5.15: Something That Stuck Out in Your Mind
At the beginning of the meeting, Bill exerts subtle but important influence by suggesting to the AALT members that they provide feedback to their colleagues that points out what they found most interesting ("something that stuck out in your mind"). This will help them decide how to pare down their reports to 2 minutes, which is the plan for the upcoming presentation to the faculty. Just prior to Bill's speaking, the first AALT member had given a report, and the group was asked if they had any comments. There was a few-second pause and a generic comment about how much the grade level had done. Bill's suggestion then sets off a number of very specific and focused comments, which continues as other members give their reports. When they finish, the principal asks that they now think of how to shorten their presentations to 2 minutes.
Bill (GR cons) Larry, one thing that helped us at one of the other schools was if something stuck out in your mind that you remember, just feed that back cause that gives the rep (AALT representative) an idea what you found interesting, which is in part the game when you present to the staff. Kind of decide what's most important representative of us, but what's most interesting that other folks might want to hear. So as you listen to the other reps, think of what was something that you heard that you remember that was most interesting. T I like the journal idea. (??) information that you were giving them, or I'm not sure if you said, like the information that you gave them and they're using it, right? T Yeah T So I like that a lot because come up 4th grade, and they are going to use that information. T That stuck out in my mind too, because it seems like a really valuable way to judge the children's work, because if you judge just a specific lesson that you did, a lot of kids would get that lesson, but is it going to transfer over into their normal everyday writing, that's where you're really going to see results or not results. T I like the fact that you guys ended up being at one whole table because I know that we started out that way but we're not anymore (??) T We're so big. It's hard, cause we're huge, but T And also the overhead looking at things is much better on all grade levels not just (??). And that was helpful in your development. T I'd like to mention the very specific strategies like the kinesthetic punctuation and the color coded editing; I think that's something that's really valuable that you can just take it and do it. T We like practical (?) Principal You like what? T Practical ideas. T Yeah. Principal OK, this process took about an hour, so what we want to do now take a few more minutes and try to condense your little presentation to like two minutes. And then we'll go around and will do one last time.