Are you looking for something to use to help structure a staff development activity during your next staff meeting? Field Notes, the quarterly publication by and for the ABE community in Massachusetts, can provide a variety of catalysts for staff development. Need something short and sweet for a 30-minute exercise? Go to Field Notes. Need something to help organize a longer, reflective process? Go to Field Notes. Want to help teachers publicize their work to a greater audience? Field Notes!

Field Notes is organized by theme. Each issue focuses on a specific topic. If you are exploring a particular area for program development (family literacy, technology, assessment, for example), you can probably find an issue of Field Notes devoted to that topic. Older issues from our archives may be still very relevant to your work. You can almost always get multiple copies of back issues, free, by contacting Heather Brack at hbrack@worlded.org.

Back issues of Field Notes are also available on the SABES Web site at www.sabes.org/resources/fieldnotes. Some back issues of Bright Ideas, the precursor to Field Notes, are also available at this Web site by clicking on "formerly Bright Ideas." You can get HTML or PDF versions.

Here are some staff development ideas to get you started.

Using the resources page:

• Explore Web resources. Each issue of Field Notes has a resource page. Have a few staff members take responsibility for exploring a particular Web site and reporting back on its value to the program or to individual teachers. Ask staff to follow some of the links to see if they can locate additional resources.
• Read/report out on recommended books/articles. Same as above, but with a recommended article or book. For example, the recent science issue is packed with recommended reading, including resource books for teachers that offer creative approaches to science, and writing about science.

Article summaries: Ask staff members to select an article they found interesting and give a brief summary at a staff meeting.

Letter to the editor: If there is something provocative, disturbing, exciting, interesting, or relevant to your program, compose a collaborative letter to the editor about your thoughts. You might:

• state your disagreement/agreement with a particular point of view expressed in an article;
• share information about your program; or
• provide additional information on a particular subject.

Tools for the Classroom: Whenever possible, Field Notes provides a Tools for the Classroom feature. When relevant, have teachers select a tool for the classroom (lesson plan, lesson suggestion, etc.) and have them try it out in their own classes. Then have them report back to the rest of the staff how the activity went, how they modified it, where it led, and what they learned.

Calendar listings: As a staff activity, go through the conference listings and see if any are relevant to your program and if anyone can attend and report back.

Lenore Balliro is the editor of Field Notes and she can be reached by e-mail at lballiro@worlded.org