Readers Theatre for NON-READERS!

Hello friends!

Thanks for sticking with me as I slowly re-enter the world of edu-blogging. I'll be currently aiming for one blog a week, just like back in the old days when I first began this process.

Right now, I'm taking blogging inspiration from the workshops I'm building and running here, there, and everywhere. Today, I'd like to share with you something from a recent workshop I ran with some colleagues called Get Smart With Art. (Who doesn't like a workshop with a rhyming name?)

We were focused on preschoolers (a nice leap for me from my days of teaching high school!). I've always loved the concept of Readers Theatre, but, in my recent exposure to lots and lots of preschool-aged kids (thanks to my toddler son), I've been wondering . . . can the concepts of Readers Theatre apply to pre-K? I've watched my own son at the tender age of 2 act out story after story, leading me to think -- what would Readers Theatre look like for non-readers, or (most) preschool students?

Well, I've researched, ran a few practice classes with kids, and thought and thought and thought about this. I've come up with lots of answers that I'll be sharing with you over the next few weeks.

Today's share is one strategy to incorporate Readers Theatre with preschoolers called Soundtrack. It's fun, and gets kids using the full range of their voices (something most little ones looooove to do). Here's how it works:

Read a story to a group of children, pausing at each picture (or you could just choose to pause at only the "exciting" pictures if the text is rather long). Stop and look at the picture with the students. Ask about what sounds we might hear based on this picture. Students will most likely provide you with the "surface level" sounds they see -- "moo-ing" from a cow in the picture, "vroom vroom" from a car, etc. Encourage them to also dig deeper: "I see a windmill way over here in the background . . . what sound do you think that makes?" or "Hmmmm . . . what does the mother's face tell us in this picture? How does she feel? What kind of sound might go with that?"

Once you've made your way through the entire story in this manner, it's time to read it again from the beginning, this time asking for students to collectively provide the "soundtrack" each time you pause at a picture.

This is an energizing way for students to interact with text, follow along with plot details, go beyond the surface level, build early literacy skills, and develop empathy for characters.

I'm hoping you enjoy my upcoming posts about this whole Readers Theatre for Non-Readers concept as I'm pretty jazzed about it! But, don't fret, my secondary education readers . . . I've got stuff coming your way, too (just a quick preview: I'll be delving into lots of differentiated instruction and classroom management techniques for grades 6-12 in the next couple of months).

Glad to be back to blogging! And Happy Spring (even if the weather doesn't quite feel like it yet)!

The Workshop Model: Not Just for Elementary Classrooms

I'm back, blogging world! It's been awhile!
Here's what I've been up to . . .

When I last posted in this blog, I was SUPER pregnant. In fact, my last post was two days before I went into labor! Since then, I made the big decision to stay home with my son, a decision that surprised me but that led to one of the most fulfilling experiences of my life.

That first year of infancy was a blur. But since my son turned one, life started to normalize a bit and I began taking education consulting gigs and running workshops here, there, and everywhere. I'm really enjoying being able to delve deeply into the content of my workshops, focusing on the needs of my participants and trying my best to meet them.

Which brings me to my blog topic today. I'm in the middle of preparing a follow-up workshop on differentiated instruction (loyal readers know this is a passion of mine, so yippee!) for middle and high school ELA teachers and it's reigniting my belief in the following concept: THE WORKSHOP MODEL IS NOT JUST FOR ELEMENTARY CLASSROOMS, Y'ALL.

As a former high school ELA teacher, I can tell you that whenever I read or heard about the workshop model, I sort of labeled it as elementary and moved on. I know I wasn't alone in this way of thinking, because once I became an instructional coach and really studied the concept (and also observed its SUPREME effectiveness at the elementary level), I tried to convince several secondary ELA teachers of its merits, only to be met with what was once my own pre-conception regarding the workshop model.

