Teaching Fellows' Meetings
2004 Physical Science Cohort Fellows' Meetings
Photo: Yischon Liaw, 1000 Views Studios
April 17-18, 2008
The 2004 Science Teaching fellows met in Sacramento, CA for their spring meeting. This meeting built on the Fall 2007 meeting where fellows were introduced to strategies for differentiating instruction for academically diverse learners. Between the fall and spring meetings, each fellow developed one or more lessons that included strategies for differentiation and came to Sacramento prepared to share ideas and reflect on what worked well. The focus of the spring meeting was to move fellows to a more advanced level of thinking and practice with regards to differentiation and to begin to see differentiation as a mindset rather than a set of strategies. As with the spring meeting, the workshop was led by Amy Germundson from the University of Virginia. In addition to Amy's workshop, the 2004 Fellows shared the professional goals they have been working on during the year and discussed possible types of evidence that could be used to show that they are growing as professional teachers with respect to those goals.
November 2-3, 2007
For their fall meeting, the 2004 Science Teaching fellows met in Arlington, Virginia to investigate strategies for differentiating instruction for academically diverse learners. The workshop was led by Amy Germundson, a former high school chemistry and physics teacher and a current doctoral student at the University of Virginia. A graduate student of Dr. Carol Tomlinson (a nationally known expert in differentiation,) Amy consults with high school science teachers on differentiating instruction. The focus of her workshop was on planning science curriculum and differentiating lessons to meet diverse student learning needs, based on student readiness, interest and learning profiles. The fellows used the strategies they learned in the workshop to incorporate differentiated instruction into their lesson study and will implement additional strategies before the spring meeting, when they will meet with Amy again. In addition to Amy's workshop, the 2004 Fellows worked to develop individual goals for their annual KSTF teaching portfolios.
April 27-28, 2007
For their spring meeting the 04 fellows (along with the 03 fellows) met in St. Louis, Missouri, to investigate standards focused project-based learning. The workshop was led by Tristan de Frondeville of the Buck Institute for Education, and also included two high school teachers, Arnie McKinley and Kevin Gant, who have experience designing project-based learning in chemistry and physics. Fellows worked in teams to develop two- to three-week projects in their subject areas, such as: using a knowledge of standing waves to build musical instruments, proposing a safe but extreme bungee jumping ride for an amusement park, and analyzing contaminated soil from various sites to make recommendations to the town zoning committee for building a playground. The fellows will continue their work in designing their projects at the Summer Fellows’ Meeting.
October 20-21, 2006
The 2004 Science Cohort met in Seattle, WA for their fall meeting. The fellows participated in a workshop led by Pam Kraus of Facet Innovations and Stamatis Vokos of Seattle Pacific University. The workshop focused on formative assessment and introduced fellows to the Diagnoser software. The fellows worked on developing formative assessment tools for their lesson study that will help them pay attention to and address students' facets of thinking throughout instruction. Additionally the fellows chose standards-based goal for the academic year and discussed evidence that shows growth towards those goals.
April 7-8, 2006
The spring 2006 meeting of the 2004 Science Cohort was held in Anaheim, California, where the fellows worked with Kathy Comfort of WestEd on issues of standards-based assessment. The workshop gave the fellows an opportunity to reflect on their beliefs and knowledge about standards-based assessment; to learn about and develop standards-based assessments (formative and summative) for their lesson study; and to focus on deeper thinking about how they know what their students know, can do, and understand, and implications for practice and instruction.
October 21-22, 2005
The 2004 Science Cohort's fall meeting was held at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona, where the fellows were introduced to the Modeling Instruction in High School Physics curriculum. The Modeling Program is a systematic approach to the design of curriculum and instruction developed by ASU that uses computers to teach models and modeling, central components of modern science. The workshop was taught by Larry Dukerich and Kelli Gamez-Warble, two veteran teachers with many years experience teaching modeling, both in their own classrooms and to other teachers, and focused on specific methods of teaching concepts of energy transfer in both chemistry and physics.
April 22-23, 2005
In April, the 2004 Science Fellows met at the MIT Endicott House in Dedham, Massachusetts. During their meeting, they participated in workshops conducted by Jennifer Claesgens from the University of California, Berkeley focused on the Living by Chemistry curriculum. The fellows worked on investigations and demonstrations from the Alchemy, Toxins, Weather and Fire units in Living by Chemistry and the content, pedagogy and research on student understanding in chemistry that are the basis of that curriculum. The fellows also met with Scott Balicki from the Boston Latin School who shared his experiences teaching the Living by Chemistry curriculum.
October 22-23, 2004
In October, the 2004 Science Fellows met in Seattle, Washington. During their meeting, they observed Seattle science teachers involved in a district-wide inquiry reform project. They also worked with the Physics Education Group at the University of Washington learning about inquiry-based curriculum development and research into student learning via inquiry. In addition, they worked with Mark Windschitl from the College of Education at the University of Washington on inquiry and high school science teaching.
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