Summary of Field Advisory, November 2008

student with artifact
Carlitta Tucker shares a her artifact as others
listen and see the slideshow presentation.

On November 18 we held the final field advisory meeting for Fall 2008 .  Both CPS and UIC partners brought artifacts from their classrooms and engaged in discussions around those.
Alex Lichtenfeld shared student work from her class where her students, in pairs, researched to find statistics, facts, and examples related to the theme "Stop polluting our air". Her students made posters and presented their work in class in different ways - as a newscast, or as an interview. UIC students raised several questions such as where and how the students found pictures for the posters, how long it took to complete, what sorts of directions Alex gave.

Dave Rench, another CPS partner, gave out a planning tool that he uses, which looks like a web with the seven different forms of multiple intelligences on it. He demonstrated the use of this tool by inviting one of the UIC students to share a topic that they might want to plan a lesson for. As a group they considered how to ensure that the lesson plan has activities for each intelligence so that students in class have the opportunity to be engaged and learn in ways that best fit their individual strengths. Dave also suggested that while students may choose the activity that is related to their strengths one could also ask them to choose something that is out of their strengths once in a while. He stressed that this is a helpful tool to figure out how to teach what one wants to teach so that there are multiple entry points for students.

Carlitta Tucker shared a powerpoint presentation about the buddy program in her school, in which students from general ed classrooms work together with students with disabilities. She described the various ways in which this has helped students from both classrooms and developed social skills, a key aspect of literacy. Tasha Mcshan showed student work with text and character traits where students made text to self connections such as accomplishment, challenges, chronological events and schedule.

Following the sharing by CPS partners, UIC students shared artifacts that they brought and received questions and comments from their peers and CPS partners.






science classroom artifact
Kelly Guenther shares students work from her class on Beowulf


science classroom artifact
Maryan Fine illustrates her use of transparency and
projectors as a tool in teaching


science classroom artifact
Partners post on a response on blackboard after their
interactions with UIC students.