Our second-year ACP-CFG met last night at Challenge Early College High School. Two members from last year have taken positions as professional developers outside of the district, and one member was ill. Everybody else was present, and it was great to get back together and get to work.

After a few announcements, we started with Connections. Janet did a great job facilitating, and I hope to share the facilitation role much more this year.

For our next activity we read “Science Nourishes the Mind and the Soul” by Brian Greene from Terri’s book, This I Believe. That was a jumping off point to write about powerful learning experiences that we have had as teachers. We then broke into triads and engaged in the Making Meaning Protocol: The Storytelling Version.

We spent the rest of the meeting planning for the year with an Affinity Map. Each member got 3 post-its and wrote down their top ideas for what kind of work they wanted to do together this year. We posted our ideas on a big blank wall and silently rearranged them into themes. Click on the thumbnail to see a bigger photograph of our affinity map.