Exploring Learning Differences

Today was awesome!!! I taught a course for teachers in my district that I've never taught before. The class was based on a MOOC I participated in with the same name, Learning Differences, out of North Carolina University. I wasn't sure how it would go, but it was great!!! Teachers who attended commented that they learned a lot of great information and left with practical strategies that they can implement tomorrow. That always makes a staff developer's day!!! It made all the hours I put into preparation worth it.

So, what did they learn? All about learning differences. More specifically, we explored our own learning preferences and discussed how knowing ourselves allows us to be more patient with our students. I asked my teachers to think of a student who keeps them awake at night (we all have those students) and jot down the reasons that student is such a concern. Then, my teachers visited one of my FAVORITE new websites www.understood.org and completed the simulations (under the "through your child's eye" tab). The simulations helped my teachers gain a better understanding of what it's like to struggle with skills like attention, organization, or reading. Wow! What a great tool to build empathy for students who struggle!
                                                     
We spent the rest of the day focusing on working memory, motivation, and executive function skills. We watched videos of students who struggle in these areas and gained some perspective on what it feels like to struggle in school. We also watched a teacher discuss specific strategies she used to improve these areas with students and shared ideas that the participants use in the classrooms. To top off our work, my teachers worked together to create great lists of strategies to improve students' skills in the three areas. It was fantastic work!

Strategies for Increasing Motivation
Strategies for Improving Executive Function
Strategies for Improving Working Memory

Takeaways from today:
- The more you know yourself, the more patience you have in others.
- We must meet our students exactly where they are with exactly the brains they have right now.
- I'm fortunate to be in a district/school where teachers value their own learning and seek to better understand their students. Lucky me!!!


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Google Academy

This morning, I presented a session on using Google to keep conferring notes during my district's Google Academy. I saw lots of familiar faces and also met some teachers new to the district and some new, new teachers. It was a high energy day filled with teachers who really wanted to be there to learn. I love these kinds of days! As a staff developer there is not much worse than facing a room full of people who really don't want to be there. So, today was refreshing even if the wifi was spotty. It never fails that when you have a whole presentation, or even a whole day, focused on technology that the technology doesn't cooperate. Another great aspect of today's PD is that I only presented one of the four sessions which means I was able to attend three sessions of my choice. Who doesn't love choice?!

My takeaways from today:
- Mic Note is a Google chrome app that works like a notepad, but also allows audio recording. Seems like a great conferring tool to me!!!

- Sketchpad 3.5 is another Google chrome app that I found that just might work as a writing space for our youngest students (K-1). It allows drawing and text, had a simple interface that is kid friendly, and exports to students' Google drive accounts with one click. Love it!!!

- Creating adaptive assessments in Google forms is not as difficult as I would've imagined. It requires only two extra steps: 1) adding pages and 2) checking the "go to page based on answer" box. Adaptive assessments would actually allow students to learn from an assessment. I see lots of adaptive assessments being created in my future!

Here's a screenshot of my sketchpad creation.

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Using Technology to Cultivate 21st Century Skills

Today, I taught a summer development course for teachers in my district on using technology to cultivate the 21st century skills of creativity, collaboration, communication, and search.

We read chapter 4 from Understanding the Digital Generation: Teaching and Learning in the New Digital Landscape to help us understand the way our students' minds work.  We watched the video, "Did You Know in 2028?" to help us understand what the world will be like when this year's kindergartners graduate from high school.  Then, we discussed all things Google: drive, docs, forms, classroom, and search.

I shared a couple of my favorite tech for primary students:
Padlet
Vocaroo (easiest voice recording ever!)
Smart Record (using Smart Notebook to capture your computer/Smart Board with audio)
Remind (one way communication via text from teachers to parents) www.remind.com

It was a great day of learning and I'm excited for this great group of teachers to share with others.


Here's what they had to say about how they'll use what they learned...

Here's our Padlet discussing the National Educational Technology Standards...

I don't have time to confer with all my students!

How many times have I heard that as a coach?  Let's just say if I had a dollar for every time I heard a teacher say they don't have time to confer with all their students, I could take a lovely little vacation.  So, anytime I learn a tip on managing time, I like to share.

