MITS Retreat

Over Thanksgiving break we had a retreat for the 5 of us who are working on the MITS contract. Yes, I said during Thanksgiving break...we met Sunday November 26 and Monday the 27th. Jeff, the director of MITS set up the retreat at Kettunen Center in Tustin Michigan http://www.kettunencenter.org/. Nice place for a retreat; it was located on a lake and we had the whole place to ourselves. We have quite a diverse group which means that we will be well rounded. Here is my take on the dynamics of our group:

Leader offers everyone a large glass of water (MITS contract)

Some people in our group said “Yay, we can use this water right away. We will use it with projects we are already doing plus start up some new projects. Let’s brainstorm about what we can do with it. We can’t wait to see what others are doing with their glass of water.

Some people in our group said: “Why is the glass on the table? Who put it there? Are you sure it’s water? It looks half full but is it? We know we’re thirsty but is it worth it, will it quench our thirst or just spill out and not be of any use? We’re going to keep using our hose to quench our first before we try this glass. We would like to hear what others are doing with it.

Some people in our group said: “We heard there’s a glass. We can’t see the glass, but we were told to do something with it. We have some ideas of what to do with it, but would like to hear what others are doing.

We spent the 2 days with our noses burried in our laptops discussing, analyzing, sharing, brainstorming, swearing and laughing. It's difficult to come back to the reality of a busy school setting and still accomplish everything that needs to be done. But we did start our own Wiki that will house a lot of resources for teachers who will be implementing UDL in their classroom. Please visit it often at: http://techintegration.pbwiki.com