Summary of 15 February Teacher Inquiry Summer Institute Planning Meeting

Summary of Teacher Inquiry Summer Institute Planning Meeting

15 February 2007

Dion Center Board Room, Rivier College

Introduction of Summer Institute Planning Team members

District	Name	Email	Grade level
Hollis	Amy Prokop	Prokopa@sau41.k12.nh.us	6
Brookline	Debbie Calkin	calkind@sau41.k12.nh.us	4
Bedford	Mike Brown	Brownb@sau25.net	4
Bedford	Kate Brennan	Brennank@sau25.net	4
Hudson	Amy Blackwell	ablackwell@sau81.org	4
Hudson	Heather Buckman	hbuckman@sau81.org	8
Hudson	Susan Senecal
Milford	Doreen Danhoff	ddanhof@sau40.com	6
Milford	Jennifer Maurais	jmaurais@sau40.com	4
Nashua	Sue Rowse	rowses@nashua.edu	6
Nashua	Amy Seo	Seoa@nashua.edu	4
Nashua	Kathleen Karvelas	karvelask@nashua.edu	6
Rivier	David Burgess	dburgess@rivier.edu	Chem./physics
Rivier	Fiona McDonnell	Fmcdonnell@rivier.edu	Educ.

Table of Teacher and Grade Level

Grade level	Grade 4	Grade 6	Grade 8
# of teachers	7	4	1

Introductory Activities

The session included a brief overview of the MSP grant. See attached power point.

Planning Team members then listed the various science topics taught at their grade level. See below.

Teacher Generated Listing of Physical Science Topics Taught at Each Grade Level

Grade 3/4

Grade 5/6

Grade 7/8

Topics

· Properties states of Matter

· Light and Sound

· Electricity

· Magnetism

· Changes in matter

· Physical/chemical

· Forces & Motion

· Simple machines

· Force & motion

· Newton’s Laws

· Electricity Magnetism

· Simple machines

· Matter

· Physical /chemical changes

· Matter

· Atomic theory

· classification

· Energy

· Forces

These listings were used to identify topics common to grade levels 3 through 8. See items in bold.

Discussion

Following this introductory activity we reviewed the revised New Hampshire Physical Science Curriculum Frameworks—structure, organization and content.

Planning Team members then shared different ideas and rationale for the strands, topics, and grade span expectations that could be the vehicle for engaging institute participants in inquiry-based physical science.

Physical Science Strands II and III appear to be the most productive and generative strands with which to work. These strands also contain the topics/subject matters common to grades 4, 6 and 8. Strands II and II appear to provide the best opportunity for engaging institute participants in inquiry-based physical science.

P.S. 2: Energy is necessary for change to occur in matter. Energy can be stored, transferred and transformed but cannot be destroyed.

P.S. 3: The Motion of an object is affected by a force.

Action Items

Planning Team members will conduct an informal inventory of potential materials and curriculum that are related to these physical science strands. These resources could be used to develop sessions for the summer institute.

Planning Team members will begin to identify potential institute participants.

Next Meeting

Thursday March, 15

2:30 pm

Rivier College Dion Center Board Room.

During the next meeting we will:

Share ideas for the essential components for the Summer Institute
Share our ideas for a possible structure to the Institute.
Develop the Summer Institute expectations and outcomes.
Collect the inventory of potential curriculum materials.

Future Activities

Tentative Agenda for Planning Session Three (19 April 2007)

Finalize expectations and assessment tools.
Review the process for receiving stipends.
How the Summer Institute will be promoted to teachers (what we will say, etc.).