July 28 – July 30, 2015
Crowne Plaza Providence/Warwick, RI
OR
August 11 – August 13, 2015
Holiday Inn by the Bay, Portland, ME
General Information
You’ll notice in the draft agenda the protocols associated with student work and data. PLGs are designed to be collaborative and engage educators around text, data, student and adult work in order to continually improve instructional practices and student learning. In order to be best prepared to engage in each type of protocol effectively, we would like you to bring some student work with you that you would like to analyze within a small group. If you are finding it challenging to locate student work, please consider bringing a piece of adult work. This might include a lesson plan, an assessment, a project complete with directions and scoring guide. In any situation, the goal is to seek feedback in order to refine the adult work and enhance the experience for students by making it more clear, by ensuring that the task is aligned to standards, etc. If you are a principal, we would like you to bring a set of school-based data that you can share with a group and analyze using a protocol. It is important that this data experience provides you an opportunity to dig into something that you have a wonder about. It is also important that it be a manageable set of data and, therefore, might only include a slice of data for you to dig into with a group of peers. Instead of bringing forth multi-year data, you may want to select something that helps you understand one sub-group of students or one snapshot in time. You can use THIS DOCUMENT to help you think through what kind of work to bring to the training. In order for you to truly engage in facilitation skills and experience the intended outcomes as a participant, it is really critical that each participant brings a set of work (student work or data, depending upon your role) to the training. If you’ve had a chance to look at the agenda, you will notice that most of the time spent will be in a small, working group of educators who are all coming for the same purpose and are there to learn from and with one another. We hope that this approach fosters a environment of trust and collaboration and ensures that each participant can engage fully in the learning experience.
The Holiday Inn by the Bay has a parking garage located underneath the hotel for overnight guests ONLY, the cost is $10.00 per night and will be posted to your room bill. Daily guests who park below the hotel will be charged $25.00 in order to exit – which is not eligible for reimbursement. Daily guest not staying overnight, can park in the garage next to the hotel on Spring Street. Daily parking must be validated by GSP before you leave – so be sure to get your validation sticker before leaving each day in order to receive our reduced daily parking rate of $5.00. Parking costs above this amount will not be reimbursed.
Ensuring that every school provides at least 90 minutes of monthly uninterrupted Professional Learning Group (PLG) time to support faculty learning and ensuring that each PLG has at least one member who is trained to facilitate it is, as you know, a requirement of all Phase III schools. While many schools already have a cadre of trained facilitators, we felt it was important to provide an opportunity for educators in our schools to have access to such training. The Great Schools Partnership (GSP) has a long-standing affiliation with the premiere education facilitator training organization – the School Reform Initiative – and every GSP coach has been formally trained and most of us are also certified trainers. We have built these sessions into our overall program budget so that educators from our Phase III schools will be able to be trained at no cost.
Training Materials and Resources
Hotel Reservations
To make reservations at the Crowne Plaza, you may Book Online Or call, 401-732-6000. Please reference “Great Schools Partnership – NextGen” in order to receive our negotiated rate of $129 per night. Make your reservations by June 27, 2015 to receive this rate. PLEASE NOTE! Hotel rooms at the Crowne Plaza are now completely booked. If you have not made hotel accommodations, but still need a room, we do have an additional block at the Holiday Inn Express in Warwick. Contact them directly as soon as possible, at 401-736-5000. Be sure to mention “Great Schools Partnership” to receive our negotiated rate $129 per night (based on their availability).
To make your overnight reservations, please call: 207-775-2311. Be sure to reference Great Schools Partnership – NextGen in order to receive our negotiated rate of $199 for single/double occupancy per night. Make your reservations by July 10, 2015 to secure this rate (or while rooms are available).
Reimbursement Information
We have built the schedule so that it will be three days in length starting late Tuesday morning and going through Thursday afternoon. Hopefully, this will minimize overnights and facilitate travel for most. We will reimburse: Mileage for up to three vehicles per school team Up to four hotel rooms per school team for two nights. For those schools traveling greater distance in which a third overnight may be necessary, please contact Gwen Merrick, and we’ll do our best to accommodate this request.