Watchung Hills
Regional High School
Warren, New Jersey
Representatives:
• Georgia Fisanick
• Michelle Madigan
• Mike Kutch

 Plan for your audience!

 Plan for your audience!

 Plan for your audience!
• Teachers are busy, stressed, maybe frazzled
• New ideas must be presented in this context
• New ideas must apply to a teachers particular situation, they must help them solve a problem

 We are all parts of:
 Teams (sometimes more than one)
 Share Student Work
 Share Materials
 Discuss content in 2-D (horizontally and vertically)

 Teachers:
 Recognize
 Speak of
 And Use
 Connect-Ed Terminology:
 Big Ideas
 Inquiry
 Mindfulness

 Teachers:
 Recognize
 Speak of
 And Use
 Connect-Ed Terminology:
 Big Ideas
 Inquiry
 Mindfulness
It’s okay for teachers to be at different levels of fluency – We are a learning community!

 Created library of science and science education texts

 Created library of science and science education texts
 Purchased and distributed iPevo cameras to facilitate sharing student work and inquiry based activities

 Created library of science and science education texts
 Purchased and distributed iPevo cameras to facilitate sharing student work and inquiry based activities
 Developed inquiry-based chem and biology labs & associated rubrics

 Created library of science and science education texts
 Purchased and distributed iPevo cameras to facilitate sharing student work and inquiry based activities
 Developed inquiry-based chem and biology labs & associated rubrics
 In the process of developing ecology/marine bio concept inventories (to be completed this summer)

 Created library of science and science education texts
 Purchased and distributed iPevo cameras to facilitate sharing student work and inquiry based activities
 Developed inquiry-based chem and biology labs & associated rubrics
 In the process of developing ecology/marine bio concept inventories (to be completed this summer)
 In the process of realigning the chem curriculum to new course levels (to be completed this summer)

 Establish norms… really do it!
 Norms are to PLCs what classroom rules and procedures are to Classroom
Management
 An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure!

 Time management:

 we got pulled away to deal with departmental crises:
Chemical storage and safety clean-up.
 Finding common prep time
 the contractual issues regarding using guaranteed prep time for professional development
 Navigating the business end of dealing with grant paperwork.

 A willingness to be flexible
 Changing in midstream when an approach stalled out
 A tolerance of ambiguity
 Recognition that this was a learning process for everyone involved
 There were no right and wrong answers, just more effective and less effective
 PLC’s developed collaborative professional individual development plans

 Lack of buy-in of UbD before district implementation
 Many competing initiatives
 New mandated teacher websites updated weekly
 New parent access to grade book
 New format for lesson plans on Atlas Rubicon curriculum maps

 The Science department now speaks the language of
CONNECT-Ed
 We all teach in terms of Big Idea Thinking
 Connections across units are being emphasized in curricula
 We are beginning work on going across discipline boundaries
 We have begun examining student work in the department mini PLCs

•
School-wide initiatives



BILD trainers are moving into school wide training melding
CONNECT-Ed and UbD content
CONNECT-Ed trained teachers participate in the

Professional Development Committee

Curriculum Committee
Professional development school wide is organized around
PLCs and in the coming year most will focus on examination of student work

Exemplary rating from County

 On development of essential questions
 On redesign of labs into a more inquiry-based format
 On deprivatization of practice
 What is “good” student work?
 On more sharing of educational strategies within the department
 Laboratory notebooks/interactive notebooks
 Alternate project-based final
 Problem-based course assessments


Curriculum Realignment
 National Standards
 Lab Notebooks
 Common Language

Current
Courses
Current
Description
CP
Math Light College
Prep Course
College Prep
K J
College Prep
Course
Accelerated
Course
Accelerated New
Courses
New
Description
Basic Grade Level Math
Incorporation
Accelerated course
H
College Level
Text
Honors
College Level Text