TIIP Hosted Teacher's Retreat 2012
As our TIIP team approached the end of our 2-year grant tenure, we concluded our efforts by hosting a teacher's retreat in nearby Idyllwild Mountains with 10 colleague teachers.
The teacher's retreat was perhaps one of the more creative and solidfying events we organized as a TIIP team. We were able to not only share out our learnings through our 2-year TIIP tenure but also take advantage of what is often one of our greatest yet most neglected resources in professional development: teachers themselves!
One of our reflections throughout our practices, trainings, and time together in our intimate 3-person TIIP team is that in any given instance much of what we gained from these experiences always included the time we had outside of the conferences or meetings to process, discuss, dialogue, constructively argue, and learn from each other.
We wanted to offer a similar peer save space for our own colleagues as we close our TIIP tenure.
The Agenda for the Teacher’s Retreat Includes:
Itinerary for Teacher’s Retreat
Arrival Friday:
6pm: Settle in rooms, etc.
8pm: Documentary film screening of the critical approach of education system “Waiting for Superman” with discussion and analysis to follow.
Saturday:
6am: Volunteer yoga led by Ana
9am: (TIIP provides) breakfast
10am: Teacher Support Group—each teacher puts in a hat “questions” we’d like to hear our peers respond to: “what was an inspiring classroom experience?”, “what is the most challenging factor your face in your classroom today”, “how have your attitudes about teaching changed since your first day in the classroom to present?”.
12pm: (TIIP provides). BBQ dinner
1pm: Ana and Ramona share out about LEC certification (21st century technology in the classroom, like google docs, animoto, glogster, blackboard, etc.)
3pm: Ana teach and share out projects from Colorado Solar Energy in the classroom.
5pm: Dinner
7:30pm: Alaska presentation with video, northern lights discussion, etc.,
9pm: Star-gazing with some astronomy hand outs if we choose. Spa time, etc.
Sunday
9am Breakfast: Bring your own brief excerpt or article to share. Articles should be copied and handed out to teachers —we may “share out” our responses on the readings.
10am: Teacher’s Best Practices share out
Noon: informal lunch, group closing / goodbyes. Clean up.
