This blog, and some that follow, will answer that question. The different working groups at the PNM (POGIL National Meeting) – smaller teams of participants who have agreed to work toward meeting one of the POGIL Strategic Plan goals – will share their reports of their work from the meeting.

However! The most important take-home is not that we were busy – it’s that we want you to join us. If you have an idea or insight or just want to help out, please contact the person named in the blog. I am certain that person will find a way to use your work.

The first report comes from Laura Trout at Lancaster Country Day School in Lancaster PA.

Which POGIL Strategic Plan Goal are you working toward? Who is a part of your working group?

We are Goal 1 – related to POGIL workshops and training POGIL practitioners. Our members are Laura Trout, Renee Cole, Stephen Prilliman, Chris Mayfield, Heather Wilson-Ashworth, and Bonnie Wehausen.

GOAL 1:  INCREASE THE NUMBER OF POGIL PRACTITIONERS AND SUPPORT PRACTITIONER PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT, WITH A PARTICULAR EMPHASIS ON THOSE IN STEM DISCIPLINES. 

What is the name of your POGIL working group? What is your group charged to do?

The group I led was called “Revisiting Process Skills in POGIL Sessions“. Our task was to take a look at how Process Skills are taught in our workshops (Fundamentals through Advanced) and then to make changes to reflect current research – research that has been done by members of The POGIL Project, among others. Our idea is to incorporate some of the tools that have been developed or are in development, such as the ELIPSS (NOTE: check out this link!) rubrics. We feel that the current POGIL workshop curriculum has some “areas of improvement” when it comes to emphasizing the process skills pieces of POGIL.

What did your group accomplish at the PNM? What are you most excited about?

We used a Logic Model to determine outcomes for our group. We also started to develop a curriculum map for the POGIL sessions in the regional workshops, specifically focusing on what Process Skills would be presented, when they would be presented, and at what level.  We agreed that our new Process Skills curriculum would need video examples of the roles and different process skills. I think this is what we are most excited about. Several professors are looking into using their campus troupes to make short videos that could be put on the POGIL “channel”.

Please describe your short-term plans for the future (next few months), and then…

We agreed to have monthly conference calls using Google Hangouts. As homework, we are mapping the current POGIL sessions from the regional meetings, so we have a clearer picture of when Process Skills are addressed directly in our workshops. This will help us determine holes in the curriculum. Renee Cole and I will also be working on storyboards for the videos.

Please describe your long-term plans for the future (six months to a year). What is your vision of your group’s progress in a year?

We hope to have redesigned and/or completely new workshop sessions that relate to and emphasize Process Skills to present at PNM 2018 as “workshops in development”. If those go well the new sessions/activities would be implemented summer 2019 in all regional workshops. We would also like to have video footage that we could work on editing at PNM 2018

Who should someone contact if they were not at the PNM and want to get involved in your working group?

They should contact Laura Trout (email: [email protected]). We are happy to add people to the Google Hangouts and get their input.