Resources and Links–Primary Documents Professional Development

Here are a few links that were used and discussed at the professional development that was held at the Central office of Murfreesboro City Schools on April 6th.  Enjoy!

Analyzing_Primary_Sources

http://www.teachtnhistory.org/

TN Ready Blue Prints for Math & R/LA

TN Social Studies Frameworks

Which Comes First?

Learning or thinking?

While doing some prep work for tomorrow’s appointments, I began searching good ole Google.  (How did I survive all those years?  I LOVE having answers at my fingertips.)  I had questions and wanted to see what the world had to answer them.

Then, I found her (actually she is using HIS work).  An article that defines “reflection.”  It’s long.  It’s scholarly.  So I’ll differentiate.  I’ll pull out some phrases that are AWESOME, and I’ll provide the link.  You can choose your route. (Isn’t choice nice?  How often do you give your students a choice?)  Hopefully these pieces will spark your interest enough to dig into the article called, “Defining Reflection: Another Look at John Dewey and Reflective Thinking” by Carol Rodgers.  Here are some highlights:

• My purpose is, quite simply, to provide a clear picture of Dewey’s original ideas so that they might serve as we improvise, revise, and create new ways of deriving meaning from experiences-thinking to learn.
• “What (an individual) has learned in the way of knowledge and skill in one situation becomes an instrument of understanding and dealing effectively with the situations which follow.  The process goes on as long as life and learning continue.”
• …other kinds of thinking is stream of consciousness. It is the thinking all of us are involuntarily awash in all the time….This is often the only kind of thinking teachers have time for.
• …moves the learner from a disturbing state of perplexity…to a harmonious state of settledness.  Perplexity is created when an individual encounters a situation whose “full character is not yet determined.”  That is, the meaning of the experience has not yet been fully established.
• An additional source of motivation is curiosity, without which there is little energy for the hard work of reflection.
• The store of one’s wisdom is the result of the extent of one’s reflection.
• Formulating the problem or question itself is half the work.  As Dewey says, “A question well put is half answered.”
• Reflection must include action.
• Dewey knew that merely to think without ever having to express what one thought is an incomplete act….The experience has to be formulated in order to be communicated.
• Curiosity about and enthusiasm for that subject matter is essential to good teaching.  Without them a teacher has no energy, no fuel, to carry out reflective inquiry-much less teaching itself.

There is great information in this article.  It helps to define true reflection, its purpose, and the importance of disciplined reflection.  Eye opening.  I hope you’ll take the time to read the article for yourself.

Rodgers, C. (2002). Defining Reflection Another Look at John Dewey and Reflective Thinking. Teachers College Record, 104(4), 842-866.

Actual Time Reading

Down to the minute…how much actual time do your students read each day? Write?  Not filling in blanks or giving simple responses, but composing thoughts from within his or her own thinking?

A few years ago, a friend and I decided to chart our school day to see actual instructional time.  We used Excel to create a chart showing each minute of the day.  It was eye opening.  I wanted to make sure that I was organizing the day to squeeze every ounce of learning opportunity from the school day and with a few minor changes, I squeezed even more out of the schedule.

This came to mind as I was reading research by Richard Allington.  His paper was explaining what practice they found in highly effective classrooms.  One thing in effective classrooms?  Students were reading and writing 50% of the day.  More commonly, in other classrooms, they found the amount to be around 10%.  This made me think about the previous charts of instructional time. Stopped me dead in my tracks.  I wasn’t sure what my percentage would have been.  I think my “intention percentage”, if you will, would have been high.  Not sure if my actual classroom time would reflect 50%.  Pretty sure it wouldn’t.

If you took your daily lesson plans and accounted for the time students were reading and writing, real reading and real writing, where would you fall?  I think it would be worth the self-reflection.  With Common Core and PARCC, no time like the present to make these changes.

Other great reminders from the report were model, provide open-ended questions, give explicit instruction, and allow time for students to talk about the content.

 

But if you want to read it for your own take-away, here’s the link to his article called “What I’ve Learned About Effective Reading Instruction From a Decade of Studying Exemplary Elementary Classroom Teachers.”

 

Richard L. Allington

Go Here Now

If you haven’t been here, go now.  YIKES!  Good stuff.

Also, many 5th grade classes are starting fractions or have started.  I found this read to be very interesting.

Teaching About Fractions: What, When, and How

Math…It’s Getting Crazy Around Here!!

Crazy, how?

#1) The ideas coming my way from teachers at MCS are coming so fast, I can hardly keep up with posting them here.

#2)  There’s a whole lot of resources out there!!

If you haven’t checked out the math arcs Karen Hawkins sent out a few weeks ago (the ones the state is releasing), you need to put that on your to do list!!  GREAT tool to help with CRA.

ALSO, Ms. Dickerson, at Scales, sent these resources to me following the math training at Scales for tier 2.  I am just now getting them out to you.  These are worth your time!!

Weekly Problems

Essential Questions for Math

Resource for Math Lessons-Illuminations Website

Thank you Ms. Dickerson!