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
Boosting Attendance at Study Groups
Many study group leaders find themselves facing two demographic challenges in coordinating study groups that meet before or after school. Middle-aged faculty are often in the "sandwich" generation, caring for...
Planning a New Teachers’ Professional Development Program
It's the beginning of July and I am already sketching out plans for the first day of Charting the Course, the monthly professional development group for new teachers in our school....
Puzzle Kids: Observing and Analyzing Challenging Students (E-GUIDE)
Puzzle kids. Students on the bubble. Children in danger of falling through the cracks. Every teacher can instantly think of students who fit these terms, and can just as quickly...
Writing to Reflect: Quotes for Quick Writing, Reflection, and Discussion (Download)
Educator Parker Palmer talks about the importance of "third things" for teacher renewal and growth—poems, images, or ideas outside our immediate learning community that we can look at together, discuss,...
The Dog Ate My Study Group Plans! Four Instant (and Fun and Reflective) No-Prep Teacher Workshops (E-GUIDE)
Okay, so maybe it wasn't the dog that ate your plans. Maybe leading today's study group is the 45th item on your "To Do" list, and you just didn't get...
Literacy Coach Confidential: Some Study Group Participants Aren’t Reading the Book
A couple teachers who participate in our book discussion group don't seem to be reading the book - at all. It makes for awkward moments in the conversation, like last...
Four Essentials in Designing Professional Development for Literacy Leaders
I never imagined years ago when I was a first-grade teacher that I would one day be responsible for designing professional development for literacy leaders in a highly successful school...
Charting the Course: A Yearlong Professional Development Plan for New Teachers (SCHEDULE)
My first task in thinking through how to work with new teachers was to design a professional development plan for the entire year. Only then could I be sure the...
Layered Support: Meeting the Needs of Beginning Teachers
The new teachers who reported feeling the most supported described their schools as having what we called "integrated professional cultures." There, new teachers could expect frequent and meaningful interaction among...
Classroom Tours: Learning from Colleagues
A few years ago we had someone from outside our school community do a walkthrough of classrooms in our building, to help us figure out how we could create better...