So, hear me out. In secondary ELA classes, students are often assigned all or most of their reading for homework. This helps out with logistics as most teachers are trying to "get through" a certain number of lengthy texts in a semester. BUT, the result is -- we don't really know what our students' reading skills are like. Sure, we can give a reading check quiz the next day, but those don't usually tell us much and we can't even really swear that the student didn't just skim Sparknotes right before our class. Here's the issue: we are not seeing our students do the work of reading right in front of us. Arguably, reading takes up a huge percentage of what the core work of an ELA class is, and yet, we aren't observing our students in the act.

Go into a secondary science or math classroom. You'll see kids DOING the core work of that content area right in the classroom.

We need to start re-defining what class time is for in secondary ELA. With a workshop model, we can! Start off with a mini-lesson during which you introduce a reading strategy (or writing strategy, if that day will focus on writing). Using a gradual release of responsibility, model it for your students (I Do). Practice it together (We Do); here you can already start to formatively assess who's "got it" and who needs more support. Then, use workshop time (this should be the bulk of the class period) for students to independently practice the strategy while reading a given text. It's helpful to require a note-taking device so that their use of a reading strategy is recorded in some way. While students engage in this core work of the ELA class, you can circulate, continuing to formatively assess, working with individual students or small groups as needed. Pull everyone back together at the end for reflection and closure and further assessment of that day's objective.

This pumps me up! Workshops are exciting and effective and give us tons of chances to guide by the side of our students. Let's create these opportunities in secondary ELA classrooms so we can SEE our students reading and writing live and in person!

Student Ownership of Feedback

This week, I want to zoom in on student feedback. The teacher rubric of the MA Educator Evaluation System mentions providing feedback to students at several different points. Standard I, Indicator C asks us to consider how often we provide feedback to students based on assessment results and to think about how this feedback is shared -- I like to think about whether my focus when providing feedback to students is on growth and improvement or on a summative-type grade (and don't we all get frustrated with our students' tendency to focus only on the latter?). Standard II, Indicator B stresses that opportunities should be provided for students to regularly reflect on their own strengths and weaknesses, to goal-set, and to monitor their own progress. Providing such opportunities would definitely help us keep our feedback focus on growth and improvement rather than on just a grade. So, how can we set this up in our classrooms?

It starts with making sure our students know what their learning goals should be for a given lesson or unit. In Robert Marzano's Becoming a Reflective Teacher, he suggests providing students with a proficiency scale (or even having students help construct such a scale) that aligns with the objective(s) of the lesson/unit such that students are aware (ideally with the help of exemplars as well) of what it looks like to have met this objective or to still be working towards meeting the objective.

Once we've enabled students to be fully conscious of what skill or knowledge they are aiming for, we can ask them to keep a running record of their own scores from assessments given throughout the lesson/unit. In addition to keeping track of their scores, we can also ask them to record what it is they currently understand well, what they're getting better at, and what they still need to work on (all based on the objective's proficiency scale). In doing so, we've sent the message that meeting the objective through growth and improvement has been the true learning goal of this lesson/unit (versus getting a particular grade). And we've placed some ownership with the student -- we've created a system in which the student is reflecting and goal-setting based on meeting the objective.

Want to flesh out some specific ways to implement this, like what a proficiency scale with exemplars might look like for a given unit's objective(s), or how to set up a record-keeping tool for students? Let me know -- I'm still pregnant, thus not on leave YET -- I'm happy to help!

It's Self-Assessment Time!

Well, here I am, posting another blog entry. You know what that means? My maternity leave hasn't started yet. Yup. Still pregnant over here.

In another news, it's time for all of us to think about our SMART goals for this year (even if you're on a two-year plan carried over from last year, it's still a good time to reflect on how it's all going). Now, I know it's tempting to jump right in and just get those goals drafted, but I want to urge you all to go through the self-assessment process before drafting specific goals for yourselves. But, I also know that that teacher rubric that's part of the educator evaluation system is a bit verbose and cumbersome, and doesn't always paint a picture of how what it's measuring all breaks down inside the classroom walls. So, I've been fooling around with the idea of adding bulleted questions for each indicator on the rubric as a resource to use when self-reflecting. A couple weeks ago, I posted the questions I'd drafted so far. Recently, I've added substantially to this, so thought I'd re-post my new and improved version.

