5 Ways an Instructional Coach Can Support You!

Whenever a parent or another adult asks me what I do, I always hesitate.  Most of the time they don't have any idea what a "Reading Specialist" or an "Instructional Specialist" is.  I get all kinds of questions. In fact, I usually just say, "I'm a teacher," and hope they don't ask what grade I teach.  But they usually do and then I have to try to explain, which I don't mind but people still usually don't understand exactly what I do. I can't blame them for not knowing.  I don't think we had any coaches or specialists in my school when I was a kid so they probably didn't either.  Though parents may not necessarily need to know what I do, teachers definitely need to know what a coach does and how coaches and specialists can support them in the classroom.  I have found that not all teachers are really familiar with all of the areas wherecoaches can provide support and many of them don't  ask.  So, this is a quick list of five ways teachers can utilize coaches and specialists to assist them in becoming even stronger teachers.

Like a sports coach, an instructional coach provides feedback and encouragement.

1. Coaches can offer feedback.  I've been teaching for a while now and if there's one thing I know about teachers, most of us are perfectionists.  We don't want to look like we don't know what we are doing and we don't want to be evaluated!  Luckily, coaches know this and they are never in a classroom to evaluate the performance of a teacher.  They can, however, offer some observational data that can be extremely helpful when a teacher is not sure s/he is using the best method to teach a specific skill.  Unlike most professions, we do not have the benefit of watching our colleagues work.  We don't have many opportunities to talk about the "how" of teaching because we are often talking about the "what."  A coach can come into a classroom, observe a lesson, and let a teacher know what went well and what he or she can do to make lessons even more powerful.  This should never be in a critical or judgemental way but in a constructive, positive conversation among colleagues.  If you feel like there is an area where you can improve, ask a coach to come and do an observation.  It's a great way to improve our craft!
2. Coaches can provide resources. This is one area where I feel many teachers do utilize their coaches. Personally, I try to have as many resources, or suggestions for where to look for materials, as possible so that, when a teacher comes to me and says, "How can I teach this?" I have something to give to them or a place to start looking with them.  I always assure them that part of my responsibility is to make sure they have everything they need.  Because I hate  dislike worksheets, I am very good at offering alternative methods of teaching and have collaborated with several teachers and teams of teachers to create lots of project based learning activities.  If you are looking for new and different ideas for covering a particular student expectation, consult with your coach!
3. Coaches are excellent collaborators! If you or your team are trying something new and you want input from an experienced teacher who has had the opportunity to visit lots of classrooms, ask a coach to sit-in.  Most coaches are very good at contributing to conversations without dominating the meeting.  If you want an expert opinion about whether or not a new approach or strategy is going to work, invite your coach to participate in your next team planning meeting.  You may even want to ask them to bring some resources or ideas with them. Or, if you just want someone to bounce ideas off of, coaches are great at that as well.  You should never feel as if an administrator or evaluator is present when your coach is attending your meetings because s/he is a teacher and is there to support you and your team.
4. Coaches can model and co-teach. Like our students, most of us learn best by watching and doing.  If you would like to observe another teacher but you can't leave your classroom, invite your coach to model a lesson for you.  It's a great way to see a fabulous teacher deliver a lesson without having to worry about finding someone to cover your class. Another great way to observe another teacher and still be with your class is to invite a coach to co-teach with you. Coaches love this because we miss teaching! We get to work with your kids and learn from you as well. I've never co-taught a lesson and not walked away with at least one great idea I learned from the classroom teacher.  Co-teaching is also great because of the collaboration that goes into planning the lesson and the discussion afterwards.
5. Coaches can work with a small group--in your classroom--while you are working with a small group. When I was a new teacher, I had no idea how to pull a guided reading group.  I went and observed an excellent teacher and it helped me tremendously.  As a coach, this is the area where I am most often asked to model and that's not surprising because it can be tough. If you have a coach available, ask him or her to come in and model a guided reading group, ask them to observe you teaching one, and then ask them to pull a group while you are pulling one.  Not only does it ensure more of your students are engaged while you are pulling a group, it also gives you the opportunity to watch the coach and adjust your lesson as you are working.  It' a fabulous way to learn from an expert while you are still teaching your own students.

There are lots of ways Instructional Coaches and Specialists can support you and help you grow as a teacher. I have often heard teachers say they don't want to ask for help because they are afraid they will look like they don't know what they are doing.  This is far from the case. The best teachers continuously look for ways to grow and they take advantage of the resources they have available to them. If you have an expert in your building, why not utilize that person and ask for their guidance?  A good coach will be excited to work with you and your kids.  We love talking about teaching, sharing resources, collaborating with other teachers, working with kids--and teaching! Don't be afraid to start a conversation and see where it takes you!

Teachers--in what ways have you utilized an Instructional Coach?  What was the result?
Coaches--How else can teachers use you to strengthen their teaching skills?

I'm Engaged!

I'm engaged!  Pic courtesy of luvimages.com

A few years ago the district I was teaching in at the time decided to do a staff development on Schlechty's Working on the Work.  We all got black t-shirts with the phrase, "I'm Engaged!" on the front in white.  We thought they were so cute until one of us went to pick up lunch solo and got all kinds of congratulatory remarks.  This just goes to show that, when we think about or talk about engagement, we are not all talking about the same thing and sometimes this causes us to miss the boat with our students as well.
Schlechty talks about 5 different levels of engagement.  I will discuss each one briefly and give you some samples.  The district I currently worked in has also done some work with engagement this year and I have developed a nice little guide that you can use while analyzing your students as well. (You can find this in the "pages" section of my blog or email me for the color copy.)  It is important to consider if your students are engaged, but we also need to ask why are they engaged. Schlechty helps us to answer that question.

The first level of engagement is Authentic Engagement.  Students are authentically engaged when they want to learn the material and find relevance in the lesson.  They understand that this information is going to be pertinent to them and they do not necessarily even view the assignment as work but they would do it even if there was no tangible pay-off for them--like a good grade or praise from the teacher. These are the most difficult lessons to design but it's certainly not impossible to reach this level of engagement consistently.  Much of it has to do with creating a climate where learning is valued in your classroom and then designing your lesson with your particular students in mind.  Allowing students to choose their own topics or books can often lead to Authentic Engagement.  Letting them do problem solving activities that are relevant to their lives can also create this type of engagement.  For example, let them determine what should be on the lunch menu or if they have enough marbles in the jar to have a party.  Family history projects or those that relate to a place they find interesting often lead to authentic engagement, as does the use of many technology apps or websites.
Ritual Engagement is the next level on Schlechty's list.  This is a slightly lower level than Authentic Engagement but it is still something to strive for. The student completes the assignment because they want to earn good grades or receive praise from a parent or teacher. They are not genuinely interested in the topic but they don't mind it so much either.  They would not complete the work if there was no reward but they do complete it in order to receive something in return.  Assignments that fit the bill for Ritual Engagement might include a book assigned by the teacher, finishing a certain amount of math problems in order to receive a specific grade, completing a worksheet so that they earn a star or a sticker.  The student doesn't see that the work is important or relevant but they understand that the teacher sees it as such so they do it.

