Thursday, December 8, 2011

December 9

Alright, it's a little late but I wanted to see as many comments as possible before recommending a strategic planning process. In a way, this is a lot like the work I used to do as a management consultant-- getting the members of a group to articulate what they thought was the best plan, and then synthesizing their opinions into something that made them all equally miserable. Let me know how I do.

It appears that most of you favor multiple, tactical working groups. In order for those groups to be effective, members will need to know exactly what they are supposed to do and how they are supposed to do it. Here are some questions to consider:

  • Will you divide by textual geography ("you take that paragraph and I'll take this one") or by concept (vocabulary, authors, titles, genres, e.g.)? 
  • Will you budget projects by time to make sure we finish in 24 hours? Will you assign roles to group members (like timer or sweeper/reviewer) or will you all just attack the next thing that hasn't been done? 
  • Do the four classes need to collaborate with each other, and, if so, what's the best way to do it? Do we think that one reference per idea is enough, or should we have more? 
You will undoubtedly have your own questions and ideas as well, so please appoint a facilitator in each period and take the period to have the conversation. Make sure to budget your time so that you don't have to rush the final version of whatever you decide.  Please appoint a reporter who will take notes on the group's final decisions and submit them as comments to this post.  By tomorrow (Friday) night we should all see four remarkably clear visions of Brain/200 working groups.  Each period will likely come to similar-but-different conclusions, and that's OK; we will have a variety of styles to discuss when we review the finished product.  When you leave class, you should know exactly what your role and responsibility is.  Begin by reading the article.  Keep your eye on the blog-- this thing could start at any moment.

NOTE: for those of you who favored a holistic approach (i.e., beginning and/or studying the whole thing en masse), you'll get your chance. Creating the mind map is just the beginning.

JOURNAL TOPIC: [today's tunes: start the collaborative process by agreeing on a song to hum in unison. Then get to work.  I gave Mr. Jauregui the blog URL, guess we'll find out whether he read it (and if he didn't, someone please show him on a phone)-- Mr. Jauregui, thanks for being a good sport. Oh, and Mr. Jauregui, Trevor gets to Dremel. And Kira gets to leave, if her partner says it's OK and the class agrees.  Thanks again.]

What will you need to learn how to do in order to build an online community of five hundred people who follow your blog and join up to prepare for the AP exam?

AGENDA:
1. Journal
2. Form Brain/200 working groups

HW: You know what to do.

7 comments:

  1. We're all here wondering what exactly we are supposed to do here? what is this all pertaining to?

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  2. Okay so here is what we came up with... We have one head group that will facilitate and basically "control" what goes on. That group is made up of 8 people and already decided. They will have roles like timer, concepts/connectiong, reviewers, and admins. For the rest of the class there will be groups of 4 to 6 (use your partners), some things to consider... However main people you have will be however many paragraphs you have to do. The way those paragraphs of the interview will be divided is on facebook. Post your claim to the group blog we made today in class. Leftover paragraphs will be talked about later. Then within your group you will decide how to break up your sections (through paragraphs or all together) then post those decisions to the facebook group along with your section pick. Good luck everyone!

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  4. After talking about it as a somewhat functional group, we had a few ideas. We had a few ideas about which medium to use to communicate our ideas, and decided that since we are all so familiar with the blog now, that we would make a class blog that would allow us to collaborate together, as each group completed their assignments. We determined for our class size, because it is so small, that we should divide into 5 groups of 4. Each group should have a supervisor that is responsible for posting to the blog, and reviewing the content submitted to them through e-mail. The other members of the group would then be responsible for completing the assignment. We thought that groups should be responsible for different topics/concepts/thematic elements within the assigned work. As a class, we went so far as to come up with a URL, "heywearecool.blogspot.com and to divide into groups and assign "supervisors" as follows:

    (*)- denotes "supervisor"
    Cody*
    Ian J.
    Nick
    Dannielle

    Rachel*
    Kari
    Ian May
    Dania

    Shannon*
    Chelsea
    Hannah
    Jessica

    Jolissa*
    Alaysia
    Stephanie
    Mitchell

    Adrianna*
    Rico
    Jacob
    Nathan

    We discussed the idea of working with other classes, and came to somewhat of an agreement that we would be open to that idea after the assignment had been finished because working with others outside the class may prove to be a little difficult. We also decided that working in the same groups as partners was not necessary.

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  5. The third period class decided to split up among groups. The class doesn't want the groups to feel like they will have no help therefore there has been a blog set up for the whole third period class to follow (I will post link below). On this blog everyone will be able to ask questions and help others with their tasks.
    These are the groups we created and jobs for individual people to take on:

    Timers: Jojo and Kira
    Reviewers: Candice and Nicole
    Quotes: Tyler and Gilbert
    Administrators: Darin and Drew
    Note taker and blog reporter: Marie
    Concepts: Carlos, Emily and Kelly (facilitators)
    -Vocab: Lupe, Miranda
    -Concepts for 1st half of interview: Patrick F., Hunter and Nathan
    -Concepts for 2nd half of interview: Kelli C.,Tori,Chelsey, Mari and Edith

    *The rest of the people who were absent please make sure to request to be put into a group or try to give the whole class new groups to make that you'd like to work in.

    Third period class, here is the link to the blog that will be used:
    http://drprestons3rdperiodclassof2012.blogspot.com/

    FOLLOW IT!!! This will be the main source of information for our class.

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  6. Our sixth period class decided to break down the concepts and be able to focus on each idea individually. By doing so, the group will be able to teach each other the research that others don't have time to collaborate with.

    The groups/partners chosen were based on our partners for class since our class is so small.

    Vocabulary: Paul & John
    Authors/Titles: Jessica M. & Marisol
    Allusions: Betzy, Jessica P., & Annais
    Quotes: YunJoo & Rebecca
    Diction/Syntax/Tone: Sam, Carson, & Trevor

    Time Manager: Alex M.- He will give us time limits of when we will need to have a certain amount of work done and make sure to have us all cooperating.

    Administrator: Ryan M.- He will be setting up a Facebook page where our group may be able to connect/communicate with each other. Deadlines and time limits will be posted. Through this website we will also be able to ask and answer questions if needed.

    -We did group up some concepts that were relative to each other, just to keep it at a more general level for the members.

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  7. Patrick S. is also in the first half concepts of the interview for third period.

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