These questions aren't meant to be judgy or nit-picky or anything else. Just look at them as a way to make the standards and indicators come to life a bit more. In answering them, it's my hope we'll all be pointed in the direction of some really effective and impactful goals for our educator practice. (Plus, they could be helpful when determining how to provide evidence per indicator.)

(Also, I'm available -- well, primarily after I return from my maternity leave, whenever that starts! -- to provide instructional coaching in any/all of these areas!)

Here you go (note -- these are just for the first two standards of the teacher rubric, as these two standards focus on instruction and assessment, which is my thang, y'all):
 

The Goal/Vision	Focus Questions
Curriculum & Planning: Knows the subject matter well, has a good grasp of child development and how students learn, and designs effective and rigorous standards-based units of instruction consisting of well-structured lessons with measurable outcomes (Standard I, Indicator IA)	·      How rigorous are the tasks you engage students in? ·      Are students working within their zone of proximal development (ZPD)? ·      What assessment practices do you use that help you to determine where each student's ZPD is? ·      Are students working towards completing a task that’s too easy, too hard, or just right (for the time allotted in the class and for their readiness/skill level)? ·      How comfortable do you feel with your lesson planning formats and structures? ·      Do you consistently include challenging, measurable objectives (and do these objectives end up being "lived objectives" during the lesson)? Are these objectives truly measured/assessed (whether informally or formally) during each lesson? ·      Are all tasks students are asked to do during the lesson preparing them to meet the lesson’s objective? ·      Do your lesson plans consistently include structures like activators and summarizers? ·      Do your lesson plans consistently include opportunities for students to learn in groups, using a variety of different grouping strategies? ·      Are there opportunities for assessing student understanding during the lesson? ·      Are there opportunities for all students to practice and to receive feedback during the lesson? ·      How do you preview new content? How do you chunk content into “digestible bites”? What do you do to help students process new information? What do you do to help students record and represent knowledge? ·      What do you do to review content? ·      Is (lively) pacing ever an issue? ·      Are there built-in opportunities for students to receive support during the lesson should they need it, or to be challenged with extensions should that be their need? ·      What do you do to scaffold students to meet success?
Assessment: Uses a variety of informal and formal methods of assessments to measure student learning, growth, and understanding to develop differentiated and enhanced learning experiences and improve future instruction (Standard I, Indicator IB)	·      What types of assessments do students experience in your class? Is it a wide range? ·      How often do you use formative assessment data (this could be informal or formal) to inform your instruction for the next day(s)? Are you able to do this on a regular basis (weekly or even, ideally, daily)? ·      What do you typically do to track student progress? ·      How often do students learn through differentiated experiences in your class, whether they be differentiated by interest, learning style, or readiness? Are these differentiated experiences planned as a result of informal and/or formal assessments you’ve used to measure student learning and understanding?
Analysis: Analyzes data from assessments, draws conclusions, and shares them appropriately (Standard I, Indicator IC)	·      How often do you analyze student data (formal or informal) in order to improve student learning? ·      What do you typically do to track student progress? ·      How often do you provide feedback to students based on formal or informal assessment results? How is this feedback shared? Is the focus on student growth and improvement from both your perspective and from the student’s perspective, or is it more based on a summative-type grade?
