As part of the application to attend the 2020 POGIL National Meeting, applicants were asked to indicate their choice of projects to work on during the meeting. Below is a list of the projects:
• Barriers to Participation (Continuing group)
Using the data previously developed by the Demographics group, this group will focus on analysis of that data. After identifying a barrier to participation in Project activities for faculty who serve in under-resourced environments, the group will develop a plan to overcome or decrease that barrier. Goals 3.2, 3.3, and 3.7.
• Classroom Observation Protocol (OPTIC) (This group is close to being finished with its work. Therefore, no new members will be added. )
This group will be completing its developmental work, and engaging in building an electronic platform for use of the OPTIC rubric. Goals 4.2 and 4.3
• Collaborative Dissemination (Continuing group)
This group will pursue Goal 5.6: Develop collaborations with other organizations or projects that are aligned with and further The POGIL Project mission. This may include identifying organizations or projects that offer the most productive opportunities for dissemination of POGIL pedagogy, and developing strategic approaches to providing presentations or workshops at conferences of various professional organizations. This also includes considering what The POGIL Project may have to offer that may be advantageous for these other organizations or projects.
• High School Activity Revision (NEW group)
This group will pursue Goal 5.7: This group will be tasked with determining how the suite of Flinn biology and chemistry activities can better align with the 2019 revisions of the Course and Exam Descriptions from the College Board, and the NGSS. Additionally, this group will be tasked with looking at process skills and language leveling for these materials. Throughout the course of the year, this group will be invited to test and review new activities created for these books.
• Improving Inclusivity (Continuing group)
Continuing their work on improving inclusivity, this group will focus on supporting professional development on issues of power, privilege and social justice throughout the greater POGIL community. This may include creating a POGIL Common Read book club on these issues (leveraging technology to bring POGIL community members together) or other new approaches for these goals. Goal 3.4
• Local Networks (Continuing group)
This group will continue develop robust local networks to provide resources, professional development, and community for current POGIL practitioners while growing and supporting the total number of practitioners. Efforts will include recruiting local leadership teams, developing a self-sustaining framework to guide those teams, providing content and expertise for local meetings, and envisioning future growth possibilities (including leveraging technology). This effort addresses Goal 5.3.
• POGIL Activity Clearinghouse (This group is close to being finished with its work. Therefore, no new members will be added. )
We will be unveiling the POGIL Activity Clearinghouse at the PNM. This electronic platform will be used by POGIL authors and users to collaborate on and share ideas for creating classroom and laboratory activities. Authors will be able to submit activities for feedback, review and eventual approval according to the POGIL Activity Pathway (https://pogil.org/authoring-materials). We will continue our work to refine processes involved with authorship, review, endorsement, and creating a library of POGIL materials (Goals 2.2, 2.3,2.5) and to develop a workshop that introduces this process. In addition, we need to incorporate the issues of HS curriculum alignment (NGSS, Common Core, AP) and inclusivity into the feedback and endorsement process (Goal 3.1). This might be a small group action separate from or part of PAC.
• Research Agenda Development (Continuing group)
A process will be initiated that will identify and prioritize a set of research questions and studies of target populations which, if accomplished, would further the dissemination and impact of The POGIL Project. The questions could be investigated by members of The Project or, alternatively, The Project could encourage those in the wider science education community to study the questions. Possible focal points for this agenda include evaluating the success and impact of Project professional development events, assessment of student outcomes, or studies of implementations of classroom observation tools like OPTIC and ELIPSS rubrics. The scope of the agenda may include broad multi-institutional studies (appropriate to federal funding opportunities) through individual classroom level research (appropriate for action research or master’s degree projects for teachers). This working group encompasses Goals 1.4, 4.4, and 5.7 of the strategic plan.
• Workshop Videos (This group is close to being finished with its work. Therefore, no new members will be added. )
With the recent revisions of the Fundamentals and Facilitation tracks, we have identified a need to create a set of videos (similar to the HACH videos) that illustrate roles and process skills. At the PNM, this group will develop a “wish list” of videos and write storyboards for each. During the year we will identify a troupe of student actors to film the videos. We will then need to edit them for use in workshops. (Goals 1.1, 1.2).