Lead Lit Topic: 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 or a highly structured inquiry group with definite participant protocols. Most study groups are somewhere in-between, 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. Here you’ll find inspiration and ideas from study group leaders who coordinate book groups, design workshops, and develop structures for helping colleagues transfer professional learning to the reality of the classroom and sustain it.
Results
Coming Apart to Come Back Together
Poet Mekeel McBride‘s poem provides a useful prompt for teachers to reflect on the underlying tensions in their classroom that might be fertile ground for healthy reflection and change. “Autobiography’s...
How to Start a Writing Group
Thinking about starting a writing group? Follow these steps. 1. Consider Who You Should Invite Consider people you know who want to write. When I put together my writing group,...
The Quiet Power of Language and Learning with Art
Last year a group of K-12 teachers and I met weekly to delve into how language informs teaching and learning in our classrooms. In our weekly gatherings, the teachers brought...
Strength in Assessment: A Professional Development Protocol
Recently I worked with a group of literacy leaders representing a number of different schools and experiences from all across the Portland, Oregon metro area. I knew they held a...
Writing Conferences: The Power of Listening
Listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative force. When we listen to people there is an alternating current, and this recharges us so we never get tired of...
Going Public with Study Groups
It started with the cancellation of the "What’s New in Children’s Literature" study group. We couldn’t meet on our designated date, so instead of rescheduling the meeting I asked teachers...
Collecting PLC Data with Google Forms
Like so many others, my district has adopted the professional learning communities (PLCs) model as one of our main sources for professional development. In doing so, we give teachers the...
Exploring Themes in the Intermediate Grades
At a recent third-grade team meeting we unpacked Common Core Standard #2. We looked at the standard, asking ourselves what it means and how might we teach it: R.L....
The Dangers of Overplanning
I am a planner and a list maker. I am the person who goes out jogging in the morning, sits down, makes my list, and writes “jogging” and crosses it...
Alignment and Community: Planning a Year of Professional Development Opportunities
The role of the leader is to enable, facilitate, and cause peers to interact in a focused manner. Peer interaction is the social glue of focus and cohesion. Michael Fullan...
Coaching Minute: Writing Objectives
Heather Rader explains why it is important to write an objective before any professional development meeting, and shares a succinct example. While I’m comfortable writing objectives for the classrooms...
Introducing the Writing Common Core Standards: Planning for Professional Development
When I began to plan for how introducing the Common Core State Standards in Writing with a key group of leaders in our district, I kept these words of wisdom...
Building Community Protocols
When we plan professional development sessions, inservice courses, and literacy team meetings, we are always on the lookout for new ways to build community within the group so that everyone...
Opinion Exchange: A Workshop Activity for Study Groups
What do new teachers need to keep them going that difficult first year? In our first session with new teachers in October, our room was filled with the stories of...
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...
Professional Development and Then What? How to Keep Learning Alive Long After the Staff Meeting
"Remember when we did that . . . what was it called, you know we talked about ways to help students share their thinking?" "Oh, yeah, I used that a...
Collaborating When the Going Gets Tough
When the going gets tough, turn to inquiry. Courage to Teach Touchstone I don’t know about you, but when the going gets tough, inquiry is not the first thing...
Curriculum Work: Making Meaning Together
To make dreams apparent to others and to align people with them requires not just mere explanations or clarification but the creation of meaning. ...
“Step Over the Line” Professional Development Icebreaker
This video of the "Step Over the Line" icebreaker activity was captured at a meeting of district-level coaches in Washington state early in the fall led by Amanda Adrian and...
Parallels Between Student Learning and Staff Development
"So, what are you working on now?" This is a question I seem to get a lot, and despite years of practice, it's always a tricky one. You see, I...
Reflecting on Student Work in Staff Meetings (Download a 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...
