Focus Group Meeting
Mountain Group
5/17/04
The Mountain Group met on Tuesday, May 17, 2004.
They enjoyed the presence
of a home schooling parent and her home schooled daughter.
The parent joined in with our discussions and added some very helpful input
on
suggestions for math curriculum. The group re-examined the Profile data in
their ESLR with Math as the subject. They concentrated on „Support
for Student Personal and Academic Growth.‰ (Point
C). They discussed applying math principles and operations to solve problems.
They recalled at their last meeting, that they recognized the test results
indicated a real need for improvement in Algebra I and math basics at the
High School level. The Group shared evaluating Math work samples as they
viewed math samples, noted
the work on each page as being at, above, or below grade level, and the accuracy
with which the math work was done. They filled out and attached Rubrics to
each work sample.
Conclusions were reached in which the group decided:
1. All students need to show all their computations on their worksheet or
on an attached paper.
2. Many students, especially upper grade students, are currently working
below grade level.
3. The grade level on the student‚s text does not meet California State
Standards. In fact the texts appear to be behind by one grade level.
4. The Kindergarten through fourth grade levels appeared to be closer to
grade level material.
However as the grade levels increased, the farther
they fell behind grade level material required in the California State Standards.
Problems:
The Group did not have any problems to report on working on this accreditation
process.
Suggestions:
The Group did see the advantage of having an accreditation process timetable.
Our visiting parent introduced the Mountain Group to a math program that
she
has
used with her home schooled children, with great success. She explained that
" Math You See" is a video based program spanning kindergarten
to Trigonometry.
She discussed that it comes with printed workbooks, videos explaining the
new math concepts, and manipulatives.
One ES in our group described the advantages
of a program "Visually
Verbalizing" for help in reading, word attack skills, and writing. We learned
that this
program by Linda Mood Bell also takes time to train teachers purchasing their
program.
Finally, Roy Shimp, an ES in the Mountain Group, graciously volunteered, if needed, to be a writer for the Self-Study chapter 4 Criteria Report.