Vertical Demonstration Day

Observation of colleagues and their best practices, in my opinion, is one of the best ways for teachers to reflect on their own classroom instruction and gain valuable insight into ways they can grow and deepen their own practices. This was reaffirmed for me, again, last week during our fourth Vertical Demonstration Day.

Several weeks ago, I sent an evite out to teachers to join me in observing in two co-teach classrooms with a focus on small group instructional practices. We had fifteen subs available to cover classrooms, and within 24 hours I had thirty teacher request to participate. I filled the slots first come first serve, however kept a list of others who showed interest. Those teachers will have first dibs on the next round of Vertical Demonstrations five weeks from now.

The topic selection, co-teach/small groups, was selected because our school currently has eighteen co-teach classrooms. The teachers have participated at the district level in co-teach training as mandated by the state of Florida, and have participated in a co-teach training with a pair of our own experienced co-teach duos.

As part of our training, teachers learned about many co-teach strategies, and discussed the strategies that would provide the best student results and smallest student to teacher ratios. They discussed circumstances in which the five different co-teach models would be utilized successfully. They also learned some advantages to co-teaching and discussed some things that might stand in the way of a favorable experience. Working through a set of guiding questions, they learned that communication between partners is one key to success.

At Chets Creek, we've had some very successful co-teach matches, and some that simply put-weren't perfect. As I talk to co-teachers and walk classrooms, I can see that in some areas they shine and in others they are still grappling with the implementation. In particular, I pay attention to whether or not small group instruction is being utilized consistently. Though, most of the time our teachers do well co-teaching, there are times when I've witnessed tag team teaching. Co-teaching is not the opportunity to teach half day, rather an opportunity for two adults to flexibly teach all day with one of the five models.

Regardless of how long some of our teachers have co-taught, I know some still wonder, "When should we co-teach in tandem?" "When should we split the children into two groups?" "When should one teach and the other pull small groups?" "How can we best maximize our planning time together?" "Is it best for us to co-teach with a teacher in our content area or best to teach with someone in the opposite content area?"

To help answer the teachers' questions and knowing that our school capacity will likely raise beyond 139%, and we will continue to add co-teach classrooms, I found this the most pressing issue for a demonstration day. To make sure student achievement is maximized, we must continue to discuss what is best practice in a co-teach classroom, and ensure that proven practices are in place. I believe that co-teaching done well raises student achievement and brings deepened teacher satisfaction.

Therefore, when selecting co-teach models for our 10 am to 2 pm Vertical Demonstration Day, I knew I had to take observers to see Vicky Cole and Christy Constande in their third grade ELA classroom, and to Ashley Russell and Melissa Ross' second grade classroom to observe an EDC and Math Investigations lesson. These two classrooms offer a model of co-teaching that is systematic and balances tandem co-teaching with the pulling of small strategic groups. They are a model that exudes planning and communication, one that others would be inspired by.

As we debriefed the lessons, it became very apparent that my CCE colleagues felt the same way I do. The classrooms provided the perfect learning opportunity for others and the springboard for deepened collegial dialogue on co-teaching and small group instruction.

Observing a Colleague's Classroom Instruction

Friday marked the last live videoconferences of the year to the Schultz Center, leaving us at a grand total of 175 live streamed lessons in the past five years. The lessons have all greatly benefited the teacher audiences at the professional development site, because they can observe live unedited instruction, debrief with the classroom teacher, and then have conversation with an audience of their peers at the Schultz Center about the instructional practices in the classroom. However, not only has the conferencing benefited others, it has also brought great growth to the CCE teachers. CCE teachers have planned instruction, considered the purpose of why they have particular practices in place, and have articulated the reasons for their decisions in debriefing. To say it has put them on their toes is an understatement. In addition, the live conferencing has provided time for the Chets' coaches to get inside classrooms and watch instruction across the school. Furthermore, our instructional technology coach, has captured some of the lessons on videotape, and they are on our Setting the Standard ning for viewing by a global audience.

On Friday, the last two lessons were videoconferenced to the Academy of Mathematics. One of the lessons, a Grade 3 Math Workshop, focused on the benefit of games inside the MI curriculum to promote fluency in learning multiplication facts. Rather than the students simply using traditional math flashcards to memorize their facts, Cynthia's students used array cards and played a game to practice their facts. They weren't just memorizing their facts; They were learning number sense in relation to their facts. I overhead conversations like, "I know that 8x6=48, because 4x6=24 so I doubled that." "I know 8x12= 96, because 8x10=80 and 8x2=16 and 80+16=96." The students didn't just shut down when they got to an unknown fact, because they had decomposing strategies, and could figure out how to solve based on facts they already knew. They also didn't have to pick up a pencil and paper for facts like 12x9, because they had mental math strategies they could use to solve the problem.

