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In-service program documentation
Supporting the planning of the first illustrative unit (D6.4)
Logistics and scheduling information (by Judith Fonzi)
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| Choices made about when and how to support the planning of the first unit |
| Scheduling of these activities within the program |
| List of materials / equipment needed to implement these activities |
Choices made about when and how to support the planning of the first unit
We have several reasons for wanting to provide support to teachers as they plan this first illustrative unit. In addition to the fact that the supporting materials for the illustrative units require teachers to make some instructional decisions quite different from what they are used to, and the fact that we believe it is critical that teachers' first units have the potential to engage students in powerful mathematical experiences, supporting teachers as they plan their first units gives us the opportunity to become familiar with their units prior to providing in-class support for their implementation and to challenge the common practice of planning in isolation.
In addition to providing support for planning the participant's actual unit we also want to help the participants develop skills for planning future inquiry units. Therefore, in the context of planning the specific unit, project staff pay careful attention to modeling and teaching planning skills. We model the use of the supporting materials for the unit by actually referring to them for specific suggestions, ideas, or guidance. For example, when planning for the task of finding the area of a complex figure in order to anticipate the needs and responses of one's own students you might read about how the 8th grade students in the Area story responded to the task; or one might look to see how a teacher in a similar context orchestrated a small group activity; or one might look to the flexible plan for some content options different from those pursued in the summer institute. We have found that most teachers really need to be pushed to use these materials beyond copying some handouts. They believe they can rely on their memories of how it was done in the summer institute. However they typically only remember the big activities, not the small but critical elements such as how the activity was introduced, or how it connected to the previous and subsequent activities, or possibly even what it was intended to accomplish. Though this lack of recall is reasonable given that their focus was on the learning not the teaching at the time, it makes the reading of the support materials even more important as they provide both the details and the rationale for activities. Throughout the planning meetings the project staff encourages the participants to reflect on, and make explicit, the processes they are using so that they can repeat them in the future. We believe that keeping a concrete record of the successive plans developed for the unit can provide valuable evidence of the planning process and the thinking. Since teachers are not used to recording (for documentation) and copying everything they do we try to take some of the responsibility for note taking during the meetings.
Providing the initial support for the planning during the summer institute
We believe that requiring participants to select a unit and develop a preliminary plan prior to leaving the summer institute sets the process in motion. It forces participants to take the first step of their "experiences as teachers". The resulting set of preliminary plans generally range from a few notes jotted down to a carefully typed daily agenda for the whole unit. But regardless of what has been produced on paper, we usually find that all of the participants want to talk about their units and appreciate the suggestions offered to them as well as hearing about the plans of others. Because these small group sessions are intended to help participants generate ideas for their specific implementation it is important that the groups be made up of people implementing the same unit. However, the small group sessions frequently produce ideas and strategies that could be implemented in any inquiry unit as well as ideas specific to the particular unit being discussed. We therefore find that it is useful to share the relevant parts of the discussion with the large group. At this point, because the participants are grouped by unit and not by school we generally just assign project staff to facilitate the discussions of the units with which they are most familiar.
Providing continued support for the planning after the summer institute but prior to implementation
After the initial planning session in the summer institute, the support process is most beneficial when the staff member supporting the planning is also the person who will be providing the in-class support. When this is the case, we find that we develop a feeling of "we're in this together and we both own the plans". Thus the two share the vulnerability and to some extent the responsibility. Project staff find that they are more comfortable following up on ideas and suggestions or taking the lead to source some materials and teachers find that they are more likely to take some risks or ask for help if they believe they are building a long term relationship. Therefore, in our implementations of this framework each of the project staff members schedules at least two "Consultant Days" and attempts to set up a planning meeting with each of the participants with whom they will be working during the school year.
It seems to be very important that these meetings begin with the participant(s) talking about their goals and what they have planned so far, and identifying any specific needs they have, rather than just submitting the written plan. This provides the teacher with a genuine opportunity to practice talking about this new work and provides the staff member an opportunity to ask clarifying and/or thought-provoking questions. We find, however, that it takes considerable time to come to an understanding of the teacher's plans and then engage in a meaningful and productive discussion in response to the needs identified by the participant or the staff member. We recommend scheduling a minimum of 2 hours for these meetings.
Most participants and staff members find that there is a need for at least one more planning meeting prior to implementation even if it is just to touch base and share the decisions that were made. It is quite normal for participants to have a clear, detailed plan for the first activities of the unit and then continue to work out some of the details of the later activities as the unit is actually taking place. This is especially the case when there is only a couple of weeks between the summer institute and the start of school.
Providing support for the planning during the implementation
Since it is rarely the case that the entire unit is planned in detail prior to the beginning of the implementation, and further because students play a major role in determining what actually happens in the classroom there is a need to continually revise and refine the plans as they play out. This work generally takes place as a natural part of providing in-class support for the implementation (see the next section of this component for more details) but may also require some additional meetings focused exclusively on planning the details of the final activities.
Scheduling of these activities within the program:
In our implementations we schedule the first planning session for the Follow-up Day, usually about a week after the fifth day of the summer institute. In preparation, participants are asked to select the unit they will implement first, read selections from the supporting materials, and develop preliminary plans. On the Follow-up Day we plan a series of individual, small and large group sharing/planning sessions to span a 4 hour period. This provides sufficient time for all of the participants to share their preliminary ideas, to brainstorm some new ideas, and to spend some time working on their individual plans in light of the discussions. We plan this session as the final session of the day so that those who wish to can stay longer and continue to work with staff members.
"Consultant Days" are randomly schedule the over the two or three weeks following the summer institute. Given vacation schedules and other summer commitments of the participants it is important to be as flexible as possible so that they can take advantage of this planning support.
All additional planning meetings are arranged between the school facilitators and the individual participants. We find that if the school facilitator initiates the meeting participants are usually receptive and the sessions are quite productive.
List of materials / equipment needed to implement these activities:
All planning meetings should take place where resources are readily available so that time is not lost searching for materials. It is helpful to have access to manipulatives and "tool boxes" as well as the supporting materials for the units, other mathematical resource materials, and copying facilities.
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