Michele Anciaux
To:	Intl School - WL Planning
Subject:	JS Intl School - WL Planning (2000-03-15)

Sandra Hernandes and Michele Anciaux met at Lincoln
today to continue work.

1.  Sandra attended the Primary Years Program (PYP -
part of the International Baccalaureate Organization)
training this past weekend with Concie, Nani, and
Margretta, teachers at Latona. We spent some time
talking about Sandra's impressions from the training.
She'll be sending a more detailed Email to Karen and the
teachers, but here are a few highlights of our conversation.

In Sandra's experience, the PYP represents a new way
for teachers to see and behave - to act more as facilitators
to learning. They need to "front load" their lessons, providing
real situations as much as possible up front for the students
to experience their learning.  This is fundamental.

We talked about how this represents more the "philosophy"
of the classroom or school, rather than the content.
For example, the Tahoma Curriculum that the John Stanford
Intl School has purchased provides themes and content,
and integrated lessons (at least that's our understanding),
but not really the processes to support a certain philosophy
of learning and teaching.

At the PYP training, they were taught to use a special
PYP Planner.  Everyone there was quite enthusiastic about
it.  Sandra seemed to think that the Latona teachers seemed
to adapt quickly to it, perhaps because of the focus here
on Inquiry-Based Learning.

If possible, we thought it would be good for Sandra to
share some of her observations about PYP at the next UW
Partnership meeting 3/28.

2.  I am going to focus my efforts for the next couple
of weeks on K-1 Math and Science in preparation for a brief
presentation at the next UW Partnership meeting 3/28.

The approach will be a "layered" one:

LAYER 1
What is the current curriculum for K-1 Science and Math?

I talked with Dolly (Spanish teacher at Latona)
about arranging a meeting with the K-1 teachers to review:
-  current curriculum maps
-  lesson plans
-  classroom worksheets, materials, textbooks
-  homework assignments
-  sample student work (to understand level of work)
-  assessments (quizzes, tests, projects, reports, etc.)

We'll try to meet before the 3/28 UW Partnership
meeting so I'll have something to show there.

LAYER 2
What are the Seattle School District standards for 
Math and Science?

I have been reviewing the new district standards document
for Math (Reading, Writing, etc., no Science yet). This
provides very specific benchmarks for K-1, as well as lists of
resources (books, etc.).  We need to review the current
curriculum (LAYER 1) in light of these new standards to
see if there are any missing pieces.  (For example,
perhaps Probability has never been introduced before
in K-1.)

LAYER 3
What new resources are going to be incorporated?

We know there are new science kits and some Foss
kits in Spanish.  What do these resources bring? How
do they map to the standards?  How would including
them alter the current curriculum maps?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Basically, LAYERS 1-3 should take us to what an
"idealized" K-1 Math and Science curriculum would
be in English.  Now it's time to add Spanish.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

LAYER 4
Where does Spanish fit in?

Is there anything that needs to change in the curriculum
map for K-1 Math and Science based on constraints of
doing these things in Spanish?  (For example, perhaps
certain topics that are a little more linguistically complex
(such as comparisons) might be sequenced a little later
in the year.)

LAYER 5
What are the language goals for Spanish?

This is where we look at the language goals for Spanish
in general: the National Standards for Foreign Language,
literacy expectations, etc.  (It would also be appropriate
to look at the District's Reading, Writing, and Communication
Standards and benchmarks for K-1 to see which could/
should apply to Spanish language competence as well
as English.)

LAYER 6
What will the Spanish-language curriculum look like
for K-1 Math & Science?

(Whoa... we're not there yet!)

NEXT STEPS:

1.  Sandra and Michele will be in touch by Email to plan
for the next UW Partnership meeting.  Next meeting at Latona
is 3/30/2000 8:30 AM to continue work on the files.

2.  Michele will be reviewing the Nebraska K-12 Foreign Language
Frameworks.  (These look excellent!)

3.  Dolly will arrange a meeting for Michele with the K-1
teachers to talk about current K-1 Math and Science Curriculum.
(Possible dates: Mar 17, 27, April 5, 7, 18, 19, 20, 21)

4.  If possible, we'd like to involve Donna Andrews from UW in
following up on the site visits since Sandra probably won't have
time for that.  (see Email 2000-03-09)