Corl Street Elementary School “Fifth Special” Focus Group … Parents October 19, 2017 Facilitators: Evelyn Pro and Jessica Lee Attendance: Six moms, representing seven students (all girls) 2 Kindergarten, 1 First, 2 Second, 2 Third Greetings and Introduction: Thank you for coming this evening. My name is Evelyn Pro..and my name is Jessica Lee… and we are Penn State students in a research seminar MGMT496 taught by Dr. Gus Colangelo. MGMT496 is a management practicum investigating issues surrounding organizational effectiveness. Tonight we will be facilitating your discussion regarding possible new curricular options for a Fifth Special in the Elementary Curriculum of the State College Area School District. The elementary curriculum includes core subjects English/Language Arts, Math, Science, and Social Studies. In addition, there are four additional curricular areas referred to as “Specials”: Art, Music, Health / Phys Ed, and Library. The Administration and School Board are considering a modification of the school day, which would allow for the possibility of a “Fifth Special”, and would like your ideas and input into what that fifth special might be. We would like your ideas and also please take us through your thinking. And thank you in advance for participating tonight. 1. What they would like added a. Core? Special? i. Built in flexibility to customize/individual activities – do what you like 1. Learn language, apps on tablets; use tablets instead of having a teacher ii. Community service project, building iii. Catch up work iv. Group work/divided up in similar interests v. Delve deeper into core subjects vi. Clubs? vii. CEEL 2. What would benefit every elementary school kid a. Languages i. would there be worksheets? How will they track growth? b. Young scholars takes students because parents want the kids to be exposed to languages every day c. One mom not too happy about language would rather have culture i. 3x a week for 30 min with learning a language for actual growth to be beneficial d. Learning a language, the younger they are exposed, the more they pick up, could spark interest to learn outside of the 5th special? e. One mom worried as her children get older, their culture ties become weaker – want kids to learn Chinese and become immersed in culture i. Need lots of practice with language but even though they practice often the progress is very slow f. CEEL - French after school program, stem, art, language, in the news (journalists); want higher quality, 1 supervisor – unsure who teaches, Ph.D. teacher from psu (French), art was from district, soccer shots, mixed martial arts, somebody from the center comes (college students?) g. The 5 special fixed, instead 6 different units to something that can be rotated throughout the year, 6 weeks of one thing 3. Languages implemented? a. Unhappy with one specific language, not bad, but might be more useful during that time period b. Want more IB & global & languages – Spanish, French, German, Chinese c. Really want exposure to other cultures 4. Technology/coding? a. Fundamentals maybe, programs can become obsolete 5. STEM/STEAM extended? a. Similar to the discovery place once a week activity, problem solving, ok with failing and walk through it & keep moving on b. Want to do more exploration with their imagination, think out side of the box c. Group among grade level? d. Multiple projects/new challenges/current events/Mixing the interest 6. WORLD CULTURE WORLD CULTURE a. Kids when they’re younger, learn language faster, want to provide kids that opportunity b. Interactive c. Do a language, go all out, do it properly d. Less assessment e. Exposure 7. Rotation with robots? Precursor with coding; really enjoy working with robots 8. Concern: a. Don’t want to slap something in it b. Want to use the time most wisely c. Give the student input, a choice during that time period d. How many options can be running that students can chose in that time period e. “what does your child want” f. take something a kid thinks they can’t do and modify bring it down to their level 9. extended day, don’t want to bring more homework a. nixing homework? Takeaways: Add a component to the survey about what the students want in that extra period Making 5th special beneficial, something they will learn from, not a waste of time o If 5th special is once a week, the moms are interested in seeing a world cultures class that allows the kids to have an interactive opportunity and choice in learning that particular culture, opening their eyes to different points of view o If 5th special is multiple days, the moms are more open to implementing a language o Integrating different grades during the 5th special so younger kids have role models outside of book buddies and older kids learn leadership skills as well as applying what they know by practicing their skills to help younger kids o STEAM . Group problem solving (possible to integrate grades?) . Apply math, science, & art to solve problems . Robotics? o 4 different units to something that can be rotated throughout the year equally between schools to provide options for the students so they feel like they have some type of control during their day Corl Street Elementary School “Fifth Special” Focus Group, TEACHERS November 15 , 2017 Facilitator: Paige Savard Attendance: _4_ teachers, grades __2, 2, 3__5______ Greetings and Introduction: Thank you for coming this afternoon. My name is Paige Savard and I am a Penn State student in a research seminar MGMT496 taught by Dr. Gus Colangelo; “496” is a management practicum investigating issues surrounding organizational effectiveness and organizational change. This afternoon we will be facilitating your discussion regarding possible new options for a Fifth Special in the Elementary Curriculum. As you may know, we have already conducted focus groups with parents from each elementary school, and now we would like to provide the Administration and School Board with input from teachers. This is intended to focus on content areas for this student population, and not necessarily on implementation or roadblocks or costs… We would prefer to hear your thoughts on content that would enhance the elementary experience for your children. I will be recording the discussion so that I can provide a transcript, but we do not want anyone’s name or particular I D. Please be as open as you can, and enjoy the process. I need to provide a breakdown of attendance, so can you please tell me what grade level or special you represent….. We would like your ideas and also please take us through your thinking. And thank you in advance for participating. Who would like to start us off ? ? TRANSCRIPT Teacher #1 Teacher #2 Teacher #3 Teacher #4 “I know the one discussion point was on a foreign language and I think personally, being raised in a school where I had a foreign language study in first grade, it was Spanish at the time and it was the same every year. There are benefits to that, and also cons. The benefit was I maintained fluency, I was able to build on that every year, I never had a few years off and try to get back to it in middle school. The drawback was we seemed to learn the same thing every year. I don’t know if that was poor curriculum or whatever.” “that would be a hard one too for kids that are coming into the school late, that are maybe not from a school around here” “Which is why it was a similar thing every year” “It would be hard because what would you do with a fifth grader whose never had Spanish before would you say ‘oh you have to go to school with first graders’ I feel like that would kill someone’s self-esteem.” “I know they’ve talked about it in the primary grades because that’s where language acquisition is like huge, and most beneficial. I just think it’s pointless to do it then and then take a break for three years and then join again in middle school. I think it’s not beneficial for anybody if you just do it in kindergarten and first” “At the previous school I worked at we had STEM which the kids really enjoyed. It was something that they looked forward to but also worked well with problem solving and it could be hard but you might be able to tie in counseling type things where you talk about teamwork and how to work together. So some of the issues we see day to day in the classroom are well someone doesn’t know how to interact with someone or other people, so when you do it through like a STEM challenge it becomes a little more fun and engaging that the kids are more forced to work together in a different way.” “Did that replace or was that in addition to the science curriculum?” “we did it in addition to it. I would do, last year Jenn and I did it on the day we didn’t have specials, we would do a challenge. I’ve been doing them about 2-3, probably 2 times a month I would say now, in which one day that week we just don’t do a social studies or science. We would just do that instead as their team building but I’ve been relating that to the mindful, whatever that book is called. it’s the dispositions of empathy and resilience and all of that that. So resilience was the first months focus and now it’s on optimism and so were talking about what it means to be optimistic and then from there going into well when we’re optimistic and this is how you be optimistic in order to work on a STEM challenge.” 4th teacher enters “I know I came in late but I’d like it to be a language.” “Okay let me ask you because you have a lot of experience, so I was saying in my childhood experience we had Spanish starting in first grade and up, and then in middle school you got to choose which language you’d like to further pursue.