My latest from Edutopia…. Enjoy!
Collaboration Tips to Help Instructional Coaches Maximize Their Impact
Knowledge Base
A Book and Two Podcasts: Resources I Just Have to Share
I’m not much of a podcast listener because I like to jot things down as I listen, and I usually listen when I am driving or walking. I also feel my strengths and preferences are for reading and visualizing/seeing new things, rather than listening. However, thanks to recommendations from colleagues and podcasts I have stumbled upon myself and found really useful, I try to listen when I am able to focus and listen in. In this post, I want to share a book that I learned about in a podcast, started to read, and then heard more about in another podcast. I highly recommend all of these resources! And I want to give Aila Stengl a huge shout out for sharing both podcasts with me! As always, I learn so much from our collaboration.
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Preparing for Challenging Conversations
Click on the image to read my latest Edutopia article:
Early Literacy Podcast Appearance
Taping a podcast is definitely a bit out of my comfort zone, and sharing it feels even more out of my comfort zone. However I’m trying to model productive struggle and risk taking for my students, so here it goes:
I’m excited to share my second appearance on a podcast!
This episode is with two people I respect greatly:
- Superintendent Dr. Clardy and
- Karyn Stocks Glover, Director of Teaching, Learning and Innovation.
I am honored to have been invited into this rich conversation. Thank you to Marcie Pfeifer-Soderbloom for facilitating!
Strategies for Irregular High Frequency Words
On September 30, I shared a strategy from Read Naturally for explicit instruction on regular high frequency words. Today I want to share strategies from research and my colleagues for systematic, explicit instruction around irregular high frequency words.
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Two New Strategies: Fluency and Phonics
As I continue to deepen my knowledge of foundational skills to support reading and disciplinary literacy, I am grateful for resources such as the Teaching foundational reading skills Part 2 webinar I recently watched. It included many useful strategies, two of which are new to me and stand out as useful for others. In this post, I want to summarize these: Sound Out Words and Fluency Practice.
Developing Collective Efficacy Through Inquiry
Collective efficacy is the belief that a group of teachers can have a strong impact on student learning. According to Hattie’s meta-analysis, collective efficacy has an effect size of 1.57 which is nearly 4 times the .4 average effect size for one year. In this post, I would like to describe one way in which effective Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) can feel more efficacy as a group: the Collective Teacher Inquiry.
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Empower Students by Cultivating Agency
My fourth article was published last week!
Empowering Students by Cultivating Agency
Thank you to all of you who have taken time to read the article and provide feedback. If you want to comment on the article you can do so here on my personal blog… or find the article on Twitter (Twitter Link).
Coaching Partnership Tools: Part I
As I engage in mid-year reflection on my goals as an instructional coach, I would like to share some of the tools I use to plan and engage in coaching meetings. I call these coaching meetings “partnership meetings” because both my colleague and I are learning together. It is my job, as a coach, to reflect on, and plan for the conversations. Intentional planning focuses on ensuring that conversations focus on my colleague’s goals and priorities, while centering students, especially our formerly marginalized students. In this post, and an upcoming part two, I want to summarize some useful coaching tools. Continue reading “Coaching Partnership Tools: Part I”
Shifting the Balance: Disciplinary Literacy Connections
I’m finally making time to read Shifting the Balance: 6 Ways to Bring the Science of Reading into the Balanced Literacy Classroom, thanks to a colleague who is reading it with me and discussing direct application of the reading to her classroom. As I’m reading, I’m making connections to Disciplinary Literacy. In this post I want to explore some of my initial connections and takeaways. As always, I look forward to feedback and ideas from my readers, as I know many of you are reading, or have already read the book!
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