Thursday Meeting Thursday meeting reflection: Pluses: Good conversation Some interesting inquiries begun Good vision and ideas in warm up Engagement Just enough in slides Organization Lots of people used graphic organizer   Deltas: Maybe not enough time, started inquiries but not much follow-up time Not everyone listed their interests on google doc Nerves Didn’t say everything,…… Continue reading Meeting Reflection/ Professional Learning

What does the shift between professional development and professional learning mean? Professional development feels like something done to us verses what we study and learn. Does it work to send people off to PD and then expect them to share back and change everybody? Really I should be on a professional journey that improves my…… Continue reading Unleashed: Professional Learning instead of Professional Development

Last week we had our Student Led Conferences (SLCs).  As Student Support Services (SSS), non-classroom teachers, we don’t have one place that we see students and one set of students.  As a literacy specialist, I don’t even have one or two grade levels that I focus on. That means a couple of things.  I don’t…… Continue reading How are they showing learning?

I’m a little overwhelmed.  As I said yesterday, I am happy to see that our school shares a plethora of struggles with Mt. Scopus.  I am now at the stage where I am collecting ideas and looking for fixes together with my counterpart, Joc.  She shared a number of documents.  We are both planning meetings for…… Continue reading Mind Spinning

This week I have the privilege to attend a conference in Melbourne at the Mt Scopus College upper primary campus.  The first two days has included inspiration talks about “Unleashing Learning” and workshops about pedagogy and chats with other professionals.  Today I am at the campus with the students and teachers.  I’ve floated around.  I’ve been…… Continue reading Schools are Schools

So, I just has an pre-observation meeting with the VP where we looked through some of the evidence that I need to collect as a faculty member to go along with our school appraisal meetings.  We talked about how a support teacher who teaches in small groups, push-ins, individual interventions, in the hallway, in shared…… Continue reading Physical space

Slow, that’s how.  I wish I had time to work with them daily and they were each at school every time we meet. Before the week-long Tet holiday, we decided upon goals using the checklist for self-assessment.  The students reviewed their independent sample that they started the week before. Before they wrote, we had a quick…… Continue reading How’s It Going with the Research?

From: http://nflrc.hawaii.edu/prodev/si11olc/Day4_action_research_2011.pdf   So here’s the problem: Although many of our students perform well in writing and apply writing to the inquiry, we have some students (often not receiving EAL support) that consistently under perform in writing compared to their speaking and listening (and sometimes reading) abilities.  These students often struggle with purpose and product (producing using…… Continue reading Planning for Action Research

Nourishing relationships and listening… How many times today did I ask kids how their holidays went?  How many kids did I see writing “what I did over my vacation” recounts?  Did I really listen to what the students told me?  Did I truly ingest their recounts?  Honestly, I’m sure there were times I in fact…… Continue reading Empower

Doing a bit of research on how to do research… Links I’m starting with: How to do action research ASCD on action research Classroom Action Research Practical Guide to Action Research for Literacy Educators What I’m thinking of researching: Small group writing support in grade 3 (effectiveness of small group targeted writing instruction using ISHCMC…… Continue reading Action Research Part 2