Return to list of materials about "Reflecting and sharing on the on-going field experiences"

In-service program documentation
Reflecting and sharing on the on-going field experiences (D6.6)
Reports of small group discussions on selected issues from the "list of concerns"

Note: The concerns that were raised throughout the sharing session were summarized and became the focus of small "round table" discussions. These notes, along with the "list of concerns" and the highlights from the "round robin" sharing session were sent to all participants.

SUMMARY OF CONCERNS RAISED

What follows is a brief summary of each of the "round table" conversations.

Coordinating across grade levels/courses and rethinking the curriculum schoolwide

(Raffaella Borasi, George, Julie, Sue, Deb)

All the participants in this small group felt the need to do something at the school level in order to make the changes we are trying to make in specific classes/units really successful, and to know what other schools may be doing in this respect. We just had a chance to begin a conversation about this, by sharing what has been going on recently at Brighton Middle School and in the Spencerport school district. Raffaella reported of Brighton's efforts (supported by their principal, to the extent of organized a 2-day summer paid "curriculum planning meeting" of all the math teachers at the middle school level) to rethink their 6-7-8 math curriculum, beginning from an identification of the great repetition/duplication at various grade levels and the decision of eliminating some of it to make space for a more in-depth and conceptual teaching of some key topics at specific grade levels. Deb reported on her involvement in her district's efforts to rethink the high school "outcomes" -- which involved a 2-week "workshop" involving not only a rewriting of curriculum goals but also some activities similar to our Summer Institute. Julie and Deb voiced their interest in doing something proactive now at the middle school level, too, even if some of the administration/teachers might feel more comfortable waiting for the high school to be "finished" with their plans... The Brighton experience gave them some concrete ideas, and we all left very interested in continuing this conversation and exchange.

Planning: what next ? how to keep the momentum ? how do you plan student driven units ?

(Judi Fonzi, Kathy, Diane, Kay, Claire, Aimee)

We talked about issues of planning for substitutes, planning for homework, and planning in terms of what to do after the first unit.

There was only one suggestion regarding planning for a substitute (other than not taking any time off !). It seems this could be a good time to use the textbook to reinforce skills which students have been developing to date. This would be easier for the sub to understand, especially given our earlier conversation about the importance of others understanding our goals.

The concern regarding planning for homework raised because we can never be sure what exactly will happen as a class unfolds. There were several suggestions made for making homework meaningful:

think of homework as a time for practicing the skills embedded in the unit, the assignments could be easily modified to meet individual needs

think of homework as an opportunity to do more with the unit than can get into the in-class plan, i.e., Claire had her students do several readings on about issues connected to circles during her Exploring Circles unit - one was about the mysteries of Stonehedge ...

think of homework as an opportunity to do practical things, for ex. a rubbing of a tessellation, a coloring of a tessellation which takes a lot of time but can bring students to some very good insights about tessellations

think of homework as extending what's happening in class, for ex. have students think of others situations where the particular situation being discussed occurs, have them write about what they would do next (from wherever the class ends)

think of homework as preparation for the next class, for ex. if you are planning to test conjectures the next day, have students write about what they think it means to test a conjecture

In addition to these, there was also the suggestion that it helped to be prepared just in case. Anticipate some materials which students might need for following up on ideas at home, i.e., have 100s of sheets of graph paper ready; have sorted out bags of manipulatives ready.

As for what to do after the first unit, there were also several suggestions here:

just continue from one of the grant units to the other (hopefully this will give enough insights for how to plan your own later)

use the inquiry unit to develop a need to learn a skill and then teach a skill unit

plant seeds at the end of one unit for beginning the next, i.e., at the end of the tessellation unit on teacher is already having students reading and recording the day's temperature for use in a data gathering unit

there were several ideas shared as catalysts for future units:
- use newspaper ads to teach decimals
- use grocery ads and planning meals for teaching estimation
- use the stories in the book, Mathematicians are People Too !, Dale Seymour as a guide to small units, it tells stories about experiments the mathematicians did; there is also a similar more sophisticated book, Multiculturalism in Mathematics, Science, and Technology: Readings and Activities, Addison - Wesley
- there is an article in Learning 94 (Aug/Sept) about an "Invention Unit"

How to balance developing skills, covering curriculum and achieving "larger goals" in the unit?

(Connie, Diane, Sharon, Charlene, Cheryl, Earl)

We used the Remodeling Unit implementation in a ninth grade Course IA as a context to discuss the difficulties with embedding the development of skills within a meaningful problem situation. One concern raised was that mini-lessons on skills taught within the inquiry unit were not as detailed as usual lessons on the same skills. As a result there did not seem to be an increase in student' abilities. The length of these units was an important issue; that is, if the lessons remained the same except for their connection to a purposeful situation then the time spent on the units increase dramatically.

An example elaborated on by Earl from his discussion earlier in the day, was his use of protractors and constructions in the tessellation unit. Instead of providing all the necessary manipulatives, Earl's students made their own. In order to do that they needed to learn some of the constructions already in the curriculum. This took more time, but Earl was pleased with the results. Since the students already had a project in mind as they dealt with the 'tools' necessary to complete the projects, students who did not need as much additional work were able to move forward, continuing to prepare for the project.

The Remodeling Unit did not feel as successful. Several differences were discussed; for instance, the teacher's manipulation of the problems to be sure skills goals were addressed. Several pros and cons of this type of manipulation were discussed as well as a variety of alternatives to posing specific problems. Again the issue of time seemed important.

When we moved to talking about the "larger goals" that were accomplished, we tried to put the time spent on skills in perspective. This discussion led us to look at rethinking the schoolwide curriculum. The skills we were discussing (calculations with decimals and fractions, averaging) and many others that seemed to be of concern are used in other disciplines as well. It would be reasonable to rethink and/or coordinate the curriculum, particularly in mathematics and science, in order to save time and make connections between the skills being taught and their use outside of school. The integration of ideas (not only skill development) across the curriculum would be something worth pursuing with school teams. Not only would what we taught be less isolated it would be more meaningful.

Return to top of document
Return to list of materials about "Reflecting and sharing on the on-going field experiences"