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Location: 08-09 First Quarter Report Forum
Discussion: Topic #1: Exploring the Question of Sustainability
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cgildner |
Topic #1: Exploring the Question of Sustainability
Oct 2 2008, 11:38 AM EDT
Where are you seeing movement towards some level of sustainability for select aspects of, or perhaps all of,, your TMP-funded initiative? In other words, where do you see your work taking root, extending out, influencing others, and perhaps being adopted by others? An example or two would be helpful.Do you find this valuable? |
AndreaLevy |
1. RE: Topic #1: Exploring the Question of Sustainability
Oct 12 2008, 2:52 PM EDT
We are still working on the sustainability question. This year, we are trying to get a better understanding of how to make our project sustainable as we plan our third year to go statewide. One place we hope to gain more insight is by observing how PC-3 attracts groups to their project. We feel this might hold an important key for helping us reduce administrative costs and make the project self-sustaining. We hope to get district support for in-kind services. To do this we need to show that our project is important for the districts (public school and community college) to invest their time and resources. To do this, we will need to show clear outcomes: enhanced student learning and increased FTEs.
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Posted Anonymously |
3. RE: Topic #1: Exploring the Question of Sustainability
Oct 14 2008, 1:23 PM EDT
Our project name is WAMAP.org. As a course tool, we foresee sustained use by existing users, and additional growth through word-of-mouth, and through users (other than me) "spreading the gospel" at conferences and other professional gatherings. Our CRS example problems and connected CRMT practice items are now "out there" for people to use for practice, and we have seen cases where others are using these questions in their own assessment projects. Hopefully people will extend the question set and contribute those back to the initiative.
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projecttime |
4. RE: Topic #1: Exploring the Question of Sustainability
Oct 15 2008, 11:36 AM EDT
• This is most evident in our senior math course (Applications of Mathematical Reasoning, AMR). We have now heard from schools in Stanwood and Vancouver as well as other school districts who were not originally in the creation of the course wanting to offer the course to their students. It would be most helpful to have a high school faculty member take over the organization, editing and updating of the Teacher Resource Manual for future years. • The second area is our Advisory Night. Having Partnership for Learning assist with costs as well as GRCC’s outreach stepping forward indicates how outreach for a college can cross into support for mathematics. • The summer symposiums might be something that the college and school districts could continue if the steering committee decides this is a worthwhile venture. The steering committee is meeting 10/20/08 to discuss possible future plans. Do you find this valuable? |
canagas |
5. RE: Topic #1: Exploring the Question of Sustainability
Oct 16 2008, 1:29 PM EDT
Issaquah Math/CTE Connections course: Enhanced Woods--a construction teacher and math teacher team teach the enhanced Woods 1 course. I am encouraged that we will be able to sustain this course because student feedback has been quite positive so far and they are very engaged. I sent a status to the principal, counselors and other secondary partners. Comments I received back include how to improve scheduling and adding the course description to next year's course guide. I've also been asked to consider how we could make it happen at our alternative school.
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YakimaValley |
6. RE: Topic #1: Exploring the Question of Sustainability
Oct 27 2008, 7:57 PM EDT
Our partner colleges have committed to providing release time for the instructional partners to continue the conversations and observations with local area high school teachers. K-12 partners have also expressed an interest in continuing this work.We plan on continuing our summer institute and courses throughout the year that teach content to high school and middle school teachers. With the success of our bridge course pilot, we will train other high school teachers to adapt the materials to their students through afterschool regional offerings. All partners also plan to continue their support of family math nights around the ESD 105 region. Do you find this valuable? |
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AngelaMurray |
7. RE: Topic #1: Exploring the Question of Sustainability
Oct 29 2008, 4:24 PM EDT