Instruction: Uses instructional practices that reflect high expectations regarding content and quality of effort and work; engage all students; and are personalized to accommodate diverse learning styles, needs, interests, and levels of readiness (Standard II, Indicator IIA)	·      Are students provided exemplars and rubrics that help them understand assessment criteria and expectations? Do students know what “good work” looks and sounds like for the lesson? ·       Do you model as often as possible? ·      Do you use a "gradual release of responsibility" (I Do, We Do, You Do) so that students are scaffolded towards success? ·      What do you do to scaffold students to meet success? ·      How engaged are your students during lessons? ·      Is time on task an issue? Are students doing what you want them to be doing? ·      Are all students given chances to practice during lessons (not just those who raise their hands)? ·      What do you do to manage student response rates to questions posed? ·      What do you do to use physical movement? ·      How often do you tier your instruction in order to meet the needs and readiness levels of all your students? ·      Do you feel comfortable planning tiered instruction based on formative assessment data? ·      How often do students learn through differentiated experiences in your class, whether they be differentiated by interest, learning style, or readiness?
Learning Environment: Creates and maintains a safe and collaborative learning environment that motivates students to take academic risks, challenge themselves, and claim ownership of their learning (Standard II, Indicator IIB)	·      Do you use rituals and routines consistently in your classroom? Do these rituals and routines enhance opportunities for learning in your classroom? ·      What do you typically do to establish and maintain classroom rules, routines, procedures? ·      What do you do when there is a lack of adherence to rules, routines, and procedures? ·      Are your expectations so communicated and enforced (through rituals, routines, and appropriate responses) that students eventually "own" them as well? ·      Do your lesson plans consistently include opportunities for students to learn in groups, using a variety of different grouping strategies? Do you teach your students how to effectively work in groups so that these opportunities are as impactful as possible? ·      Do you provide regular opportunities for students to reflect on their own strengths and weaknesses? To goal-set? To monitor their own progress?
Cultural Proficiency: Actively creates and maintains an environment in which students’ diverse backgrounds, identities, strengths, and challenges are respected (Standard II, Indicator IIC)	·      What do you do to understand students’ interests and backgrounds? ·      Do you consistently enable students to demonstrate respect for their own and others’ differences (related to background, identity, language, strengths, and challenges)? ·      Are you able to anticipate conflicts or misunderstandings that might arise from differences in backgrounds, languages, and identities? Are you then able to effectively respond to these conflicts or misunderstandings?
Expectations: Plans and implements lessons that set clear and high expectations and also make knowledge accessible for all students (Standard II, Indicator IID)	·      Do your students clearly understand your expectations of them? ·      Could they describe these expectations to someone else? ·      Are students provided exemplars and rubrics that help them understand assessment criteria and expectations? Do students know what “good work” looks and sounds like for the lesson? ·       Do you model as often as possible? ·      Do you use a "gradual release of responsibility" (I Do, We Do, You Do) so that students are scaffolded towards success? ·      What do you do to scaffold students to meet success? ·      Do you model ways students can set challenging goals for themselves? Do students have opportunities to set such goals for themselves in your class? ·      Are you able to consistently adapt your instruction and/or assessments in order to support all students (including ELL students and those on IEPs)?

