School Visits
• Brief visits (<1 hour) at Hoboken High School, Wallace and Conner’s school. Mostly pass through visits but getting a sense of what is needed for beginning the more formal process of classroom observations. Feel as if I’m at a good point to begin in earnest with some ideas.
Activities
• Attended Columbus Day activities at Columbus Park- this was a nice turnout and the weather, while windy, at least wasn’t rainy as it was earlier in the AM. Columbus and his role in US/World history has been a source of interesting curriculum discourse.
• On Tuesday October 9 I spoke at Harvard’s college of Education. I was the guest of Dr. Barry Fishman and spoke about technology and math and science education. Also made special note of my activities with the Hoboken School District and there was great interest by the faculty and students. Perhaps a follow-up visit later in the semester.
• On Saturday night (October 6) I went to Rutgers to visit with Dr. Rick Duschl. Rick is a Rutgers faculty member in science education and has recently finished a report by the National Research Council entitled “Taking Science to School”. This looks at k-8 science education curriculum. Rick expressed interest in coming to Hoboken for a visit and possibly talking to our faculty/staff. This may be very important as curriculum issues begin in full stride after QSAC. Rick also talked about the Liberty Science Center and how the district might partner with them. He was interested in how their professional development is working.
• On the same night I also met up with Dr. Drew Gitomer. Drew is with ETS and I have known Drew for over a decade. He is very interested in the involvement with Hoboken School District as well and I believe he may be a great resource for us. He is a learning scientist researcher, colleague of Rick Duschl and Jim Pellegrino and served on the Board of Education in his home town for 2 full terms. He has a very interesting perspective about reform and student high stake testing.
• Meeting with Susan Imlolz (MIT/National Geographic) concerning technology in the district. "S. Imholz"
NARRATIVE
This week was spent on QSAC in a meaningful way. I think we’re making some excellent progress on that front. It was also spent setting up some possibilities for the near future.. Feeling like I’m making some conceptual progress with curriculum efforts. This includes issues of representation/charts; frameworks, and how to make the process consistent with QSAC criteria.
Some frustration is setting which I can’t put an exact finger on but I think it’s related to a general inefficiency in many aspects of the operations side of the district. Part of it is working within a system that I personally still don’t know well yet so in fact, I may be the one working inefficiently.
