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In-service program documentation
Supporting the planning of the first illustrative unit (D6.4)
Facilitator's plan (by Raffaella Borasi)
PLAN FOR SESSION ON:
"SMALL GROUP SHARING AND PLANNING THE UNIT"
- Rationale for this session: we want to provide some
considerable amount of time for the participants to benefit from the presence
of others as they begin to plan their unit; we expect that for homework
each participant will have already put considerable thought and reading
time so as to come up with a first preliminary plan for the unit they chose
as their "first" unit in the project; we would like them now
to get together with the other people who chose to work on the same unit
so as to share their thinking and benefit from their feedback on their
plan as well as from hearing other ideas as other people share their preliminary
plans for their own units; we would also like them to devote some time
to further develop their plans with the support of a facilitator (one of
the research staff and/or a year 1/2 teacher who already implemented the
unit) -- NOTE: we are aware that this kind of planning can be very productive
when a couple of people really tries to come up with a plan they are both
committed to implement; this may not be the case in the pairs/3-people
groups we are going to be able to form, but we will do our best to try!
OVERVIEW:
1. First sharing in groups by unit (15-30 min, or more if needed)
2. "Pairs" get together to further develop their plans (1:15--2:00)
3. Sharing of previous work in groups by unit (15-45 min, as
needed)
4. Follow-up of "pairs" planning (if and as needed)
DETAILED PLAN:
1. First sharing in groups by unit (15-30 min, or more if needed)
- (The participants would have already have shared with the whole group
what unit they had decided to implement as their first unit of the year,
as well as the instructional setting for which the unit would be designed)
(We believe that all the participants will be interested
in knowing what the other people have chosen, especially since later on
they will have to chose a second unit to work on, and it may be helpful
to know who has already tried it out)
- The participants will break into three groups -- Tess., Rem., Area
-- depending on the unit that they chose to work on; each group will have
a facilitator [in our case, it will be one of the staff who helped designing
the unit] and/or a teacher who already implemented it
- The facilitator explains the scope and rationale of this activity and
the following "pairs" planning -- i.e.: "we will first go
around and ask everyone to give an overview of their unit, based on the
preliminary plan you were asked to prepare for today; we believe that it
is valuable to do so, so that we can all benefit from hearing each other's
ideas and have a chance to receive some feedback on our overall design
of the unit; for these reasons, it will be important that each of you make
sure to give us enough information about who your students are going to
be, what are your key goals for the unit (i.e., what you want your students
to learn from it), and what are the key components/activities of your unit
and their sequence; I would also encourage you to share your concerns/questions/doubts
about any part of your plan and/or the supporting materials you have had
a chance to read, and I invite everyone in the group to do so as you hear
about somebody else's unit, too -- we can all try to help each others with
this! especially XX who has already taught a version of this unit to her
class; after we have completed this first sharing, we will then break into
much smaller groups, so that you can continue to further develop your plan
-- this may really be the point at which the real work happens, but we
have found it very useful to first hear about everybody else's ideas first,
as they can provide some new ideas and inspiration even when they may be
addressing a different audience or focus on different goals."
- The facilitator will ask each participant to share their preliminary
plan for the unit (ask again that they provide information about their
audience, goals, key activities and rationale for those -- if they start
to give a day by day plan, maybe suggest that they give first an overview,
so that people can better follow their design; decide then whether it is
worth or not to hear the day-by-day plan too); invite questions and comments
from the rest of the people; also ask each participant, at the end of his/her
sharing, what materials they chose to read as they were trying to put together
the plan they just shared, whether they were helpful or not, what else
they would have liked to know/have, how they read it, etc. (this is
important not only for us to get valuable information about how teachers
are using our materials and what they are finding there, but it can also
be helpful for the other participants, as they can get ideas about what
the materials can offer and how to best get it our of them)
- When everybody is through, decide whether there are some issues that
the facilitator feels are worth addressing, as a result of the sharing
just concluded, and address those; then ask if there are some more general
questions and/or issues (in particular, from their reading of supporting
materials as they put together their preliminary plan) that they would
like to discuss together before we break into "pairs", and address
those
(This may be an important point to help stir the planning of the
unit in more innovative directions, point out some possible new directions,
some important elements in the unit we have designed that may have escaped
a first reading, etc.)
- introduce the next activity, i.e. further developing and/or refining
the planning of the participants unit in groups of 2-3; make this "pair
planning" task explicit once again -- this may be different depending
on how much preliminary planning the participants actually did prior to
this session, and it may involve a whole range of activities from brainstorming
and discussing ideas for specific activities and/or a timeline for the
unit, developing day-by-day plans from the overview they already prepared,
developing actual instructional materials and assessment tools, etc. (make
sure you give some specific examples of these options before the groups
break up); let people know that we will get together again after lunch
to share the main results of this work
- break up into groups of 2-3 participants -- obvious pairs would be
a team of special ed and math teacher actually working together in the
same class, or two teachers in the same school at the same grade who are
planning to teach the same unit (but it isn't likely these will be the
majority!); it would also be good to pair up a math teacher who is actually
going to implement the unit with another participant that is not -- i.e.,
grad student, administrator, special ed. teacher not teaching math; in
any case, the facilitator can suggest some of these possible pairing and
let the participants actually decide
2. "Pairs" get together to further develop their plans (1:15--2:00)
- try, if at all possible, to have a facilitator (staff or year 1/2 teacher)
with each pair so as to push the planning to be the most innovative, with
probing questions, suggestions, etc.; if there are not enough facilitators
to do so, at least try to stay with the same pair for a substantial amount
of time so as to "model" somewhat the process we hope they will
continue to pursue
3. Sharing of previous work in groups by unit (15-45 min, as
needed)
- try to talk with each pair to get a sense of how far they went in their
planning and decide whether (a) to ask for a sharing of the actual result
of their planning or (b) just a sharing of anything they think is worth
for everybody to know and/or discuss in more depth or (c) to just touch
base with what each pair had been doing and then continue working in pairs
- do the sharing accordingly (depending on which option was chosen)
- ask if there are other questions or issues to discuss; OR: ask year
1/2 teachers to share something specific about the unit that did not come
out yet; OR: give more time to pairs to continue working on their planning
4. Follow-up of "pairs" planning (if and as needed)
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the planning of the first illustrative unit"