them in writing. Lorraine took over as discussion leader collecting thoughts.

The Child Passion “You became a teacher primarily because you wanted to make a difference in the life of a child. Perhaps you were one of those whose life was changed by a committed, caring teacher and you decided to become a teacher so that you could do that for other children. You are always curious about particular students whose work and/or behavior just doesn’t seem to be in sync with the rest of the students in your class. You often wonder about how peer interactions seem to affect a student’s likihood to complete assignments or what enabled one of your English language learning students to make such remarkable progress seemingly overnight, or how to motivate a particular student to get into the habit of writing. You believe that understanding the unique qualities that each student brings to your class is the key to unlocking all their full potential as learners.” Excerpted from the book //The Reflective Educator’s Guide to Professional Development// by Nancy Fichtman Dana and Diane Yendol-Hoppey, pps 90-93

The list of brainstormed questions and what emerged was:

1-How do I get the support of the District? (funding, lack of field trips, iPods not allowed in the classroom, technology barred, etc., understanding that arts curriculum doesn’t fit in square boxes and is different than other curriculum) 2- How do I get support for arts? 3- How doe we write k-12 curriculum that makes sense for the arts? (flexibility) 4- How do we get a child centered curriculum? 5- How does a child centered curriculum fit with standards based? 6- How do we get child centered lesson plans? 7- How do we get community/parental support? 8- How do we reach students with diverse backgrounds and learning styles? 9- How does inclusion affect average students and C.C.C.? 10-How do we prevent our class from being a dumping ground? 11- How do we cure the “cancer” in class? 12- How do we get students to understand that learning is a life long process? 13- How do we deal with latch key kids and non parenting? 14- How do we get child centered lesson plans or curriculum?

The group then used the Litmus Test for Questions (Dan & Yendol-Hoppey p 64) to eliminate some questions which were not specific enough or not “doable”. During this discussion it was decided that most of the questions were really circling around one:

“How do we reach students of diverse backgrounds and learning styles?

The group felt that the remaining questions were all related to this one larger one. There was a short discussion along the lines of where do we go from here and Cory related some anecdotal examples of some action research ways to explore a line of inquiry through classroom practice and collect data. Diane expressed concern about the ways in which this might work in her classroom- which is a choral room. She felt that she would not have samples of student work to use for action research- she had envisioned reading and researching for this work. Cory reassured the group that they would be able to design a plan that worked for their classrooms and told the group that she would send them some on line resources for continuing the discussion so that they would be prepared to move forward at the November 13th meeting. There was clearly some confusion and concern over where this would lead next, how the group members would be able to earn their credits and how their work would be documented.

Cory led the group in a quick brainstorming of some possible action research lines to pursue in their classroom. Ideas that came out of this brainstorming included exploring the following for the impact on diverse learners:

Technology Child centered learning Field trips Observing other teachers Guest speakers Collaborations Child centered lessons Students teaching lessons

There was a question raised about money for substitutes so that teachers could observe other teachers in action. Cory agreed that observing other teachers was a valid part of collaborative learning. This later grew in to an unfinished discussion about the possibility of taking classes to observe other classes and an unfinished discussion of the need to allow students to use technology in the classrooms; both of which were unfortunately left unanswered and cut short due to time limitations. Washington teachers also asked about the possibility of getting splitters to use their netbooks as well as the Ethernet cables Cory donated (and will donate). Cory responded that she was unsure she could get splitters since these items are coming from her personal tech things at home she but would see what she had. The meeting ended with Cory handing out instructions for Skype and Elluminate which will be tools used for future meetings.