Anticipation

I was speaking to a wise teacher this week about his goals to increase his use of formative assessment in the classroom, specifically by adding more formative assessment tools to his repertoire. What makes this teacher so wise is that he realizes he needs to anticipate what may go wrong with the use of some of these tools, and then take instructional steps to ensure the tools are used as effectively as possible.

For example, let's take a look at a beloved formative assessment tool, the good ol' Think Pair Share. Tried and true, right? But I've encountered lots of teachers who have had frustrating experiences using this deceptively simple check-for-understanding. Let's anticipate what could go wrong. You're asking students to pair up and share their thoughts for a few minutes on a question or topic you've provided, while you circulate the room and then, later, there's a whole class share. But here are some possible pitfalls: Students pair up with someone who may not be the best choice for them to work with. Students talk to their partners about the topic for about 30 seconds to 1 minute, and then run out of things to say. While circulating, you get caught up with 3 to 4 students who need help, so you never really get around to check on everyone. During the whole class share, you call on students to share what their partners' ideas were, only to discover that students don't know or remember what their partner said.

Any of this sound familiar? But what happens when we anticipate that these issues will pop up? What can we do to prevent these pitfalls, and instead ensure that our Think Pair Share will be as effective and as impactful as possible?

We can ensure some accountability to the task by providing a Think Pair Share template handout to students. This handout should require students to, first, individually write down three answers or ideas they have about the question or problem posed. Then, once students have shared these ideas with their partners, the handout should prompt them to check off any of their original ideas that their partner also shared, as well as to write down ideas their partner had that they did not. Finally, there should be a section on the handout that students can use to jot down ideas picked up during the whole class share. The use of a handout like this helps students gather their thoughts before being expected to share them with anyone, hopefully leading to a more effective discourse with their partner. It also encourages them to actively listen to their partner's ideas, as they will need to be recorded. Same goes for the whole class share. Also, if you get caught up working with just a few students when you attempt to circulate, you now have a physical handout that you can collect from everyone in the class if you should see that as necessary for continuing to check for understanding.

Are students not making wise choices when picking a partner? Or maybe you just want to ensure that students work with a variety of different partners rather than the same one each time? Anticipate that you might stumble across these problems, and you can solve them in advance. One solution could be to use clock buddies, ensuring that each student ends up with 12 possibilities for partnership depending on what "time" you call out to the group. There are some fun ways to personalize the concept of clock buddies for your class, too. For example, instead of using the hours of the day to distinguish the 12 different partners, you could use 12 different chemical elements, 12 different book titles, colors, math terms, etc.

If you'd like a copy of a Think Pair Share handout, contact me -- I've got a template I can share with you. Or if you want to further explore how clock buddies might work in your class, let me know -- I'd love to help! The main takeaway here is to anticipate what could potentially go wrong, so you can nip it in the bud. I mean, who doesn't want to avoid the frustration that ensues when something doesn't go as planned during your lesson? Want a second pair of eyes as you lesson plan to help you anticipate problems and plan to avoid them? We can work together on this -- shoot me an email!

On a personal note, this is my second blog post of the new school year. For those of you new readers, I typically post once a week, usually on Fridays. But, there's nothing typical about my life right now, as I am expecting the birth of my first child any day now. I'll be working right up until the end, so you can expect a blog post from me next week (I'll still be a little ahead of my due date then). But don't fully count on it! Everything I plan right now is filed under "tentative."  :)

Happy New (School) Year!

Hello educators! I hope you all had wonderful summers!

For my first blog post of this school year, I'm recycling a bit and stealing largely from my final blog post of last school year. So, if this sounds familiar to you loyal readers, that's why! 

As I'm sure many of you have, I've been using some time lately to reflect on what my goals and hopes are for this year. I've even begun thinking about what my SMART goals might entail. I'm already getting excited about my plans, which include developing and implementing a more formal coaching model for our school district, which I believe will help me ensure my coaching is as effective as it can be, benefiting teachers and students alike. After two years of coaching, I feel ready and energized to tackle this goal!

If you're having trouble reflecting and thinking about goals (SMART or otherwise) for this year, I suggest turning to the Teaching Rubric that's part of our new education evaluation system here in Massachusetts. This rubric is designed to aid in your reflection on your practices and in your goal-setting. But it can feel a bit cumbersome and verbose, can't it? To better navigate it, try considering these questions as you skim through the indicators (I'm going to focus on Standards I & II here, since they're so instructional in nature and that's my thing, y'all!):

Standard I:

• How rigorous are the tasks you engage students in? Are students working within their zone of proximal development (ZPD)? What assessment practices do you use that help you to determine where each student's ZPD is?
• How often do students learn through differentiated experiences in your class, whether they be differentiated by interest, learning style, or readiness?
• How comfortable do you feel with your lesson planning formats and structures? Do you consistently include challenging, measurable objectives (and do these objectives end up being "lived objectives" during the lesson)? Activators? Summarizers? Opportunities for assessing student understanding during the lesson? Opportunities for all students to practice and to receive feedback during the lesson? Is pacing ever an issue? Are there built-in opportunities for students to receive support during the lesson should they need it, or to be challenged with extensions should that be their need?
• How often do you use formative assessment data (this could be informal or formal) to inform your instruction for the next day(s)? Are you able to do this on a regular basis (weekly or even, ideally, daily)?
• What types of assessments do students experience in your class? Is it a wide range?

