Good Afternoon, Illinois Ag Teachers,
Last week you received a message about the upcoming Lesson Study professional development opportunity. We wanted to give you one last opportunity to consider joining before we begin working on logistics. The information from the previous email explaining Lesson Study is listed below. Attached is a list of teachers who have already registered. If you believe you completed the survey but your name is not on the list, please let me know. The registration form will close Monday, October 12.
Please click here to register.
Information on Lesson Study:
The University of Illinois would like to offer you the opportunity to take part in a new professional development opportunity called Lesson Study. This is a teacher-led method of collaborating, observing and revising your lesson plans to develop a higher quality experience for your students.
If you choose to participate, you will be placed in a group of 3-4 other teachers who are teaching the same course and lessons in the spring semester. Facilitated by a member of FCAE, your group will meet and determine a lesson that all group members will teach during the semester. You will review the lesson and determine how you will assess success (Are students engaged? Did students perform well on assessments? Etc.) Then, one teacher will volunteer to teach the lesson and record themselves teaching. All group members will watch the video. As a group you will decide how to adapt the lesson to better meet the needs of the students. After this fine tuning, someone else will teach and record, and the process will be repeated. Over the course of the process, the lesson will finish in a form that is more effective. In the process, you will have discovered nuances of teaching that you can apply to your other courses.
If you choose to participate, you will be required to:
- Meet virtually every other week for 3 months with the members of your lesson study group.
- Teach the lesson once yourself while being recorded.
- Watch videos of your group members teaching the lesson.
Why should I participate?
- In completing the lesson study project, you will receive a stipend for $150.
- Your hours involved will count toward your ISBE-required professional development hours (estimated 15 hours).
- The revised materials from all groups and their lessons learned will be shared for all to use in the future.
- You may choose to work on adapting face-to-face lessons to virtual formats, or just improving face-to-face lessons.
- This is an opportunity to work closely with your peers and develop a new network of support for other areas of teaching.
If you are interested in participating, please complete the survey linked here. If you are maybe interested but your participation would depend on certain factors, there is a place to include that in the survey.
If you have any questions, please contact Amy Leman at bunselme@illinois.edu
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Amy Leman
University of Illinois
Phone: 217-.30-0.65 Cell: --
Email: bunselme@illinois.edu
Address: 139 Bevier Hall, 905 S. Goodwin Ave., Urbana, IL 61801