BRIDGING

=Bridging the Gap=

Tue-Thu, August 12-14, 2008, 8:30-3:30 + one evening.
During this three-day institute, participants will explore the education research literature and resources that support curriculum development. Review a wide variety of curriculum materials and activities, develop a set of criteria to evaluate the quality of any given curricular activity, and the know-how to modify an activity to create the desired outcome. Time will be spent connecting the new content to individual classroom curricula and specifically developing/modifying a fall activity or unit.

 Annette's e-mail to all, following the workshop...
Thanks, all of you, for your dedication and time commitment over the past three days. I fully appreciate your hard work, as will your students in the up coming year. They are all lucky to have YOU as their teachers, with your thoughtfulness and commitment to give them your best.

I will encourage you to share on the wikispace (clcofme.wikispaces.org) thoughts or discussions you have regarding our week. If you beat me to it, initiate a new page for "Bridging" and add to the discussion. I would love to hear where you are with your "project work", but recognized fried minds at the end of the day and knew "reporting out" this afternoon was not going to have much value.

Some quick replies to comments on the evals that I received:
 * 1) The expectations for final project product are loose b/c I want it to be loose... This is not a grad level course, it is a workshop series designed to help you. I just want/need to be able to see how you're using your experienceI want to push you enough so that you actually implement some of the aspects of good teaching that we've explored and have the opportunity to reflect back on what you've done with a group of trusted colleagues (in Nov).
 * 2) I want you to share with the group what you've produced (a unit or activity posted on the wikispace by Jan 30) and I've asked for it in EITHER the 5 E's or Inquiry template format so that each of us can see how you've implemented/activated those aspects we've talked about.
 * 3) For Jan 30, I will ask you to produce 3 slides (ppt or other)-- one illustrating what the unit/activity was, one highlighting what you gained from the process of change/development, one highlighting how it affected your students. These slides will be put together into one presentation to share with the invited guests and each other.
 * 4) Finally, thank you for your patience and understanding of my own needs over the past couple of days. The circumstances and timing were not ideal with the recent passing of Nate and I will be the first to admit that I was not operating at 100%. Please forgive and continue to ask questions as I am happy to fill in some of the gaps I know were left and connections not fully made.