Standard II:

• Are students provided exemplars and rubrics that help them understand assessment criteria and expectations? Do you model as often as possible? Do you use a "gradual release of responsibility" (I Do, We Do, You Do) so that students are scaffolded towards success?
• How engaged are your students during lessons? Is time on task an issue? Are all students given chances to practice during lessons (not just those who raise their hands)?
• How often do you tier your instruction in order to meet the needs and readiness levels of all your students? Do you feel comfortable planning tiered instruction based on formative assessment data?
• Do your students clearly understand your expectations of them? Could they describe them to someone else? Are your expectations so communicated and enforced (through rituals, routines, and appropriate responses) that students eventually "own" them as well?

The above questions don't cover everything Standards I & II delve into. But I think they are a great starting place for examining our instructional practices and determining where we'd like to improve. As you do so, please consider working with me as your instructional coach. The coaching model I'll be developing and implementing this year will help me to even better guide the teachers I work with towards the efficient, effective meeting of their goals.

Here's to a great school year!!

Teacher Reflection

Well, my friends, we've made it to the end of another school year. This will be my last blog post for awhile as I head off to enjoy my last summer vacation as a non-mother! I'll see you back here in late August/early September as we prepare to begin the 2014-2015 school year (my 15th year working in education!) and I'll begin my weekly blogs again (that is, until my maternity leave starts!).

As I'm sure many of you have, I've been using some time lately to reflect on how my year went and what my goals and hopes are for next year. I've even begun thinking about what my SMART goals might entail. I'm already getting excited about my plans, which include developing and implementing a more formal coaching model for our school district, which I believe will help me ensure my coaching is as effective as it can be, benefiting teachers and students alike. After two years of coaching, I feel ready and energized to tackle this goal!

If you're having trouble reflecting and thinking about goals for next year, I suggest turning to the Teaching Rubric that's part of our new education evaluation system here in Massachusetts. This rubric is designed to aid in your reflection on your practices and in your goal-setting. But it can feel a bit cumbersome and verbose, can't it? To better navigate it, try considering these questions as you skim through the indicators (I'm going to focus on Standards I & II here, since they're so instructional in nature and that's my thing, y'all!):

Standard I:

• How rigorous are the tasks you engage students in? Are students working within their zone of proximal development (ZPD)? What assessment practices do you use that help you to determine where each student's ZPD is?
• How often do students learn through differentiated experiences in your class, whether they be differentiated by interest, learning style, or readiness?
• How comfortable do you feel with your lesson planning formats and structures? Do you consistently include challenging, measurable objectives (and do these objectives end up being "lived objectives" during the lesson)? Activators? Summarizers? Opportunities for assessing student understanding? Opportunities for all students to practice and to receive feedback? Is pacing ever an issue? Are there built-in opportunities for students to receive support should they need it, or to be challenged with extensions should that be their need?
• How often do you use formative assessment data (this could be informal or formal) to inform your instruction for the next day(s)? Are you able to do this on a regular basis (weekly or even, ideally, daily)?
• What types of assessments do students experience in your class? Is it a wide range?

Standard II:

• Are students provided exemplars and rubrics that help them understand assessment criteria and expectations? Do you model as often as possible? Do you use a "gradual release of responsibility" (I Do, We Do, You Do) so that students are scaffolded towards success?
• How engaged are your students during lessons? Is time on task an issue? Are all students given chances to practice (not just those who raise their hands)?
• How often do you tier your instruction in order to meet the needs and readiness levels of all your students? Do you feel comfortable planning tiered instruction based on formative assessment data?
• Do your students clearly understand your expectations of them? Could they describe them to someone else? Are your expectations so communicated and enforced (through rituals, routines, and appropriate responses) that students eventually "own" them as well?

The above questions don't cover everything Standards I & II delve into. But I think they are a great starting place for examining our instructional practices and determining where we'd like to improve. As you do so, please consider working with me as your instructional coach. The coaching model I'll be developing and implementing next year will help me to even better guide the teachers I work with towards the efficient, effective meeting of their goals.

In the meantime, have wonderful summers, educators! See you for 2014-2015!