The Next Move -- Workshop Materials

Workshop Components

There are eight workshops in this series. Each two-hour workshop is structured as follows...

Getting Ready -- Site Investigation (30 min.)

Each workshop will begin with a 30-minute Site Investigation designed to "get you ready" for the workshop broadcast. Detailed instructions for Getting Ready are included at the beginning of the support materials for each workshop.

Televised Broadcast (1 hour)

Becky and Heather will be our hosts for the broadcasts. Their job is to guide you through the following segments, which will appear regularly each week:

Metaphorically Speaking -- Research shows that metaphors are particularly useful in conceptualizing specific approaches to teaching, and that classroom change can be facilitated by considering alternative metaphors. Each week, Metaphorically Speaking will explore a different teaching metaphor by featuring the daily work of a non-teaching professional. We invite you to reflect upon your own metaphors for yourself and your students, and to consider how exploring different teaching metaphors might facilitate change in your classroom.
The Great Bean Bag Adventure -- What does a seed need to sprout? This deceptively simple question launches us into a series of bean investigations, using science and math along the way, and we want you to get involved in the Adventure, too! Our hosts will discuss our results during each broadcast, and these results will be available in detail on the Web site. Additionally, you will be able to describe your own experiments and post your results for others to see. In essence, we will be working as a team not only to enrich understandings about seeds, but also to share an authentic experience that can be used as a referent for discussing workshop issues.
Classroom Clips -- At any one moment in the classroom, teachers face myriad decisions. During each broadcast, you will view Classroom Clips -- videoclips of math and science lessons from actual K-5 classrooms -- that "leave off" at important decision-making points. While viewing these clips, consider what you might do in your own classroom given similar circumstances.
Conversations -- The best resource for teachers is other teachers. As a companion to each Classroom Clip, a small group of K-5 teachers will engage in Conversations -- spirited exchanges of ideas about the workshop topic in relation to the Classroom Clips and their own experiences.
Site Conversations -- Twice during each broadcast, you, too, will have an opportunity to discuss the issues with your own colleagues in five-minute Site Conversations. The topics for these discussions are included in the materials for each workshop, and will also appear on the screen during the five-minute Site Conversation segments in each broadcast.
Try This! -- Teachers are always looking for new activities to do with their students. Each week, our Try This! host Flavia will present a fun math or science activity that you can try in your classroom.
Did You Know -- At some point within each broadcast, we will surprise you with an interesting education-related fact or statistic.

Going Further -- Site Investigation (30 min.)

Each workshop will conclude with a 30-minute Site Investigation, designed to help you synthesize the ideas presented in the workshop, and give you and your colleagues a chance to discuss steps you might take to incorporate the ideas into your own classrooms. Detailed instructions for Going Further are included in the materials for each workshop.