I realize (after reviewing the IF rubric) that I am not sharing my learning in a formal way. This is my new weekly goal as your IF!! During our next studio, we should consider ways for all of us to engage in and document this type of sharing.
I was in Jenny's room today and have 3 thoughts to share:
1. This came from one of her students! As we explore how to help students share their reading/books, a possible chart could be:
"What makes us stop and think while we are reading?"
(answers in Jenny's room today)
- A drastic change in events
- An emotional change in the character
- Something that was unexpected
- A new vocabulary word
3. We explained the Instructional Core to a student today to highlight the need for him to play a bigger role in his learning. My realization is the connection between the instructional core and the DO part of PDSA. I remembered the part about Teacher Dos and Student Dos! In addition, another chart idea could be "STUDENT STRATEGIES/BEHAVIORS/SKILLS that help them to be successful in class."
Bo and I had a conference call with Jenn earlier this week.
She said something that is really causing me to think. "Teaching should reveal. What is revealed should be diagnosed, categorized, and responded to." (We are going to spend some time on Monday and Tuesday considering this statement.) My connection was with the "I'm noticing" and "I'm wondering" structure of classroom observations that CEL recommends. What I should notice is what the teaching reveals. What I should wonder about is how to diagnose, categorize, and respond to what is revealed. Example: Jenny and my conferences revealed that some students were unprepared. We diagnosed that it happened because students left their books at home. (We also wondered if it had to do with interest, but decided at this point not.) We responded by using the "3 strikes and it stays rule".
From Jordy's classroom:
I realized again the importance of Student Talk that is academically rigorous! Watching his class discussion, I made connections to Ellin Keene's new book, To Undestand. She writes that when we truly understand, "We dwell in ideas - we take time to listen to our own thinking, time to reflect purposefully on an idea. We rehearse and repeat to perfect our ideas; we need time to be silent and time to discuss our ideas with others. We create models to help us remember. ... We engage in rigorous discourse about ideas and find we have more to say than we thought. We consider the perspectives of others and challenge them until we understand our own and others' opinions and principles; we surprise ourselves with the clarity of our own thinking (p 27)." This is exactly what was happening in his class. The book is fascinating - I've ordered a few copies to have in the media center if you are interested.
From the Meeting last week & exploring the IF rubric:
I realize that the process of getting on my schedule is somewhat random. I'm working on a more structured two-week schedule that will allow me to meet with everyone one week and then be more unstructured, working with teachers based on need the second week. Watch for the new, improved schedule starting after Thanksgiving break!
To quote Jenn, "if they had not gotten their students into IR books so quickly, our next studio wouldn't have been so rich." Nice work, team!
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