The third level of engagement is Passive Compliance.  Rather than trying to earn something, the student in this situation completes an assignment to avoid something--a phone call home, detention, being sent to the office. They are not trying to get a reward, they just don't want to be punished.  Sometimes it may be something as simple as being scorned by the teacher or a parent that pushes the student to complete the assignment, the "I don't want to get in trouble" factor.  In the case of a student who was previously even less engaged, they may be hanging out here for a while because they are not yet capable of seeing the relevance in schoolwork which would eventually cause them to be more engaged. This is not a level of engagement where we want our students to spend a lot of time.  A classroom with a lot of students engaged at this level (or even less engaged) is not going to be extremely productive.
The next level of engagement is Retreatism.  This one can be tricky to spot so a teacher must be watching carefully.  In this level, a student does not complete his or her work but does not disrupt others either.  He or she sits there and either does something else or nothing at all.  It is often easy for these students to blend in until an assignment is due or to completely get by without working in the case of a group assignment.  These are the kids who consistently fail to find a partner whenever there is paired work to be done. They slink into the corners and hope that no one sees them and then they often stare into outer space while those around them cover the material.
The final level of engagement is really no engagement at all. It's called Rebellion and we have all had at least a few students over the years who fit the description completely.  Rebellion is characterized by refusal to complete assignments, yelling out in class, arguing with the teacher, disrupting others, aimlessly wandering around the classroom--all of those things that make us want to pull our hair out at the end of the day. And the most frustrating thing about having a Rebel in your class is that sometimes it doesn't even matter how engaging the rest of your students find the assignment--they are still rebelling! This may be an indicator that something else is wrong and that the student needs more than just a different lesson plan to keep him or her engaged.  In the case of the consistently rebellious student, do not hesitate to ask for help from your teammates, administrators, or specialists. It is nearly impossible to keep the rest of your class engaged when you have a rebel on the loose.
What does all of this mean for the classroom teacher?  Schlechty continues with a discussion of how to plan lessons so that students are more engaged.  In fact, he has written extensively about how to engage students at higher levels. I will discuss his suggestions for developing lessons that help students to become more authentically engaged tomorrow.  For now, take a look at the students in your classroom. How many of them would you say consistently fit into each of these categories  If they are not authentically engaged, do you know why? Is there anything you can change to make your lessons more engaging?  Are there outside forces at work in your classroom and if so is there anything you can do to alleviate or influence these sources?  There are a lot of things to consider when it comes to creating engaging classrooms.  I would really like to hear your thoughts!

Do Your Report Cards Reflect Your Classroom?

We are at the end of a grading period at my school district and it got me thinking about how the structure of our classrooms has changed dramatically but the way we assess isn't always different. Again, I'm speaking in general terms, not specifically about teachers at my wonderful school district or other districts I have taught in.  If we are allowing more group projects, paired thinking, collaboration, and project based learning activities, how is that reflected on our report cards? Are we grading our students as individuals or are some of their grades reflective of projects they may or may not have actually have been able to complete on their own?  Does project based learning create a false representation of a student's knowledge on the report card and, if not, how are we preventing it from doing so?
For the most part, our report cards are based on classwork and observations.  Of course assessments play a key roll as well but things like daily work, homework, and guided group work are all considerations we need to factor in when trying to determine what to put on a report card.  For the most part, report cards ask us to determine whether or not a student is able to master specific student expectations and to what degree. Whether it is a rubric score or a percentile, we have to be able to make a decision based on quantitative data. If we are doing primarily project based learning assignments in our classroom, how can we tell what each student has contributed? Are we giving group grades or individual grades, or both?
Sometimes allowing students to use a self-assessment rubric can help with this. Let them grade their own participation and that of their teammates.  Consider the dynamics of the group when looking at how students grade each other.  Use observational notes and conversations that you have with the students.  Is the student able to answer questions about the project? Is he or she able to explain why the group made certain design choices? If a third party entered your classroom and spoke to the student, would he or she be able to discuss the materials the class is responsible for knowing in a way that leads the observer to believe the student has mastered the student expectations?
With our students that need constant assistance in order to complete assignments, do the grades we are giving them reflect this scaffolded approach or does it appear as if the student is independently able to complete the work because they are turning in work with correct answers--some of which we provided?  When we use a rubric, it is easier to show that a student is able to complete the work with help, however this becomes more tricky when we only have a percentile to go off of. How do we work this scaffolding into our percentiles? Shouldn't the overall grade reflect that the student's understanding is not as complete as those students who are able to do the work without as much help?
As we begin to morph our schools out of the Industrial/Agrarian age and into the Age of Technology, we have to be careful not to over-look some of the areas where old habits die-hard.  We've changed so many things in order to adapt to our 21st Century Learners now we need to start looking at how we are reporting their progress.  Maybe we need to take a closer look at what a report card, by definition, was really meant to do and stop looking at it as some sort of finality to our learning.  If we look at it solely as a form of communication between the school and parents or higher institutes of learning, then we may need to take a different approach to how we are grading.  Just some thoughts to ponder as we near the end our 4th 6 week grading period--or 3rd 9 weeks--or 3rd quarter, or whatever you'd like to call it.

How do you determine your students' grades?

What are your thoughts?

Questions Every Reading Teacher Needs to Answer Part 3

Originally, I asked the questions I am using in this series of posts in part of a guided reading training I have been presenting (with modifications!) for about 8 years. However, I've decided to modify this question  a little bit.  Rather than asking the original, fairly specific question of, "How are you checking for comprehension after a guided reading lesson," let's just ask the more general, "How will you know how well your students are comprehending?"  This can be applied to any lesson, any subject, any grade-level.  If our students are not comprehending what we are teaching, then we aren't teaching--we're just talking.
(For those of you not familiar with Texas State Mandated testing,  2011-12 was the first year that the STAAR test was introduced to replace the previous state mandated test, TAKS.)Before STAAR came along to make all of our lives brighter, I often heard teachers talking about why the TAKS test was too difficult and that the level of questioning was beyond many of our average students' capabilities. With STAAR, the comprehension level went up even further and we began to realize it wasn't enough to just ask questions at a more difficult level--we had to make our classrooms more like learning labs where students were constantly having to problem solve, analyze, take things apart and put them back together--in every subject. If we are not creating an environment where students are constantly introduced to these types of challenges, not only are we limiting their preparation for the state mandated testing, we're not fully preparing them for the working environment they are going to have to function in as adults.

