Supporting Teachers

WHO WE ARE:

Wendy- I began my career as a Special Education teacher in Kansas. I realized after one year in the classroom that I needed to learn more about teaching reading. I received my Masters as a Reading Specialist for Kansas State in 2000 and continued on to Maine, where I taught 5th and 6th grade. From there, I moved to New Jersey, where I worked as a Reading Coach for the NJDOE. After a brief stop in upstate NY at Cornell studying Educational Policy, my family had the opportunity to return home to Rhode Island. I received a second Masters in Administration, and worked as a principal for almost 10 years. I am currently the Director of Curriculum for Warwick Public Schools. I am also a Ph.D candidate in the URI/RIC program.

Alice is a Literacy Consultant/Coach working with several school districts providing literacy professional development for teachers. The focus of my work has been on close observation of readers and creating opportunities for children to construct efficient, effective reading processing systems. I live in Stonington, Connecticut with my husband and two teenagers.

OUR PARTNERSHIP:

• Option 3: Develop separate lessons and be critical friends and thought partners

Provide a brief description of the context in which you work and your learners to help readers better understand the unique work that evolves from your collaboration.

THE PURPOSE OF OUR INQUIRY: We were both working on projects around teacher professional development. As an administrator, Wendy is creating ways of sharing opportunities with the district's teachers. As a Literacy Consultant, Alice worked to deepen learning by including anytime resources to upcoming series of professional development sessions .

LESSON SUMMARY: Create tools for K-1 teachers to access before and after a professional development session on digging deeper into teaching responsively in a virtual setting with an emphasis on working with small group reading.

TEACHING GOALS:

ANYTIME: To provide access to resources before and after a professional development session to deepen understandings of teaching responsively in a virtual setting..

REALTIME: To engage groups of kindergarten and grade 1 teachers in observing closely, planning, and reflecting on early reading behaviors and implications for teaching. We will view video clips of early readers and reflect with colleagues on behaviors observed, inferring strategic actions and planning possible teaching moves.

LEARNING OUTCOMES:

• • Prepare for professional development by engaging with the information included in the digital tool before the session.

  • Recognize the importance of teacher observation of reading and oral language behaviors

  • Share observations and planning after each session digitally

  • Reflect on your new learning and the support provided by colleagues

TEXTS/TOOLS/TECHNOLOGIES AND RATIONALE: I have chosen a Padlet for teachers to share about themselves and their students and to provide links to basic information covered in previous sessions to review. Also included on the padlet is a poll on slido asking teachers about their comfort level with this reading context. The padlet will keep all before session material in one spot and allow teachers to add their information.

An opportunity to reflect on a small group lesson they teach after the session using Flipgrid video . Thsi will give teachers a chance to quickly summarize their practice so that we can plan next steps.

A Wakelet with resources for read aloud and shared reading is an extra added to ensure the small group reading instruction is contextualized in the larger, more comprehensive literacy context.

This Inquiry Plan Template documents our planning and learning this week.

[You may decide to outline key elements of your work below, or you can simply delete the next text box and point readers directly to your inquiry plan. Once your homeroom leader knows how you will work with your partner, they can help create separate inquiry plan templates for each person if needed.]

Digital Product 2:

In 1-2 sentences, describe the sample LEARNING artifact(s) that you created this week and explain how it will be used in the lesson/project...

Learning Artifact: INSERT/EMBED/LINK HERE

Toward the end of the week, you'll insert a video here that introduces your work (and your compelling inquiry question) to others and summarizes your collaborative reflection of your learning this week. On Friday, you can move this section toward the beginning of your dyad page.