I am happy to inform you of your selection for the Minnesota K-12 Academic Standards in Science Revision Committee. We received 115 applications and are pleased that so many parents, educators, business and community representatives are interested in helping us revise the science standards to reflect the high expectations that Minnesotans hold for our children and youth. I sincerely appreciate your dedication of time and effort to this important project.
...
During the first meeting, we will present an overview of the standards revision process and will identify criteria for high-quality content standards. A large block of time will be reserved for you to review the feedback submitted by the public via our online survey. The feedback consists of suggested improvements to the current science standards. You will have the opportunity to read and discuss suggestions submitted for each standard or benchmark and provide direction for needed changes.
Well, well, well, yours truly was chosen to help in this important process. I am looking forward to these meetings, which should be a learning experience for me. A couple of points I am thinking about right now. First, I probably will not blog about any of these, or subsequent, meetings. I would not want committee members feeling restricted in expressing their thoughts if they thought these thoughts may end up being viewed by my vast audience of ~2. /waves to wife and kid
Second, I couldn't help but wonder if my name had anything to do with being chosen. My wonderment was based on the following: "Dear Ms...." The joys of having a unisex name, at least mine is rare enough that it wasn't a problem during those traumatic elementary school years. However, the committee is well balanced by gender and may in fact favor female members to male members by 1, if my quick count was accurate. For those interested in the process, standards, committee reps, etc check out the MN Department of Education science standards and follow the links at the bottom of the page.
3 comments:
good to see a actual scientist being involved in determining such things.
Good luck.
I really appreciate people that take action to back up their words. Many people have bitched about the (lack of) standards in K-12 science, but not many do any thing about it.
Thanks for backing up the hot air with action. I applaud you!
I teach fifth grade science here in Minnesota and just discovered Virginia's Science Standards of Learning Curriculum Framework. In my humble opinion they have a much better start on this business of standards. Check out their standards if you are interested. I just googled science standards and it was right there.
Post a Comment