posted by:
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Gail Paulin
on May 29, 2000
at 4:17PM
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subject:
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Wondering
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Hi, I m Gail Paulin, Project Director for TUSDs DESERT Project in Tucson. We are now beginning our third year of our K-8 science project in 94 sites (1500 teachers) and reeling from the prospect of supporting the cohort schools we have started on their reform journey while bringing on new cohorts. (Some of you are chuckling now) Since I had had the opportunity to read and witness Kays masterful Case Study session for the PI meeting, I took my vaporous time to read the article by Stein,Smith and Silver posted for this discussion this Memorial Day morning! I winced as I compared the two settings, Franklin and Riverside, I see versions of both in our K-8 project. In the K-5 curriculum we have a combination of the NSF developed modules, So we proceeded as in Riverside to link closely to this strong curriculum and materials support. This works for awhile, but as in the example, after 3 years we really need to shift to another type of PD which will address the needs on site in classrooms. but we still need to include ways to orient new teachers to the kits. A mentoring setting would be ideal, but Stein s article also points to the problems of expecting the experienced helping the inexperienced with out time for their own growth. We are encouraging study groups on student work we will know more in the next year (last year 4 schools ran these groups, all were positive, but had trouble staying to the protocol.) This is not necessairily a problem, just an observation.
Our middle school effort has a weaker curriculum to support it. . (Others of you will note, this is not a new storyJ) Science Plus is the main vehicle. Since we know we want to introduce replacement units to supplement this curriculum, we have focused on having site teams meet together to document the scope and sequence they are teaching, how it aligns with our core requirements and then get teachers to select new materials to fill in our holes and perhaps phase out the Science Plus (as more MS exemplars become available) At any rate, the MS groups are going more like Franklin. There is a high turnover rate and we have a few teachers at each site that is really willing to do the tough work. We don t want to burn them out! They have done a lot to help.
This paper is fascinating. I have confirmation that many folks struggle with these issues as we retool our thinking about what "fertilizes professional growth ". I am thinking about how we prepare "professional developers " and can we really expect classroom teachers to take the lions share of this role without changing what it is we expect them to do as professional educators? The lesson study groups recently mentioned on the NARST list serve, look interesting. I am a really big fan of teacher research, but I know this can seem intimidating. I think the case study approach is excellent to get people talking, for raising the issues that folks may have but are hesitant to lay on the table until trust develops. I suspect, as a P D er I am more interested in these than classroom teachers, who don t have time to "sit and talk when they have 150 kids coming for science tomorrow".
I have no answers, even our discussions are limited by the amount of time we have to share our thinking with others on the list. This community is such an incredible resource. I wish I didn t so often feel like I was wasting it, for lack of time. Thanks for listening!
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