Submitted by: Pat Higgiston

• Documenting the “story” of the preK-12 curriculum
• Doing a professional development “deep dive” around some aspect of subject related progressive practice. This could draw on within department expertise and/or work with an outside consultant
• Some other area of focus to be proposed—School Visit

The department decided that it would be worthwhile to focus on the two aspects of our practice.

1) Data literacy in our curriculum: we would consider the conceptual through-lines in each division for data literacy (probability and statistics), how we align with peer institutions that our students come from (or go to) in the middle years, and ultimately how we align with curricular standards like the Common Core.

We would also explore 2) planning and reflecting around a school visit to a K-12 progressive school. Our intention is to study how they integrate a) data literacy across the curriculum, and b) how they differentiate in classes and address questions of class selection and tracking.

Next steps include documenting how data literacy already appears in our K-12 curriculum, and identifying on schools that are providing models of leadership in that work. We will meet again in January to decide how this will look for the rest of the year.

Type of Work Focus: 

• • • Doing a professional development “deep dive” around some aspect of subject related to progressive practice. This could draw on within department expertise and/or work with an outside consultant
    • Completing a critical friends group cycle and/or doing focused intervisitations with a clear plan for debrief/reflection, conversations and goal setting.

Description of Work Focus: We would like to have a consultant come in to observe classes and offer ongoing PD (similar to what the science dept did). We’d like to take an honest look at inquiry based learning in the math classroom. Another area of focus: differentiation — do we serve either end well? 

Other: How do we best support struggling math students? Can each division have a math 

Schedule for Work: TBD – if we can find an outside consultant or PD. Once schedules are in place we can organize classroom visits. We will need to agree on a protocol on “how best to observe.” Take advantage of dedicated Tuesday meeting time when needed.