Yes, I did this one year. My husband and sons were doing some drywall in our basement and I thought they were going way, way to slow. So... I decided to watch a youtube video and do it myself. In this case I did learn and yes I was able to mud the seams. However, I do think there was some flaws. I think many many of them. They had to go over my work. In reflection there are a few things that occured to explain why I wasn't as successful as I wanted to be. First, I didn't get enough training and certainly no positive feedback to make me better. Secondly, I didn't believe that I could do it well enough to pass my husband's inspection. Third, I didn't have clear guidelines to show me how to do it with quality. Seriously, I watched a video and thought it was enough! In the end I felt like I accomplished something but wasn't proficient. I needed more coaching, more practice, and more feedback.
Accomplishing the goals of our school improvement plan requires coaching, practice and feedback. It isn't enough to JUST WATCH IT. We have to work together, refine and then go back in and try again. Last week we began our data collection and analysis. Data is like looking at the wall and checking for errors and areas that need more refinement or work. In some cases there may be a need to redo. Working together makes the work easier and clearer. You can discuss and decide in your PLC or with a coach. I am your partner providing feedback. This is the cycle and this is how we will make our goals a reality.
You do need to do it yourself. You have help but YOU are the person to make achievement happen. I've seen it happening in classrooms at Bloomer. Last week I observed Carol Bigley and Jen Temeyer who were absolutely crystal clear in their language. In addition, Carol had students working independently and was conferring with individuals. Rather than supporting completion of the problem she used questions to support thinking. "Can you explain to me how you did #6." and "Where did that come from?". She praised them and said, "Do you see what happens when you think through your work?". The look for that I found to be closely aligned with her work was: Teachers will increase student engagement by facilitating the use of talk moves during all parts of the lesson. The students responded to her prompts and because they were working in partners it allowed the opportunity to increase engagement through the use of talk moves.
So here are the three components that make achievement happen. Review them. Discuss them and decide where your next move will be.
Let's Review
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Yes, in the end your Do It Yourself.
It's possible.
Going forward I am going to be intentional with my language, ensuring that my students see how to apply and practice using the learning attention and success criteria.
ReplyDeleteIt is my hope that this will allow me to get the most out of my 15 minute mini lesson. I am also going to be cognizant about prioritizing independent work time rather than scaffolding work for my low kids that way I can provide specific feedback aligned with our learning intentions and success criteria.
One of my strengths is to determine which students need the extra time and feedback vs. being distracted,not feeling well, or, yes, not caring about their work at a given time, and motivating them to help themself. This is all for them, not for me. I try to emphasize how important school it is for their future, and give them examples of how they will use our lessons in their future. Their latest big laugh was when I told them that 1/3 will equal 2/6 even when you are old like me.
ReplyDeleteI consider myself a life long learner. I do not get stuck in my ways (or so I feel) and am game for trying new and inventive ways to get my students to learn. I thrive on bouncing ideas off of others and finding my own niche with a combination of all the ideas that I receive.
ReplyDeleteI have gotten so much better at releasing the students, seeing what they can do and believing that they can do it. I have started to see that even though it isn't always pretty at first, the more and more that I do that, the more and more successful they are becoming. I am finding that even my ELL students (not all) but almost half in my room, are requesting to no longer listen to the Wonders story online, they want to read it themselves! I consider this a huge success. This was also evident when their MAP scores increased better than they had in the previous year. (Thanks Kristi for aligning your work so closely with ours and making this possible!)
So I will continue to set those high expectations for all of my students, releasing that work and using individual/table conferencing to help as needed. Instead of "assuming" my lower students or bubble students need the extra scaffolding, I will continue to push them to start on their own, conferencing with them and offering assistance on an as needed basis only.
I also want to become more aware of and intentional about applying and using those learning intentions and success criteria not only throughout my lesson but when conferencing with students also. I want them to feel success even if they don't meet all the criteria. Even getting a small taste of success will give them the motivation to keep working hard independently and to keep striving for the excellent work.
My strengths are an understanding of what my students should be doing when working on specific standards and common misconceptions. One thing I'm planning to do going forward is to make some adjustments to my schedule/routine so that I can make better use of the time that paras are in my room so that we can team up to support the students.
ReplyDeleteM Millar
ReplyDeleteI think a strength I have would be in questioning in order to expand students thinking. Something that I would like to work on in order to raise achievement by the end of the year would be to give more feedback to students as well as having students do more independently. Having students work independently will not only allow them to take more ownership over their learning but will also give me more time to give the feedback to students.
Rachelle
ReplyDeleteI think a strength of mine that I have is creating learning intentions and success criteria that is student friendly, and referencing it often during lessons so the students know what we are learning. I would like to work on reminding them how they will use the lessons in the future, as Carol talked about. In order to raise achievement I would like to find ways to use our DFA's to give the students feedback on their learning, allowing them to use the learning intentions and classwork to be self-reflective on their learning.
I think my strength is keeping those mini lessons short and concise and then allowing students to go out and do the thinking. Putting the work back on students and giving feedback has show to be effective. I want to improve the use of learning intentions and success criteria and use them to give feedback.
ReplyDelete