What are your students getting out of your lessons?

The obvious answer to my question is on assessments. If students are comprehending what you are teaching, they should do well on pencil-paper exams.  However, that is still not necessarily a good indicator as to the level of understanding they have. If you are giving assessments written before STAAR, those written at a lower-level as far as Bloom's Taxonomy is concerned, or possibly something that comes from a curriculum or textbook that is not aligned with the state student expectations or exam, you could well be asking assessment questions that are much easier than the standard set by the STAAR test.  While they may be demonstrating a level of understanding, it might be far below the level they are going to need to be at in order to do well on the state assessment.  Therefore, we cannot use a students' performance on assessments as the sole indicator of how well he or she comprehends the materials we are covering.  We also must take into consideration that some students just don't perform well on written assessments.  There can be a variety of reasons for this but ultimately we need to understand that extremely intelligent children often show up as average or below average in testing situations because of test anxiety, dyslexia, ADD, ADHD, autism, and many other factors we should consider.
Therefore, we must collect other forms of data in order to truly determine the level of understanding our students have of the materials we have covered.  The best way to do this, in my opinion, is to create a project that allows the students to work at the highest levels of Bloom's and then we can use the product they create to determine whether or not the student is able to comprehend at those high-levels.  We need to include components of collaboration, creativity, problem-solving, research, and analysis in those projects.  We also need to allow for student choice, particularly when it comes to choosing methods of research, assignments of particular portions of the workload, products, and sometimes even the topic.  There are a lot of topics that often relate to the same unit or lesson we are teaching so if you can find a way to let students choose a component that they are particularly interested in, why not? In my experience, they always perform better when they are engaged with a project they have had some choice in designing. This also allows you insight into their comprehension levels because the greater their understanding, the more likely they are to design a complex, well-thought out project.
We can learn a lot about the level of understanding our students have by listening to the conversations they have with other students. Ask them to explain a concept to a neighbor.  Better yet, ask then to teach a lesson about one of the topics you are discussing to the class.  You'll find out very quickly how deeply they understand the materials.  The student presenting will also retain the information at a deeper level for a longer period of time.  This is all part of project based-learning and it is definitely coming our way so we need to start preparing for it, whether we like it or not.  We say that, in teaching, every thing is cyclical. I think project based learning is going to become a part of our school culture--like lunch and recess more so than some of the flash-in-the-pan buzz words we've been known to use and then discard.  The reason for this is, project based learning works!  Our students get a lot out of it. It's easier on teachers and it more closely replicates an actual work environment than the typical classroom.  Oh, and also, it's a lot of fun!
When it comes to reaching those upper levels of Bloom's, the level that the students' answer at is going to depend on the level of questioning the teacher is using.  If we ask lower-level questions, we'll get lower-level answers.  Examine the types of questions you are asking.  How many of them fall at the knowledge or remembering level?  How many of them climb up to application or analysis?  You may be surprised.  The best way to ensure you are hitting those higher levels is by planning to do so.  Write those types of questions when you write your lesson plan and then keep them with you when you're teaching so that you make sure to ask them.  If you have access to an instructional specialist or coach, ask him or her to come into your classroom during a lesson and keep track of the levels of your questions. This is a great way to get feedback from a non-threatening  professional who will be there to guide you through the steps of improving your questions, if necessary, and there will be no judgement on his or her part either, assuming the specialist or coach is a pro.  Take advantage of the resources you have and invite these people into your classroom to help with specific areas where you feel you can improve.  They want to help and there's nothing wrong with anyone asking for help in improving areas where we feel we are struggling.

Instructional coaches are excellent resources so don't be afraid to use them!

It can be exhausting standing up in front of a room of students all day long, discussing all of the material, saying all of the thins you are supposed to say, and knowing they aren't understanding a thing you are telling them.  This is where the art of teaching must come in to play and replace the misconception that covering a topic by talking about it necessarily results in students learning it.  Again, talking isn't teaching.  Teaching occurs when information is transferred from one person to another.  If they don't get it, then you didn't truly teach it to them.  Sometimes we have to teach the same topic in several different ways in order to teach it to everyone, and that's okay.  The more our students are engaged, the more they have the opportunity to discuss, collaborate, and dig into the subject themselves, the better their learning will be and the higher their levels of comprehension.  And when we create this type of learning environment, there's no question that the vast majority of our students will naturally do well on the state assessments because they are constantly being challenged at this higher level and it's nothing new to them.
What other ideas do you have for challenging your students to reach new intellectual heights?

