As part of the application to attend the 2021 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:
This group’s ongoing charge is to create Project-wide best practices for keeping diversity/equity/inclusion at the forefront of everything it produces; create a resource list for professional development; create equitable guidelines for writing activities; and write a curriculum for belonging space in the classroom. Goals 3.1 and 3.4.
This group is tasked with the development of a mentoring program to encourage new practitioners to continue to engage with the POGIL Project as they develop their POGIL practice. The group is developing training, assessment, and ongoing funding support for its efforts. It is working on a process for identifying and recruiting mentors/mentees and creating a course for development and continual engagement of the mentees. Goals 3 and 5.
This group is charged with identifying connections to professional development organizations that will increase The POGIL Project’s profile with members of historically marginalized groups, as well as create mechanisms of feedback from these communities. It will also create a plan to recruit and mentor a cohort of practitioners from these groups. Goals 1.1, 1.5, 3.2, and 3.3.
This group will complete the design of an asynchronous training program and app. It will also begin collecting data to continue the validation process of the tool. While no new members are needed for the former, new members who are interested in the research component of OPTIC are welcome. Goals 4.2 and 4.3.
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 AP Course and Exam Descriptions from the College Board, and the NGSS. Additionally, this group will be tasked with looking at incorporating process skills prompts into the current activities and language leveling for these materials. During 2021-22, this group will address the first-year chemistry and biology high school materials. Members of this group, and others will be invited to review and test new activities created for these books by participating in the PAC.
This group will focus on the virtual networks that were created in the past year, and the development of virtual affinity groups. It will also explore how to leverage current virtual initiatives to support other Project initiatives. This group will also continue to refine materials for robust local networks to provide resources, professional development, and community for current POGIL practitioners while growing and supporting the total number of practitioners. This effort addresses Goal 5.3.
The PAC is an electronic platform that will be used by POGIL authors and users to collaborate on and share ideas for creating classroom and laboratory activities. Authors are able to submit activities for feedback, review, and eventual approval. This group will continue to refine processes involved with authorship, review, approval, and creating a library of POGIL materials (Goals 2.2, 2.3, 2.5) People are needed to help with curating activities and facilitating collaborative peer review sessions. In addition, the group will work to incorporate the PAC into the writing components of workshops. It will also finalize a transition plan from working group to Project function.
This group’s charge is to develop (and eventually implement) a plan to promote the use of the ELIPSS rubrics and/or the OPTIC classroom observation tool in educational research settings. This effort addresses Goals 4.2 and 4.3
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.
This group will address Goal 1, by developing a suite of videos highlighting facilitation techniques for use in a variety of classrooms. At PNM, the group will discuss a "wish list" of videos and write storyboards for each. During the year we will identify locations at which to film the videos and employ a videographer to shoot footage. We will then need to edit them for use in workshops and for access on the POGIL website. This group will also complete editing of its suite of classroom process skills videos that were filmed in 2020.