Rocky Mountain Middle School Math and Science Partnership
January 10, 2005
Volunteers of America
Leadership Team Meeting
Minutes
Welcome, overview, and check-in
There was a general feel that everyone was pleased about the progress and amount accomplished in a short time. Those in attendance were: Kathryn Smukler, Pam Steinman, Mike Jacobson, Alicia Andersen, Sally Collins, Scott Wallace, Lisa Schell, Jim Platt, Linda Morris, Clarissa Roberts, Katie Schutt, Marsha Barber, Margaret Iadarola, Susan Sparks, Colleen Jorgensen, Stephanie VanMatre, Tracy Haschker, Tad Spencer, Lynn Rhodes, Doris Kimbrough, Carole Basile, Barbara Bath, Kathleen Milligan, Lea Johnson, Kelly Corbett, Mary Vedra, and Lew Romagnano.
Pilot Course Status Report
The pilot course will be offered from 5-8pm on Mondays Jan. 24th – May 9th. Classes will be held at North Arvada Middle School. Lew Romagnano gave us a few details regarding the content and structure of the pilot course. The instruction team will include Lew Romagnano, a middle school teacher, and rotating Barbara Bath, Mike Jacobson, and Midge Cozzens. Some districts had more applicants and therefore may receive more slots. The applications are being reviewed and the applicants will be notified shortly of acceptance.
One concern was location, as Elizabeth School District pointed out, it would be more beneficial to have a more centralized location. Lew pointed out that this pilot course is also being offered in Denver and Aurora (with a different stipend structure) and may be an option for some teachers with location difficulties.
Email lists and communication
Tad Spencer from FRBOCES has issued requests to districts offering FR BOCES help in collecting email addresses. The offer is still out there. Do you have email lists of middle school math and/or science teachers in your district? If so, please send them on to Tad at ASAP.
Development Teams.
The development teams met for the first time on December 4th. It was an exciting and productive meeting. Each team consists of a CLAS, SOE and District person. There is a wide variety of people involved in developing these classes. The faculty which will be chosen to teach the courses will also be this cooperative approach. Course descriptions/overviews are being worked on and will be collected soon. There is scheduled to be another Development Team meeting in February, in the meantime, teams are meeting and working on their own.
Information about the summer courses.
There is a partnership with the Jeffco CDE grant where our courses which are being developed in Physics, Biology, and Chemistry will be offered to these CDE grant partner districts. This has evolved out of a desire to not duplicate efforts and leverage funds. This means that slots in these courses in addition to the 25 for the NSF partnership have been reserved for partner districts in the CDE grant.
A lower tuition has been negotiated and will be $75/cr.hr. only if we don’t have the courses on the UCD campus. Please keep your eye open for appropriate locations and what specific facilities they might have and let Barbara Bath know what you think might be available ASAP. Remember, for some, the more central location the better, but most are open to traveling to a good setting for a class.
Q & A:
Would there be fees for books/materials that the teachers would be expected to pay?
No, there is money for materials in the grant (however teachers may need or want to buy specific textbooks). When recruiting, it is good to have this kind of information up front and hopefully we can provide these details ASAP. This will be a topic of discussion at the next Development Team meeting.
Are these exact courses going to be offered every summer and will there be pre-reqs.?
All courses will be offered either in the summer or the Fall/Spring semesters starting with the summer 2006 academies. There are no pre-requisites on the summer courses being offered this summer, but there may be some pre-reqs. starting next year. Please be sure to make it clear that sign up for more than one course is acceptable, but not more than one course per session.
What are the times for the summer courses?
Exact times are still to be decided. NSF has a minimum number of hours per week to receive a stipend. Basically, the courses would be 8am-4pm or 9am-5pm daily with part of the day being group and/or individual work/activities/applications. The intent is for participants to be able to leave for the day without work to be completed at home.
Website (What would be useful? What’s needed?):
· Other resources—for teachers who can’t get into the courses
· Ultimately, a units of study resource bank to share with all teachers
· There should be some marketing highlights other than money such as the Enrichment Labs and the Structured Follow-Up.
· Video clips
Summer Programs
Summer camps for middle school students in the partner districts will be offered at CSU (residential), Ft. Lewis (residential for Native Americans), and MSCD (non residential with transportation paid). These very interactive camps are Math/Science/Technology camps and have been run in previous years (these are not being developed this year specifically for the RM-MSMSP from scratch).
Q & A:
Will before and after achievement scores of the middle school students participating in these camps have to be provided by the district?
The camps will have to show Student Achievement gains. This is an area which is being worked out and needs input. If you could let Barbara Bath know what kinds of assessment your district has it would be helpful information.
Is this a program for all middle school students?
It’s a program for everyone although specific special ed. students may not be able to be involved. The issues of English Language Learners and how they will fit into these summer camps is being looked at. Eligibility will be determined by the camp directors, but they will be middle school students.
Please keep in mind that the details of these summer camps are in the developing stages of meshing with this program and eligibility and other issues may be determined by individual camp direction.
Enrichment Labs
This area is in need of a lot of attention in terms of details, development, and planning. Schools and teachers are very interested in these enrichment labs and having people come to the schools or after school programs and working with their students.
