posted Nov 13, 2008 7:27 AM by Anne Douglass
I can only be there for about an hour.
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posted Nov 11, 2008 11:22 AM by Linda Nelson
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updated Nov 13, 2008 7:25 AM by Anne Douglass
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FOOD |
#1 |
#2 |
#3 |
| Salad |
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| Main Course |
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| Bread/Appetizer |
chips/salsa-Anne
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| Dessert |
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| Other |
linda wine |
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Hi everyone--our next meeting is this week! Please sign up for the potluck, which will be at Linda and Judith's house from 4:30 - 6 p.m. See below for notes on the agenda--thanks! Linda |
posted Nov 11, 2008 11:16 AM by Linda Nelson
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updated Nov 11, 2008 11:21 AM
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November Meeting Invitation and Notes for Agenda
The election results are in and look great for education and the arts. Now it’s time to get our PLC rolling again for this school year—we’ve had demand for it! After talking with our principals, Todd and Catherine, we have scheduled a potluck meeting for THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 13, FROM 4:30 – 6 P.M. AT LINDA AND JUDITH’S HOME IN DEER ISLE.
Please note the earlier meeting time. After polling several of you, we decided earlier is better. We will therefore meet and then eat at the end of the meeting.
We’ll launch this year by discussing how we might use ideas and techniques generated by this PLC to develop consensus among colleagues toward improved team work: in our classrooms among students; in our buildings among colleagues; between buildings; and between the schools and community. In an election year, we are surrounded by plenty of “pouring paint” (to use the central metaphor from Stacey Coates’ October Kennedy Center workshop, Teaching Tolerance); and we’ve all experienced that on a daily basis and on multiple levels in our local school climate. What information can we share, and agreement can we build, to address this and other critical barriers to improved learning and student performance?
As always—and hopefully this will be easier for each of you with system enhancements and more training this year—as we prepare for this meeting, please use the Wiki at http://sites.google.com/a/dises.org/csd-13-arts-in-education/Home. The Wiki presents a shared forum for us to discuss and present ideas and questions: it can be much more effective for this purpose than email. If you still have not logged in and used it, please consult with Mark Arnold . . .
Log on to the Wiki now to:
- RSVP for this meeting Thursday, November 13;
- Present your ideas for what you want and need from the PLC this year;
- Share a success story with us from the start of the school year: how have you used artistic or other integration techniques in your classroom and/or among your peers to build team work and improve the learning environment and student learning?
- Tell us what you are bringing to the potluck!
Warm regards and looking forward to seeing you Thursday, November 13, |
posted Aug 23, 2008 3:24 PM by Christel Kendzia
| When are we having our first meeting of the year? It would be good to have it sooner than later. Maybe we can help each other with some ideas about how to integrate arts into our classrooms before school gets in full swing. |
posted May 7, 2008 6:00 PM by Mark Arnold
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updated May 7, 2008 6:02 PM
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Remember how engaging and inspiring our meeting of April 15
was?? It feels like a long time ago already, but as I was typing up the notes I
took I remembered how invigorating it was; and I am looking forward to our next
meeting which is
TUESDAY, MAY 27, 5:30 – 7 p.m. –
probably at Katy Helman’s house, awaiting confirmation!
This is the only day both our principals and other key
members can make it, so I hope it works for the majority of the group, too . .
. we are really striving to get both Todd and Catherine in attendance at one of
these inspiring educational get togethers, especially as they struggle through
the (often depressing) rigors of the annual budgeting process . . .
Is our intervention needed in this annual budget process,
to turn out the vote or help spread information? Only Catherine and Todd can
tell us this—and hopefully they will. The piecemeal method which the
school cmte currently uses to approach the budget (cutting it so the bottom
line fits taxpayers needs, instead of finding funding for the well-thought out
educational plans presented by the educators) makes it very difficult, from the
outside, to tell how the whole is being affected. Catherine and Todd,
please do let us know—on the Wiki!
Log on to the Wiki now for:
- Notes from the April 15 meeting, and to be reminded of
TOM DUYM’S CHALLENGE TO US
- Karen Erickson, the
Kennedy Center teaching artist who was present for our April 15 meeting,
has lots of experience in PLCs and all the areas we discussed that
evening. She was mightily impressed with our conversation, and created a
list of guiding questions about which we might want to think prior
to the May 27 meeting!
Sorry it has taken us so long to get these notes up and out
to you. We’re still engaged, and looking forward!
Warm regards,
Linda
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posted May 7, 2008 5:30 PM by Linda Nelson
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updated May 7, 2008 5:50 PM by Mark Arnold
]
What a great meeting! Thanks to everyone for the excellent food and, even better, the excellent conversation!
Here are the notes I scribbled across the pad pasted up on our TV . . . scroll to the end for TOM'S CHALLENGE!
April 15, 2008 Meeting
What do I want this PLC to be?
- Dialogue/communications
- Plan for
arts integration: concentration and focus as well as self-expression
- PR and
Professional Development
Why are you here?
- How do
you motivate kids?
- How do
we get our kids to think in the way creative people do?
What is your vision for the next 3 years?
What does arts integration mean to you?
- ACTION
- Conversation:
coherence in what we are trying to do (themes?)
- How we
communicate with the community about the power of arts education
- CREATIVITY
and LINK to fishing and hands on learning
- Prove to
discliplines how arts make math and science better
- Advocacy:
communicate out to public
- Art at
the center of the day, not the margins
- Not
activity vs. activity, but smaller numbers, smaller events: QUALITY
Specific Goals?
