profdev

=**Middle School Professional Development**=

This wiki is meant to help MS Staff document our professional development activities. Ida volunteers to edit and manage as much is needed to keep things current. She will also nudge you to post a short blurb about any conferences or courses you attend. Her fantasy is that all of our professional development is tracked here. If you are willing to post a blurb here, great. If your comfort with the whole wiki thing is not so high yet, Ida would be happy to post your blurb if you just email it ot her. If you are just too pressed for time and can't even write a blurb, Ida will visit you and take dictation. If you want her to just leave you alone, that's fine too.

What if we organized this page by topic, and alphabetically?

What about:


 * Foreign Language
 * Quaker Education
 * Technology
 * Science
 * Diversity


 * Professional Development Experiences (in alphabetical order)

__ACTFL: American Conference of Foreign Language Teachers__** (6000 teachers!)**__Christel & Francoise-__** Went to the conference wanting to find way s to teach Spanish effectively and in a way that would make kids want to come! She learned some cool new idea, and kept thinking “Oh, Francoise already does that. Oh, she does that too.” Ask her about “caterpillar conversation” and dry erase markers on a page protector. Her favorite session was on assessment. Francoise was so happy to have a partner in this work. She is so glad to be at CFS. Her main focus was differentiation. She is trying out some stuff that she learned. One of them is planning backwards. She was thrilled to have some many people around her. It gave her hope that America is finally going to get “out of its little bubble.” **__Mary Deborah__** One point she took home was the idea that we are not teaching foreign language as much as multiculturalness. That eventually everyone


 * __Friends Council on Education Institute for Engaging Leadership - Ida__**

__**NCETC NC winter 2007 Educational Technology Conference - Matthew and Mig**__ I still love learning. I was excited to go and sit down and learn things that were completely new to me. I have more to share than I can fit in here.

Matthew shared his wiki with us. (http://cfsmatthew.wikispaces.com) "Wiki" is Hawaiian for "quick" -- a webpage that can be edited quickly and easily. A wiki is a website that can be edited by whomever you set to be able to edit it. He created a wiki for us for today. It took him about 20 minutes. He can show us all how to do it if we want. Mig is using one for her Ultimate Writing class.

Main things Matthew walked away from feeling pretty fluent on were wikis and blogs.
 * __Technology - Matthew__**

Wiki is a living website. It can be edited by you, others…If you want, you can go the wiki Matthew has created for us [ http://cfsmsstaff.wikispaces.com ] and look at how the science teachers at Cary Academy are using wikis in their classes. He showed us a little bit of how to edit his page. He also showed us MIg’s wiki, which she is using to teach parts of speech in her Ultimate Writing class. Only her students have access. The rest of the world does not even know it’s there. He is passionate about all this new technology stuff, and wants to share what he’s learned.

Mig and Matthew are available in the afternoons for tech support and would be happy to help you if you want to experiment with any of this stuff.

Also, check out teachertube.com. It is a website like YouTube.com only it has been screened by teachers and has some pretty cool stuff. Check out Matthew on TeacherTube. [ http://www.teachertube.com/uvideos.php?UID=42557 ]

I picked presentations on brain research, specifically the adolescent brain. So much more info is known now! We need to learn more about what is going on in the research right now. …
 * __NMSA winter 2007- Matthew__**


 * __PBS TeacherLine course fall/winter 2007- Jim R.__**

I'm completing a six week online course investigating ways of gathering scientific information in the field. Each course has a facilitator who keeps an eye on us, nudges and encourages us to stay on track, provides guidance and evaluates our work. Each week has a required written assignment, required bulletin board postings and related journal entry. The course can be taken for graduate credit for an additional fee. It's been more work than I expected but has been very useful to my work in the classroom. There are about a dozen teachers in my class, from various parts of the country (and one who's teaching in a school in the cloud forest part of Costa Rica). One's an art teacher, one's special ed - wide variety of interests and areas (I am the only man in the course, for what it's worth.) The message boards are a great way of collaborating asynchronously (I love that word, asynchronous!). Courses are available in many subject areas, from math to special needs. Two thumbs up!

//Scientific Inquiry and Field Work: Discovering with Technology for Grades 6-8// Current technology can help students to improve their problem-solving skills by giving them more opportunities for inquiry. In this course, we will explore a variety of technological strategies that allow students to record and communicate on-site data collection, analyses, and investigative results. We will examine ways to acquire mobile technology for your classroom. As a final task, you will design a unit plan for an ecosystem field trip that incorporates current technologies for gathering, analyzing, and sharing data. By the time we're done, you will be able to:
 * Find Web sites with examples of environmental activities that use mobile technology.
 * Identify a variety of technological strategies for students to record and communicate on-site data collection, analyses, and investigative results.
 * Articulate the differences between traditional and current technological methods for collecting and analyzing data in the field for specific ecosystems.
 * Create a unit plan that uses inquiry and current technology to support learning in the field.
 * Identify which types of current technology are available to your classroom.
 * Develop a variety of strategies to acquire mobile technology for your classroom.

Here are some examples of other courses in the catalog:

//Teaching with WebQuests for Grades K-12// Discover Internet resources that promote inquiry oriented student learning and smart use of the Web for research and class assignments. In this course, you will explore WebQuests and learn to integrate the Internet into your curriculum effectively. You will design a WebQuest to enhance a classroom unit or curriculum area to engage students in meaningful research.

//Using Assessment and Evaluation// Delve into the full array of assessment and evaluation tools, including rubrics, journals, formal and informal assessments, and portfolios. Then, create an effective rubric based on an existing student assignment.

//Measurement: Surface Area and Volume in Grades 6-8// Clarify the concepts of surface area and volume for middle schoolers using nets/maps, interactives and the van Hiele model of geometric thought. Learn how to encourage students’ reasoning, while addressing the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) standards. Utilize PBS’s resources such as Misunderstood Minds, to address students with math disabilities. Create a lesson on surface area and volume.

For more info, check out the PBS TeacherLine website: http://[|PBS TeacherLine online courses for teachers]

__**People of Color Conference, fall 2007 - Toni**__ It is an amazing conference. Independent school teacher and a student diversity leadership conferences at the same time. We had some activities in conjunction with each other. The first time I went, I sat in a room with 600 black educators. It was amazing. This year I went and got really jealous because I had to go alone. I want someone else to come with me. Toni shared case scenarios from the conferences with us (she has copies). I took a class called Africa in the Classroom. It left me feeling really inspired by these African educators who talked about why it’s so important to teach about Africa in the classroom: it is a place in the world. It was inspiring to hear how colonization affected them, and still affects some of them. There is a diversity conference coming up in Greenville, SC on February 10-11. I am inviting all to attend.

Still to come…Tommy, Jim, Ida