10 Reasons Why I LOVE Teaching

In the spirit of Valentine's Day, a day where teachers receive tons of little boxes of chocolates, single roses, stickers, and the occasional used lipstick out of mom's purse (true story!), I give you the Top 10 Reasons Why I LOVE Teaching.  And, no, none of them are, "June, July, and August."
10. I love to learn new things.  When you're a teacher, you are constantly being taught--by other teachers, district personnel, administrators--and by your students. There aren't a lot of other professions who have the same amount of training built into schedules the way teaching does and staff development is a great way to learn about best practices in teaching.  I also learn a lot from talking to students and hearing their perspectives.  They are the ones who can really make us stop and think!
9.  We have lots of technology!  I would not have been exposed to many of the programs, apps, and devices I am able to use in my classroom if I were working in a different field.  I have never heard my husband or anyone else come home from working in an office and say things like, "I learned about several really cool websites today where you can make cartoons!"  Sure, other people know about these things and use them but we are constantly trying to find new ways to engage our students and sharing these ideas with each other. I also probably wouldn't have an iPad and 3 iPods at my disposal if I wasn't a teacher. I have an arsenal of technology!
8. I love to read!   One of my very favorite activities is reading and I especially love to do read-alouds with elementary children. I like to do character voices and use a ton of expression. They love it and you can see the excitement and pure joy on their faces.  I also love to read more difficult texts and discuss them with older children because they always have a different view than I do and it's really neat to hear how they interpret different books. If you ever have the opportunity to do a book study with the novel Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse, take advantage of that opportunity--and invite me!  I recommend it for 5th grade and above, but read it yourself first. I did an Inquiry Circle Project with my very high 5th graders last year using that novel.  Best. Book. Study. EVER.
7) I love numbers! When I was in school I felt like I was not very good at math. I always got A's in class and did well on tests, etc. but I didn't feel like I knew why I was doing what I was doing.  Now that I have taught math at a few different grade-levels, I understand it more and I feel more confident.  I hope to pass this on to my students.  It isn't enough to teach them to do an algorithm or to follow a pattern, we have to teach them the why and the reasoning behind it.  That's the only way they are ever going to be confident with numbers.  Now, one of the best parts of teaching is having a student explain to me why they did what they did with a math problem.
6)School supplies are awesome!  There's still nothing quite like coloring with a new box of crayons.  The smell, the sharpness, the vibrant color--it's beautiful! I love everything about school supplies.  Bury me in a pile of post-its!  I love to organize school supplies, I love to buy them, I love to see what's new.  Who else gets to sort through 50 packs of highlighters at least once a year?  Just teachers.
5) I love passing out ketchup!  Okay--not really.  But I do like lunch duty.  I know, it sounds crazy, doesn't it?  After years of  being splattered with milk, sauce, and various other liquids, you'd think I hate it but I love the freedom that lunch brings. (Freedom with parameters, mind you!) I love to talk to the kids about non-academic topics and hearing them talk to each other in their own common language.  I always learn new thing at lunch--what's cool, what isn't, what kids think about different things. Even though I have been called the Lunch Room Nazi more than once and I spend a great amount of time enforcing rules, I still like to hear what the kids have to say when they can say (almost) anything they want to.
4) Hugs are the greatest! I work in an elementary school and if you've spent any time in an elementary school at all, you know that you'll be hugged--for sure--at least 10 times every hour.  And that's awesome.  Knowing a kid cares enough about you to jump out of line, run across the hallway, risk getting yelled at by their teacher, means a lot.
3) I love it when a plan comes together.  Sorry--child of the '80's.  But I do love it when I've poured over a lesson plan, put everything I've got into it, presented it to the class, and it's a hit.  When the kids actually get what you wanted them to get out of a lesson, that's am amazing feeling!
2) I'm changing lives.  Some of the students that I have had the opportunity to work with feel as if no one, or very few people care about them. I'm here to show them they are important, that they are loved and that they mean something to me. I'm also teaching them skills that they will need for the rest of their lives.  There are some subjects or materials that students may not always retain, but when you're teaching someone how to read, that is going to stick with them forever.
1) I'm touching the future.  Regardless of what happens with our economy, what kinds of jobs our students will have, all of them are always going to need to know how to read.  But that's not all I'm teaching them. I'm also teaching them responsibility, respect, kindness, thoughtfulness, teamwork, dependability--traits that everyone has to have in order to be a productive member of society.  I have worked in other professions where I knew what I was doing was not that important but as a teacher, everything I go is important.  Whether I make a good decision and help a child or I make a mistake and do something I need to correct, a child is impacted and that can change a future.  Being a teacher is powerful! We remember the great ones and the terrible ones, but not the mediocre ones so much.  I want to be remembered and I want it to be for the right reasons because if they remember that I taught them something important, then they'll be better people.  That's the true beauty of our profession.
What do you love about teaching?

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The Do's and Don'ts of a Picture Walk

Most of us were taught to do a picture walk at the beginning of a guided reading lesson.  What is the purpose of this mini-lesson? How are you using the picture walk?  What are you teaching during the picture walk?  How will you know if your students have learned anything from the picture walk?
I have seen picture walks utilized in a way that made getting to read the book seem like the best prize ever and I've seen picture walks so boring and pointless that students were nearly asleep--or in tears--by the time the torture, I mean walk, was over. So, let's talk about what you can do to make a picture walk lots of fun and purposeful, and let's talk about some things to avoid!

Do:  Make the picture walk a conversation.  This is an opportunity to encourage your students to talk to you and to each other. We want an environment of collaboration in our classroom and this is a perfect way to teach children how to speak appropriately and intelligently to each other.
Don't: Dominate the entire conversation.  The learning will be more relevant and meaningful if the students have a chance to discuss and reflect with each other so allow them to talk as well.
Do: Use the picture walk to build vocabulary.  Introduce key words that students must understand in order to comprehend the text.  Check to see what their previous experience with that word is and clarify any misconceptions.
Don't: Elaborate on every topic or on irrelevant tangents.  I once heard a teacher interrupt a guided reading lesson to talk about her dog for about five minutes.  If you only have a group for 15-20 minutes and you use a third of that time to talk about something that is only minimally related to the topic of discussion, you are not using your time wisely.  Your students will attempt to get you off topic--usually not on purpose--by telling you about every time they've gone to the zoo, seen a boat, or picked a flower.  My standard reply, "Oh, that's great. Can you tell me more about that at recess?" You need to honor their ideas and connections, value what they would like to talk about, but don't let it distract from your lesson.
Do: Use the questions they ask for later book subjects, inquiry circle projects, or writing assignments.  Again, let them know their interests are valuable and don't disregard the questions they ask, no matter how far off topic they may be.  You don't always have to have every answer and sometimes the questions they ask during guided reading  are perfect for research assignments.  Jot them down and don't forget about them.
Don't: Stop your lesson to find the answer to every question.  Just because their questions are important doesn't mean they are more important than the lesson you are teaching.
Do: Plant the seeds to help them be successful in their reading. If there are words they are going to struggle with, mention them, say them a few times. If there is difficult phrasing, point that out, too.  If the picture is helpful to the reading, look at it carefully.  Say things like, "When I looked at this picture, I thought, oh, that's a dog.  But the book is calling it a puppy.  See, right here?  This words starts with a /p/.  This word is puppy. So, when you are reading, be careful to look at how that word starts and not just the picture."
Don't: Spend a lot of time on your picture walk.  Your picture walk shouldn't be the major part of your lesson. It should be like a mini-lesson--concise, pointed, and helpful.  If you are reading a longer text over several days, break your picture walk up as well.
Do:  Talk about text structure, features of different genres, parts of a book, whatever is relevant.
Don't: Go "fishing" during a picture walk. If no one knows the word "caption" even though you just told them yesterday, tell them again.
Think of the picture walk as a preview, a way to set your students up to be successful.  It's not an opportunity for a teacher to give a monologue about why this book is interesting (or not interesting) or how he or she can personally relate to the text.  It's about the students being able to make predictions, prepare mentally for the text, learn key vocabulary, and feel more successful when they get to more difficult words.
What  types of activities or strategies do you use during your picture walks?
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When the Teaching Part of Our Brain Is Gone Fishin'

Gone fishin'?

