State Leadership

Today I traveled to Des Moines for the State Leadership Team meetings.  This is a new format for the Department of Education.  I was encouraged to see pK-16 representation and hope this continues.

It was fun to walk in and see my Grant Wood colleagues seated together~both math and science.  I was able to pull up a chair and join them.  It was so good to see them again and to be able to share our thoughts and to catch up on projects.

Kevin Fangman, acting DoE director, opened the morning session.  He gave an over view of the Common Core which now becomes the Iowa Core following the recent adoption (translates to standards, word for word).  He was excited to have the inclusion of IHE at this meeting.  Another highlight of which he wanted us to all be aware was that Iowa is one of several states participating in an assessment consortium~more information to come as they develop.

He also was very impressed with New Tech High and their interdisciplinary approach and hopes that we consider this during our discussions.  He mentioned that he had seen them on Saturday at UNI!

The key difference between the Iowa Core an Common Core is that the Common Core is by grade sections and the Iowa Core is organized by grade clusters.  The key similarity is they are both a set of shared goals and expectations for student success.

The next session was on STEM education, facilitated by Jeff Weld.  A common thread for all STEM topics is that of the Inquiry Process.  One group offered the thought of whether STEM was exclusionary . . . for instance, what about the Arts?  I quipped that it could be STEAM.  The discussion turned to integration rather than splintering.  Following this was teaching literacy through science as the content and including problem solving and higher order thinking skills.   Jeff encouraged us to become a member of iowastem.org (currently a group of 70)

Some "take aways" for me today that parallel some of the thoughts that I have had for TQP:

• Integration of PK-16
• Change Process (Institutional Constraints fo Development)
• Theory of Action/Logic Model
• Statement made:  Iowa put a schoolhouse on our quarter, are we living up to it?  It made me ask, should we be?  Should we limit education to brick and mortar and the four walls of a classroom?  I think not and challenge us to go beyond the schoolhouse and value all forms of education.