SAMPLE of STEP 1, of the IDS process.
DESCRIPTION OF OUR PD
MATH IN THE GARDEN
Description of our Goal
We have formed a group of three 5th grade teachers and we want to use some of our garden time not just to get our students in the school garden but to support our math program as well. We want to develop five MATH IN THE GARDEN lessons that map to the CA math standards. We each have 30 students in our class. During garden time we have a parent volunteer take 10 students into the garden. If we develop 5 lessons, we will have 15 weeks of students doing math in the garden. We want to use the school garden as an environment to have our students do data analysis.
Identify an area of need and/or of interest for you
We have a very packed day for instruction. In order to have our students be in the school garden we need them to be doing something that supports one of the subjects that is identified in our master schedule. We wish we had time for Students to just be in the garden, but sadly we do not. So having them do some math in the garden seems like a good way for us to justify students being in the garden.
Explain how the proposed professional development IDS designed by you will address the identified area of need and/or interest (i.e., what you expect to learn/be able to do as a result of the professional development)
We will learn how to apply the mathematics we teach to a specific situation (i.e. the school garden). We will meet as a group to design each lesson, then we will get feed back from the parent volunteer after the lesson with enough time to re-due the lesson if necessary. By the time the lesson is taught three times we should have a pretty good lesson that can be made available to other teachers and other parent volunteers.
POSSIBLE TEACHER OUTCOMES: We are expecting to benefit from team building at our grade level. We have two teachers on our team that have been at the school for several years. The third member of our team has been in the district but was new to our school last year. We want to work on our grade level team being more effective as a team and we hope that working together with the garden will help us with that goal.
We also want to create good math lesson that can be used in the garden by us and by other teachers.
POSSIBLE STUDENT OUTCOMES: Students will experience applying math outside the math class and experience the garden.
Timeline of Math in the Garden project. Fall Semester project. Beginning in August ending in December, write up PD in January.
August – BEFORE SCHOOL STARTS.
Step 1: Meet in the garden to brainstorm ideas for math lessons
Step 2: Each teacher will write a draft lesson plan. We share our lesson plans get feed back and write a final version
September – BEFORE SEPTEMBER 15TH
Step 3: We meet with our parent volunteers in the garden (either at lunch or after school, depending on the schedule of the parent volunteers) and prep them on the first lesson.
Step 4: First lesson happens/ Parent volunteers give feed back (maybe we will have a form for them to fill out?)
September – October
BETWEEN SEPTEMBER 15TH and October 10TH
Step 5: We meet as a team to review parent volunteer comments and discuss possible re-do of lesson plan. If we re-do, we give new lesson plan to parent volunteer.
Step 6: The lesson happens two more times and we repeat steps 4 and 5 each time.
Step 7: We do a final write up of the lesson and put it in the school library for our community to use as they wish.
October - December
Between October 15th and December 15th
Step 8: We repeat all steps 1 – 7 for the remaining two lessons.
Write up draft reflection of the PD, submit it, write up final version and submit it with actual timeline and other required documentation. Projected completion date January 30.