When I first started teaching, I was confused about a lot of things.  I began my career as a kindergarten teacher in a Title I campus on October 1st with a class formed for me by the other kindergarten teachers. They were each asked to pick two students to send to my class.  I worked at a really great school with some incredible teachers but I'm afraid a few of them were a little too tempted to have certain students belong to someone else.  Any time you're walking into a classroom formed from other classes--in October--in kindergarten, well, it's gonna be rough.  And it was.  And I sincerely apologize to all of those children because I wasn't a very good teacher.  But no one died and we all went on to have a better year the next year.
There are many bad practices that I developed that year as a part of Survivor-Mode.  All teachers have one or two areas where we need some work and I am certainly right there along with everyone else!  Today, I would like to discuss a little phenomena I like to refer to as "fishing."  This is not the technical term, it's a term I developed after I realized I was doing it and that I shouldn't be, which was about 5 years into my career.  I guarantee at one point you've done it, too.  The best of the best have done it, so let's talk about what it is, why you shouldn't do it, and what you can do instead.
Picture a third grade classroom.  We've been talking about the economy in social studies for several days. The day before we discussed the differences between needs and wants.  In an effort to review the material we discussed prior to this class period, we will start by asking our students (you know what we're going to ask), "What did we talk about yesterday?"
Now, let's freeze right there for a minute and be "the kid".  What does she mean what did we talk about yesterday? We talked about a lot of things yesterday.  We talked about math, reading, social studies, science, writing. We had lunch.  We played outside.  Jimmy and I played football.  I went to music class.  What is she talking about?
As a teacher, we try to be more narrow.  "Remember, yesterday?  When we were talking?  Yesterday, in class."
Kid:  Uhm, which class?
Teacher:  "Yesterday, in social studies.  When we were talking about the economy.  Do you remember?"
Kids begin to nod vaguely, I think I remember something about that.
Teacher:  "And what did we say was a need that everyone has?"
And this is where the really deep fishing can begin, if we are not careful!
Kids: "Water!"
Teacher: "Well, yes, we do all need water.  But I'm talking about something else, something else that we said we all need.  Remember, yesterday, in class? We talked about something we all need?"
Kids: "Food!"
Teacher:  (more aggravated this time) "Yes, that's true.  We do all need food.  But yesterday, we talked about something everyone needs, in order to survive.  Remember, Sally said it.  Right after we read the book."
Kids: "Uhm, clothes?  Money?  A dog?"
Teacher:  (really upset now) "No!  How come no one remembers this?  We just talked about it yesterday.  (my favorite) It starts with a sh---."
Kids: "Shoes?  Showers? Shellfish?"
Teacher:  "Oh, so close!  Shellllllll"
Timid kid in the back row: "Shelter??"
Teacher: "Yes!  Thank you!  Shelter. Remember, we talked about shelter yesterday and how everyone needs shelter?  Don't you remember that?"
Kids:  "Oh, ya, shelter. Ya, I remember that now.  We talked about that.  Shelter."
How many minutes have we collectively wasted in this kind of ambiguous guessing game? Why do we insist on torturing ourselves and our entire class by giving them clues, as if we can magically turn them in to mind-readers overnight if we play this little game enough times? If you work at The Uri Geller School for Gifted Children with ESP, maybe this is a good strategy. Otherwise, not so much.
And really, what is it that we are trying to accomplish? I used to think I was checking for comprehension by asking these questions.  But I wasn't.  Students have to know what the subject is that we are discussing before they can prove whether or not they are informed about that subject.  By telling them 1) we talked about it yesterday 2) I felt it was important 3) it was something to do with social studies, we are not giving them enough information to let us know if they really understand what we are talking about or not.  How often does a student answer our first feeler question correctly?  Usually only if we want a general answer--like wants and needs. If you want something specific, be more specific with your questions!
I was actually teaching third grade social studies and reading when I went to a workshop and the presenter said,  "Never open your lesson with a question about what you did yesterday.  Tell them what you did yesterday and check for understanding by allowing them to discuss the topic."  You'll know very quickly if they have a deep understanding of the topic or if they remember nothing.  And if they only remember the topic of what you discussed and nothing else, then you've reached them on the first two levels of Bloom's--which isn't going to cut it. We want higher-level questions so let's start the discussion with a substantiated topic and then start asking some questions that will make them think--not remember. Otherwise, you're going to waste a lot of time casting your hook into waters where the fish have all scurried away.
I felt relieved when the presenter essentially gave us permission to stop fishing at the beginning of our lessons.  I am no well-known reading expert, but if it helps any, I now give you permission to stop throwing your line in.  Leave the guessing games for recess and let your students sink their teeth into the real meat of the discussion.  You'll all be happier for it if you do!
Thoughts??

Moving on to calmer waters.

The Ballad of "Sound-It-Out"

This post is in remembrance of a phrase I would like to bury so deeply in the ground that we never see or hear from it again. The phrase is, "sound it out," and if education needs someone to step forward and bravely pull the trigger, well, then, I'm your huckleberry.
I am quite certain that this post will annoy, upset, possibly infuriate more than one of my fellow teachers. I know this because every time I bring up the subject while I am presenting, at least one teacher gets really fired up and questions my logic.  And I'm okay with that!  The point of this blog is to start discussions so if you read this and you think I'm wrong, please go right on ahead and tell me so.  But, if you think I'm right, please, for the love of all things holy, grab a shovel and let's start digging!
If you are a reading teacher at any level, there's a good chance you have, at some point in your career given the order for a student to, "sound it out."  Parents, I'm certain you have probably said it as well. In fact, I hear students telling other students to "sound it out" almost daily.  Have you ever stopped to ask yourself why you are saying that?  What is it that you really want them to do?  Do they even know what that phrase means?  I'm going to answer those questions for you but first, let's explore the two most common scenarios where a teacher (or possibly a parent) might use the dreaded phrase.
The first situation where this phrase is commonly used is in a guided group where a teacher and students are working on phonics. They aren't reading a text, they are simply manipulating phonemes to blend, segment, and/or form words.  Most of the time teachers refer to this as "word work."  In this particular setting, a student might be working on a word family, possibly substituting an initial or final sound, or even a medial vowel.  The student gets hung up on a tricky manipulation and the teacher wants to give the child some clues to help him or her be successful.  So, let's take it one step further.  We're in a kindergarten classroom. The teacher has four students in her small group and they are working on the --am family.  They are trading out the initial letter to form new words.  Ham to jam to Sam, etc.  The student is having trouble with the /r/ sound. He isn't sure what sound that letter makes.  So, when his teacher asks him to remove the "S" and put the "r" in it's place, he's stuck.  He knows the last part is /am/ but he doesn't know what to say at the beginning.  His teacher tells him to "sound it out."  Uhm, ya, he's trying to sound it out.  Problem is, he doesn't know what sound "r" makes, so he can't sound it out.  He's still stuck, and she's still insisting he does something he doesn't know how to do. Now, tell me, who is this benefiting?

