Starter list of Q about PLC work- April 2010

General Q / Answers
1.  What if I did not received a team confirmation, and my name does not appear on the Master List of teams? / Did you receive the memo and survey about participation? Participants need to submit the survey listing their 1st, 2nd and 3rd choices through one of these venues:Wordpress, email to Pam Wong or Gus Wedemeyer, or a hard copy via the turquoise box at your site.
2.  Is it too late to join a team?
What if I want to work on another team in addition to the one I originally chose? / Participants should submit the survey (see answer to #1), and contact Pam Wong or Gus Wedemeyer by email, as some teams may still need members. Some teams are fully formed but other teams are not. Placement on a team is based upon availability, program need, and coordination details.
3.  If my name appears on one team, but I want to join another one, what is the process? / Most of the teams may have started meeting, and we are discouraging participants from switching teams. We have notified the Program Administrators of team assignments, and unilaterally switching teams may result in your not getting paid.
That said, if you would like to request to serve on another team, there are still a couple of teams that need members. It is very critical that you submit your survey(if you haven’t done so already), and email Pam or Gus to make your request to change.
4.  What if I did not get my first choice team, and was assigned to a team I do not wish to join?
What if my name appears on a team list, and I do not want to be on that team? / PLC and special projects are voluntary. Participation is not required.
5.  What is the pay rate for teachers participating on a team? / Pay is at the AFT instructional pay rate for AFT teachers and at the OEA instructional pay rate for OEA teachers
6.  What if my team is meeting during non-instructional time, how will I be paid? / Teachers who meet with their team during non-instructional time will have those hours deducted from their instructional time at the end of the school year. For instance, if a teacher attended 6 hours of meetings during May 2010 and the meetings occurred outside of the teacher’s instructional hours, then the 6 hours are deducted from their total assignment at the end of the school year.
Teachers who encounter a conflict with participation should speak to their program administrator. We will try to support opportunities for ongoing participation.
7.  My PLC team meets during instructional time, and I am releasing my students for that time. However, the scheduled meeting time is 2 hours, and there is an additional hour that is non-instructional. What is the process to get paid for this time? / See answers to #5 and #6 above
Questions about Curriculum Development work (teams 3A, 3D, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9 and 11)
8.  The curriculum writing project seems so immense—what if we don’t finish by the end of June? / The curriculum projects are pretty meaty, and while we feel it would be great to have the projects completed by June 30, we know it may not be realistic to complete them by that time frame. So some projects will likely continue into the summer
9.  Is it OK to use our key standards (Power Standards) for Beginning Low, and have each teacher covering those standards use her own materials? This allows for teacher creativity.
Is this curriculum guide meant to be prescriptive? Will teachers have to use it?
There are so many different ways to teach the standards and objectives. What if I do not want to use the curriculum developed by the group? What if I have another way to teach it? / Of course is important to keep working from the standards for each level, because they are what drive the curriculum content.
Teachers will be responsible for helping students achieve the learning objectives outlined in the curriculum guide, and the curriculum guide should be designed to make this as easy as possible. The curriculum guides are not meant to provide exhaustive materials and instructions. There should be plenty of room for teacher creativity.
A teacher would be free not to use the materials outlined in the curriculum guide, but they would be responsible for the learning objectives outlined in the curriculum guide.
10. If we have lesson materials in our curriculum, lots of scaffolding must be done to get students prepared for the lesson. Will we have to write out detailed instructions so that a teacher will know how to use the lesson material?
Most of my resources and materials would not be ready to use by another teacher without a lot of explanation from me. We were told this is a student workbook and not an instructor's guide. How will this work? / The curriculum guide is for teachers. The student workbook is one section of the curriculum guide, and should be designed to be easily duplicated for students. The curriculum guide should contain some explanation, but we are not expecting a full-blown teaching guide.
There should be an effort to pull together the most effective materials, and the curriculum guides should contain materials that are known to be or expected to be the most effective for teaching the key learning objectives.
The draft curriculum guides that teams create should be considered first drafts. We should expect them to be really good, but to also need to be tested and refined. Teams should put in stuff that they feel is really good and really important, and include basic instructions, and should plan to continue to revise the curriculum in the context of Professional Learning Community work.
11. We have a concern—during the curriculum writing workshop given by Susan Svensson, Susan shared her templates, and samples of curriculum materials written for a (computer class/CTE??) class. Teaching English is a much more complex activity, and it is not as easily broken down into step by step activities, and it might be challenging to write the curriculum using such a template. How can a Beg Low curriculum be written using the same format?
Do we have to strictly follow the template and design presented by Susan Svensson? / There are some areas of consistency we would like to have, such as major student learning objectives, materials or refs to materials that would support the teaching of those objectives; a few assessments to check on student progress, and perhaps a final assessment so there is clarity on how much students have learned. These are some of the basics, and the teams should insert whatever they feel is the best thing to insert in those areas. We want consistency (not uniformity), so that teachers will find the curriculum guides helpful in terms of teaching a new course.
If we are serious in following a pathway model to deliver services, it is critical that we have a more consistent set of expectations for student learning at each juncture.
12. Lower level ESL classes are different from other classes. Is it really possible to write curriculum for this? / Yes, it has been done and we are confident it can be done.
13. Does our curriculum have to be 100% original? Could other sources or textbooks be used? / At the April NCAS FC, Jacques said it was acceptable to use other sources, although the issue of copyright remains ambiguous.
See answer to #14
14. In the case of English for Specific Purposes, what if there were materials out there that might be a good fit for our own ESP courses in Medical, Carpentry, etc? Would we be able to use those materials? / It would be best if the materials were copyright-free, or, if they needed to be purchased, could function as a core text for the class.
15. If a particular textbook (Stand Out, for example), that supports web-based or computer skills, and seemed appropriate for use at a certain level, do we have to re-invent the wheel? / Teachers in a working group may find a specific text that does cover the essential areas. They are free to recommend chapters of that text for use. In most cases a textbook does not equate to a complete curriculum.
16. What if no one on my team has the skills to format the curriculum document? / Teachers may draft it out, and we will try to find a person to do the formatting
17. What if no one on my team has sufficient knowledge about technology to integrate it with our curriculum? / Would you let us know what specific support is needed when you get to that juncture? We will do our best to support your group.
18. What if you are on a team that is designing curricula for a bridge class but the other program isn’t forthcoming with the assessments, and materials they use? How are we supposed to design a curriculum without knowing what the students are supposed to be able to do? / See answer #17 above