For SFU, AIM, and TCI the facilitator referred to the handout titled “SFU, AIM, & TCI” which was read silently and then clarifying questions were discussed.
Structured Follow-Up (SFU)
One major issue is the possibility that teachers will be taking all three courses and we can’t make them then take SFU all year. But, ideally, they should take SFU for each course. The Development Teams will possibly play a large role in developing SFU.
Q & A:
Will there be courses offered in the Fall and Spring?
Will we be juggling SFU and courses throughout the years?
Courses will be offered both in the summer and during the Fall/Spring semesters. There will be two versions of every course, one for summer delivery and the other for academic year delivery. Some of the SFU component will be ingrained into the Fall/Spring courses.
(several questions were left unanswered as the answers are not available yet)
· If someone wants to take these classes but is not a Math/Science teacher, how does the SFU apply to them?
· Will Math Science people be together in SFU?
· What is the outcome/product of SFU?
· Could we have some say in what effective instructional strategies are being promoted in SFU?
· Are there teams working on the SFU?
Several ideas and corresponding concerns about SFU were gathered from the question:
“What is doable and what experiences within the districts is there that would pertain to the development of SFU?”
· What about the idea of SFU not being focused on each class and moved to more of a regional focus.
· Perhaps the Saturday sessions could be a video tape and reflection about their instructional practice.
· There will be bonds made in the summer courses; we don’t want to have to lose those bonds because of regions.
· SFU needs to be highly effective for both students and teachers.
· Perhaps there is need for a survey about what teachers want.
· Individual School Districts could/should be involved in SFU and lesson studies.
· It’s important to build the idea that SFU is a part of the academies.
· SFU should be more context specific but at the same time supporting the content specific courses.
· Perhaps there should be x number of Saturdays out there and the teachers choose what is most valuable to them.
· The goals of SFU should be: supporting better instruction and accountability.
· SFU is highly involved with regard to the input of the Leadership Team as well as a need to know dates ASAP so teachers are aware that SFU is part of taking these summer courses. What about choosing 6 Saturdays now and we do a pilot next year of SFU?
· With the CDE grant in Jeffco there was a lesson study done. It was a collegial group that talked about instruction. There was a happy atmosphere…the teachers seemed willing to go and do anything because of the bonds they had made.
· Every course has to have the SFU because a lot of the course is content and the pedagogy is needed.
· For members of the Development Team: they need to know requirements in order to tailor the courses for state endorsement.
· Teacher mobility is a driver and big issue.
· What about investigating the partnership with PEBC?
· What about using kids from the summer camps to be a part of the SFU?
Carole Basile and Linda Morris have agreed to take a lead in determining how SFU will be developed and implemented. Those interested in being part of a more specific SFU discussion/team are Mary Vedra, Sally Collins, Scott Wallace, Margaret Iadarola, Tracy Haschker, Kelly Corbett, Kathryn Milligan, and Katie Schutt. Carole and/or Linda will be in contact with these people shortly.
Analyzing Instructional Materials (AIM)
What is next? How do districts do it if they are interested? There is a process and at least several days involved in looking and choosing instructional material. If you are interested Linda Morris will be the key person, please contact her.
Teacher Content Inventory (TCI)
TCI has the potential to be extremely scary for teachers. Need to promote that this is a good thing, something that teachers will be able to use to self-evaluate. This is very tricky for the Pilot course because the tests are not specified to it. These are seat of the pants instruments and several things still have to be determined. Fortunately, we do not have to develop these TCIs from the ground up.
Q & A:
Will this have to go through IRB?
Not sure, Barbara will check on this.
How many different TCIs will there be?
At this point, there will be several TCI’s for science and for math.
What is the true meaning of anonymous?
There will be some kind of identifier but scorers won’t have access to it.
In addition to these are there other tests?
There will be evaluation means per each class.
Will the results of this TCI help drive the course descriptions?
That was the original plan; however, timing issues are not working in our favor. TCI results may drive the development and revision of next summer’s academies.
Leadership Team Requirements
At the last meeting a roles and responsibilities list was developed. It has been edited and changed into “Potential Activities of the Leadership Team members
(IHE and K12).”
The Management Team has been told to expect an audit and that part of what NSF will want to see is time and effort. The example time and effort log will be available on blackboard in both word and excel. This needs to be filled out and completed by all involved and returned to Alicia (preferably electronically) by 8/5/05. Please try to keep the headings of the work done and categorize your work accordingly. If you need assistance or have any questions regarding the categories or requirements please contact Alicia.
There are only three districts (Elizabeth, Brighton, and Jeffco) who have confirmed their two members of the Leadership Team. We need a commitment of two members per district. Please let Alicia know by the end of January and she will send you the appropriate paperwork to fill out and return. We welcome participation from IHE and K12 whether or not they are officially part of the LT.
Advice and wrap-up (What is working?)
· Excellent facilitator
· Feels rushed
· Is the next meeting date of April 19th appropriate?
· Maybe a late afternoon, longer meeting between now and April
· A sub-team of this group around SFU, etc. might be appropriate
· It would be good if everyone could start using the Blackboard forum
https://blackboard.cudenver.edu/ (let Alicia know if you can’t login)