Photo courtesy of trcb,com

What are some more appropriate things the teacher could say in this situation?  Well, what is our purpose in the lesson?  We want the student to understand the relationships between phonemes and words, how different sounds join together to make different words and how closely related some of these words are. We also want to make sure our students have a firm grasp of the most common sounds these letters make. If we understand that our little friend here isn't confident in the sound "r" makes, then we cannot move forward with the other skills that we want him to know.  We have to put that first brick down--the sound the letter makes--before we can build upon it with blending, segmenting, etc.  Now, we can teach these concepts simultaneous as long as we are willing to go back and plug some holes, like this little boy's missing information when it comes to the sound for "r".  In order to do that, let's start with the most basic question.  "What letter is this?"  If he knows it's "r" that's great. Tell him so!  If he doesn't, that's okay, too, we are going to teach him.  "This is the letter 'r.'  Do you see it up there in the alphabet? On the word wall?  Can you see the picture next to the letter?  What is it?  A rabbit.  That's right! And rabbit starts with /r/.  So the letter 'r' says /r/ like in rabbit!" If he knows the name of the letter but not the sound, simply skip that part about identifying the letter.  "That's right! It is the letter 'r.'  Do you remember what sound 'r' makes?  No?  Look over there at the alphabet (or word wall).  Do you see the picture next to 'r' . . . ."  You get it from here.  Our goal is not to interrogate the information out of our wee little friends. Our goal is to help them learn, remember, build schema, find something to hang this information on. Once they have that hook, they'll be much more likely to remember the next time.
Let's take this scenario one step further. Let's say our friend does know "r" says /r/ but the trouble comes with blending the sounds together. He just can't seem to get those gaps out of /r/ /a/ /m/.  Is asking him to "sound it out" going to help here?  No, he IS sounding it out. He's just not sounding it in--err-together.  So telling him to "sound it out" again, is not helpful. Tell him to squeeze those sounds together.  Show him a rubber-band around your fingers, how you can stretch it out and squeeze it together. Let him try.  Model it.  Model it again. Model it a third time.  Keep modeling it until he gets it or until you can't stand the sight of any animal with horns.  Or, on the other hand, stop modeling it because he's not ready--and that's okay, too.  We'll try again later.
Bottom line, I cannot think of a single time when a teacher is working on word work with a group of students when he or she would ever need to tell a student to "sound it out". If you can, please let me know!
The other situation when I hear, "sound it out" demanded repeatedly is when a student is reading aloud to a teacher and they become "stuck" on a word. It could be in a guided reading group, reading aloud to the class, basically any situation where the teacher is listening and the student is reading. It doesn't matter what grade-level or subject, chances are there is something better for you to say than, "sound it out."
And why is that?  Well, two reasons. First of all, chances are the student is familiar with the phrase "sound it out."  In most cases, that is the first and sometimes only strategy a student is going to use to try to decode a word.  It is not, however, the best strategy the majority of the time, for the second reason--the majority of the words in the English language are unsounderoutable.  Yes, that is my own invented word. I love it and I'm going to continue to use it.  Think about it, how many words in English are actually spelled phonetically?  Not very many. And once we get into vowel digraphs, diphthongs, special endings, "sneaky" e's, and several vowels walking together, well, it's your best guess as to what sound any letter is really going to make at any given time, depending upon the price of consonants in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Needless to say, giving your students some other strategies may go a lot further than imploring him or her to "sound it out."
So, what other strategies should you be giving them?  I'm so glad you asked!  Let's look at the merit of a few other questions we could ask (and the word question here is key--"sound it out" is not a question.  We want to ask our students to do things not demand it. Asking makes them think, demanding let's us think for them.)
1) How does that word start? (or) end?
2) Do you see a smaller word inside of the bigger word?
3) What makes sense in this sentence?
4) Do you know part of that word?
5) Do you remember the rule for ____ (ai, ay, ou, ow, etc.)?
6) Do you have a guess as to what that word might be?
7) What is the book talking about?
8) Is there a prefix or suffix you can take off?
9) Do you have a clue in your picture?
10) Have you seen that word anywhere else before?
11) Do you have a friend that you think can help you?
I would argue that all of these questions are better than "sound it out." All of them make the student stop and consider the situation.  All of them assist the student in finding clues to solve the mystery of what is that word.  We want our students to ask themselves these types of questions when they get stuck because these are the types of strategies good readers naturally do when they are trying to decode a difficult word. I mean, when was the last time you tried to "sound" out a multi-syllabic word without at least breaking it apart and considering the smaller pieces? It just seems like we are doing our children a disservice by insisting that they sound out words that we know good and well are unsounderoutable.  So why do we continue to insist that they do so?
I actually do want to answer that question, my theory anyway, about why we continue to use this phrase.  It's because that's what we were told to do.  And not just by our teachers and parents from way back when we were in school either.  The teachers that taught us how to be teachers--they are saying it.  Our mentors--they're saying it. Our coaches, our specialists, the teaches we are going to observe--some of them are still saying it.  So, we don't think, "Why are we saying this?" we just keep saying it.  But now we know why we shouldn't be saying--because there are better things to say--so let's just put it out of it's misery!

I bet this teacher even asked her students to "sound it out."

Please don't think I am under the impression that all other teachers are still saying this phrase. I know many of you are not. Please don't take this to mean I think that, if you are using this phrase you are not a good teacher or you are doing a disservice to your children--again, I don't.  Your students are not going to stop developing as readers because you used or continue to use this phrase.  But this blog isn't about what we used to do, it's about what we are going to do so that we are better teachers, with smarter, more successful students.  And I truly think taking this one phrase out of our vernacular will go a long way to helping our students become better thinkers, problem solvers, and ultimately better readers.
I know some of my self-conscious friends out there are probably panicking now, thinking, "OMG, I think I said that the last time Amy was in my classroom!  SHE'S TALKING ABOUT ME!" Let me assure you, I'm talking about the collective us--myself included--we can all stand to begin removing this phrase from our teaching regiment.  I'm not going to throw an eraser at the next teacher who says it, I probably won't say anything at all. But I want you to start being conscious of what you are saying and why you are saying it. Again, if it's justified, please say it. Otherwise, say something better.

Everyone is sooo happy!