The Math Workshop was broken into three components; opening session (15 minutes), work period (30 minutes), and closing session (10-15 minutes).

Opening Session

Ms. Rice began Math Workshop with a 5x5 array card (a card that shows the array based on the area of the problem, in this case 5 rows and 5 columns), and asked students, "What do you know about this array." After students shared the attributes and characteristics of the array, they also used strategies for solving. Skip count by 5's five times (5,10,15,20,25), or consider 5x10=50 and half of 50 is 25, or 2x5=10 and 3x5=15 so 10+15=25. Then, she modeled the playing of the game Count and Compare (much like War--directions attached to the end of this post) with a student, and explicitly explained the recording sheet she had created for them to record their work. She did a think aloud with one of the array cards she selected to model for students how she thought about the product.

Work Period

Next, students set off around the room to play the game with their partner. The teacher had strategically placed partners and gave them a bag of array cards based on their readiness to practice certain facts. This differentiation left students at their instructional level rather than at a frustrational level. During the work period, she facilitated learning by circulating to each group and asking students questions about their learning. She strategically selected students who would share in closing session to promote the learning of all classmates. If a student was selected to share, she asked them to hang on to the array card they would be sharing as a visual in closing session.

Closing Session

The class came back together for whole group debriefing. By design, the teacher had students share their thinking to show the range of strategies used in solving the problems. As the students explained their thinking, their array card was under the doc camera as a visual for other students. The classmates listened attentively, sometimes asked questions, and sometimes shared other strategies for solving the same array card. The teacher then summarized the day's learning and the workshop concluded.

Debrief

The students headed to art, and the teacher debriefed with the audience across town at the Schultz Center while sitting in the comfort of her own room. The audience thanked Cynthia for letting them observe (just 8 1/2 days before school is out for the summer), applauded her on the delivery of the lesson, and extended their thoughts about the flexibility of thinking on the part of her students. The audience asked how she formed her pairs, how she differentiate instruction with the placement of the array cards by student groups, and if she had corrected any misconceptions as she circulated. They also asked her about the recording sheet, and let her know that they would be stealing her idea and implementing it in their own classrooms the next year. The debrief concluded as they applauded her for her first ever live videoconferenced lesson, for which she appeared calm as a cucumber!

From the Instructional Coach

Ideally, teachers would be able to file into a colleagues classroom, observe, and then debrief a lesson. In this case, time and distance present the obstacle, so to overcome the barrier we videoconference the lesson. However, it accomplishes the same objective. Teachers are visiting classrooms, talking about instruction, asking about student performance, sharing ideas, and gathering new implementation strategies for their own classrooms. We started this journey within our school as colleagues visited each other's classrooms for demo lessons and had debriefs, now we share this practice district-wide with the videoconferencing, and nationally with thousands of visitors. We only hope that this practice continues to grow in many schools as teachers invite others into their classrooms to discuss instructional practices and share ideas to promote student performance.

How to Play Count and Compare

Materials:

A Set of Array Cards

1) Deal out the cards equally.

2) Place your cards in front of you with the array face up. (The product on the back is face down and used for checking purposes.)

3) Players place their cards in a stack in front of them.

4) Players draw the top card and compare it to their opponents cards.

5) The players figure out whose card is more, say the product of their card and explain their thinking, and then check the back of the card to make sure their product is correct.

6) Players record their multiplication facts on their recording sheet.

7) The player with the largest array card keeps the cards and places them at the bottom of their stack.

8) The game continues until all the cards are used in one players stack. Then, the cards are shuffled and redealt.

Do They Know How Good I've Got It?

Have you ever felt guilty having a career as an instructional coach? Not slightly guilty, but absolutely gut wrenchingly guilty? Like you hit the jackpot and have this well kept secret that those around you can’t see? I can honestly say, I feel this way on so many occassions.

You see, it is my job to keep a collective pulse of the school’s curriculum and instruction, and the best way to do that is to meander in and out of every classroom in the building. Watching quality instruction from cutting edge teachers, collaborating collectively, and building goals to take us further in our learning journey! Can you believe they allow me to collect a pay check?

To give you entry into my world, this blog post hosts one of the fourteen lessons I observed last week. The fourth grade lesson taped during Writers' Workshop perfectly displays the four part architecture of a mini-lesson, allows you to observe students during work period, and highlights a closing session where writing and ideas are shared. These two extremely talented co-teachers are not putting on a show. This is in fact what they do every single day. When I observe in their classroom this is evident in their teaching charts that hang from their walls,in the student writing journals that are packed with writing ideas and drafts from a multitude of genres, and from the student work displayed in portfolios. This is most evident, too, because when you talk to kids you understand how deeply they think.

Honestly, most days when I get in my car to make my journey home I wonder, "Do they know how good I've got it?"