Our project names in Whatcom County Math Project. FundingOur Steering Committee has discussed the issue of seeking funds for next year and we have found ourselves in a bit of a dilemma. If we approach a potential donor we will need to have specific goals outlined, but our goals will be dependent on the source of money. For example, if one of our larger districts provides most of the funding, then our goals will reflect the needs of that district rather than a county wide project and our college partners. Yet we would like to be consistent and faithful to our initial mission, which is to foster partnerships between districts and the colleges to form a learning community that focuses on helping students successfully transition from high school math to college math. Some questions that arise: 1. How can we continue to fulfill our original mission and meet the needs of our grantees? 2. How do we begin to formulate our goals for upcoming years? 3. Who are we mainly serving? We seem to have several customers: school districts, colleges/university, teachers, and students/parents. Funding Model Could this involve blending the funding from several different sources? (Higher Ed, HEC Board, SBE and Core 24, Title II, OSPI, ESD’s, local dollars, business and industry???) Work Taking Root/Extending Out •This year we are really focusing on getting the high school building principals to see the value in our work. They play a critical role in our sustainability as possible advocates. •We are also involving Western Washington University in our decision making process and professional development opportunities. •Through our community outreach efforts we hope to gain recognition among students, parents, teachers, and other community members who have a vested interest in building and maintaining the intellectual capital within Whatcom County. Do you find this valuable? |
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AngelaMurray |
8. RE: Topic #1: Exploring the Question of Sustainability
Oct 29 2008, 4:46 PM EDT
Whatcom County Math Project:How can we find out more about the Enhanced Woods course? Is this the first or second year? Do you find this valuable? |
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llindadrake |
9. RE: Topic #1: Exploring the Question of Sustainability
Oct 29 2008, 7:15 PM EDT
PC3 Math/CTE Partnership Project: We have a success to report in that we submitted a grant proposal through the PC3 Foundation (a 501c3 that supports the work of Pierce County Careers Connection) to the Weyerhaeuser Company Foundation and PC3 Foundation was awarded a grant that will help support our Math/CTE Partnership Workshop series. Primarily, this grant will be used to continue to contract with Terryll Bailey and Heather Winfrey as professional facilitators of the workshops for the remaining two workshops. This is a benefit in the quality of the workshops and the continuity of the approach. We were very encouraged by Weyerhaeuser recognizing the importance of this work and the work of TMP in general. We plan on continuing to look at private foundations to support our work. We are interested in both sustaining our efforts of providing workshops to support cross-discipline math teaching and learning, and in helping to support the sustainability of the work of the teams who have come together at our workshops. Some of these teams seem well on their way, with collegial teams of math and non-math educators working together, and support for their work at both the building and the district level. Other teams have encountered some challenges--lack of local support, lack of time, money, etc. We hope to help sustain efforts of the teams by connecting them to efforts of other TMP partners, to state efforts, and to resources that might help them in their work. Two teams who attended last April's workshops have become connected to TMP directly--the team from the Issaquah SD become a TMP partner project, and the team from Aberdeen attended the TMP Summer Institute. Do you find this valuable? |
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llindadrake |
10. RE: Topic #1: Exploring the Question of Sustainability
Oct 29 2008, 7:29 PM EDT
"We are still working on the sustainability question. This year, we are trying to get a better understanding of how to make our project sustainable as we plan our third year to go statewide. One place we hope to gain more insight is by observing how PC-3 attracts groups to their project. We feel this might hold an important key for helping us reduce administrative costs and make the project self-sustaining. We hope to get district support for in-kind services. To do this we need to show that our project is important for the districts (public school and community college) to invest their time and resources. To do this, we will need to show clear outcomes: enhanced student learning and increased FTEs."In regards to how we have attracted groups to our project--to some extent we have picked low hanging fruit in that we encourage teams to attend our workshops. That way the attendees have already self-identified themselves as a group by the time they come to a workshop. Anther big help has been the ESD Coordinators serving on our planning committee--Sandy Christie at Puget Sound ESD and Katy Absten at Olympic ESD. They sent out notices about the workshops to thier math contacts, while we sent out notices to our CTE contacts. We hope that helped engendered converstations between math and CTE people at the schools. Do you find this valuable? |
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MarilynLeverson |
11. RE: Topic #1: Exploring the Question of Sustainability
Oct 31 2008, 12:22 AM EDT
Can we get a copy of the outline for the Applications of Mathematical Reasoning course offered by Project Time?