With any luck, this dead horse has now been beaten to death and we can all get back to our classrooms now and start insisting that students say, "May I go to the restroom," instead of "Can I use it?"
Tomorrow, I'm going to take you on a fishing excursion. Oh, yes, it will be fun and, no it's not that kind of fishing. ;)

Questions Every Reading Teacher Needs to Answer

This is the first in a series of reflective questions every reading teacher needs to take the time to answer.  This is not something I recommend you do as a team, as a grade-level, as a campus, rather something each classroom teacher needs to do by his or herself.  When we pause to truly reflect upon our own teaching practices, we begin to make discoveries about what we are doing really well and we realize there are some places where we can do better.  Posing these questions in a non-threatening, open-format and asking teachers to answer them behind close doors on their own should provide everyone with enough security to be completely honest about their answers.
My first question is perhaps the most important one of all.  How many minutes each day are your students spending authentically engaged in literature?  In other words, how much time do they get to read? I don't mean listening to you read, listening to their classmates read, following along in a text while it's being read aloud, or choral reading.  I mean one student reading, either alone, in a pair, or to you. This could be independent reading, guided reading, or paired reading as long as the child is actually reading the text for his or herself with minimal support from someone else.  The subject of the text doesn't matter--science, math, social studies, all of those count, so long as the child is actually reading the text.
If you teach in a self-contained classroom and you can honestly say that your students are reading at least 30 minutes per day, then you are on the right track, especially if those 30 minutes are consecutive.  This is the recommendation that Drop Everything and Read (DEAR) suggests as a minimum and they have a lot of research to back them up. Keep in mind, this does not include things like Round Robin Reading or reading in groups, as the skills students use for these types of practices are not the same as the ones they use for independent reading or reading aloud to a teacher or peer.
California state curriculum actually states students should read for 50-60 minutes per day and while this may seem like a lot, it makes sense.  Study after study shows that the number one way for students to increase fluency, comprehension, and to some extent accuracy, is through reading.  (For more information, please visit the AASL here.  This is just one example of the research) READING--not listening to other students read, not listening to the teacher read, not watching a video about reading, not completing a worksheet about reading--but READING! So, if reading makes students better readers, why not let them read?
Many of you are probably thinking you do not have the time for your students to read for 30 minutes each day, let alone 50-60 so I will challenge that with a few sub-questions if you will.
1) How do your students warm-up in the morning when they enter your classroom? Is it a worksheet?  Is it important? Could it be reading?  Could you put some leveled readers on their desks in the morning--their own book bag or a basket from your collection and just let them read?
2) Do you take whole group bathroom breaks? What are the other 15 kids doing while 6 or 7 are in the restroom?  Could they be reading?
3) Do your students wait in line to get in your classroom, to go home at night, to get their food in the cafeteria, to go out for recess, switch classes, go to specials?  Could any of these times be used for reading? Would it be simple  Maybe not.  It will take some management and some investment on your part up-front.  Would it be worth it?  Can you imagine your entire class standing in line in the cafeteria reading instead of talking, pushing, arguing?  Yes, please!  Maybe you already have a great class that doesn't do any of those things. Awesome--it will be extremely simple to get them to read in line then.  And if you're worried that the cafeteria workers will be annoyed with them because they aren't paying attention, don't worry, the lunch ladies won't mind. They like quiet, patient children, too!
4) When your students finish with an assignment, what do they do? Could it be read a book?
5) If you are handing out a stack of worksheets each day, think about making your assignments more authentic by assigning texts for your students to read and then write a response in a journal.  This is so simple and so much more meaningful for them.

Kids love to read about a variety of topics.

Allowing your students to read texts that are on their level will increase fluency and comprehension but you will still have to do some work with the accuracy, especially for your students that aren't reading on-grade level.  I know lots of really great teachers who spend hours upon hours preparing centers and stations for students to use while they are pulling other students in small guided groups.  There is absolutely a lot of merit in allowing students to complete these type of activities and I am not an advocate for completely removing them from the classroom. That being said, with the popularity of the Daily Five by Gail Boushey an Joan Moser, teachers began to realize we did not have to be so elaborate or creative in our production of centers and stations.  I'd challenge you to take it one step farther and say students can spend the majority of the time they are now spending in centers reading and reflecting.  Things like word work and listening to reading are great and students absolutely benefit from these activities.  But if we know the best way to increase students' reading ability is by letting them read, why not make the bulk of the time we have students in centers be all about reading?  Read, discuss, reflect, possibly work on a project. Wonderful, simple, self-directed! This allows the teacher lots of time to pull those other students and work on accuracy and decoding;.  Then, they will go back and read as well.
Let me tell you how to prevent this from working in your classroom!  If you do not set this up from the beginning the way you set-up your stations or Daily 5, it will not work.  You must invest time in the beginning showing students what it is supposed to look like and what it cannot look like.  You must require them to sign some sort of agreement, preferably one they create themselves.  You must have procedures in place for how and why to interrupt you (my standard was if no one is bleeding, barfing, or crying, I don't need to know) and you must give your students some trust.  They can put down their book to go to the bathroom.  They can't put their book down to grab another book out of someone else's hands.  You will cover all of this from the beginning and create a Classroom Utopia.
There are, however, other ways you can inadvertently sabotage your perfect reading classroom.  For example, if you give students limited availability to texts.  They must have a plethora of books, magazines, articles, etc. to read.  They should have books on any and every topic that interests them.  Sports, games, magic, trucks, dolls, etc.  Give them chapter books, paper books, board books, library books, their own books, your own books.  Any book you can get your hands on.  Research says students need anywhere from 500-1500 books available in an elementary classroom to be able to consistently find a text they want to read. That may seem like a lot of books, and it is, but you can do it!  I started building my library right from the beginning and by the time I had been teaching for three years, I was at 1500.  I begged, borrowed, stole (okay, not really) and bought my way there.  I would hear other teachers say things like, "Oh, that's not a good quality book so I'm not putting that in my classroom."  I figured some child will disagree with you and want to read that--may I have it please?  I went to any teacher that was retiring, book sales, 75% off books, Half-priced Books, yard sales, Scholastic outlets, my little sister's pile of out-grown books, my student's books from home that they no longer wanted--if it involved books, I was there.  And the only books I wouldn't take were books that were inappropriate.  I never turned down a book because of condition or topic (as in "this book is about Transformers, not in my classroom!" I turned down books about in appropriate topics, like romance novels!) or because I thought it was too hard or too easy.  Someone might be able to read that! Start gathering up your books, you're gonna need them! Even with ebooks, I still recommend getting as many tangible books as you can because you never know when we might have a power outage and all of your little friends will be sitting there with dead batteries, looking around them at a world they never noticed before!

