Martha's afternoon settled down a bit from some of the excitement and surprises from the morning and the bigger one at lunch time. She could admit that she was interested and curious about Dawn and the vice principal, but the shock of getting hit on by the woman hired lead the professional development portion of the in service had been a massive surprise that startled her heavily. Especially in the fact that Julia Eidlemann had said that there was something special about her. It made Martha wonder as to how aware that Julia and Franz Eidlemann were of Moon Lake's secrets even though they were normals, and if they were, what made Martha stand out from the other weres in the room? Most of them were female, only a couple of the fifth grade teachers were male. The rest were all female weres of various kinds, and Martha wasn't even the only werecat. She eventually sighed and figured that might relate to the double dose of werecat she had gotten along with being the new girl on the block.
"Doing okay?" Dawn asked as Martha returned from the bathroom and sat down beside the werevixen.
"Yeah," Martha nodded, "Just had to visit the little girl's room."
Dawn nodded, and then gestured across the table to the woman seated across the table from her. Martha was slightly surprised to see that it was Mrs. Sullivan. The woman did carry a weredog's scent, but wasn't as "interested" in Martha as Martha had thought some of the others had been in her. That actually gave Martha some sense of relief.
"So how goes your first day?" Mrs. Sullivan asked politely.
"Fairly well," Martha commented, "catching up on everything that I "lost" when I left teaching. It is fascinating on many levels."
"Why did you stop?" Mrs. Sullivan asked, "If I may ask..."
"I became a mother," Martha commented, "My husband and I agreed that one of us would have to stay at home with our kids as they grew up... and since college professors earn more than elementary school teachers, I was the one to stay home. Now, though, my son's are growing up... teenagers. My eldest Nate is sixteen and my youngest is fourteen. So I don't need to stay at home full time anymore."
Mrs. Sullivan gave a friendly smile, "Well... if things go well and school accepts your application for my position after this school year you won't have to worry about that too much. You might lose some time after having children while they're newborns, but we do have some deals that would allow you to make sure that little ones are looked after and protected... even with recordings of yours and your husband's voice for them. You wouldn't have to give up a lot of time to have children."
"That actually sounds good," Martha commented, with some of her future plans feeling a bit reassured, as while she didn't want to become pregnant again at the moment, once Nate and Eric had moved out, she figured she and William could try again for a daughter. "Thanks."
"Don't mention it," Mrs. Sullivan answered, "and don't worry. While Moon Lake can present some "special" issues... the kids here aren't that bad. Certainly no worse than they are most other places."
Martha did smile as that, and was about to say more when Julia and Franz Eidlemann moved back to their positions near their central position near the slide projector. Franz held a series of note cards while Julia was taping large pieces of paper to the wall behind him. The sound of the paper crackling actually managed to gain the attention of everyone present. It was, in its own way, a way a warning that something was getting ready to happen and Martha, Dawn, and Mrs. Sullivan all turned to pay attention.
"Okay," Franz spoke as he began to set down note cards on the table, "our afternoon will start with some placement activities that are to help remind or aide you with how you present your lessons or what you are to expect your students to learn. Now, a long time ago, people would have thought that the goal of a teacher was to see that the student learns... and that is a goal, but it's a rather broad goal and when left at that... it doesn't do much. Leaving it there results in either simply presenting lists to be memorized and forgotten once they're no longer needed. It's where the goals for what our children learn and grow by need to be specific and need to be action oriented..."
Franz then held up the note cards and Martha read the word "justify" written on the card. He also gestured to the large sheets of paper that his wife was taping to the wall. On the top of each of the papers was a word written in all caps. They were: knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. Once he was certain that everyone had noticed the groupings he began to continue with the introduction of the specific material.
"Verbs are important for all your lesson planning and they need to be words that identify what the specific goal of each lesson that will get students interested in the lesson," Franz spoke, "and all verbs used will fall into specific areas of learning, depending on the complexity of the lesson and what you truly wish your students to come away from the lesson."
"And each of these groupings vary in their complexity," Julia added as she came forward, "verbs for knowledge are rather simple. All you need or want there is for the student to repeat the information. It's the most simple grouping and where you're going to start at. Next will come comprehension, here you'll want students to show some understanding of previously established facts. Like not simply knowing that George Washington was the first President but being able to say how became president."
"After that comes application," Franz picked up from his wife, "Here you're going want students to use old information in a new situation. Such as with a science experiment one would demonstrate the nature of fire. A kid will know that fire is hot and generates heat. In a new situation you could have the student demonstrate that the heat from a flame can burn other objects, like say paper with that flame."
"We wouldn't do that experiment," a voice chuckled, "fire codes and all."
Martha heard a few chuckles and even Franz and Julia laughed as well.
"Of course, it was just an example," Franz smiled, "the next level is with analysis. Here a student would be working with prior information and being able to explain how or why something happened... show what was good about it and perhaps compare it to other possible facts. Like explaining why some ships... like the Titanic... sink."
"After that comes synthesis," Julia continued, "this may relate to other portions, but will often require students to demonstrate their ability to take bits and pieces of information to create an original and whole piece of information. It'll let you know that students can organize information that they learn. Next will come evaluation in which students are to give their own judgement on material and criteria to show what value they give to the information given."
"Could that relate to the other grouping... the analysis section?" another substitute teacher asked.
"Yes, all of these sections can relate to each other," Julia nodded, "but they will have their differences and means establish what will make them different."
"And sorting that out is how we'll be setting up those differences," Franz picked up, still holding up the note cards, "You can work in groups based on the tables you're at and we'll give each group a series of note cards, and each will work with these verb groupings. Each table is to discuss which grouping each verb goes with. Once each group has an idea for each of their cards.... set your cards in a stack and once everyone is done we'll then discuss each group's reasoning and present what the actual answers are and why."
Much of the rest of the exercise for the afternoon went along those lines. Franz passed out the cards and Martha found herself discussing some of the points of each words with the other teachers at the table, not just Dawn and Mrs. Sullivan. She got some updates that they had all had these exact sort of sessions last year when they had their first professional development day, and Martha did have to admit that some of what the activity was covering was related to the material in the study guides she had at home. It worked out well, and Martha actually enjoyed the conversation as it did get away the sorts of issues that had been distracting her earlier. In a way, it was essentially an activity that got to what they were supposed to be doing and not "secretly" flirting with each other. That was a great relief to Martha, and in the end, her table did rather well with their placing of the verbs given to them.
"This was actually rather fun..." Martha commented to Dawn.
"It is... in the sense that we get to talk and interact," Dawn agreed, "though many of us would prefer a day in our rooms to work things with regard to lesson plans and so forth."
"Heh, heh," Martha chuckled, "I do remember that feeling."