Transcript Document

Building Grassroots
Constituencies to
Promote Practice
Teacher collaboration across districts to support
instruction in world languages classrooms
Why build a network?
 Teachers in SJ region need support at the local level, in their
classrooms to improve practice
 Most administrators evaluate without specific world language
pedagogical background
 Local networks build support capacity and create sense of
immediate connection
But – aren’t there already good
support systems in place?
- - - we will approach this question
in the first activity
Quick overview of the SJWLI
 South Jersey World Language Institute
 The confluence of three important streams
 growing corps of former teacher prep students
 county-wide professional day
 state language organization work in region
Quick history of SJWLI
 2004 pondered idea of networking
 2007 proposed model
 2008 hosted first full-day professional development for
county at own school site
 2009 extended network to university site
 2010 invited expert speaker
 2011 full complement in place
 2012 extended to other county
Structure of organization
 Anyone may participate
 No hierarchy
 No dues structure
 No funding
 Grassroots in the truest sense
 Name is misleading
Things that made structure work
 My own school district willing to host
 My work at university made connection easy
 Support from state language organization
 Other dedicated teachers stepped up quickly
 Small geographic region
 Current and significant themes for workshops
Challenges from beginning
 No funding
 No permanent home, fixed address
 All volunteer, busy teachers
 Attracting wider circle
 Clear rationale among many p.d choices
 Gatherings too infrequent
 Communication
Achievements
 Participants return regularly
 Various teachers have shared on wiki
 Network recognized as resource by administration
 Collegiality among participants
 Expert presenters add value to programming
2012 a year of special challenges
April- Mead Fellowship: a great chance to strengthen the
constituency- focus of year
May- short workshop, poorly attended
July- Rutgers course canceled
November- count-wide day canceled
November- NJEA Convention canceled
December- FLENJ board votes no to special webinars to
replace canceled events
…..but new opportunities emerge
 Building network, extending to new county
 hosting new group of out-of-county teachers in lieu of county-wide
professional development day
 Introduced them to the framework of SJWLI
 Shared current best practices models- teachers left invigorated
 Individual participants sharing new lessons from work done
at SLWLI events the previous two years
More opportunities……..
 Collaboration with University of Pennsylvania CIBER/Lauder
Instiute in cooperation with Penn Language Center and the
Wharton School of Business
January 26, 2013 Philadelphia Pa
 Chance to extend network into wider region
 Well-attended, great sessions – a breath of fresh air after
challenging year
21st Century Literacies for the World
Language Classroom
 Financial Literacy for Teachers: Diana Drake, Managing EditorKnowledge at Wharton, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
 Common Core and World Languages: Lynn Fulton, Delaware Dept of
Education
 AP Curriculum: Christina Frei, University of Pennsylvania
 Tech workshop: Eleni Miltsakaki, University of Pennsylvania
Tech workshop
 Role of inquiry-based activities in teaching world languages
 Webquests: structured inquiry-based activities using web
resources
 Practical guidelines to create webquests
 Hands-on training to create and use webquests
……..moving forward
 Relaunch the county-wide day
 Expand the connection with U Penn
 Reach out to language resource centers
 Extend SJWLI into more counties
 Encourage participation at NJEA
 Build more depth in wiki
Ok….let’s get into a discussion
A.
B.
Argue for a grassroots constituency as viable professional
development
Argue against a grassroots constituency as viable
professional development
Arguments for and against
 Local connections
 Access, easy meeting
 Knowledge of issues
 Live collaboration
 Feeling of collegiality
 cannot help with district
issues
 webinars meet needs
 state language professional
development opps
 Best practices available in
media 2.0
How can we build a grassroots
constituency?
 Let’s brainstorm a list
If YOU were to start a network,
with which issues would you
start?
SJWLI themes
 Update on new standards
 Integrated performance assessment
 Spiraling curriculum across the levels
 Voice thread
 Establishing elementary curriculum
 Input as key in instruction
 Using wikis and blogs
Would it possible to link networks?
 Shall we discuss connecting already existing organizations
across the wider NECTFL region?
 What possibilities can exist?
 What role can each of us play?
 [email protected]