TEA Collaborative Learning Group
Annual Report

Huffman
2005

Back to Login Page

How did your work with your team help you meet the professional growth goals you set for yourself?
I have always been an "elementary" teacher at heart. By that I mean that I enjoy teaching interdisciplinary units which is what elementary teachers often do as they connect all of the subjects they are required to teach in a day. More importantly, brain research tells us that students need to make connections and that learning needs to be authentic. This year I have worked closely with one of my TEAssociates to develop a unit for her sixth grade students that incorporates language arts and science as well as social science topics. In my own class, I also worked to write interdisciplinary units involving aspects of polar science, language arts and social science.

How did your work with your team impact your content knowledge and pedagogy?
My team and I worked to increase our knowledge about assessment FOR learning and worked on ways to incorporate these assessments in our daily teaching. We read arcticles, watched a video and developed a few assessment for learning related to our science curriculum. We also focused this year on thinking strategies and their relation to science.

What materials / resources / workshops did you use / produce / host with your team members over the last year?
Read chapters from "Assessment FOR Learning," Chappuis, Stiggins, Arter, and Chappuis. Watched the video "A Hopeful Vision of the Future," Assessment Training Institute. Read chapters from "Student-Involved Classroom Assessment," Stiggins. I led an inservice day workshop called "Assessment FOR Learning" and my team attended and helped with some of the activities.

Based on the past year, what ideas do you have to improve the effectiveness of your team interactions?
This was the last year of "formal" meetings, but we will continue to work together as always to find ways to improve delivery of instruction to students. My team will be involved in helping present activities and as parcticipants at the Midwest Regional Polar Science Workshop that I will facilitate in March, 2005. Some of my team will attend a workshop that I am presenting at the Regional Office of Ed. called: "Teaching and Learning are NOT Synonomous--I Taught It Well, But Did They Learn It? Assessment FOR Learning"

Total hours of collaboration with each team member:
Mary Slack--2 hours Jane Hester--40 hours Thad Whildin--25 hours Joe Cave--25 hours

Additional reflections: