Call for Retreat Information

Glenn Smith has requested IAACT Faculty Retreat participants complete & return to him the documents & information requested before March 1. The information provided will assist our facilitator, Dr. Joseph Johnson, lead atendees in the first day and a half of activities. Glenn's email is reactnot@aol.com.

A call has also gone out from Mark Southern for participants to submit their plans to "Share What We Are Doing" with the group during the Saturday session. Group and individual presentations will take place and sharing at a "Museum Walk" of group tables will conclude Saturday evening. These presentations will lead to Sunday's "one-on-one" small group circles. Email Mark at msouthern6@triad.rr.com with you topic.

If you have not forwarded your conference deposit, those go to Fred Good at the IAACT office.

The IAACT address is PO Box 1046, Carrboro, NC 27510.

Evaluation Capacity

Hi all. The evaluation capacity project is moving along. After a first round of classroom observations it was clear to those who conducted them that the "instrument" was only marginally useful. Several reasons were noted by interviewers. Spending a class period in a classroom was not enough time to ascertain whether a teacher was actually using many of the strategies learned in ACT. "Bump it up" questions would not be observed in a classroom that was well managed and where students were behaved and on-task, as was the case in the classrooms we observed. It was generally agreed by interviewers that we should design an instrument (questionnaire) for teachers and for principals that would go along with classroom observations. It was also generally agreed that the classroom observation questions should be more open ended and that the comments section should offer more room for comments. So we have now revised the classroom observation instrument and have developed two questionnaires to go along with the observations.
A new round of observations and interviews are being scheduled for the third and fourth weeks of February and the first few weeks of March. Any faculty member interested in helping with these interviews should contact me at nview@aol.com.
Thanks,
Fred Good

New PCT Site On-line

A great new web site dedicated to Perceptual Control Theory (PCT) has been created by Warren Mansell and his students at the University of Manchester, UK. The site cover various aspects of the history and applications of PCT. Bios of leading PCT practitioners and teachers are highlighted. References are made to the influence of PCT on several disciplines and aspects of life. Click on the title above to link to the new site.