Department / Team Notes

Date: 3.18.08

Members Present: _____________________________________________

Please work through the following questions. The 9^th / 10^th grade teachers in each department should give a brief answer then take questions from the 11^th / 12^th grade teacher. Please have a time keeper. Approximately ten minutes per question. This is intended to get as much information out about the process of transitioning to standards as is possible in the time allotted. Our grant coaches will be working with the 11^th / 12^th grade teachers like they did with the 9^th / 10^th grade teams. Some issues are the same for any teacher in any grade level who is transitioning, some are different. I'll be meeting with the upper grade level teachers to tackle some of those unique issues and have tried to keep these questions to the common stuff.

1. What documents should a teacher have ready to go by September of the year he or she is entering the new system?

2. Discuss unit design in the new system. For instance, how many assessments per unit do you usually have; how many are formative versus summative? What else have you learned about designing units?

3. Discuss rubric design in the new system. Each summative assessment carries a rubric. How many standards per rubric? What else have you learned about rubric design?

4. Discuss how PLCs have helped in the first year of transition and how they've functioned.

5. Discuss what you see as student expectations in the new system. When they walk into class on the first day, what do they expect in a standards-based classroom.

6. Other: if time permits, have the 11^th / 12^th grade teacher(s) ask this question; something he or she hasn't heard discussed, yet. Perhaps about grading, how interventions are used in this system versus how they might be used in a traditional system, etc.