Southern Maine Collaborative
Meeting May 13, 2004
Cape Elizabeth High School
In attendance: Alison Coulter, Grace Leavitt, Suzanne Janelle, Ann-Marie Dionne, Mark Brock, Bruce D. Carver, Lisa Hayden, Irene Guzmán, Catherine Hobby.
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Introductions: |
During the introductions some useful information came up:
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Language Tables at USM: |
Lisa Hayden (USM) mentioned that USM has language tables open to the public. To find out more information on those call 780-4290.
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Authentic Assessment opportunity! |
Bruce Carver (Falmouth HS) is going to be going on Sabbatical next year. He will be traveling to France and Guatemala, Mexico, and Spain. He will be creating a website with pictures and up-to-date news that we can all access by going to www.falmouthschools.org. and clicking on the appropriate link.
Bruce has also kindly offered a unique opportunity to his colleagues in the collaborative. While on his travels, he is willing to facilitate and help teachers create authentic assessments for their students. Simply give him the "specs" you need, what scene, what vocabulary you want used, etc. and he will then try and set up the scene using authentic speakers, videotape the scene, and package it however you need it. He can also take stills if you need authentic images. These can all then be used to create an online assessment. He uses Quia.
Bruce's "World Correspondant" Itinery will be forwarded in the near future via email.
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Sharing of information: |
Mark Brock (Falmouth High School) shared horoscopes in Spanish. We each received our own customized sheet! He finds these online and uses them with his students. He pointed out that they could easily be used at the Middle School level as well. You can find these at http://www.elpais.es/horoscopo/
Catherine Hobby (Falmouth Elementary) handed out the ACTFL Year of Languages Suggested Activities list. She explained that FLAME has a committee, of which she is a member, that will be creating a document that will be sent to all FL teachers in the state. This document will give ideas of how we, in Maine, can celebrate the Year of Languages, be visible next year, and help promote language study in Maine.
Suzanne Janelle (Cape Elizabeth Elementary) shared that to assess her students orally, she enlists the help of Cape Elizabeth Seniors. They come and assess students as part of their Senior Project. Since not all schools have their Seniors available for that kind of activity, we wondered if some USM students might be willing and available to help teachers with oral assessments of their students.
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Planning for next year |
This meeting was a "planning meeting" of sorts. We brainstormed on the different topics that we might want to address as a group next year.
Topics that were mentioned were:
| Assessements- Local Assessment System assessments, with rubrics. | ||||||||||||
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Dedicating one meeting per
Learning Result Standard
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| Sharing materials one uses outside of the textbook | ||||
| Sharing TL in the community | ||||
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Technology
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| TPRS |
| National Year of Languages 2004-2005 |
We decided as a group that our first topic for next year (2004-2005) would be Assessments. Everyone agreed to bring some examples of Common Assessments they use, with rubrics. We can then examine them, ask questions, share ideas, etc.
******The next meeting will be on:
Thursday September 23 at 3:30 PM at Lunt School in Falmouth (very near the highways!)
Catherine will send out an invitation (with directions) to all teachers in the region in the fall.
Respectfully submitted by Catherine Hobby
home email: rhobby1@maine.rr.com
school email: chobby@fps.k12.me.us
SOUTHERN MAINE COLLABORATIVE
SEPTEMBER 23, 2004
LUNT SCHOOL, FALMOUTH
Present: Claire Chase (South Portland), Mary Ryder (Greely), Nora Noonan (Greely), Grace Leavitt (Greely), Colleen Lepage (Gray-NewGloucester), Ruben Hernandez (Bath), Marie James (Bath), Catherine Hobby (Falmouth)
Introductions
We described the different program in our respective schools.
Assessments- How to start creating standards based local assessments?
Grace pointed out the State Website www.mecas.org is reflecting some changes regarding FL. We now have clusters and assessment types.
The Local Assessment Development Institute gathered thirty teachers of Modern and Classical to develop example standards- based assessments. These still need to be reviewed and piloted before they can be placed on the website. When on the website, these can be used by FL teachers in the state to help them develop Local Assessments.
We also discussed how difficult it is to have students exceed the standards. Our assessments need to give students opportunity to exceed. And this does not mean simply doing more, but giving students the opportunity to do higher level work (on Bloom's taxonomy).
Grace handed out some examples of assessments she has used: Presentación Oral, and "Present Information on a self-selected topic".
Colleen shared (see attachment) an assessment she gives to 6th graders on the regions of France.
Catherine handed out the Task Adaptation Protocol, a useful tool when creating assessments.
Oral assessments
There was some discussion on the difficulty of administering exercises that truly assess the oral part of the Person-to-Person Communication performance indicators.
Grace explained that she has the Spanish V students interview the Spanish III students. These interviews are recorded and she then listens to the tapes to determine whether or not the students have met the standards.
Catherine holds interviews in the hall. But it is sometimes difficult to find things for the other grade 2 students to do while she is conducting the interviews. She is working on creating "situations" which students could perform in front of the class.
What about new students? Some new students coming from other districts have not had as much FL instruction in their previous school. How do we address this problem?
Catherine explained that she creates audiotapes for students to use at home. There is also a website of the Falmouth Elementary program so students can practice the material online.
Future shares-
Colleen will attend a DOE Reliability/Scoring Assessments workshop. She will share at our next meeting.
Grace and Catherine are members of the State Advisory Committee, which is working on the development of assessments. The committee will meet on October 28. Grace and Catherine will share any new information at our next meeting.
Next meeting: Nov 4, 2004- Lunt School, Falmouth.
Year of languages 2004-2005- Brainstorming ideas
Respectully submitted,
Catherine Hobby
