ASCD has moved this short piece on instructional rounds into the open, and I thought it might be about the right length for WPs to use as leaders or schools explore the idea of using rounds. Here's the start:
February 2011 | Volume 68 | Number 5
Making the Most of Instructional Rounds
Robert J. Marzano
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Much of the current funding for professional development focuses on high needs schools, often defined as those schools that have over 50% of the student on free or reduced lunch. With an eye on this prize, a group of twenty-five writing project leaders met at the Spring Meeting in Washington D.C.
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Hi all,
We know you've been waiting on news about the Title II SEED grant, but we still have not heard from the Department of Education. Now that the waiver process is completed, we anticipate hearing about the Title II awards this week. The response to our proposal will tell us a lot about how the DOE views this Title II grant area.
Reading site reports
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Dear colleagues,
I’m pleased to be sending you the first weekend update of 2012 — and along with it New Year’s wishes for 2012.
Big news is ‘no news yet’
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I thought this video might be of interest as it shows new and emerging models of professional development in both face-to-face and online communities of educators. This video brings together teachers from Philadelphia (including PhilWP TC Meenoo Rami) and New York City and is facilitated by Shelly Terrell, the founder of #edchat and other online initiatives.
...Jean Wolph describes how the site took advantage of teachers' interest in learning digital tools--despite running out of state seed money-- to reach out to rural areas across the state, in what looks like a sustainable business model.
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...Across sites, leadership teams and advanced institute groups meet to plan for the sustainability of their sites. As you plan your agendas, here are some questions and related resources that your leadership team might find useful. These questions could be used to structure a leadership team meeting that charts the future of your writing project.
...Created in collaboration with the English Language Learners Network, this Inservice Institute focuses on strengthening our inservice programs to provide better support for teachers with English language learners in their classrooms (which is most of us) and better outcomes for English language learners.
...Under construction: Help us build resources for sites to help them engage in school and district partnerships.
In this digital story, Bonnie Kaplan shows what progress looks like at in Dover Middle School in the 8th grade Inquiry Community Project: A PD partnership between Hudson Valley Writing Project and the Dover Middle School.