TEA Collaborative Learning Group
Overview of Plan

Jrogers

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Team Members:

What is your role within your team?

What professional growth goals do you and your team members hope to reach through this partnership?

How will you and your team reflect on these goals and on learning and classroom practice (e.g., pedagogy, the use of technology, content, the process of science)?

Mentoring Plan (Revised from Orientation)
MENTORING PLAN PROPOSAL- Jim Rogers

1. The teacher as a life-long learner characterizes my approach to professional development. Indeed, that is my main reason for becoming a TEA, and I suspect that I will learn much in the months ahead as a result. The new content, skills, and insights that I will gain during the arctic experience will surely enhance my teaching in developing new activities and implementing technology into my science and geography classes.

2. I’ll be looking for three new components in assessing my professional growth as a result of my involvement in the TEA program. First, integrating polar studies into my curriculum will be a large measure of success since I have largely ignored this part of the world in my classes so far. Next, as a parcticipant in a scientific investigation, hopefully this will help me improve my students’ research- parcticularly in the areas of presenting and publishing their results. And finally, if my enthusiasm is contagious, and my colleagues also integrate polar studies and research into their classrooms, then I will conclude that this collaborative learning experiment was worth the effort.

3. I’ll begin selectively inviting teachers that might be interested in this project. I’m also looking at including a teacher from each school in our district, so the team might consist of 2 elementary teachers and 1 middle school teacher. Perhaps a high school teacher as well. If likely candidates are unavailable, then I will send “recruitment” notices to everyone, and if that doesn’t work, go to nearby schools until I have a team.

4. After studying TEA’s program goals, and looking at our school district’s professional development plan, we will brainstorm ideas and identify common ground to determine topic(s) of interest that we can pursue together over the next three years.

5. As described in number 2, I’m hoping the team will be interested in integrating polar studies into their curriculum. As far as I know, no one in the entire school district covers the polar areas in any depth; in fact, it’s likely that topics of study to date include only penguins, polar bears, and Santa Claus. Developing and implementing research-oriented projects into our classes will be a high priority for me, and hopefully my colleagues as well. During our first year, perhaps a trip to a research facility/university and a winter field experience will make for a good start to achieving these goals.

6. Herewith might be our first session: (a) meet in location that promotes discussion; (b) discuss TEA program and goals; (c) study school district professional development guidelines; and, (d) briefly brainstorm some ideas for the coming year.

7. Finding like-minded teachers that love learning and the outdoors seems crucial to developing a successful collaborative venture. Making our time together fun is important too. Therefore, colleagues that embrace the “learning by doing” approach should stay on board with the program over the next three years.

8. Readily available resources that can provide cold environments for research and arctic/alpine institutes for learning might include: (a) The Arctic Institute in Calgary, Alberta; (b) the Alpine Department at MSU, Bozeman, Montana; (c) the Glacier Institute Glacier National Park; and, (d) numerous other possibilities. I suspect that all of us will spend a considerable amount improving our technology skills. We have number of colleagues that can help us to this end.

9. Being open-minded and a willingness to try new things should help me considerably in accommodating differences among our group. I also think that having the right people to begin with will keep everyone on the same page to begin with.