TEA Collaborative Learning Group
Annual Report

Llong
2004

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How did your work with your team help you meet the professional growth goals you set for yourself?
As in the past three years, DeLong Middle School's focus was to improve literacy in content areas. Along with the school orientated goal, my personal goal was to implement more inquiry based lessons into the curriculum. Because literacy has been a long range goal of our district there are many opportunities for teachers to attend different small workshops enabling our groups to share bits and pieces that we find helpful in our parcticular content area. As a group we attended a CRISS workshop which highlights strategies to improve students reading comprehension. Over the past two years as a group, we have found literally dozens of short stories that match a variety of reading levels to share with each other. Using pre, during and post reading strategies teachers have improved how students comprehend new vocabulary and concepts. Along with stories, we have shared ideas on how to improve reading of graphs and charts where our students have shown a deficiencey in the past. Our most recent national test scores have shown an improvement over the past few years. In regards to my goal of implementing more inquiry based lessons into the curriculum our team of teachers have submitted many successful grants that have enabled us to but and implement new ideas. Not only have we written and submitted grants, we have attended local and national workshops to provide new ideas. Finally, our district has provided us with a similar lunch and prep times that enables us to share ideas on a daily basis as well as frequent opportunities to attend workchops and clinics. Not only do we learn but our team has become a very close. Lastly, Barb Packard retired at the end of this past school year. Barb was the teacher that I worked closest with and spent the most time with. Jeremy Traynor is the teacher that transfered into 7th grade science and replaced Barb; joining our collaborative group. Much of what our team did was to make sure Jeremy was comfortable in our group with the ideas and curriculum we are emphasizing.

How did your work with your team impact your content knowledge and pedagogy?
The more I work with the group of teachers in this collaborative group the better I become as a teacher. Each person brings a different perspective and our team is good at accepting different opinions and ideas. The flexibility of our team has provided me with many new ideas I have tried to implement; some successfully!

What materials / resources / workshops did you use / produce / host with your team members over the last year?
As a group we attended: NSTA convention in Atlanta, GA Minnesota GIS/GPS conference in Roseville, MN Beaver Creek Environmental Issues Forum in August, WI CRISS (content reading strategies) workshop in Eau Claire, WI Ken O'Connor differentiated grading and assessments workshop in Eau Claire, WI Individually, Karen Bejin went to the Tulik (sp) Lake in the Arctic through the 'new' TEA program. As a groups we helped Karen prepare and had her write and correspond with our classes before school was finished in June. Some of the new materials we have started to use include digital cam trackers. Students are assigned parcticular animals to try to photograph in teh natural environment. This new technology is opening many new doors and we are planning to present how these cameras can be used in any class to view animals, behaviors, environmental concerns, etc... This is something we have not seen yet and are excited to continue to implement the cameras in more curriculum areas.

Based on the past year, what ideas do you have to improve the effectiveness of your team interactions?
Before looking at how to improve I wanted to expalin what is working well. First our administration has been flexible enough with scheduling that all of us are able to have corresponding prep times and lunch times. Each day that allows us to work together for more than an hour. As with any working relationship we do not always work, however, even in our tangents work somehow seems to be the general topic in the end. Not only does our administration provide a flexible work schedule, they provide us ample opportunities to attend conferences together. That being said, there is one parcticular way I would like to see our team become more effective and that is through peer coaching. Without someone watching or critiquing me, I do not get a feel as to how I can eimprove everyday lessons. Are there behaviors that I do that hinder certain students from learning. Peer coaching would provide a safe environment away from administration for teachers to improve their skills by recieving constructive criticism, suggestions or 'bravos' from teachers they work with.

Total hours of collaboration with each team member:
Karen Bejin 73 (2002-3) + 64(2004) =138 Barb Packard 114 (2002-3) + 74 (2004) = 188 Beth Howie 95.5 (2002-3) + 86 (2004) = 181.5 Jeremy Traynor 0 (2003) + (2004) = 56

Additional reflections:
As I mentioned last report, Barb Packard retired this year and we did not have the opportunity to hire a new teacher however a teacher that I have worked with for many years transfered into her position. Jeremy Traynor joined our group and has parcticipated just like Barb had in the past. He is more of a learning position that a teaching postion in reference to our group but has provided new ideas for some of the same old ideas.