Developing Young Scientists

Each year, our professional development site, Schultz Center for Teaching and Leadership, conducts a year long pd session in Science, The Academy of Science. We have three Chets' teachers who participate in this learning, and many teachers who support the learning by offering live demonstration lessons that are videoconferenced in to the training.

Second Grade teachers, Ashley Russell and Melissa Ross, invited participants to watch their 5 E model lesson on matter. Melanie Holtsman recorded the video at Chets Creek to make sure it was available on our Setting the Standard Ning for our CCE teachers to view. The lesson was planned using the 5 E model and Day 1 offers the Engage, Explore, and Explain portion. The participants watching virtually applauded the teachers for their lesson, and those watching it on the ning are equally as impressed. When you watch, I'm sure you will agree that these teachers are turing their young students into curious scientists.

2nd Grade Science - Matter 10-09 from Melanie Holtsman on Vimeo.

Tell me, I’ll forget. Show me, I'll remember. Involve me, I'll understand.

As a coach, my role includes setting up learning opportunities for teachers. Sometimes that means me going in and modeling for them, sometimes it means co-teaching along side them, and sometimes it simply means providing them with an opportunity to visit in a colleague's classroom.

Earlier in the week, the new 2009-2010 Second Grade team met for a day of planning. That day was a great opportunity to set up expectations and answer questions, but it didn't provide a glimpse into another teacher's classroom.

Because there are several teachers coming from the intermediate school into the primary school, and I know that the biggest difference in ELA is skills block, I wanted to set up an opportunity for them to see inside a primary colleague's classroom. So, I set up a demo in a co-teach classroom for the day after the New Team TDE.

The teachers and I went to watch the co-teach duo, Maria Mallon and Cheryl Dillard because they have an incredible interactive fast paced skills block.

Skills block began with students gathering in the meeting area, they recited their class promise, sang a letter combination song, did a shared reading song, completed a morning message to reinforce punctuation and spelling, and then played a word wall game. The game reinforced rhyming words, homophones, and common spelling patterns, to name a few. Next, they quickly reviewed the playing of a bingo spelling game with the ar, or, er, ur, ir spelling patterns, and set off to play the game with a partner.

The visiting teachers watched this fast paced interactive skills block, asked questions, looked at artifacts, and jotted notes. Then, we debriefed the 30 minute observation. All in all, I think the teachers thought this was a valuable use of their time, and as a coach, an easy way for me to give teachers a glimpse into a strong instructional practice. When they see it, they will remember, and as I work with them in their own classrooms next year, they will understand the impact this practice will have on their student's learning.

Demonstration Lesson

By definition a demonstration is a show or display; the act of presenting something to sight or view; "he gave the customer a demonstration." As I mentioned in my last blog, all WOW Days begin with a Demonstration Lesson. A teacher or coach from the grade level offers to host a lesson in their classroom to show/display how part of their day is conducted. This puts in plain sight the work of the classroom for all other teachers at that grade level to view.

The demonstration content is usually driven by the professional development focus of the day. For example, today part of WOW Day was based on skills-block, therefore Mrs. Mallon offered to host her Kindergarten team during her morning skills-block time. The observers quietly gathered in her room as her students dutifully gathered in the meeting area. The fast paced skills-block lesson full of ritualed activities built on phonemic awareness and phonics ran for 40 action packed minutes. The audience of teachers cheerfully beebopped to several familair tunes tweaked to teach letter sounds, blends, and rhyming words, and feverishly jotted notes as they quickly noticed ideas they wanted to encorporate in their own classrooms. Upon lesson completion, the students excitedly filed out of the room headed toward WOW Day, and the team of teachers converged on the conference room.

The lesson debrief conducted by a teacher leader on the team started with Mrs. Mallon providing a reflection of her lesson. After her reflection, teachers were given the opportunity to dialogue about warm comments...compliments to Mrs. Mallon about things in the lesson that went well and/or ideas that they could borrow from her to implement in their own skills-block. A working hum took over the room as these passionate teachers conferred about this outstanding demonstration. Dialogue then included questions that the teachers had, "When did you begin using letter blends?" "How do you know when to phase an activity out and bring another in?"

This team has built a community of learning, sharing, and collegiality. As an observer, I could clearly see that an atmosphere of trust was at the cornerstone of their work. They are truly committed to growing as a team with their focus on instruction for all kindergarten students. There is no feeling of competitiveness or isolation. Each teacher is there to improve their own practice by learning from the best practices of the group. This collegiality would be the envy of any teacher that feels they are not in a professional learning community.

To see more of Mrs. Mallon's classroom happenings, view her blog at http://mallonmessage.blogspot.com.