This week, Shana Frazin from TC, shared a little formula for thinking about conferences during writing.

It makes so much sense and is freeing for teachers!  You're still meeting with students two times a week just not always in individual conferences.  This allows you to maximize instruction and allows students plenty of time for writing.  Thanks for sharing, Shana!

More TC in the STL!

What a great week! The icing on the Teacher's College Institute cake was Jennifer Serravallo spending the day with us today.  All 100+ of us in attendance received a copy of Serravallo's new book simply titled The Reading Strategies Book.  It is fantastic and I highly recommend it for any elementary educator.  After all, if you teach elementary, you teach reading.   The book is available on Amazon and is well worth the money!

order on amazon!

Today, we learned about teaching reading workshop with The Reading Strategies Book as our go to resource.  We watched videos of Jennifer Serravallo conferring with individual and small groups of students for what the students' strengths and discussed what we might teach next.  Then, we used the book to identify strategies we could teach to match the goals we set.  The work we did today was invaluable and will be meaningful and exciting development for grade level teams this year!

The work is a perfect follow up for the work that my coaching partner and I did this year with the teams of teachers in our building.  We asked teachers to start thinking about individual reading goals for students through one of the lenses Serravallo refers to in her book: engagement, print work/decoding, fluency, comprehension (inc. plot/setting, characters, vocabulary/figurative language, or themes/ideas), and conversation.  Today, Serravallo added emergent reading as a possibility for our youngest students and "writing about reading."  I can't wait to share this work with my teams and have already convinced our administrators to purchase copies of the book for our teachers.  We'll be putting this new learning and great resource to good use as we extend our learning on setting goals and planning instruction to match!

My takeaways from today:

• Students won't grow as readers if they don't have time to read.  Teach towards independence and give the gift of time.  
• Be especially aware of independent reading time for those receiving interventions.  Intervention should be in addition to, not in place of classroom reading instruction.
• Rescuing students in a conference does not lead to independence. Instead, start by prompting with the lowest scaffold and work your way up as needed.  
• Nothing else matters if students are not engaged in reading!  Serravallo offers many great strategies for increasing engagement in the book.
• The person doing the work is the person doing the learning. 
• Match your instruction to the goal of the student. 

Thanks, Jennifer, for a great day!  We hope to see you again soon.

#TCRWP - Writing Institute

It would be impossible to capture the immense amount of learning that occurred this week, but I'm going to try to share some highlights here. Tucked down a long hallway behind a sticky door, I grew as a writer, as a coach, as a teacher, and as a person. Shana Frazin, staff developer from NY Teacher's College, taught "her bottom off" for four days and our group of 3-5 teachers walked out of that room today with a new appreciation for many things: the opportunity to do what we ask our students to do everyday, the power of revision, the time to write, the excellent PD that we received, the chance to grow, and much much more!

Here are some of the words that mattered to our group:




My takeaways from the week (many of which you see above):

• Nothing is more important than time spent writing!
• You don't have to like it, you just have to try it.
• Oral rehearsal is writing!  
• Revision is extreme makeover - not dusting and sweeping.
• You cannot let the wants of the unit trump the needs of the writers.
• A teacher on her feet is worth 100 teachers in their seats.

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The First Step!

I just spent the most incredible week at a writing institute presented by staff developers from Teacher's College. Shana Frazin, my facilitator, was amazing and inspired me to ever so cautiously take the first step in starting my own blog. I'm not new to blogging.  I started a personal blog over seven years ago when I first found out I was pregnant with my oldest son. My personal blog chronicles the lives of my two sons and our family. That blog is easy! This blog is different. This blog is a professional blog designed to share tips that I've learned in my 15 years as a teacher and instructional coach. Since I hope this blog reaches a wider, unknown audience, the stakes are higher. I'm just a small town girl in the Midwest hoping to capture what I have learned and what I will learn so that others might learn a little something too.  To borrow the words of author Cynthia Lord, "I only feel a little bit braver than I feel scared." Thanks to Shana, today, I feel a little more brave.