- Change
educational environment, via arts integration or . . .
- Create a
climate of OPTIMISM. Leadership is work that “encourages the
heart”
Specific Outcomes?
- Fewer
kids with “performance anxiety”
- Better
self esteem
Strategies?
- Meet
monthly and use the WIKI
- Interim
action steps?
- Catherine
will be writing an article about the Kennedy
Center for the school
and Reach newsletters; shall we publish this or something related in the
newspaper, too?
- TOM’S
CHALLENGE: Do one thing out of your comfort zone with students, AND
- MARK’s
ADDITION: Report what you do to this whole PLC: tell us something we
don’t know about you! Use the Wiki—communicate!
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posted Apr 15, 2008 2:25 PM by Linda Nelson
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updated May 7, 2008 5:29 PM
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| April 15 meeting attendees respond . . . |
posted Apr 11, 2008 3:41 AM by Linda Nelson
Hi all, here are some proposed agenda, or discussion, items about which to think as we prepare for Tuesday night's second meeting of our PLC. We may choose to discuss these in different order; or to discuss other things entirely. Your input is essential, and you can post it here as well as bringing it to the meeting Tuesday night. Looking forward to it! -- Linda
1. Most of our first discussion was focused, using the Kennedy Center partnership as a model, on potential school improvement initiatives. Several other models for this were discussed; some used in the past successfully at DI-S, some in other places. Materials have been posted on this site in regard to these. Plus, the schools have a Vision Statement, hammered out over two years by consensus including a lot of work with the entire staff and finally adopted by the School Cmte.
A. Given these materials, what do the members of this group see as the top three priorities to move us, as an educational community, toward the agreed-upon Vision??
B. We already know that one of these priorities is SCHEDULE. So: if you were in charge of the schedule for the school day, what would it look like? Can you draw out, on a piece of paper, what a week's schedule at school might look like, in your wildest imagination?? Can you describe it for us here?
2. WHAT are the conditions that are necessary to sustain school improvement intiatives, such as the Kennedy Center program, so that they have the measurable impact we plan for them before external-political-financial conditions sweep them away? One of the biggest things everyone at DI-S complains about is that initiatives are launched one after another, but are often changed before the intended results are achieved or experienced. What do we as educators need in order to sustain movement in the direction in which we want to go?
A. Put in a simpler way, in Mark Arnold's words: "how do we communicate, plan, share and reflect on potential school improvement intiatives in a way that effectively facilitates change?" What are the things this group needs to help change take root; to make and to see change happen? |
posted Mar 22, 2008 1:02 PM by Linda Nelson
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updated Apr 13, 2008 6:44 PM by Mark Arnold
]
I haven't heard from everyone yet, but responses so far show an overwhelming preference for Tuesday, April 15 as the date of our next gathering. This is one of our members, Katy Helman's, birthday so we will need to celebrate appropriately!
This will be a 5:30 - 7 p.m. potluck (nothing fancy or time consuming: sign up for what you will bring at http://sites.google.com/a/dises.org/csd-13-arts-in-education/Announcements), with vino, at Judith's and my house, which is at 104 S. Deer Isle Road on Long Cove ( See Map). South Deer Isle Road is the same as Route 15. We are exactly .5 mile south of the Sunshine Road, on the left as you drive south to Stonington or on the right as you travel north. You will see Alyssa Lane; then a new house built last summer; we are the next driveway, short and steep, with a green Bangor Daily Newspaper tube to mark it. Shingle house with green-blue trim. Parking is limited, so please car pool if you can.
We said that at this meeting we will, among general brainstorming and other things, explore some of the models for integrated education that have worked in the past here on the island; and that work in other places. Jim suggested the International Baccalaureate model ( http://www.ibo.org/); Katy suggested the Art21 curriculum at PBS ( http://www.pbs.org/art21/). Additionally, Mark has pointed me toward the George Lucas Educational Foundation ( http://www.edutopia.org/), which has great resources on project-based learning, as well as a terrific article about the 21st Century Learner and her/his relationship to technology: http://www.edutopia.org/ikid-digital-learner. I've added these resources to the list started on the home page; I've also added a new website started by MIT on media literacy, a particular passion of mine for our students' educations.
Thanks! -- Linda
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posted Mar 18, 2008 11:05 AM by Mark Arnold
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updated Mar 20, 2008 5:59 PM
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Happy Saint Patrick's Day!
The first meeting of our new Professional Learning Community and Advocacy Group on Arts Integration will be this Monday, March 17, at 3 p.m. in Christel Kendzia’s music classroom at DISES. I am very excited by the enthusiastic response this effort has received, and look forward to uniting our efforts!
AGENDA:
- Introductions
- PLC overview
- Why are we here?
- Sharing ideas
- Finding a purpose
- Next steps
HANDOUTS:
MEETING NOTES: (attached on the bottom of this post page)
SUGGESTED RESOURCES: (based on ideas shared in this meeting - members are encouraged to add on to these resources)
- The School Administrator (March 2008): The article Linda provided at the meeting is from the Association of School Administrators, in an AASA publication called The School Administrator. It was from their February publication. The March edition of this publication is all about "The Arts at K-12’s Center Stage - Finding ways to increase student access to creative learning". It is full of great articles that relate directly to many of the points and ideas shared in our first meeting.
- I wanted to point out: If you scroll down the page linked above, you will see under Tech Leadership, an article, Wiki While You Work. This site, the one you are looking at right now, is a wiki.
- Teacher Leaders: Professional Learning Communities - A List of Resources
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