Book Baskets go a long way to organizing texts for students

Another way to sabotage your self is by not allowing students to read what they want to, or requiring them to read something they don't want to read for no particular reason. If you have a curriculum that determines they must read a certain text, then by all means, get them all hyped up about it and let them read it. If you don't, give them some choice in what they read.  You can talk about the major portions of a book from just about any book.  As far as I know, there has yet to be a book written with no characters or setting and while some of them may be a little short on plot, it's probably still there if you look hard enough! Choice goes a long way when trying to get students excited about reading!
Probably the most important advice I can give you is to allow your students to work on their own level.  If you give Johnny Harry Potter  and the Sorcerer's Stone and tell him he must read it, but Johnny is only reading on a first-grade reading level, I guarantee you Johnny will not be a better reader when he's done turning the pages of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (all 309 of them!) because that's all he'll be doing--turning the pages.  There is, as we all know, a huge difference between reading a book and just looking at the words, just as there is a huge difference between reading and word-calling, but we'll save that discussion for another day! Bottom line, let the children read on their own level so that they can increase their reading skills. Why do the struggling students always suddenly have to pee when we are reading the text book out loud?  Because they can't read it! It's a phenomenon I have deemed the 3 F's--fight, funny, flee.  They'll either get themselves in trouble to avoid reading, try to be funny and get everyone laughing, or find an excuse to leave the classroom.  They aren't doing it because they don't want to read, they're doing it because they can't read.  So, don't put yourself in the same situation when it comes to independent reading. Even if you have to disguise a lower-level text, give them something they can read.  It'll pay off when they master that level and move on.  You're going to be pulling them in small group EVERYDAY (did you get that, everyday, every stinkin' day) so eventually they will catch up. What you will be doing with them when you pull them I will be happy to discuss later as well, but my point is they don't need as many books because a significant amount of this time they will be spending with you.  They will, however, need to be reading while you are working with other groups so give them something they can read.
I am an elementary teacher so most of this post, I realize, has been pointed at the Pre-K-5 crowd.  Let's talk about how this could look in an older grade-level classroom.  If you don't know much about Project Based Learning, I'm going to suggest you look into it. It's your new best friend.  PBL is the classroom of our future. It goes hand-in-hand with technology.  It's not the peanut butter and jelly analogy, it's the peanut and butter analogy. Yes, it's that conjoined. If you only have your kids for 50 minutes a day, no you cannot let them read for 30 of those minutes.  But I think you can let them read for 15.  And if you are tightly horizontally aligned, you can make sure they are getting the rest of their minutes elsewhere. Our high school (Community High School, Home of the Braves!) is introducing PBL next year in blocks and I think it's going to be absolutely AWESOME.  Remember, if your students are researching, they are authentically reading and that's going to count as part of their time.  Likewise, if you are running lit circles where the students are reading, discussing and collaborating, that's also going to count.  That's so much more powerful than read this and answer that or fill in the blanks or create a Venn diagram about why these characters are the same and or different than those characters.  And that's what we want--authentic, meaningful, student selected, student driven--work.

Aren't they all sooo happy with their books?

Let's tie this back in to the original question.  How many minutes each day are your students spending authentically reading   I asked you to reflect on this in a quiet, zen place. However, if you'd like to answer that question here, please do so!  I am not the be-all-and-end-all of reading and I would love to hear your thoughts. Some of you may be angry or perturbed.  Some of you may think I'm insane.  Hopefully, some of you are thinking, "Yes, I can do that. 30 minutes.  Totally doable!" or even better, "Why am I doing so many worksheets? Why aren't my kids reading outside of the bathroom?"  You are my new favorite people! Please leave a comment, we'd love to hear from you.  I know I don't officially have any followers yet but I have about 60 people visiting each day--which is awesome--so you're not just talking to me, you're talking to fellow educators who want to know what you think!
Until next time. . . .

Awesome Idea: Flipping a Book Study and PBL

As you know, I am currently at TCEA in Austin and I attended several amazing sessions the last two days where I got a lot of great ideas to use with the students I work with and with classroom teachers at our campus.  I will be sharing a lot of these ideas in the days and weeks to come but my most favorite idea today revolves around the idea that we can flip a book study for our gifted and talented students and also incorporate a project based learning experience! I'm not quite sure where this idea came from, I had it while I was in a session talking about something else, but I absolutely love it, so let's go with it!
I chose our GT kids for this particular project because we are a PK-2nd campus and I don't know that all of our students would be able to easily access the technology I am planning to incorporate or if they would be able to handle some of the higher level content I am hoping to incorporate into the lesson plan. I am working with our GT teacher to solidify our plans but this is the basic premise:
We would select a short novel that is appropriate for our 1st and 2nd grade GT students.  All our lessons would be broken down by chapter or two chapters and we would incorporate the flip by teaching the lesson ahead of time and recording it.  These lessons will most likely be posted on this blog for the students to watch or possibly on edmodo--or both.  The students would need to read the assigned portion of the text, watch the video, and then answer a few higher-level thinking, opened ended response questions. We would also do a lesson about appropriate responses, the kinds of questions to ask yourself while reading, note taking, and questions to ask during conversations with others.  The students would meet to discuss their responses in class and share the notes and questions they jotted down while reading.

BrainPop Jr. exhibit in the Exhibition Hall at TCEA

Bats in our belfry! Can you see the little black speck ?  We had an unregistered guest at TCEA today!   

 They would also be working on an Inquiry Circle Project as evidence of their learning. If you are not familiar with ICP's, I highly recommend you read Comprehension and Collaboration by Stephanie Harvey and Harvey Daniels.  It's basically an idea that stems from PBL (project based learning)  but the most important difference is that the project doesn't have to be directly related to the text--it just has to circle back to it.  For example, I read Pictures of Hollis Woods by Patricia Reilly Giff with a group of 5th graders last year. I explained ICP's to them and helped them brainstorm ideas.  One of the students decided he wanted to research Hershey's chocolate.  He created a Glogster all about the history of Hershey's. How is this related to the novel?  Hollis is eating a Hershey bar in a scene from the book. Hence, the circle!
ICP also involve some circling by the teacher.  It's incredibly important for the instructor to circle everything back to the Student Expectations you are trying to address through the text.  You have to be very mindful of where your students are headed with their topics and make sure it always ties back in to a pertinent skill or piece of knowledge students are expected to acquire.  Daniels and Harvey are very good at explaining strategies to ensure this happens in their book, which became a Bible of sorts for me for a couple of years as I learned to utilize ICP's with my higher level thinkers. Since that time, I've also tried it with my struggling students and it can be incredibly powerful for them as well.
For our GT students, I am hoping to give them lots of different options for their final presentations.  I have used Animoto, Xtranormal, Voki, Blabberize, Weebly, Wikispaces, Glogster, and several other sites before with great success. It seems like most of my students want to choose a PowerPoint and I do not think I will let this be an option this time. Prezi, maybe, ppt. no thank you!  One of the best parts of TCEA for me has been learning about a lot more really amazing websites and apps that work a lot like the ones I listed above and I'm hoping to be able to use some of these!  If anyone would like more information about how I've used these presentation tools before, please let me know and I'll be happy to discuss and link up some examples.
I've had three or four "Ah-ha" moments today and I can't wait to try out some of the other amazing ideas we've had during our sessions and from the conversation that's been generated from them.  If you're at TCEA and you've had an amazing moment of inspiration, please share it in the comments!  We'd love to hear it! Even if you aren't here and you've been inspired by something recently that's made you say, "Oh!  Wow, I can do this!" please let us know!
Tomorrow, I'm planning to post about another super idea we got from a presentation at TCEA.  It involves Xtranormal, Rachel's Challenge, and Classroom Management--three of my favorite topics!