OMNI LISTSERV PROVIDES PEER-DRIVEN PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT FOR NEW YORK EARTH SCIENCE TEACHERS

Since 1989, the Oneonta Mentor Network Initiative (O.M.N.I.) has been training and supporting a statewide network of regional teacher mentors in Earth Science and Physics. An important facet of O.M.N.I.'s program has been the creation of interactive listservs (now expanded to include Chemistry, Middle School and Elementary Science) whose original purpose was to disseminate information regarding important and rapidly evolving NY State Education Department (SED) policies and to help teachers mentor each other through those changes. Subscription to each of these listservs has grown over the years and the range of discussion topics has broadened significantly. The most dramatic growth has occurred on the ESPRIT (earth science) list with over 700 New York teachers subscribed along with some out-of-state teachers, university professors and professionals in the private sector. Subject threads cover a wide range of topics: SED information is still there, but discussion and sharing of earth science content and concepts, and classroom materials and techniques now dominate the list (recent examples: earth science related reading lists and assignments, addressing the needs of handicapped and ESL students, discussion of processes that drive plate motion, and building a real time database of snow accumulation for a statewide mapping project the day after the storm). While the list has suffered growing pains involving funding, management, etiquette, and volume of mail, it continues to bring together more and more teachers in an enormously popular, productive and effective grassroots professional growth and development program. Subscribe to the ESPRIT list at http://external.oneonta.edu/mentor/listserv.html