TEA Collaborative Learning Group
Annual Report

Demello
2004

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How did your work with your team help you meet the professional growth goals you set for yourself?
In keeping with our goals from the previous year, we continued to develop ways to connect the classroom to real world research and applications. We used technology as the foundation for which we would all grow professionally and learn skills that would carry over into other areas of teaching and we used Polar Studies as our disciplinary theme. This strategy afforded us a chance to tap into grant resources for our activities which would have otherwise been unavailable to us.

How did your work with your team impact your content knowledge and pedagogy?
Having to teach other teachers helped me to better organize my thoughts, activities, and goals. Having to work with others and share information is a great motivator for becoming more organized, learning in greater depth, expanding one's creativity, and targeting goals.

What materials / resources / workshops did you use / produce / host with your team members over the last year?
This year, my remaining mentoring hours were mainly at the elementary level with Melinda Learning. We worked on using technology to teach polar studies. We explored WebQuests; Inputting climate data into Excel; Graphing data; Journaling; Exploration of Polar Regions; and Internet resources such as Nova, PBS, & AMNH web sites. We also spent time working on ways to bring more Inquiry into the classroom.

Based on the past year, what ideas do you have to improve the effectiveness of your team interactions?
I would have a difficult time finding ways to improve our effectiveness other than being able to have larger blocks of time to collaborate rather than 2 or 3 hours when schedules allow. Unfortunately, that is generally not possible. Administration did free up Melinda Learning and I for one day to work together and it was so refreshing to be able to work without interruption and to meet during the day, rather than after-school having already put in a full work day. I am very fortunate that my collaborating team members were flexible, very committed and professional. Our meetings weren't without their stresses at time, but when you have three terrific colleagues who are creative and focused, things tend to go well.

Total hours of collaboration with each team member:
Sue Rice * 119.5 Mara Carey 133.5 Melinda Learning 130 Nine other teachers grades 1-6 = 16 hours total *After completing 119 hours, Sue Rice and I felt we had done all we could at the high school level. We decided to ask other teachers if they would be willing to learn a bit more about Polar Studies in the hopes of reaching more students. We focused on grades 1-6. We also wanted to entice them to have their classes follow Dr. Brenda Hall in the field during her upcoming season and engage their students in the process. Working with Sue, I mentored nine other teachers for a total of 16 hours. TEA MENTORING RESPONSIBILITIES HAVE BEEN COMPLETED WITH A TOTAL OF 399 TEACHER MENTORING HOURS.

Additional reflections:
I am pleased that the TEA website will remain available for use by TEAs, TEA Associates and educators as a whole. I am a key leader for Massachusetts for the NSTA Initiative "Building a Presence in Science" and I will be posting some TEA information via this network. It is a terrific way of continuing to share the TEA resources and TEA teachers with educators across the country. The requirements of the TEA Collaborating Teams was an important component of the program, however I think I speak for many in saying that it would be much more valuable to try to extend the learning to more teachers and therefore many, many more students. In light of NCLB demands and various state education reform laws, teachers do not have the freedom to explore topics with the depth they once did. Furthermore, upper grade teachers have an even greater challenge of incorporating thematic programs or interdisciplary units than do elementary teachers. Because of this, teachers shy away from getting involved in giant project commitments like the TEA Mentoring, even though they may have an interest. However a collaborating program that reaches out to many more teachers for less hours would have a much greater chance of being implemented; and therefore (and most importantly) the intrigue, knowledge, and study of polar science would be much more widespread.