Choice Lit Topic: Teacher Study Groups
Teacher study groups are as diverse as the teachers who participate in them. They can be an informal, low-key coffee klatch designed to relieve the daily stress of teaching. They can be highly structured inquiry groups, with detailed expectations for participants. Most study groups are likely somewhere between these two extremes, with colleagues getting together regularly to discuss books, view videos, and support each other as they test out new literacy instruction strategies in their classrooms. We include a few examples of study groups in the Choice Literacy library. If you regularly lead these groups, you’ll want a membership that includes the Leaders Lounge.
Here is where you will find advice from study group leaders who coordinate book groups, design workshop formats for groups, and develop structures for helping colleagues transfer the learning in study groups to the learning in their classrooms.
Results
Sense of Little Engines
About half of our coaching staff is engaged in a book study of Peter Johnston's Choice Words. We meet once a month before school at a local coffee shop that offers...
Off the Beaten Professional Development Path: What I Learned from the Teachers as Writers Group
It's a Saturday and I'm pressing the norms chart up on the window of a sunlit room in a popular local coffeehouse. Two teachers are here early and smile a...
Virtual Book Clubs for Teachers
My first encounter with a virtual book club was about three years ago. My regular, run-of-the-mill, face-to-face book club was on a field trip. We were taking a tour of...
Photovoice: Exploring Content Literacy with Images
How does your expertise function? During the past year, I posed this question to a study group comprising fifth- through eighth-grade teachers whose focus was on disciplinary literacies. We were...
Relentless Consistency: Finding a Common Teaching Language Without Scripts
We recently heard Michael Fullan speak about the impact of common language and consistent practices on the speed of change within school systems. Consistency in core practices and key language...
Great Little Books for Professional Book Clubs
Tracie and Shelly were absolutely beaming! Their first professional book club as the literacy coaches at Wilson School was an undeniable success. The teachers had agreed to meet before school...
Tips for Conducting Demonstration Lessons, or How to Avoid the “Am I Doing This Right?” Question
Teachers spend most of their day alone with their class, and each day they are required to make hundreds of "in the moment" instructional decisions. Here are just a few...
From Teacher to Coach: Building Community in the Early Days
It's late August and next week I start my position as Instructional Coach. I am not new to working with teachers. I spent six years in higher education working with...
“To Teach is to Learn Twice”: Creating Professional Communities in Schools
This year at our Choice Literacy Workshops the last gift we gave everyone was a backpack with the quote, "To Teach is to Learn Twice" printed on it. It was...
Building the Reading Community Among Teachers
The starting point for teaching reading is always our own lives as readers—tuning in to our processes as proficient readers, and then tapping that knowledge to help the children in...
Still Revising After 10 Years: Sorting Through Pitfalls of Study Groups
"You hammer against the walls of your house. You tap the walls, lightly, everywhere. After giving many years' attention to these things, you know what to listen for. Some of...
Returning to Our Creation Chambers: Supporting Experienced Teachers
"Gorky built upon the achievements of the early modern artists he greatly admired and broke new ground during a remarkable moment to become an inspiration to a new generation of...
Assessing Professional Development: Focus on Feedback
This summer I was at the ocean with several families. A few adults and a slew of kids including my daughter Samantha were swimming out to an island. It was...
Making Data Analysis a Motivating and Worthwhile Process
Over the past few years we have met with different groups of teachers to analyze student data. These meetings have pushed us to think about strategies for facilitating data meetings...
Using Mentor Texts in Study Groups: Play and Practice
What we have to do is be forever curiously testing new opinions and courting new impressions. Walter Pater I often find myself in information overload, with so many new...
Creating Data Teams
A concern that arises in thinking about the collection and use of data is the number of schools that are assigning the job of "data manager" to their reading coaches/specialists....
“What I Know Now” Workshop Activity
In my work with literacy specialists in our school district, I am always searching for discussion frameworks that will support reflective conversation. The group, made up of 16 individuals, usually...
Triangulating: The Importance of Multiple Data Points When Assessing Students
We went to a professional development session a few years ago with Elizabeth City and she gave us a name for something we have always believed - the importance of...
Mentoring from the Real to the Ideal: Mental Images of Teaching
When I work with new teachers, I often feel compelled to tell the story of my friend Michelle who was afraid to be a mother. Married for three years, Michelle...
Expectations for Grade-Level Team Meetings
We are often asked by coaches how we get the teams we are working with to actively participate in the meetings we facilitate. When first asked this question, we tended...
Reflecting on Student Work in Staff Meetings (TEMPLATE)
Over the last four years our teaching staff has included reflecting on student work as a part of our staff meetings. To be honest, we struggled for probably three of...
