Active Learning Coach

I am procrastinating completing my assignment for a class I am taking to receive my CA Reading Certificate. I am taking an online course through UC Irvine called Teaching Comprehension Strategies. My assignment is to "describe how you would design reading instruction with a classroom you might teach" Wow! And in one page. I hope the professor likes my soon-to-be-written reading workshop view of reading instruction.

So, it's finally official! On Monday, MUSD was awarded an MSAP grant that will make two schools in the district magnet schools. (Yeah Marilyn!!!) I am going to be the Active Learning Coach at Arroyo West Active Learning Academy (where many teachers have also attended Teachers College Institutes thanks to FFT). This new opportunity to continue to learn and grow as an educator is very exciting. My job will be to coach classroom teachers as we work collaboratively to implement reading and writing workshops, project based learning, inquiry strategies, etc. into classroom instruction and student learning. Off on a great adventure!

I am sad to leave my Flory team, but we stay close through emails, phone calls, and frequent visits. We continue to collaborate together, sharing ideas and our passion of workshop teaching and learning. Yeah! All good.

Getting Ready to Begin the New School Year!

We had a great time this week at our first get together since the Reading Institute in New York. It was fun and exciting to talk and share with everyone and to make plans for implementing workshops in our classrooms and share our learnings with our colleagues who were not able to be in New York with us. And lunch was great! Thanks Jane!

I left the meeting with books to read, ideas to work out, and excitement over the possibilities. Next up: meeting with our new principal to share the new strategies and spread our excitement of literacy workshops as we work with her to set up our timeline for the year.

Since returning from the Reading Institute,  I read "A Guide to the Reading Workshop" by Lucy Calkins (the book we all received from TCRWP). It was a great review of the critical parts of the workshop that make the reading workshop so successful with all students. I especially focused on the section on conferring, the area of reading workshop that has been the most challenging for me. I am excited to begin the new year with more strategies and skills for conferring with my students more effectively. In my afternoon session at the Institute with Jen Serravallo (Small Group Instruction), I learned very specific ways to raise the level of reading with all learners (aka differentiation). Her book "Conferring with Readers" is a favorite of mine. I am now reading her second book "Teaching Reading in Small Groups". Great books! I am eager to implement these strategies with my new class!

Excitement mounts!

I'm finally on! I had a wonderful time in New York learning about the reading workshop at Columbia University. We are meeting today and planning how we willl implement what we learned this summer in our classrooms next year. The excitement mounts!

Project Reunion!

The Flory Team enjoyed a stunning afternoon working on our Fellowship reporting! Enthusiasm continues to run rampant!

An Amazing Week!

Participated in the “Teachers College Reading Project at Columbia University” last week with plans to acquire the latest detailed research on effective methods and teaching practices. Little did I know, my entire life would be transformed! No generic script was presented. What was disseminated was the “intensely intimate, joyous, intellectual work” awaiting teachers! We were asked to “examine our own personal lives, relationships to literacy and each other, investigate our reasons for choosing the teaching profession, ponder the dreams we have for our students and the desire we possess to fashion our own lives, working with a sense of personal agency and professional judgment.” Awesome, I say! With sincere gratitude to Funds for Teachers for affording me this introspective opportunity! Anxious am I to begin the work of sharing this experience with my colleagues and students.
jb

It's been a week since returning.

Having been home a week I am finally able to digest some of what we did while attending the Columbia Teachers Reading and Writing Project. As I read back through my notes I feel so fortunate to have been in front of the "Best of the Best" educators in the reading and writing field. I have been rereading kathy Collins book "Growing Readers", as so much in the text means more - now that I have had her as an instructor! I have been blocking out my first few weeks of school and feel confident that this will be a success. My biggest frustration is I need to get into my classroom to start leveling my books. This will be a huge undertaking and I need more than a few days to do that! I would like to invite our peers who did not attend to become part of our blog so they can share in our excitement.

Coffee and Keynotes (and a couple of other things)

Janet and I pose here at the Columbia University subway stop on our way to Roone Arledge Auditorium. Each morning we left our hotel early, made a Starbucks stop to help us fuel up for the day, and arrived in time to secure excellent seats for the Reading Institute's Keynote addresses.

Even though I have heard Lucy Calkins speak many times,  I am always eager to hear her inspirational and thought provoking words again and again. Her Keynote on Monday, the first day of the Reading Institute, was no exception.  Lucy spoke of the challenges we face today in education, yet reminded us that we have tools to be able to understand and overcome those challenges: the passion, commitment, knowledge, and love of kids that we bring to our teaching lives help us to put our signature on our teaching. Before a later Keynote one morning, Lucy graciously posed with members of our team.

I eagerly anticipated Tuesday's Keynote presenter, Kathy Collins. I heard her a couple of years ago at a previous Reading Institute and remembered how much I enjoyed her talk. Although she is very funny, her message, "See Clearly and Teach Responsibly", was an important one. She used the metaphor of a phoroptor refractor to urge us to use different "lenses" to see the bones of our teaching practices, the structures we have in place, the possibilities and potential in ourselves and our students differently.

On Wednesday, the keynote speaker was Tim Rasinski (Mr. Fluency). I read his book a few years ago and learned a lot. It was great to hear him speak as he reminded us about the art of teaching. I went to his lunch session on fluency as well as his closing session on word study. I learned many things about the importance of fluency and how to develop fluency through poetry and music. I am very excited about his ideas on word study (working with Greek and Latin roots). I came away with specific ideas I will incorporate into my word study teaching to meet CA 5th grade ELA standards more effectively.

David Booth was Thursday's keynote speaker. This was the second time I had heard David speak. His message was on how new media and technology intersect with teaching and how important it is to incorporate media into our teaching. The bad thing about his keynote for me: now I REALLY want an iPad.

Jon Scieszka. I was really looking forward to seeing and hearing this fabulous, humorous children's author. He has been a favorite of mine for many years. I have encouraged many, many students to read and enjoy his books as I have: The Stinky Cheese Man, Math Curse, The Time Warp Trio series. During Friday's Keynote, Jon shared many stories from his childhood with us which are part of his new book, Spaceheadz.

Great Keynotes to begin each day of my wonderful week at Teachers College Reading Institute!