Day 2 started off with a presentation by two dynamic presenters Ann and Gene Benson. Their first slide said, in part, “It takes two things to be a consultant—Gray Hair and Hemorrhoids,” and then they went on to give what I thought was an excellent presentation about Developing Programs of Study. I won’t tell you what the Gray Hair and the Hemorrhoids do for a consultant until I see you in person, but I will give you the Benson’s definition of Programs of Study. POS “Include coherent and rigorous content aligned with challenging academic standards and relevant career and technical content in a coordinated, non-duplicative progression of courses that align secondary education with postsecondary education to adequately prepare students to succeed in postsecondary education.” Whew!!
I won’t be telling all that we covered in Day 2 because it was too much, but I’ll highlight a couple of items. As I mentioned in my post yesterday, Zala and I went to a session on Professional Development and Teacher Preparation. We’ll be bringing back a lot of material from this conference, but the issue that stuck in my mind from this session is the belief that the number one obstacle to implementation of POS is Professional Development. Zala and I have already been talking about how we might provide resources and help from the Office of the Chancellor’s Center of Teaching and Learning.
Another agenda item included presenters from the U.S. Department of Education on No Child Left Behind and Programs of Study. As one could imagine, a lively discussion followed the presentations. After that we continued our state breakout session and arrived at consensus (20 people!) on the Key Points of Minnesota’s Implementation of 16 Career Clusters and 81 pathways or POS. The Key Points are:
What? Every learner will follow a personal plan that leads to career success.
How? By organizing learning through flexible Programs of Study for developing individual talents.
Why? To empower Minnesota’s life-long learners to become self-sufficient contributors to a vital, interdependent global economy.
OK! Enough is enough! It’s time to play, and I’m going to dinner. More later . . . .
I won’t be telling all that we covered in Day 2 because it was too much, but I’ll highlight a couple of items. As I mentioned in my post yesterday, Zala and I went to a session on Professional Development and Teacher Preparation. We’ll be bringing back a lot of material from this conference, but the issue that stuck in my mind from this session is the belief that the number one obstacle to implementation of POS is Professional Development. Zala and I have already been talking about how we might provide resources and help from the Office of the Chancellor’s Center of Teaching and Learning.
Another agenda item included presenters from the U.S. Department of Education on No Child Left Behind and Programs of Study. As one could imagine, a lively discussion followed the presentations. After that we continued our state breakout session and arrived at consensus (20 people!) on the Key Points of Minnesota’s Implementation of 16 Career Clusters and 81 pathways or POS. The Key Points are:
What? Every learner will follow a personal plan that leads to career success.
How? By organizing learning through flexible Programs of Study for developing individual talents.
Why? To empower Minnesota’s life-long learners to become self-sufficient contributors to a vital, interdependent global economy.
OK! Enough is enough! It’s time to play, and I’m going to dinner. More later . . . .
2 comments:
Hey, Yvonne!
This is REALLY helpful. I already know way more about Programs of Study than I did before you went to DC.
And I'll be interested to hear the ideas that you and Zala are cooking up for how CTL professional development can help.
Finally, I'll wait to hear the punchline of the joke, but I now know already that I have half of the requirements to be a successful consultant.
I'm eager to tell you the punchline about gray hair!!
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