12-8-09

Began at 11:15

Attendence:  L. Abernethy, M. Dixon, J. Weesner, M. Ciamillo, and S. Blackburn

Reviewed and Restated our team goal:  To implement blogging using higher order thinking questions  and to create a collaborative learning community with access to diverse ideas and opinions.  To provide an opportunity for thinking critically, maximize comprehension, and ultimately ease the transition from 2nd grade to 3rd grade.

We discussed:

What knowledge and experience we already have in this area?:  basic blog training, critical thinking training

What do we as team members need to understand at a deeper level to be able to increase student learning?:  more experience with blogging (practice and/or training) and more experience with creating questions collaboratively

What instructional practices war we already using that would have a greater impact on student learning if we improved them?:  leveled questions, vocabulary development, and technology

What new instructional practices can we adopt that would help our students learn and achieve at higher levels?:  incorporate blogging into literacy stations and allow students to create their own higher order thinking questions with provided question stems

Specifically, what professional learning and instructional growth do we want to achieve this year?:  confidence in creating blogs that will promote higher order thinking

How will we know we are becoming more accomplished in our teaching?  What information might we gather to determine whether we are succeeding?:  Student participation and accurate (content) responses according to the student's needs

What resources and assistance will we need to carry out our plans?:  Use the PLT meeting to create HOT ?'s, Mrs. Hall, Mrs. Rizzo, and Mrs. Hamilton, literature on blogging (website), critical thinking wheel, common stories/novels, and input from grades 3-5

How will we communicate to others information about what we are learning and doing?:  PLT log, print blog question stems, print student responses periodically, blog is posted on class website

Adjorn meeting at 12:00 

12/15/09  2nd Grade PLT meeting

Members present:

Jennie Weesner

Michele Dixon

Lauren Abernethy

Stephanie Blackburn

Melissa Ciamillo

Meeting began at 11:15.

Team goal established during last PLT was reviewed.

We then continued with Tool 6.3:  Reflect on priorities and actions.

     In order to reach our goal we will and have already begun to explore ideas for reaching the goal such as 

     participating in critical thinking workshops and ideas for book studies.

     We might include the following activities:  Reading articles related to blogging and critical thinking, attend follow-

     up workshops on blogging, successfully post our blogs on our websites, begin introducing blogging to our

     students, and participating in book studies on the topic.

     Our main acitivity in the first month will be to use the Critical Thinking Wheel to generate higher order thinking

     questions as a team for use on our blogs.

     For the remainder of the year, we propose the timeline to be as follows:

           *Third nine weeks, book study

           *Fourth nine weeks - full implementation of Critical Thinking questions posted on our blogs being used

             regularly in our classroom lessons

Meeting ended at 12:00

 1-12-10

Attendance: Melissa Ciamillo, Stephanie Blackburn, Michele Dixon, Judy Creech

Leader: Jennie Weesner  Recorder: Lauren Abernethy

Additional Attendee: Mary Rizzo

Meeting began: 11:15

Meeting Ended: 12:00

Mary Rizzo showed us how to set up student google accounts using  student's username@gaggle.net and adding pes to the beginning of their password. 

Students will need to log into google prior to posting a comment on our class blog.

PLT meeting 1-19-10

Attendance:  Michele Dixon, Judy Creech, Jennie Weesner, Melissa Ciamillo

Leader:  Lauren Abernethy  Recorder:  Stephanie Blackburn

Start time:  11:15

End time:  12:00

Plan for team growth

Maintain a focus on teacher professional growth:  Can be observed by seeing teachers participate in blogging mini-workshop and can hear us discussing an article on HOT questions.

Abide by norms that guide team interactions and behaviors:  Can observe us working collaboratively and maintaining positive attitudes and interactions

Learn new and relevant information:  Can hear us discuss technology and blog implementation, and can observe us attempting to create avatars for individual students.

Share leadership and responsibility:  Teachers take turn with leadership roles.  Evidence is reflected in PLT logs and through weekly observations.

Communicate to others what we are learning and doing:  Demonstrated in our published PLT log and written tool evidences.

Meet regularly and on schedule:  We meet weekly every Tues. and on designated Wed..  We are effectively utilizing the time schedule.

Practice trusting behaviors:  We exhibit team trust and value each other’s opinions.  We trust everyone is prepared for upcoming weekly leadership roles.

Work productively as a team:  We have created goals, timelines, and tools from the PLT guide notebook.

Apply new knowledge and skills in the classroom:  We are successively implementing blogs to respond to literature according to our designated timeline.

Monitor student learning and success:  Teachers read and post appropriate responses and implement individual conferences with students who provide inappropriate responses. 

The meeting was adjourned at 12:00.