Jeanne+H

Line of learning--How have my understanding and application of the CEI influenced my thinking and instruction.
I need to reinforce the "characteristics of effective instruction" in my literacy coaching presentations and observations. They don't need to be a singular focus but should be incorporated throughout the work we do. This mindstreaming would be a good write to learn technique for the last 3-5 minutes of class (and/or maybe the first 3 minutes of class) as a way to effect bell-to-bell teaching. S=student centered / T=teach for understanding / A=assessment (formative) / R=rigorous and relevant curriculum / T=teach for learner differences. The T element is a particular challenge at the high school level with responsibility for so many students -- some teachers encounter over 150 students daily.

August 3 Today's focus on formative assessment parallels well the work we have been doing in Waterloo over the past several years on such assessment.This is really premised on clear objectives/goals that students understand to be their learning aims. There are many forms for such tests and a variety might accomodate different learning strengths and weaknesses. These may also be done in a cooperative learning framework. Perhaps at the start of the implementation we encourage student participation by awarding completion points for these efforts with the goal of having students "buy in" to the learning that can occur, eventually removing the external reward for cooperation. If students can be successful on formative assessments, this may set them up to anticipate success on summative tests as well and actually reap the benefits of experiencing such success. Good quote: Formative assessment should be a moving picture and not a snapshot.

August 4 Student centered classrooms (ICC: Characteristics of Effective Instruction) focus on students' real interests and questions (curiosity). Immerse students in real, rich, complex ideas and materials and provide genuine challenges. Help students engage in higher-order thinking and learn to self-monitor their learning. Students should be encouraged and enabled to recreate and reinvent the learning they encounter. They should regularly employ the whole range of communicative media -- this is to an extent enabled by the revised language arts curriculum in 9th and 10th grade as almost every unit has all means of communication represented with greater emphasis on nonfiction. Students need time to reflect and debrief their learning, sharing with others in a collaborative environment. Teachers should share their own interests in age-appropriate way. Students need the big picture to understand how the smaller elements are related to a whole. Academies should facilitate CEI with the fewer students and teachers in collaboration over the same students.

August 5 CIE Teaching for Understanding makes so much sense as it is again student-centered. Each student arrives at an understanding via their own "road" and sometimes the destination is further for some. Formative assessment fits with this concept as well to determine progress along the comprehension trail. New ideas abound in this class. I am particularly intrigued by what is going on in language arts in some of the other schools, particularly Union. I intend to remain in contact with Melanie as we (Waterloo) move toward revising our high school language arts curriculum and purchasing new materials this school year. Do we need an anthology? Union kept old texts (classroom sets) for such things as short stories and now uses the internet for nonfiction. They purchased novels for much of their instruction. This could be done to coincide with academy perspectives. It would also allow for more contemporary material. Again, we need a recursive budget that allows for purchase of materials on a more regular timeframe than every seven years. It feels like we are in the midst of a maelstrom of change in language arts!

October 17 I am actually getting this whole process underway with our faculty at West High. Last week I met in small group professional development with all faculty, including physical education and music teachers who in the past have not seen a benefit to our professional development for them personally. I didn't push the issue then, but writing truly does cut across curricular areas. Only one teacher blew off the session, quite a change from last year. Most left with a positive perspective of Written Conversation and interest in implementing that strategy. I have also conducted some observations "by invitation" (Woo-Hoo!) and will reflect on those tomorrow.

October 20: The coaching part of my job is now fully underway. Last week was the demonstration of written conversation for all classroom teachers during their planning times. I used the text "10 Ways to Create a Culture of Thinking" and found that it worked quite nicely for this strategy and gave teachers "food for thought". Their assignment was to implement a written conversation before our next meeting (next week). They typically have two weeks for the implementation. I have observed by invitation 21 teachers to date who implemented the strategy. Some had their own little "twist" to it, but fidelity to the strategy was apparent. I do think that these kind of coaching observations need to be a bit more extensive than the walk-throughs ("drive-bys") that seem to be sufficient for other district purposes. In a walk-through it would be only by chance that I would see implementation of the strategy. If I did by chance happen upon a written conversation, 2-3 minutes in the room will not allow me to see full implementation. I have found in my longer observations (12-15 minutes) that in our conversation next week we should probably discuss how to tie the strategy to the instruction for that period. Also, I am more accepting of a single go-round (prompt & respond) rather than a longer actual "conversation" because I recognize the effort to implement and expect that success the first time will breed additional implementation that will grow in duration as time permits.

November 5: Last week I completed the second round of literacy professional development. I had nearly perfect attendance at both October sessions, and those who did not make the actual sessions contacted me for an update or answered by email the questions we pondered in the second session (after implementation of Written Discussion). I made 42 observations of teachers implementing the strategy and responded to each about what I saw. Six teachers implemented on days that I was unable to observe, so they recapped what they had done and evaluated its impact in an email that I then responded to. When necessary, Written Conversation can be a coaching tool, especially with a staff as large as ours at West. At the second October session, teachers were requested to bring student examples of Written Conversation; 68 teachers did so. That's rather impressive. Of course, some others were highly questionable examples of the strategy, and I indicated as such in my data. A very small number of teachers tried to "pull the wool over my eyes." Did they think I wasn't going to read what they submitted? Next week I will introduce Write Around and Entry/Exit Slips to be implemented within the next two weeks, after which we will meet for the second November professional development.

January 11, 2011 I haven't responded in awhile. In response to wht you wrote on my page that is a great idea. I have referred to reading strategies in the past PDs I have done so far when discussing text structure and graphic organizers. This month when we discuss summarizaion it will tie in the the reading strategies I gave last year. After reading "Summarization in Any Subject" I was pleased to see that Wormeli also refers to word walls. I will bring this up in PD for the few that are not using word walls. He also spoke of paraphrasing and the use of synonyms. This is perfect timeing to hit harder right before ITEDS. My problem is having the time to go over last years strategies with the new teachers. Any suggestions? Barb