TEA Collaborative Learning Group
FINAL Report

Muhs

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Overall, in what ways did your collaboration with your team impact your professional growth? (e.g., how did this work impact your approach to and understanding of: content knowledge, pedagogy, process of science, teaching standards, use of technology, etc.)?
I transformed into a physics teacher leader, parcticularly in content areas, like my ability to teach modern physics concepts. With my new editorship of the WSTA journal, I expect to grow in experise in pedagogy, which has not been an important focus for me in the past.

In what ways do you think your colleagues were impacted by being a part of this collaborative team?
I think all my colleagues grew in similar ways. I hope they have all learned how to incorporate student projects in a theme-based approach from me.

How does this experience compare to / contrast with other professional interactions you have had with your colleagues?
Well, it’s been longer. And I expect it to continue indefinitely, as long as any of us continues to work in this field. And it was very content focused, which our little physics teacher group finds very motivating, unlike a lot of prefessional development we “get” to do in the course of our jobs.

Overall, what were the most significant outcomes of the mentoring experience?
I think the most significant outcomes were that all of us moved from a last-century approach to teaching physics: blocks on ramps, pulleys, that kind of thing, to an approach emphasizing what physicists are really working on now. The great unanswered questions about the universe, that kind of thing, are much more a part of our day-to day approach than previously.

What do you believe are the key elements to a successful mentoring experience?
1) Finding those few other energetic teachers who share your specialty, and your enthusiasm for it. 2) They need to be very local 3) They need to like to drink beer.

What recommendations do you have for other TEAs who are working with colleagues to transfer their TEA experience?
exactly the above :

1) Find a project to share work on, don’t just talk 2) Find a way to travel together to a conference 3) If you have good projects, the hours take care of themselves

What, if any, resources/products were created by your team? How can we best make these available to the broader TEA community?
• 3 multimedia CDs, one on cosmic rays, one my South Pole experience, one on our balloon flight experiment. They’re all on line at www.invisiblemoose.org

• numerous powerpoints, also online at www.invisiblemoose.org

What are your recommendations for improving or modifying the mentoring experience?
I think the rigidity of the requirement is rather counterproductive. It ignores the greater opportunities for leadership that teachers might have (that I myself have had), and seems to assume the most leadership a teacher could possibly exert is over a tiny isolated group of colleagues. Each teacher finds themselves in different circumstances, some leading departments, some leading buildings, some leading districts, and the requirement utterly fails to recognize these powerful opportunities to develop great science teaching. It seems that each teacher could make a proposal for mentoring activity that was in keeping with the spirit of the the requirement, while taking advantage of the opportunities and openings each sees before them.

Additional Reflections: