September Meeting -- Dissecting the Data

The session began with a re-cap of our August session and a review of the Mission & Vision statement we created at that first meeting.

With that statement in mind we played "Collective Commitments in 15 Minutes or Less." Here is how the process went. Everybody thought of one personal commitment and wrote it on a note card. Lisa McCarty got everyone started with this example: "Problem aware, but solution focused." Then pairs shared their commitments and if they were similar, they combined them into one; if they were different they kept them distinct. Then,the pairs "squared" with another pair and synthesized their commitments if possible. We ended up with the following commitments:

• Share expertise. 
• Be open to change. 
• Stay on topic.
• Learn new ideas to share with colleagues
• Commit to professional grwoth and learning by sharing ideas freely and working toward specific goals with student success in mind.
• Proactive, professional collaboration focused on ELLs' educational needs.

We also discussed the proposed topics for the rest of the year, with some consideration of expectations for each of the sessions. As a result of this conversation, I have switched the topics for the two dates in bold below (moved Tier 1 Instruction from February to November!):

October 28-ELL Essentials
November 11-Impacting Tier 1 Instruction
December 9-MELL Conference Debrief (and ACCESS refresher?)
February 24-Connecting to Curriculum
March 9-MAP Matters
April 13-Systemic Views
May 11-Planning for Next Year

See you all in October!