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MarilynLeverson |
12. RE: Topic #1: Exploring the Question of Sustainability
Oct 31 2008, 12:23 AM EDT
• The Shoreline Community College Mathematics Success Strategies course is being offered for the 4th quarter. Enrollment this quarter is better than ever, since all students in our developmental algebra sequence are now allowed to enroll in the course (Initially only allow those in beginning algebra were allowed to take the course). If enrollment continues to look good it is expected that this course can continue to be offered without the help of a TMP grant. Shoreline Community College math instructors look forward to sharing their curriculum with others and to making improvements.• High school math programs can weave math study skills that support the TMP College Readiness Standards’ student attributes into their math courses similar to the work being done at Shorecrest High School. • Teachers/Instructors from high schools and community colleges can observe classes at the other level to learn about how math is taught at the other level and to learn what concerns math instructors/ teachers have. Post-conference discussions can help teachers/instructors at both levels in making the transition between high school and college level math classes easier for their students as well as to share instructional strategies. This will either require teachers/instructors to cover for one another or district support for substitutes. Do you find this valuable? |
kabsten |
13. RE: Topic #1: Exploring the Question of Sustainability
Nov 1 2008, 12:17 PM EDT
The Olympic Peninsula TMP has been focused on sustainability since the first year of our three year project. We are building a sustainable system of continuous improvement that we hope will spread throughout our region beyond high schools to all mathematics teachers in the region, and ideally beyond mathematics to an approach used regionwide to support improvement in teaching and learning in any curricular area. Our project structure includes a leadership team that designs and delivers regional professional development. Teacher leaders from this team also lead professional learning communities in their own buildings to support them in engaging in a cycle (PTLC) in which they collaboratively plan and reflect on lessons that are aligned to standards and best practices in instruction and assessment.The project has impacted our region in the last two years in a few ways: *We have a Math Science Partnership in the Olympic Peninsula area of the region that engages K-12 Math and Science teachers in the same work--this project has taken off this year with one district adding 50 teachers to include their entire staff. This district is also beginning to use the PTLC in Social Studies. *We are beginning to use our products outside of grant work. We have provided professional development to an entire district in effective collaborative practices. Do you find this valuable? |
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kabsten |
14. RE: Topic #1: Exploring the Question of Sustainability
Nov 1 2008, 12:30 PM EDT
Linda--Maybe we can invite the Issaquah Math/CTE connections to join our group or present at one of our events! Do you find this valuable? |
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kabsten |
15. RE: Topic #1: Exploring the Question of Sustainability
Nov 1 2008, 12:33 PM EDT
"Linda--I was hoping that the reply I posted would be attached to the PC3 post that I was replying to....apparently not. So, to clarify, I was responding to Linda Drake to suggest that the Issaquah Math/CTE Connections project would be a valuable support for the PC3 Math/CTE events we are planning this year :) Do you find this valuable? |
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kabsten |
16. RE: Topic #1: Exploring the Question of Sustainability
Nov 1 2008, 12:37 PM EDT
"Issaquah Math/CTE Connections course: Enhanced Woods--a construction teacher and math teacher team teach the enhanced Woods 1 course. I am encouraged that we will be able to sustain this course because student feedback has been quite positive so far and they are very engaged. I sent a status to the principal, counselors and other secondary partners. Comments I received back include how to improve scheduling and adding the course description to next year's course guide. I've also been asked to consider how we could make it happen at our alternative school."I am encouraged by the response you are getting from students -- we all know that student engagement is half the battle. Though its tough to do, are you considering what student achievement data you can use to show success? Do you find this valuable? |
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projecttime |
17. RE: Topic #1: Exploring the Question of Sustainability
Nov 3 2008, 4:30 PM EST
I'm wondering if there is an additional math teacher working with the team. I have found that having more heads involved helps with sustainability so that when one individual moves along others can continue the course.
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projecttime |
18. RE: Topic #1: Exploring the Question of Sustainability
Nov 3 2008, 4:32 PM EST
If you look at our website after 11/10/08 there will be the course rationale and the outline for the course. In addition, our website has several PowerPoint presentations that we have given describing the course, the instructor reactions and other details. The website is project-time.org .
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projecttime |
19. RE: Topic #1: Exploring the Question of Sustainability
Nov 3 2008, 5:53 PM EST
For the AiM grant, each of the art/math modules will be able to stand alone without any extra support except accessibility to the actual materials. The nice thing about what Ray Yan and others at DigiPen have done is to select freeware to build and run the game, so no software purchase is necessary. However, downloading of the software will need to be done to implement the module lessons so there will be IT ramifications and technology issues. Also, the modules will need to be taught in a computer lab so that has to be an available resource.
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Posted Anonymously |
20. RE: Topic #1: Exploring the Question of Sustainability
Nov 4 2008, 5:39 PM EST
"Whatcom County Math Project:This is the first year of the Enhanced Woods course. I am happy to answer questions. Susan Canaga, canagas@issaquah.wednet.edu Do you find this valuable? |
