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posted by:
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Reeny Davison
on May 22, 2003
at 2:34PM
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subject:
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Legacies and sustainability
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Mark,
As in past years, I have benefitted from your insights and articulation
of what we experience in the field - thank you. I wanted to add that
our experience at ASSET validates your notion that implementing quality
curriculum educates teachers. If that were not the case, ASSET would
not be in business. We experience a continual deepening of our
understanding of what it takes to improve the teaching/learning
process. District requests for our services are sustaining us at a
level of about 2/3 of our budget. While they continue to need us as an
external agency, we struggle with meeting the perceived vs. the actual
(standards-based) needs. Suggestions are welcome.
I also wanted to thank John for his comments on curriculum. Some of the
districts who have been working with us for 8 years are only just
beginning to get good at teaching it. We find that using a "continuous
improvement" approach takes away the fear of being "wrong" and opens
discussions up for learning both in regard to implementing the
curriculum and the pedagogy.
Lastly, I wanted to share a mechanism that is working well for us in the
realm of continuous improvement, and that is that the other 1/3 of our
budget is spent on R & D. Each year we identify 3-6 topics to explore
(based on evident need) that we study for a year with focus groups of
teachers and administrators. We meet about 4 days throughout the year,
and at the end of the year, we turn the findings into new products and
services that will be available to all districts. Two examples are a
study of Science Notebooks (for which we thank Seattle, Beckman and El
Centro), and Environment and Ecology, which Pennsylvania will test
separately. That keeps us all learning.
I continue to be grateful for the national reform community.
Reeny
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