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TEA Collaborative Learning Group
Overview of Plan
Kolb
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Team Members:
(Report Updated and Submitted January 6, 2003)
Sandra Kolb
Rick Griffith
Previously Mentored:
Rolf Tremblay, TEA 2000
Valerie Sloane, TEA 1999
Suggested number of mentoring hours completed for both Rolf and Valerie and submitted to TEA as of 1999.
TEA Partnering:
Rolf Tremblay--our continued TEA partnering interactions are on-going and informal.
What is your role within your team?
I view our team as a partnership with each of us sharing our strengths and expertise. Because our strengths and experiences are different from each other’s, this is mutually beneficial. Each of us has the opportunity to lead in some areas and to facilitate and support at other times. Within our team, I tend to initiate the scheduling of team endeavors.
What professional growth goals do you and your team members hope to reach through this partnership?
Strengthened pedagogy: Strengthening the profession through the development and implementation of “learning science by doing science” inquiry-based polar learning activities into existing curricula.
Collegial sharing and learning from each other through shared preparation of classroom student activities and their field-testing.
Professional rejuvenation by the incorporation of new activities and techniques into classroom units of study.
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)?
Team self-evaluation discussion questions:
Is our activity inquiry based? Is it “learning science by doing science”?
Are team members equally sharing their ideas, experiences and efforts toward the writing of inquiry-based polar science activities and their implementation?
When the activities are implemented and field-tested, is there follow-up evaluation discussion (what works, what doesn’t work)?
Are the activities revised and/or further developed?
Are the activities aligned to the school district's essential learnings in science?
Mentoring Plan (Revised from Orientation)
Sandra K. Kolb
Copied from my Dec. 12, 1999 TEA Application Form: Attachment E
Mentoring Plan and Plan For Professional Development into TEA Leadership Capacities:
Without prior application to the TEA program, I have already mentored two TEA Associates, Valerie Sloane (TEAntarctica 1999) and Rolf Tremblay (TEA Associate and TEAntarctica applicant 2000). I continue to support and work with both protégés above and beyond the suggested 137 hours per person. My work with Valerie and Rolf includes TEA and Associate NW Regional planning meetings, classroom visits before and after my Antarctic ASA work experiences, e-mail correspondence with them and their students while working at the South Pole Station, assisting Rolf and Valerie with classroom resources, ideas and suggestions for the implementation of classroom activities and student projects, discussing questions and concerns related to TEA and their professional growth within the TEA community supported by in-person meetings, e-mail, and telephone conversations.
This summer and fall I spent a great deal of time with Valerie discussing her concerns in preparing to go to her summer PI meeting and Antarctic field assignment, packing and preparing for Antarctica, suggesting ideas for classroom activities and resources before, during and after her Antarctic experience and ways she could work with her substitute teacher and students from the field, assisted her in developing plans for Antarctic journaling, and worked with her in developing a mentoring plan. I am certain that I will be continuing to contribute many more hours toward mentoring Valerie once she returns. Valerie continues to have concerns and questions about her mentoring obligations and as her mentor; she continues to bring these to me.
My mentoring of Associate Rolf Tremblay continues. I will be spending the school day of Dec. 16, 1999 with him and his middle school students. I will be doing a general Antarctica presentation as a part of his polar studies unit and will be interacting with his students as they share their projects with me. If Rolf is successful in his application to the TEA 2000 program, I anticipate working with him as he prepares for his field assignment in the support of classroom activities before and after this event and discussing ways he can work with his substitute and students from the field. Rolf is using one of the TEA activities with his students that I wrote.
Although I have worked with Rick Griffith and his students since my first austral summer at the South Pole Station in 1996-97 and have worked with him on all three of my TEA activities for use in his classroom, he did not choose to become a TEA associate until recently. Rick officially became my protégé this fall. We consult together in person, via the telephone and e-mail discussing strategies for the successful implementation of classroom activities. During the week of Dec. 13, 1999, I will be spending 3 full school days with Rick and his colleague, Ken Henrichsen, in the science department of Fairview Junior High. On Monday, December 13, I will be giving a general TEA presentation to their classes. This will be followed by two school days assisting Rick and Ken with the implementation of the TEA activity, “Today’s Forecast”. Rick and I planned this activity specifically for his use and I polished and completed writing it at the TEA Activities Workshop at AMNH NYC. Rick and I envision further teaming on the creation of activities and their implementation in not only his classes but also Ken’s. Perhaps Ken will eventually see the advantages of choosing to become a TEA Associate.
I would like to continue to pursue professional growth evolving into leadership capacities within the TEA program. Prior to parcticipating in the AMNH NYC Activities Workshop in July 1999, I went to my former colleagues and district personnel to acquire the school district’s resources on mentoring. My purpose was to search out ways TEA mentoring could be augmented. After studying these resources, I mailed copies to Dr. Stephanie Shipp for possible use in the TEA Mentoring Day discussions at AMNH. I was fortunate to actively parcticipate in these very positive and productive discussions. This fall Stephanie invited me to grow into a TEA Mentor-Leadership role and begin the process of looking at how this component to the TEA program could be designed. I am looking forward to this opportunity. I repeatedly hear concerns and questions from new TEAs about the mentoring process. Potentially I see the need for mentoring guidelines provided to new TEAs and being reinforced with a training meeting in mentoring. It is likely that most TEAs who are mentoring may like to have this type of support or information. This discussion of mentoring or training could take place at the NSTA meeting for all TEAs and at TEA orientations for the new ones.
I continue to take on a leadership role in the NW Region and have planned and hosted two annual regional meetings following the annual NSTA TEA meetings. I have found these regional meetings to facilitate the work of NW TEAs and Associates as a group as well as provide individual support and assistance. Prior to these meetings, Stephanie and I discussed the agenda items. After the meetings, I wrote and e-mailed reports to Stephanie.
Another way that I see TEA leadership evolving for me is through the TEA Activities Editorial Review Panel that I recently volunteered to serve on under the direction of Arlyn Bruccoli at AMNH. This team and its guidelines are presently being established.
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