Cara sent this to Michele, who sent it to me:
Ben,
Cara sent this to me:
http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2010/10/04/pm-new-ideas-for-better-teachers-and-schools/
This school in Tennessee is using techniques that TPRS teachers use to improve our teaching! The only thing that we’re missing is being able to freely observe [each other] from afar.
Once again, we find that what we’re doing is the right thing!
Michele
[Ed. note: …but the trick may be to find a school to work in where the teachers truly want to work together. The Chattanooga experiment worked at the level of the school building and because jobs were on the line. Can that happen at the district level where there are severe time restrictions on how often teachers can get together? This is what we are doing in Denver Public Schools this year – 26 of us from about 15 different schools are meeting once a month for only a few hours. I wonder what the results will be. And, as Michele said, there are certainly geographic limitations with the extremely small group that we are nationally. I don’t think Skype is effective at all. Really, I think that, if it is going to happen, Chattanooga has shown that it will have to happen at the school building level. And the gorilla in the room is to get the teachers at the school building level to agree on what good teaching is.]