The NSRF Winter Meeting took place last week in Tampa, Florida, December 13-15, 2007. The opening session kicked the meeting off with an amazing teaching demonstration from Gloria and the Math Team from her elementary school. Gloria uses movement and call and response to teach math vocabulary and problem solving patterns. The children were obviously both excited and proficient, and I was excited to be there. It was a great way to put students and learning at the forefront of our discussions for the next two and a half days.

Most of the Winter Meeting was devoted to spending time in Home Groups. For the first time, I got to facilitate a Home Group and I was truly blessed with a group who came to work.

We started with a 3-2-1 icebreaker. In pairs, we shared three things about ourselves, two AHA's that we had from the opening session, and one burning question that we brought with us. We introduced our partners to the group, shared the burning questions, and debriefed the process.

Next, Phil led us through the Passions Profiles Protocol. This was one of the most popular activities of the day. I had never used it before, and now I am itching to use it in other contexts.

After lunch, we recorded the norms that we were already using and added some to help us think about how we would help each other do powerful work.